Heaven Gate City, Star Luo Empire.
This had originally been the greatest fortified city on the Dou Ling Empire's southern border. After the war that destroyed that nation, the Star Luo Empire had occupied it.
At Heaven Gate City's northern gate, Kong Deming and Wang Yiheng abruptly stopped, their cultivation allowing them to keenly detect something unusual.
The sensation vanished as quickly as it came. In an instant, calm returned, with scarcely a ripple or a trace to be found.
"Something isn't right."
Wang Yiheng raised his head toward the sky. "It feels like wind filling the tower before a mountain storm."
Kong Deming surveyed his surroundings, his view filled with unbroken stretches of green mountains and rivers. "We may have to face a god today."
Earlier, the allied forces at Heaven Gate City had attempted to march north, only to be held back by ten thousand Light Armored Infantry from the Heaven Dou Empire's eastern army.
After just one encounter, Kong Deming and Wang Yiheng had determined that the Heaven Dou Empire's current soul guidance technology was an entire era ahead of the Sun Moon Empire's.
This was already a gulf that manpower and conviction could not overcome.
The Heaven Gate City allied forces could only flee south in disarray, sending a detachment of scouts north to gather military intelligence as a token gesture.
Kong Deming stopped and looked north, toward the bloody battlefield where corpses lay piled like mountains, his expression calm.
In the earlier encounter, neither the Star Luo Army's formation-breaking assault under the Offering Hall's leadership nor the fierce attacks of the two soul engineer corps had managed to tear even the slightest breach in that pass.
By all appearances, the Heaven Dou defenders were genuine light infantry.
Yet the armor they wore resisted spears and