Dusk settled over the Floating Mountain of Myriad Spirits like a mantle of rich purple velvet.
The crimson rim of the sun dipped beneath the western sea of clouds. That left the heavens painted in glowing bands of amber, indigo, and deep violet. Across the mountain plateau, hundreds of paper lanterns swung gently from the roof edges of wooden pavilions. Their warm yellow glow reflected off the polished river-stone pathways. Millions of lanterns twinkled in the mortal cities nestled in the valleys two thousand meters below. He looked like star-patterns mirrored in the dark ocean of the forest.
At the edge of the northern promontory, perched upon a sheer granite cliff overlooking the endless void of the sky, stood twelve huge black giant pillars.
They were the Upper Realm Annihilation Pylons.
Forged during the height of the divine siphoning wars from dark deep-sea iron and inscribed with world-size-severing destruction runes, each pylon soared ninety feet into the air. In their original configuration, these horrifying engines of divine wrath had been engineered to drain tube solar star-fire, compress sky starlight into hyper-dense destructive beams, and scour whole continents down to scorched bedrock with a single command.
Now, however, the terrifying giant pillars looked somewhat less world-ending.
