On the western side of the land known as the Aio Continent, the massive immigrant starship Antavien lay stranded along the coast. A considerable portion of this astonishing construct was submerged in seawater. Its forward hull extended down along the continental shelf toward the seabed, slanting across the trenches of the nearshore waters, while its bow structure was deeply embedded in the ocean floor and had, over the long years, become part of the undersea terrain.
At the bow impact zone, high-powered lighting devices floating in the seawater dispersed the endless darkness of the deep sea. Light spread through the water, making the scene on the seabed clearly visible. The enormous metal structure connected at an angle with the rock strata of the seafloor, while a vast impact formation stretched from Antavien's bow into the distant dark waters. In the flat area at the center of the impact formation, thick energy and supply pipelines extended from a breach in the front of the starship, linking several supply stations and monitoring posts at the edge of the impact zone.
At the center of the bow impact zone, powerful Tidal Masters had already gathered. They had set up large-scale stabilizing equipment where Antavien's bow met the seabed and begun reshaping an elemental passage that had been sealed years ago—a gigantic pale-blue vortex had formed on the seafloor, nearly as large as a castle. Brilliant energy gleamed within its currents, while exceptionally pure Water Elements repelled all manner of "impurities" from the material world within the vortex's reach. Sea Monster Queen Petia floated quietly before it, the spinning seawater reflected in her pale eyes.
She could already sense the breath of the Elemental World from deep within the vortex. The passage would open soon.
In a sense, this passage could almost be considered