A multitude of questions and conjectures about the Eternal Storm flashed through Gawain's mind. Before he could ask Melita about them, she had already climbed several times in succession—under her powerful control of magic, the dragon's immense silhouette pierced through the thick clouds, through the invisible magical boundary, through the Magic Static Layer familiar to humans...
"We've entered the Turbulent Layer," Melita's voice suddenly came from ahead.
Gawain instinctively took two steps toward the edge of the dragon's back and gazed out over this atmospheric expanse still unfamiliar to humanity. The boundless sea of clouds had fallen far beneath the dragon wings, becoming an endless blanket of white, while the land and ocean were shrouded beneath that gauzy layer of mist, their boundaries and details blurred away. Looking around, he saw only a clear, bright blue sky, with slanting sunlight pouring down from above the cloud sea.
At first glance, this place did not seem as dangerous or chaotic as he had imagined.
But before long, he noticed large patches of abnormal halos drifting around Melita's massive body. Layers upon layers of faint light were being stirred into existence along the edges of her wings, spreading in ripples along the boundary of her Magic Shield and radiating through the air. It was as though the dragon were soaring through an invisible ocean, and that ocean had been disturbed by an outside force, causing its "waves" to reveal themselves as those unusual halos.
Gawain was certain that nothing like this had happened while Melita was flying through the Magic Static Layer!
Amber had a hand raised to her forehead as she looked into the distance. She seemed not to have noticed the halos around Melita at all, merely marveling at the openness and grandeur of the place. "Whoa... this place... it's