Night deepened over Ban City. Aside from the necessary warning lights, there were no other light sources on the yacht. Only the harbor lights spread their glow this far, outlining faint silhouettes.
The scant light passed through the portholes, then was swiftly swallowed by the Dark Seclusion of the Quiet Room. Together with the sound of lake water lapping, it became a mere adornment to the night, fading at the edge of people's dreams.
Snake Tongue lay quietly on the tatami. As her eyelids closed, her consciousness became like a spirit fish in the dark, naturally slipping into the Mental Ocean formed from countless overlapping "bubbles." Through that complex environment, seemingly empty yet pressured by turbulent currents, she swam toward greater "depths."
The Mental Ocean had no concept of "up, down, or any direction." Its so-called "depth," in a sense, was closer to the Material Layer—closer to the most direct connection between human consciousness and the material world, or to the subconscious's most effective grasp of the world's truth.
Some believed it pointed to true "wisdom," sedimented deep within human consciousness and untouched by interests or emotions. Like mineral veins on the seabed, one could pick out gems belonging solely to oneself; one could also string together suffocating treasures amid the undercurrents of collective consciousness.
In the not-so-distant era of Three Layers, One Zone, One Domain, the "Deep Belt" pursued by Mental Side Ability Users was roughly this.
At the end of last year, Ronan's "Cage" theory illuminated the fundamental structure of the Mental Ocean, redefining the "relative positional relationship" between Ability Users, the Mental Ocean, and the Abyssal Extreme Region.
Many people suddenly realized that their previous studies of the "Three Layers"—the belief that one had to pierce through the Three Layers before reaching the Abyss Zone—had actually been