Above the sea, air currents spiraled upward, carrying vast quantities of moisture across the narrow urban belt and driving inland toward the dry peninsula.
Lightning flashed through the clouds as torrential rain poured down. Rainfall more abundant than anything seen in years drenched the desert, kicking up a haze of dust and stirring to life the not-so-densely populated creatures within it. Whether ordinary beasts and birds, lizards and insects, weeds and shrubs, or Aberrant Species with broader diets, all were somewhat dazed by the sudden downpour—but even more excited.
Thus, the shadows of life and matter spread across the wilderness. Fluorescence Lines representing core Configuration intertwined and curled, yet a considerable portion of them was severed by a sweep of Manipulation Thread or randomly warped into other structures.
Patches of blood seeped across the desert, only to be diluted by the rain. Yet slurry bubbles immediately began to burble up from those areas, exceptionally active. Wherever the downpour passed, the desert stretching hundreds of kilometers deep seemed to come alive as a whole, beginning to twitch faintly.
And the area that had "come alive" continued to expand.
With the constraints of over two hundred million city residents gone, Magneto-Optical Mica could play much more freely.
Yet Ronan, who had orchestrated all this, hovered in midair and looked toward the sea, his face solemn and grave. By now, he had reached a conclusion:
Something was wrong with Poseidon's condition.
That guy had claimed his "condition was excellent," but Ronan had been asking about the progress of its research at the time. Who had asked about its condition?
Its performance today also differed markedly from what Ronan had previously understood of it.
During their conversation, remarks like "offending me" and "my friend" had sounded imposing, but that simply was not Poseidon's style.