As the Small Spiderweb spread, colors, sounds, scents, temperatures, vibrations, and countless other elements of the Red Silicon Star System caught in its sparse mesh, layer by layer. The view, which had grown hopelessly blurred, sharpened again. But unlike what had happened with Ise A, it was no longer confined to a single viewpoint. "Observation" was no longer the right word. It was closer to all-around perception—a faculty unique to Mental Aspect Ability Users skilled in wide-area sensing, and much like the way Ronan had always perceived the outside world.
He could now try to focus on a specific target within the Spider Web and improve its precision, but for the moment, Ronan kept it blurred. He wanted a fuller grasp of the planetary ecosystem of the Red Silicon Star System's only habitable planet.
It was not quite there yet. What he saw resembled an ever-changing abstract painting.
Ronan reproduced that abstract painting in the Lava Waterfall experimental area, scaled down more than ten thousandfold into a vast model stretching several kilometers. Even so, it covered only the regions where the Spider Silk Adherents were located.
Strangely, the physical world in the model remained limited and indistinct, while the Cloak, which had previously faded almost beyond sight—the projected framework of the Abyssal Spirit Net—began to grow clear across the enormous abstract painting.
Overall, it was relatively stable. Even at this scale, its hazy structure showed few major fluctuations. But that did not mean it was Calm as a Mirror. Even in its normal state, it was necessarily dynamic, moving to a rhythm formed through its interaction with the distant Three Layers, One Zone, One Domain.
Ronan could not make out the finer details of that rhythm. Yet the more he watched, the more familiar it felt. Several times, he even