Several small deep-sea fish lingered briefly at the edge of the shroud, seemingly examining this suddenly appeared moving object. One slender, silvery-white fish stopped near the shroud, swam along its edge for some distance, then turned in another direction and joined the others beneath a low rock shelf.
They neither approached nor followed, as if they had already determined that this source of light posed no threat, and each turned back along its original route.
Xiao Yun adjusted the shroud's descent speed, allowing it to move steadily deeper.
After passing through a broad sandy slope, the seafloor changed into a series of rolling rocky hills. Some were capped with a thin layer of sediment, while slender seaweed grew along their edges, leaning in the same direction under the slow current.
Several large sea turtles were swimming slowly past on one side. Their movements were gentle and rhythmic, as if they were repeating the same activity along a fixed route.
As he watched them move, he noticed an old injury on the side of one turtle's neck. The edges had long since healed, but a smooth scar still remained on its surface.
He watched them disappear from the side of the shroud's field of vision, then withdrew his gaze and continued descending deeper.
When the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud passed through a colder fault layer, its outer barrier trembled slightly. Xiao Yun lowered his head and confirmed that there were no cracks or leaks on its surface. As he adjusted the depth, he also checked the extent of the surrounding pressure changes—the additional pressure exerted by that low-pressure fault had been evenly distributed across the curved surface of the shroud, with no obvious localized imbalance.
After confirming that the shroud was functioning normally, he made no further adjustments to its course.