Angel saw the floating sheet of paper as well. He glanced back at the others and said in a low voice, "I'll go take a look."
"Together." Rabbit Girl followed him, with Gabriel and Gray Porcelain behind her.
Though the sheet was beneath the cocoon of light, and they did not want to face the cocoon just yet, some things had to be done in the end. It was their responsibility.
Angel nodded lightly and took the lead toward the center of the great hall.
When they approached the area piled with books, everyone halted at once.
It was not because an obstacle had appeared ahead, but because an invisible pressure had suddenly wrapped around them.
It felt as though countless tiny words and symbols were seeping out of the air, surrounding them like deep water. With every breath, streams of information floating through the air bored into their minds.
"The front... has changed. It's a void!"
Gabriel suddenly spoke. In its vision, the great hall ahead—its books and floating cocoon of light—had abruptly become a stretch of dark void.
There was nothing in the void, only profound darkness above and below...
Yet at the very end of that void, a faint point of light could be seen.
That light... seemed to be where the cocoon was.
In other words, in a single instant, a vast void had been born around the cocoon, pushing it far away from the present.
"Huh?" Gray Porcelain shot Gabriel a puzzled glance. "Nothing's changed..."
"Though the air does feel a little wrong, like we've sunk into a mire, isn't this still the great hall? What void?" Gray Porcelain looked ahead. Everything appeared perfectly normal in its eyes.
It muttered suspiciously as it took another step forward.
But with that one step—
Gray Porcelain's vision