Connectivity

Everything happened in the blink of an eye. The black "stone," floating with an eerie, shifting glow, had already fallen into the turbulent Light Screen at the center of the Eden Gate.

In fact, the two High-ranking Priests closest to the Catalyst, along with the "Holy Seat," had had a chance to react and intercept it—for such powerful psychics, even catching a fired bullet was nothing especially difficult.

Yet they had watched it happen right before their eyes. In that instant, the flow of time as perceived by everyone seemed to reverse. The fact that the "Angel Catalyst" had fallen into the gate seemed to have happened in the distant past, while everyone in front of the Eden Gate felt time stretch hundreds or thousands of times longer in that brief moment.

A Great Sage, one hand braced against the display stand, slowly raised his head and tried to look toward the sky. He felt the entire sky gradually darkening. The clouds covering the Eden Gate were taking on a filthy, viscous texture, the wind had suddenly turned cold, and an unsettling, low rumble was coming from the Light Screen at the gate's center.

Thoughts became sluggish, movements became difficult, the world tilted, and the light seemed to turn into some kind of sticky, chaotic curtain.

Something red was falling from the sky.

The Holy Seat raised his head and saw the inside of the magnificent ring-shaped megastructure rapidly being dyed crimson. The Light Screen at its center rippled like a surface soaked in blood. Accompanied by an eerie, low rumble, the structure at the top of the giant ring cracked first. Blood seeped from the fissures, scattered in the wind among the clouds, and then slowly fell as though in slow motion.

The Priests farther from the gate were