"Hey, come take a look at this." Kraft brought the lantern close to the water, illuminating the bottom of the pool.
The carving covered nearly three-quarters of the shell-shaped surface. Hexagons of varying sizes and heights fitted together, crude yet governed by some indescribable order and harmony.
The straight edges between them showed that they were the bases of countless prisms, like the basalt body of a submerged island of cooled lava waking up and stretching its columnar joints.
But what held it up wasn't geological activity. It was something with the traits of living creatures.
[Hexagonal Prism]
This geometric shape had appeared repeatedly in all sorts of places, as the core of an aberration or simply as its symbol.
Habit made people assume it was something rare, scattered across the vast, silent world of the Deep Layer. There, it reshaped biological tissue of mysterious origin into shells it could control.
But what if that wasn't the case? They could be just like mineral veins, concentrated in certain regions and combined into something capable of a qualitative transformation.
"I feel like... I've seen this before?" Confusion surfaced on Green's face.
The carving at the bottom of the pool brought him a strange sense of fulfillment, like some ancient, incomplete scripture that had troubled him for ages had suddenly been restored. Its logic had fallen into place, connecting his scattered insights.
Strangely, he couldn't find any image in his memory that matched it, nor could he say where he had seen it.
But such a deep impression couldn't lie. It burned in his mind like a scar from a burn.
He fumbled around for something to write with, trying to jog his memory. Then he used his sword to draw on the ground, scraping out a harsh white line.