The boundary surface ahead of the vessel continued to sharpen within their sensory field. Its distance had gradually shrunk from light-hours to light-minutes, while the details of its surface fluctuations had evolved from macroscopic parameters, where only amplitude and period could be distinguished, into microscopic structures with uneven regions whose local curvature changes and stress distributions could be analyzed. In Light's directional sensory records, the point with different hardness maintained constant relative coordinates against the surface's overall contour through every new scan, never displaying any measurable displacement.
During that time, the silver-blue spatial fold behind the vessel remained in continuous, stable operation. Its width expanded from roughly one palm-width to around two, while its length stabilized at approximately one and a half light-hours. Its fluctuation period gradually lengthened from once every twelve breaths to once every fifteen, as though entering a more relaxed mode of sustained vibration. Enshiki still stood at the end of the fold, the rings of his Causality Eye rotating in a rhythm synchronized with the fold's fluctuations. The causal synchronization between him and Cang retained a stable connection strength through their ongoing exchanges.
But new signals began appearing on Light's panel. They had entered her sensory range from multiple directions—the vessel's rear flanks and forward flanks—about a day earlier. Their numbers increased at a slow but steady rate over the first several hours, like an encircling net drawing in from all sides around the vessel. Their spectral characteristics closely matched those of the Main Family's previously identified external deployment squads, but their numbers exceeded the formation size of any squad they had encountered before. During her first count, Light confirmed at least twenty independent signal sources spread across the vessel's rear hemisphere. By the second count, that number had risen to around thirty-five.
After Light's panel