It felt as though they had pierced an invisible veil.
The twisted, brilliant bands of color, eerie shadows of wreckage, and chaotic ripples of space outside the porthole vanished in an instant.
In their place lay an indescribably deep, tranquil void of darkness. Countless tiny particles floated within it, emitting a soft white glow. Like cosmic dust, or fragments of starlight, they drifted slowly, adorning the void like an inverted sea of stars.
At the very center of that "sea of stars" floated a "building."
It resembled no architectural style known to humanity. Its overall shape was an irregular conglomeration of polyhedrons, several kilometers across, formed entirely from a strange, translucent crystal with pale gold and silvery-white streams of light flowing inside. Its surface was smooth as a mirror, reflecting the drifting white particles around it and deepening its mystery. The structure was intricate and beautiful, full of flowing curves and peculiar geometric turns. It looked like a naturally formed work of art, or an enormous, sleeping crystal possessed of its own consciousness.
Most striking of all were the dozens of slender "pipes" or "tentacles" extending from the crystal building's "top," likewise made of translucent crystal. They swayed gently, their tips constantly releasing faint, warm white light into the surrounding void. That light seemed to be what maintained the uncanny "peace" and "stability" of this region.
"The Rift Stabilizer's readings are abnormal! The spatial curvature, background radiation, gravitational constant in this region... all of them have returned to near-normal cosmic levels! And they're incredibly stable!" Elder Mochen stared at the screen in disbelief. "How is that possible? A sanctuary like this, in the heart of the Forgotten Corridor?"
"It isn't a sanctuary." Sasuke's White Jōgan remained fixed on the crystal building, its impossibly complex internal energy circuits and structures reflected