It felt cold to the touch, seemingly jade.
Suddenly, Gen Chisei felt an intense sensation of weightlessness. His consciousness seemed to leave his body, rising swiftly through the mist and clouds to somewhere unimaginably high and cold. Above him, dazzling galaxies, nebulae, star clusters, and intergalactic space unfolded before his eyes. Still his consciousness rose, and he saw what humans called galaxy clusters, superclusters, and even the chainlike cosmic walls formed from vast numbers of superclusters and galaxy clusters.
In the blink of an eye, the cosmic wall's feather-slender radiance drifted slowly as time raced forward. Then the starlight dimmed, leaving only nothingness in a vast expanse that perhaps already lay beyond the human observable universe.
The deepest darkness! The darkest depths!
Only when he dimly heard Sakura calling did Gen Chisei come back to himself.
For a moment, even his brain, enhanced by his super-Hybrid bloodline, failed to respond. He seemed still immersed in that state of touching the essence of the stars, and even his own body felt unfamiliar.
"Don't touch these stones." Gen Chisei understood where the reports of observing the stars had come from.
Though not lethal, these things affected the mind. As a combat unit, they could not let their squad members touch them. It would be best to wait for the old professors and doctoral students from the Yanliu Research Institute to collect samples and test them, then simply read their reports.
Beyond this dividing point, the surrounding scenery was no longer horrifying but fantastical. Wonder filled everyone's eyes as the team continued onward in silence.
They finally reached the source of the anomaly-in the midst of mist so dense it flowed like liquid stood a city wall formed from a grayish-white, translucent barrier.
An ornate crest covered the gate: two birds flanked a