As the Layer Leap unfolded, Lin Yi personally sensed the wondrous changes the Layer Ark underwent between Layers and Dimensions. Within a fixed frame of reference, the Layer Ark itself seemed unchanged, but as Dimensions overlapped, its voyage increasingly resembled a lump of ultralight clay being stretched across a board.
Part of it remained in the Black Sea, while the rest was stretched through a higher-dimensional coordinate system, pulled without breaking, always maintaining a tenuous connection to that deck that could not be measured by physical laws, yet never snapped.
This was the route for "Return to the City," the way home, and their coordinates.
Yet it was something utterly beyond comprehension.
The moment the Layer Ark entered the Gray Fog Sea, the surrounding light abruptly dimmed.
There were no longer any sun, moon, or stars overhead, only boundless darkness. Only the Old Kerosene Lamp aboard the Layer Ark and the light of the domains sustained a faint sanctuary within that deathly darkness.
A moment earlier, the "Angel's" fluctuations had still been surging toward them, but the next instant, the entire world fell deathly silent, as though the whole world, every Layer, had frozen-the kind of silence that followed suffocation.
"I've finally returned to the Gray Fog Sea-" Standing on the Layer Ark's deck, Lin Yi looked at this place he had visited during Dreambuilding,
at this place he had only visited in distant memories, and gave a quiet sigh.
Black fog as thick as ink filled the entire world. It churned, viscous as something alive. Above, it seemed as though countless Layers hung in the sky, with heavy, filthy things accumulating there without falling, like thick bedding. There was no telling what the "light" dangling through the gaps in the clouds actually was.
The air reeked strongly of brine