At eight thousand deep-water lengths below the volcano bowl rim, the ocean of liquid aether ceased to have a floor.
The water here was no longer turquoise or pale silver. It had deepened into a rich, velvety ultramarine that hummed with the latent energy of ten thousand unlit stars. Every cubic inch of the fluid carried the huge, crushing weight of four mountain-crushing pressure, pressing against Qiao Ming’s bare skin with the firm, unbending embrace of a bronze mold. His oilskin coat, soaked with deep-sea grease and sky salt, had become as stiff as plate-armor. At the same time, his bare calloused feet cut through the dense medium with smooth, rhythmic frog-kicks that propelled him steadily downward.
Then, without the slightest tremor or sound warning, the universe flipped upside down.
It didn’t happen as a physical rotation. Their bodies did not spin on their axes.
It was an instant inversion of the gravity tensor. One moment, Qiao Ming’s mass was falling toward the glowing depths below. The next, the “below” had become the zenith, and the massive black hull of the Primordial Ark—thousands of arm-lengths above them—had become a huge, inverted seabed hanging overhead like a continent of dark iron.
