The unrendered void possessed no horizon, no shadow, and no breath of air.
Lin Tao stood upon the narrow four-foot pipe rim of the Precursor upkeep girder, his bandaged hands resting lightly against the cold star-iron guard rail. Beside him, Tie Shan stood with his back pressed against an upright support truss, his knuckles whitening as he gripped his fourteen-pound star-iron pry-bar.
Above their heads, the underside of the land-wide plane stretched across millions of square leagues like an infinite ceiling of frosted glass.
Because of backface culling, the thousands of arm-lengths of solid granite, shale, and dark rock that made up the mortal world were fully invisible from below. The crash engine rendered the top of the landmass for mortal eyes. But discarded the reverse face to economize on processing cycles.
Looking up through the see-through stone, Lin Tao could see the reverse dark shape of the mortal world.
He saw the root-systems of ancient mountain ranges hanging like delicate white lace against the dark sky. He saw the shimmering, silver ribbons of underground water beds snaking through the hollow shape. Far above, the stars of the mortal skybox drifted across the inverted high sky. He looked like tiny, glowing pinpricks punched into a sheet of black tin.
