  We propose a novel mechanism to explain the emergence of an intermediate
gapless spin liquid phase (IGP) in the antiferromagnetic Kitaev model in an
externally applied magnetic field, sandwiched between the well-known gapped
chiral spin liquid (CSL) and the gapped partially polarized (PP) phase. We
propose in moderate fields $\pi$-fluxes nucleate in the ground state and can
trap Majorana zero modes. As these fluxes proliferate with increasing field,
the Majorana zero modes overlap creating an emergent Majorana metallic state
with a `Fermi surface' at zero energy. We further show that the Majorana
spectral function captures the dynamical spin and dimer correlations obtained
by the infinite Projected Entangled Pair States (iPEPS) ansatz. We discuss the
implications of our results for candidate Kitaev materials.
