He chuckled as he thought to himself, "Who would have thought that deciding not to risk one's life will be good for one's mental health?"
Then he said to Roar with a cheerful voice and a mind full of anticipation for the future, "Let's go to our new life. It is going to be great and memorable."
Roar wasn't so optimistic. The dog grumbled in a low voice, saying, "Speak for yourself."
He didn't think the future was going to be as "great" and "memorable" as Arthur put it. But he also knew that he couldn't refuse, so he gritted his teeth in determination and left with Arthur as if he was going to war, never to return again.
Roar had packed his meager belongings. This included his large bed, his collection of beast bones, some shiny rocks, and flashy gems.
He didn't have any energy stones because he was either using them to buy food or to buy sparking gems. So everything in his space ring is literally his life's wealth.
These things will be what he loses if he dies today. He couldn't stop thinking about them as he approached the floating island that would be his home or his grave.
As they got close to the island, he closed his eyes and used all of his strength to get onto the island. But no matter how he struggled, he couldn't bring himself to step foot onto the floating piece of land.
His body was shaking with the struggle. It was clear that he wanted to step onto the island, but his mind refused to partake in this abomination of natural order.
Eventually he quit and snarled, "This is wrong. It is very wrong. The earth shouldn't be in the sky. If it is in the sky, then where is the sky? Is the sky beneath the island or above the island? And where is the earth now? Is it below the island, or has the ground become the island?"
He said with stubbornness, "There should only be one sky and one earth. What is going on here is a pervasion and an abomination. I shan't take part in it." Follow current novᴇls on 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹•𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖•𝗇𝗲𝘁
What Roar said reminded Arthur of what he said when he first saw the runic structure of the teleportation talisman. So the two of them are encountering something that is beyond their normal condition of the world.
However, he still believes that Roar is overexaggerating. So he rolled his eyes at the dog and grabbed him with his divine sense. Then he pulled the dog down to the floor of the floating island.
This action made Roar howl in mock pain, "You're killing me."
He snorted and said, "No, I'm not."
But Roar didn't believe him and didn't stop howling. He was howling as if someone was beating him. It was irritating.
Arthur sighed and said to him, "Look at yourself. Really take a good look at yourself right now. Are you actually dying right now?"
This question made Roar pause. The dog examined himself thoroughly in order to answer the question.
When he finished examining himself, he realized that he was fine. But this stumped Roar and made him confused.
He voiced his confusion by asking Arthur, "I am fine. But if I am fine on the floating island, then of what meaning are the sky and the earth?"
Arthur felt like dismissing Roar's question and concern and saying that what Roar thought of the sky and earth didn't matter.
But then he paused because he thought of something interesting. This interesting thought made him take the question seriously.
He thought for a while before saying, "You are right. There should be just one earth and one sky. But that was before when you were weak. Now you've grown stronger and are not limited by the rules that used to constrain you before."
"You have grown stronger and have ascended to a new plane of existence. This is clear by the fact that you can fly now. You couldn't do that before."
"To your previous self, you are God now. And to everyone who is like you used to be when you were weak, you are a god whose place is meant to be above them."
"In the grand scheme of things, there is still only one main sky and one main earth. Both those main sky and earth will change as you grow stronger. They will become a small sky and a small earth in order to make way for a new and bigger sky and earth."
"This will continue to happen as you grow stronger. The main sky you knew when you were weak has now become this floating island. Your new main sky is the one that is above you right now. But one day, when you grow stronger, you will ascend it, and it will diminish to make room for a new main sky."
"So you have nothing to fear. Just open your mind to the possibilities and the vastness of the world. Seek strength to ground yourself with it. With enough strength, you will have nothing to be afraid of, and you will not be constrained by the rules of the world."
Roar was already convinced, but he continued speaking. He did so because as he spoke in order to help Roar expand his horizons, he couldn't help but draw similarities between what Roar was going through and his situation.
So as he tried to convince Roar to be open-minded, he felt his own horizons broaden. His mind shifted, and some things that he knew before moved around and slotted themselves like pieces of a puzzle of a grand picture.
He thought about gravity, spacetime, mass, energy, and the interactions of all of them. He thought of how energy could be converted into matter and how matter had mass and how mass increased gravity and how gravity caused space to bend.
He thought of many things. Some of his thoughts led to nowhere, but all of them that had an end always ended on the runic structure of the teleportation talisman.