CHAPTER 76: ISLAND HOPPING

Luna stared at her dragon companion with a mix of shock and resignation. Violet had just finished explaining her theory and plan for how they could traverse this domain. Whilst at first Luna wanted to dismiss the proposal the more Violet explained her thought process the sounder her logic became. Eventually she could only agree, if for no other reason than she had no better plan.

The plan itself was quite simple and based on what Violet had observed. From the few creatures she had watched traveling between islands a few things remained the same between all examples.

Firstly all of the islands traveled between were connected by strings of mana. This seemed to be the key factor that determined if it was possible to move from one to the other.

The second was that the movement of the island themselves seemed to dictate which islands they could move between. As she had noted earlier all of the islands were slowly moving around. But they were limited in which direction they could move from the other islands they were connected to. But when an island was moving in a certain direction, say towards one particular island. The mana string would subtly change.

When the island was moving in one way the string would shift slightly as if it was trying to pull the moving island towards its destination. The reverse was also true, where the string of an island that was moving away would almost try to push it away.

This small pull and push was noted and followed by the denizens of this domain. They would always travel in the same direction as the pull/ push of the mana strings.

If it was possible to go against this was currently unknown but was not something that they would have to face if all went well.

So with this understanding the duo stood up and began to move in the direction of the closest feathered island.

They had to walk for several minutes and their movement was noticed by most of the assembled beasts. Some simply because no other beasts was moving and others, particularly the smarter of the group with a glint of curiosity visible in their eyes.

The alpha wolf and trunked beast in particular seemed to hold a keen intelligence and based on how they had been observing the islands with just as much intensity as Violet had been, it wouldn’t be surprising if they too had begun to make some assumptions for how this place worked.

Before long the companions arrived at their destination. The island in question was on the smaller side at only a few dozen meters across and was one of the few balls of barren rock. It was connected to a number of other islands yet the weather connecting them to the mainland was currently in the pulling phase so was saddly unsuitable to be traversed just yet.

As such they simply settled down again whilst conversing as they rested and awaited for the situation to change. They didn’t have to wait very long.

A crash echoed out as the rocky island crashed into a neighbor and began to move in the opposite direction. As a result of this the mana string connected to the land near them switched its motion. Now pulsing away from the domain boundary and towards the floating rock.

Seeing this shift both girls stood up and glanced at each other. "So I guess we are doing this eh?" Luna sullenly asked.

"That we are! Come on it’ll be fun!" Violet merrily replied. Intentionally choosing to ignore the tone in which the question was asked. Whilst she did understand her companions point of view she could also tell that despite her reservations she was quite excited to explore this strange land.

So without wasting any more time Violet backed up slightly so as to get a run up and then charged forwards and leaping forwards into the void.

Whilst Violet had grown considerably stronger with her growth, she could easily jump multiple meters without issue, with a run up it wouldn’t be too far fetched for her to be able to cross 10-15 meters in a single leap. Yet the distance to the giant rock was well over 200 meters, around the width of the river of lava they crossed in the fire domain.

So when the dragon easily surpassed this milestone with no apparent dip in elevation she momentarily cheered. But just as quickly steeled herself as she still had a long way to go. But the journey went quite smoothly and within several seconds of beginning her jump she landed on the side of the island with no issues.

She was slightly perplexed however as she was most definitely standing on the side of the island and yet it felt like she was standing on solid ground and no hanging on a vertical wall. With careful steps she moved about and found that regardless of where she stood she would find herself feeling as if she was stood on solid ground.

Even when she then looked back towards where Luna and the other beasts stood and realised that she was in fact standing on the bottom of the island.

Seeing her companion successfully make the jump filled Luna with relief. Whilst she did believe all would be well, she was unable to let go of her irrational fear that things may not go as smoothly as they had planned. So to see things work out as planned was a welcome surprise.

Not wanting to dally and leave Violet by herself Luna too moved back some before dashing forwards and leaping into the void. She install felt the difference in temperature when crossing the domain boundary, it went from a suffocating heat to refreshingly cool in moments.

The change was quite sudden but thourghly welcome for the ice attuned girl. However she then made the mistake of looking down. Whilst she wasn’t exactly afraid of heights, she still felt a primal surge of fear as she gazed dow at the empty void below.

Thankfully she soon found herself landing on the rocky island to be welcomed by Violet who bumped her head against the slightly shaken girl whilst trying to send soothing thoughts through their bond. Before long Luna managed to reign in her fear and looked up with thanks towards her companion. "Thanks." She softly spoke.

"Your welcome." Came the instant response, then a few moments later she spoke again. Only this time with a sense of urgency. "We should move, now!" Noticing the serious tone Luna looked around in surprise trying to asses if any danger was approaching them. Only to momentarily freeze as she saw the giant trunked beast run towards the edge of the fire domain and leap into the void heading straight at them.