After being blown hundreds of miles away.
"Jump."
Zhao Yibing gave a light leap and flew down toward the mountains on the other side of the Floating Island.
As though she weighed nothing at all, she drifted lightly onto the summit of a solitary peak.
Skinner landed after her, smashing a deep crater into the ground.
"Get up. Let's look around. This place is quite interesting."
Zhao Yibing spoke.
Skinner asked in disbelief, "But-great Deity, are we just going to let him go?"
Zhao Yibing smiled faintly and asked in return, "Have you ever observed how living creatures feed?"
"Great Deity, please enlighten me," Skinner said.
"Look at those birds. They eat fruit and insects, and sometimes they eat each other. But when they eat, they are both fierce and helpless. Their beaks are too small, so they can only peck. They cannot remove impurities from their food, so sometimes they are poisoned. They might even have their nerves paralyzed by fruit and be left lying there, completely at others' mercy."
"Beasts hunt in packs, chasing, disguising themselves, charging, deceiving, trailing their prey, using every means available. In the end, they still have to compete with their companions, and they eat in fear, because they themselves might become someone else's prey."
"Among living creatures, the only ones whose way of feeding bears some resemblance to the gods are whales."
"Whales?" Skinner asked in puzzlement.
"A whale's attitude toward feeding is elegant and haughty-no matter what you are, in the end, you are nothing more than food."
"No matter how vast and boundless the ocean, the food cannot escape, because whales exist on another level, beyond its reach."
Skinner said, "Is that how deities feed?"
"There is also a god in the universe called 'Xusaluo.' It possesses all the power of