Lightning Is the Only Way

"Reality is a strange concept, Gravis," Orthar answered. "The fact that you're asking me about this means that you don't quite grasp its intricacies."

"Okay? Then explain it," Gravis said with interest.

"Reality manifests and changes as it expands," Orthar explained. "At the moment, I have the memories of Mortis entering my perception, but these memories are not as old as they seem to be."

Gravis only raised an eyebrow.

"Objective reality is objective reality, and time isn't a factor for objective reality. There is only one objective reality, and that objective reality only exists at one point in time," Orthar explained.

"We are in objective reality right now. The entire Cosmos is."

"Back when I said that I wasn't sure if Mortis would survive, his Samsara hadn't happened there. Things that haven't happened yet can't happen prematurely."

"What? So you haven't felt Mortis in your perception back then?" Gravis asked.

Orthar nodded. "Correct. Before Mortis entered Samsara, I hadn't felt Mortis in my perception. That is why I said that I wasn't sure if he could survive. After all, I hadn't known yet that he would survive."

Gravis scratched the back of his head as he tried to wrap his head around what Orthar was saying. "But you have Mortis' Samsara now in your memories, right?"

"Yes, I have these memories now."

"But these memories are new?" Gravis asked.

"Correct. These memories have only been added when Mortis went into Samsara," Orthar explained. "Reality has to remain stable, and Samsara has an effect on causality. So, when something gets changed in the past, physical reality changes alongside it."

"Some legends and stories speak of time loops, and in nearly all of them, it is unknown what happened in the first iteration of time and reality. We are currently in the first iteration. Mortis' Samsara hadn't happened yet, but as soon as it did, physical reality adapted."

"I was the only one that could feel Mortis' perception in Samsara, which means that I was the only one that had his memories changed. At the moment, I remember that I have never been worried about Mortis since I knew he would survive."

"However, I also know that these are memories of events that have never happened. In a sense, these things have happened, but they have not happened in physical reality. We only think that they have happened in physical reality," Orthar explained.

Gravis tried to understand what Orthar was telling him. "So, time loops can't exist?" Gravis asked.

"In physical reality, no, in perceived reality, yes," Orthar answered. "Time doesn't revert in physical reality. If you use the True Law of Time to glimpse into the past, you will only see a perceived reality, not physical reality. The best you can do is freeze time for a moment."

"So," Gravis said after some seconds. "You remember that you have felt Mortis' perception enter your perception, but you know that it has actually never happened."

"That's right," Orthar said.

Orthar looked at Mortis for a bit with an evaluating gaze.

"The first trial has been complete," he said. "Recover for the next 10,000 years. After that, you can enter the second trial."

"And what's, oh," Gravis said as he noticed that Orthar wasn't there anymore.

Now, there was only Gravis and Mortis left.

Gravis looked at the two closed gates. 'Guess they won't open for a while. So, it's just like back then. After every trial, we get a break.'

Gravis glanced at Mortis, who was still confused about the fact that he was back in his body.

"The first Samsara is always difficult," Gravis said.

Mortis glanced over at Gravis.

"Do you remember my first Samsara? It was against some guy from one of the Peak Sects in Arc's world. It had only taken around 10,000 years, but I also keeled over," Gravis said with a smile.

"Remember when we fought Nira?" Gravis asked. "Back then, I also used Samsara, and after I recovered, I was completely beside myself. I couldn't even use my Form Law, and using my normal Laws also wasn't easy. After all, I hadn't used them for a very long time."

"How long has your Samsara been?" Gravis asked as he looked at Mortis.

"I don't know," Mortis answered absentmindedly.

"How old was the guy before he died?" Gravis asked.

Mortis glanced at the corpse in front of him with a complex expression. "Around two million years old."

Gravis nodded. "That's quite a long time. I guess you probably went through something like ten million years of Samsara. That's a lot for your first time. How was it?"

Mortis wasn't sure what he should think right now.

"I'm not sure," he answered.

"Ah, I get it," Gravis said. "It's like a bad experience, but the bad experience managed to solve a problem of yours. It was still horrible to go through it, but in the end, you also feel like you're glad you went through it. After all, if you didn't, you wouldn't be as strong as you currently are."

"Yet, if you could repeat the experience for the same gains, you would probably decline, right?" Gravis asked with a smirk.

Mortis looked at Gravis for a bit.

"Yeah, that sounds about right."

Gravis only grinned as he walked over to Mortis. Then, Gravis sat down in front of Mortis and took out some coffee, which he had gotten from his father a while back. He wanted to save this coffee for a special occasion.

When Mortis saw the coffee, old memories reappeared inside his mind.

Mortis' connection to this coffee was just as strong as Gravis' connection.

Mortis took some of the coffee for himself and drank it.

For the next couple of minutes, Gravis and Mortis just silently drank. Gravis seemed relaxed, while Mortis appeared absentminded.

"Tell me about the life of the Ancestral God," Gravis suddenly said.

"His life?" Mortis asked.

"Mhm," Gravis nodded. "Who was he? What did he do? What connections did he have? What Laws did he know? What happened to him? Simply tell me everything about it from the beginning."

After some seconds of hesitation, Mortis began to narrate the life of the Ancestral God.

For the beginning, Gravis didn't say much, but as soon as the Ancestral God of the past had become sentient, Gravis started throwing in some questions.

"Was that the right decision?"

"Why did he do that?"

"Do you think that was the right decision?"

"What would you have done?"

"If you did that, how would the world have changed?"

"Is that truly what you want?"

"Do you really think that would be for the best?"

"Why would you do that?"

Gravis was throwing in one question after the other while Mortis was retelling the story of the Ancestral God.

Near the beginning, Mortis found it hard to answer these questions. The Ancestral God had done what he had done, and the things had already happened. Additionally, Mortis had felt that the Ancestral God's actions had been only natural and logical.

Yet, Gravis' questions asked about the fundamental reasons of why.

At some point, Mortis couldn't even give a clear answer as to why the Ancestral God had done something.

Then, Gravis started asking Mortis about what he would have done.

In the beginning, Mortis' answers had been nearly identical to what the Ancestral God would have done, but eventually, Gravis' continuous digging made Mortis reevaluate his answers.

Without noticing it, Mortis was slowly distancing himself from the past of the Ancestral God.

As more time passed, Mortis narrated the actions of the Ancestral God with a more distant and emotionless voice. It was like he was no longer invested.

Why?

Because the Ancestral God had done several things that didn't agree with Mortis' belief.

In the beginning, Mortis had instinctively acted very similarly to the Ancestral God, but that connection had been severed.

Eventually, Mortis was done with the narration. Due to Gravis' constant questions, it had literally taken years.

"Nice story," Gravis said.

"I don't know," Mortis answered with furrowed brows. "He feels more like an idiot to me."

"Maybe," Gravis answered. "So, how do you feel?"

Mortis looked at Gravis. "Not different to usual."

Gravis only smiled brightly.

"That's good to hear."

Mortis nodded. He had already realized what Gravis had done. Gravis had continually questioned the actions of the Ancestral God, forcing Mortis to reevaluate them. Due to that, only the actions Mortis truly agreed with would stay in his mind.

Gravis had reawakened Mortis' personality.

He wasn't the same Mortis as before Samsara, but people Mortis knew would definitely feel that he was acting like Mortis.

He had only changed a bit.

And that was normal.