“Brutal,” Nwaps said, the tapeworm’s voice echoing throughout Sam’s surroundings. “Then again, I suppose it’s rather tame compared to what you did to me. You may have physically crushed my clones, but the true pain is felt in my heart. You betrayed me, Sam.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Sam said, his tone unapologetic. He closed his eyes and spun around while willing himself where he needed to go next, engaging his subconscious. When he opened his eyes again, the scene had shifted, the palanquin with the headless body and four hunky men covered in gore gone from Sam’s view. He was in a rainforest with mossy debris at his feet, thick trees surrounding him and obscuring his view.
Sam spread out his All-Seeing Gaze, detecting someone in the far distance. The individual was holding something akin to a sniper rifle, and Sam ducked his head. A tree by the side exploded, splinters scattering in every direction. Sam wasn’t surprised the tapeworm was resorting to violence to remove him from the subconscious expanse, but the quality of the tapeworm’s troops were a little higher than he had expected. The moment his All-Seeing Gaze had touched the individual’s aura, they had locked onto his location. A splinter by Sam’s foot rose into the air, and with a simple thought, it pierced through the rainforest, striking Sam’s assailant in the head.
“You’ve grown a lot, Sam,” Nwaps said. “Living a trillion lifetimes grants you some odd experiences. I’m sure you’ve participated in life-or-death combat many times. How many times were you killed?”
“Too many to count,” Sam said. “I’ve lived through the same war multiple times. I’m pretty sure I’ve killed a few incarnations of myself a few times too. I’ve lived in the past, in the present, and in the future; I’m prepared for anything you throw at me.”
“Is that so?” Nwaps asked. “You’re only prepared for things you’ve encountered on Oterra.”
Sam’s brow furrowed as his psychic vision split open like a kaleidoscope, billions of different scenes filling Sam’s head at once. In some of them, blood was spurting out of his neck; in others, there were bloody, gaping holes where his vital organs were supposed to be located. Pain struck Sam all at once, and he opened his mouth to projectile vomit while hunching down and clutching his arms to his chest. He canceled his All-Seeing Gaze and looked down at himself, but he didn’t see any holes in his body as it felt like there were. He struggled to breath for a second before remembering he was in the subconscious expanse, the pain he had felt moments ago fading away as if it had never happened.
“It looks like that was painful even for you,” Nwaps said. “How does it feel to die an infinite number of times at once?”
“It didn’t feel good,” Sam said as he straightened his back. The vomit vanished as his surroundings cleaned themselves up. Sam reached out to the side and pulled a glass of soda out of thin air before taking a sip from the icy drink to cleanse his palate. “But if that’s the best you can do, just give up.” He flew forward at a rapid pace, moving where his body took him. As long as he believed, his subconscious would take him where he wanted to go even if his All-Seeing Gaze wasn’t active.
“Back you go,” Nwaps said.
Sam came to a halt, and his surroundings rushed forward as he moved backwards in time, returning back to his original position. The puke that he had cleaned up earlier returned, and it flew back inside his mouth as the kaleidoscopic vision appeared once more, sending shooting pains through Sam’s very being.
“The subconscious expanse is my domain,” Nwaps said. “You can’t retrieve anyone from here without my permission.”
Sam frowned. If he sent the Venusians into the subconscious expanse, there was a possibility of them being infected by Nwaps whilst they were attempting to free the hosts. Following that train of thought, Sam realized there were still Venusians under Nwaps’ control that he had to take care of. It had been such a long time; he had forgotten about their existence. A sigh escaped from Sam’s mouth, and he closed his eyes.
“Giving up?” Nwaps asked. “Now, if you’re—”
Sam exited the subconscious expanse, opening his eyes, the temple courtyard greeting his vision. Of course, he had to pull the twin-headed snake off of his face to see.
“Back so soon?” the Mother asked. “Did you finish what you needed to do?”
“No,” Sam said and placed Vercedei and Werchbite to the side—read dropped them on the ground—“and I’d like your help.” Even if he removed Nwaps from the Venusians, he still couldn’t deal with Nwaps in the subconscious expanse, not when it was pulling its higher-dimensional trickery there. He needed the help of someone as capable of Nwaps to rid the subconscious expanse of the tapeworm.
“I’d love to help you,” the Mother said, the aura around Paula’s body brightening. “It’s good to see you’re not too prideful to accept someone else’s help when you know you need it.”
Sam shrugged. “If other people are willing to make my life easier, what reason do I have to turn them down?” he asked and looked at the Mother. “Do I have to do anything special for you to unlock my external chakra?”
“Not in particular,” the Mother said and landed on the ground in front of Sam. The blue avian’s mouth opened, and a squelching sound rumbled out from deep within Paula’s stomach. The blue avian’s throat bulged, and a stone egg flew out of the blue avian’s mouth, stopping a few inches above Sam’s lap thanks to him catching it with his telekinesis. If he hadn’t, perhaps, it would’ve been difficult for him to have children in the future. Paula’s body righted itself as the Mother beamed at Sam. “Go on. Absorb it.”
“This isn’t something important to Paula, is it?” Sam asked and raised an eyebrow.
“No,” the Mother said. “I created it, and the easiest way to transport it was through the method you witnessed just now. It’s a small part of myself that I condensed just for you.”
Sam grunted before reached forward, grabbing the egg-shaped rock with his right hand. A tingling sensation ran up his arm, through his shoulder, into his head, and out through his crown. The stone dissolved, and the world seemed to open up for Sam, sights he couldn’t see before becoming visible before him. Lines filled his vision, and colorful specks danced about in the air in patterns he was sure existed but couldn’t quite grasp. He ignored the new details and focused on Paula’s body, which had collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
“I’m over here,” the Mother’s voice said, entering Sam’s mind while giving him directional information. Sam leaned forward and turned his head to look down at his shoulder, the one opposite Raindu. There was a tiny octopus with blue stripes running down its tentacles, forming dozens of tiny rings. “Like your other familiars, I have to stay close to you to get a clear view of what you’re seeing. When you enter the subconscious expanse again, I’ll follow you inside.”
“Okay,” Sam said and turned his attention on the lines and lights within his vision. They were present in his All-Seeing Gaze as well. “Do you know what these lines are?”
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“Influences from other dimensions,” the Mother said. “Examine a line. You’ll see what I mean.”
Rather than questioning the Mother further, Sam took her advice and focused on one of the lines in the air. It was like a ray of light, but it existed without a source, and it pierced through walls, ceilings, and floors alike. The more he examined it, the more detailed the line became. It had seemed fuzzy with a blurred edge, but upon closer observation, he realized there were trillions of tiny symbols overlapping with one another to form the line. Each symbol had a distinct shape, but after observing one and turning his attention away, he instantly forgot what the symbol looked like.
Sam frowned, and he used his All-Seeing Gaze to continue observing the whole of the line even though it extended through a wall. It stretched on and on, reaching the horizon where it abruptly ended. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking at,” Sam said. “Can you give me a hint?”
“It’s another dimension,” the Mother said. “It’s intersecting with Oterra, but you can only view a small portion of it. Imagine an apple leaving a shadow on a surface. The line you’re looking at is another dimension’s shadow being casted on Oterra. You can’t interact with it because it’s only a shadow, but you can gather precious information from it; you can even follow it back to its source.”
“I see,” Sam said. Perhaps he’d look into the dimensional shadows more after he took care of Nwaps. He reached down and tapped Joe on the shoulder. “Where’s Big Fish? I need to get rid of the tapeworms inside the Venusians.”
“Over here,” Big Fish said and flew off of Sam’s body, growing in size as it spoke. The whale floated in the air above Sam with its mouth pointed in his direction. “You want to visit the city of gold?”
“That’s right,” Sam said. “Open up.”
Big Fish’s mouth opened wide, and with a slight inhalation, Sam’s body was pulled inside its gaping maw. At first, there was only darkness after the whale closed its lips behind Sam, but then, a golden light appeared, and the golden city appeared in Sam’s view. It was empty. “Come out, Nwaps,” Sam said. “I know you’re here.”
“You’re really determined to….” Nwaps’ voice cut off. “Did you really ally with the Mother? Why is she here? What happened to staying with the demons you know?”
“You left me no choice,” Sam said, speaking into the empty city. He spread out his All-Seeing Gaze, and he found the Venusians hiding deep within the city’s foundations, hidden within pockets inside the gold.
“You’re the one who pushed me into a corner, and you say I was the one who crossed the line?” Nwaps asked.
“You can cross through here, Sam,” the Mother said inside Sam’s head. The blue-ringed octopus floated off of Sam’s shoulder, hovering in front of several specks of light. “If you enter this region and follow it to the end, it’ll take you where you need to go.”
Sam decided to trust the Mother’s words. Since he had already agreed to accept her help, it’d be foolish of him to doubt her now. Sam floated up to the specks of light and waited for something to happen. His All-Seeing Gaze seemed to have discovered a tunnel, and he stretched his awareness into the region he hadn’t seen before. Swirls of color filled Sam’s vision, but he couldn’t put a name to them since he had never encountered a color similar to the hues he was seeing. As he became more aware of the things within his psychic vision, his sense of self slowly started to fade away; he couldn’t see, hear, feel, or smell anything. All that existed was the swirling colors, and when Sam felt like he was more color than person, his sense of self returned with cold air brushing against his skin.
“You got here faster than expected,” a feminine voice said. It belonged to a Venusian, who was staring at Sam with an emotionless expression. “Is that the ability of the Mother? Teleportation?”
Sam examined his surroundings with his All-Seeing Gaze since the lighting was extremely dim within the region. He was inside the golden foundation of the city, inside one of the pockets the Venusians were hiding in. Instead of responding to the Venusian’s question, Sam focused on her with his telekinesis, holding her in place while removing the tapeworm. An annoyed expression appeared on Sam’s face as the other Venusians migrated through the gold, heading out of the underground pockets to the surface of the city. The tapeworm couldn’t defeat him, so it was doing everything it could to delay.
“It might seem troublesome, but it really isn’t,” the Mother said from Sam’s shoulder. “You’re still thinking from the perspective of someone locked within this dimension.”
Considering all the lives he had lived were lives of three-dimensional beings, Sam didn’t think he could be blamed for defaulting to his current train of thought. He wasn’t even sure what the other option was other than engaging with the specks of light and lines of symbols.
“That’s exactly it,” the Mother said. “Entering other dimensions and leaving them can easily allow you to move wherever you’d like on Oterra. Traveling through dimensions will save you tremendous amounts of time and energy. You can think of it like jumping over the walls of a maze.”
Sam understood how dimensional travel could work. If he left the third dimension and entered another one, he could ignore obstacles that would’ve been in his way; however, understanding didn’t mean he could execute the concept. “How do I know where these light swirls will take me?”
“Examine them with your All-Seeing Gaze,” the Mother said. “Send your awareness down their passages, and you’ll see where they can take you.”
Sam’s brow furrowed as he examined the lines and lights within his All-Seeing Gaze. “There’s thousands of them.”
“So?” the Mother asked. “Can you only focus on one thing at a time? Explore them all. The routes are open for you to discover if you’re willing to put in the work.”
Sam scratched his head. He could use his All-Seeing Gaze to examine the whole capital city at once and even more beyond those limits if he focused on his Vasundhara as well, but he couldn’t pay attention to every detail at once. However, it wasn’t like he had to pay attention to each and every dimensional path available to him. He simply had to find where he wanted to go and match it with the correct passage. It was still easier said than done.
“I can assist you until you get used to it,” the Mother said and floated off of Sam’s body, heading towards a speck of shining blue light. “This one will take you to the surface of the city near the plaza.”
“Isn’t the inside of Big Fish’s mouth a different dimension?” Sam asked as he approached the light the Mother had pointed out. “How can other dimensions intersect it?”
“It’s a different plane,” Vercedei said from Sam’s leg. Since it had been banned from covering Sam’s eyes and mouth, the twin-headed snake had opted to take Dirt’s place instead since the koala was barred from riding on Sam’s body at all. “Obviously, you’re still in the third dimension when inside of its mouth, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more dimensions inside of Big Fish.”
Sam had a feeling he wasn’t being told the whole story, but he didn’t blame his familiars for only telling him what they wanted to. Rather than asking someone, he had to take the initiative to learn on his own if he really wanted to know the way things worked, and he was going to do just that. Sam focused on the speck of light, and it broadened, once again robbing him of his senses and replacing his psychic vision with foreign colors. If he was stepping through another dimension to travel around, didn’t that mean the swirling colors were the things making up the dimension? When he took a shortcut in Oterra, he saw mostly untrodden ground, so were the colors he was seeing now the ground of a dimension?
Sam didn’t have time to think about it further before his senses returned to him. Like the Mother had said, he had ended up near the plaza, and it didn’t take much effort to telekinetically grasp every Venusian he saw within the vicinity, ripping them out of the ground and removing their tapeworms. Since he wasn’t in a hurry, he took his time with his All-Seeing Gaze, examining the locations of hidden Venusians and the best way to reach them using the dimensional specks, as he so aptly named the colorful lights. Then, he put his theory into practice and stepped in and out of the third dimension, traveling far distances in a matter of seconds while rounding up Nwaps’ hosts.
“You’re doing an excellent job, Sam,” the Mother said. “I knew you’d adapt to traversing dimensions quite easily.”
“What wicked thing are you planning for Sam?” Vercedei asked, slithering up Sam’s body to get a better look at the octopus on his shoulder. The twin-headed snake had to crawl past Joe on the way, and the sloth let out plenty of complaints, but the snake was already gone before the sloth could finish saying them.
“No wicked things,” the Mother said, the octopus beaming as Sam successfully traveled through another dimensional speck. “Didn’t you want to steal my things? In that case, why can’t I steal Sam from you? Dimension crossers are quite the rare find.” Upon seeing Vercedei’s ugly expression, the Mother let out a small laugh. “Don’t be an upset hypocrite now. If you want to steal, you should prepare to be stolen from as well.”