The Surtakatul did, in fact, have a crystal inside of its body: a milky-white pearl the size of a house. Raindu had taken it out of the Surtakatul’s front portion, and when it vanished, the calamity stopped moving. It made Sam wonder if his familiars had cores inside of them as well, and if those cores were removed, would his familiars cease to exist as well?
“No,” Vercedei said. “There are different ways to summon a higher-dimensional being, and the method the mantids used hinged on the pearl.”
Speaking of the pearl, when Sam touched it, the familiar sensation of another one of his chakras opening had occurred, the chakra located in the region above his head, above the one that had been opened when Nwaps made its appearance. Unlike the massive size of the pearl, which vanished upon his touch, the creature that came out of it was noticeable smaller; it was a butterfly. Its wings were like windows into another dimension, showing images of a black landscape with red vegetation. Unfortunately for Sam, he couldn’t see into the butterfly’s wings thanks to the twin-headed snake covering his eyes—not like he would’ve been impressed since there wasn’t much to see in the other dimension.
“Hello,” the butterfly said, its voice echoing in Sam’s mind. The small bug landed on Sam’s nose—its wingspan not nearly long enough to obscure his face from view—and a pungent scent surged up his nostrils, causing Sam to gag from the sulfuric smell. “The way you treated me earlier was quite rude. All I wanted to do was eat a city full of humans for some nutrients; you didn’t have to be so cruel. I wasn’t aware I was encroaching on your territory, and if you had asked nicely, I would’ve left without a fuss.”
So, by absorbing the pearl, Sam had summoned the Surtakatul as a familiar? “Aren’t you still alive?” With his Vasundhara, he could sense the faint vibrations of the Surtakatul still running to the western mountain range.
“Yes,” the butterfly said. “Lifeforms born in the lower dimension such as yourself may find it difficult to occupy more than one body at a time, but it’s not the case for higher-dimensional beings. If you think your so-called familiars only exist in the form you see beside you, you are sadly mistaken.”
“Is that so?” Sam asked. He couldn’t say he was too surprised by that fact; however, he was curious. “Are any of you active in Oterra in other forms?”
“No,” Vercedei said.
Although the twin-headed snake, aptly named the Silver-Tongued Deceiver, could be lying to him, Sam had no choice but to accept his familiar’s words as the truth. Sam inhaled through his nose and regretted it immediately. He hadn’t lost his sense of smell, but if he wasn’t allowed to smell anything other than the butterfly’s sulfuric scent, wasn’t that basically the same thing? Sam took solace in the fact he could still hear things, but who knew how long that would last? If he still had more chakras to unlock, there were always more parts of himself he could lose. However, with every loss, there was a gain, no?
“Is your ability the same as your other portion?” Sam asked the butterfly. It was tiny, so it didn’t seem like it could eat anything but ants or mites.
“Similar but different,” the butterfly said. “I can sniff out and eat essences. On that note, you can call me Ess.”
Essences, wasn’t that how blue avians referred to one’s soul? “You can eat people’s souls?” Sam asked. Now, after his other familiars killed people, the butterfly could make sure those people were dead for good. “Do you gain their characteristics after eating them?”
“No,” Ess said. “When I consume a soul, it enters the dimension within my stomach; if your eyes were uncovered, you’d be able to see the place through my wings. When I feel like it, I can summon the souls from my stomach and place them into objects—or other living creatures.”
Sam wasn’t quite sure what placing souls into objects did. Did it create an animate object?
“Allow me to demonstrate,” Ess said and flew off of Sam’s nose, much to his relief. He watched through his All-Seeing Gaze as the butterfly flew in a straight line and landed on Mr. Park’s shoulder. The butterfly dipped its mouthparts against the man’s suit, and Sam couldn’t help but wonder what kind of soul Ess was going to stick inside the CEO’s clothes.
“I’m not putting anything inside his clothes,” Ess said inside Sam’s head. “I’m draining this man’s essence.”
Before Sam could kindly ask the butterfly to not do such a wicked deed, Mr. Park turned his head and looked at the insect on his shoulder. “Oh, that’s a pretty … butterfly,” he said. Then, he collapsed into a heap while Ess flew away before the man could hit the ground.
“Sir, are you alright?” someone asked, approaching Mr. Park. The person crouched down and tapped Mr. Park’s shoulder. “Sir?” After a moment, they raised their head and shouted, “Medic!”
“If he’s not alright, just bring him to Sam,” Queen Annabeth said. “He’s reviving the dead; I’m sure he can cure whatever’s wrong with Mr. Park.”
Sam wasn’t quite sure how to react when the butterfly landed on his nose once more. Did it just eat Mr. Park’s soul? The twin-headed snake shifted, and light assaulted Sam’s eyes, causing him to wince; it had been a while since his eyes had last seen anything. He was greeted by the sight of the butterfly’s wings, which reflected a foreign landscape and a white ball of light. Upon seeing the ball of light, Sam knew it was Mr. Park’s soul; it was extremely similar to how he saw the CEO through his All-Seeing Gaze. “I think you should put his soul back,” Sam said to the butterfly.
“Weren’t you curious?” Ess asked. The butterfly ignored Sam’s suggestion. “Make an earthen puppet for me, Dirt.”
A pillar of earth rose up in front of Sam. Then, dirt cascaded off of it until a humanoid figure was left behind. The butterfly flew onto the earthen puppet, and the ball of light left its wings, entering the puppet through the butterfly’s mouthparts. The puppet jerked about, and its head lowered as its elbows bent, bringing its hands up as it observed itself. The puppet’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out, and a terrified expression appeared on the puppet’s face as it looked at Sam. He couldn’t hear it, but he could see it was begging for help.
“Dance for me,” Ess said, the butterfly’s thoughts clear in Sam’s mind. Evidently, the earthen puppet could hear the butterfly’s words as well because it stiffened before bending one knee at a time, swaying its hips as it raised its arms above its head. Despite the puppet’s fluid and flamboyant movements, it was clear from the expression on the puppet’s face that it wasn’t enjoying the dance one bit. Sam wasn’t sure why the puppet’s expressions were so vivid since the earthen puppet obviously lacked facial muscles; after all, it couldn’t speak because it didn’t have vocal cords—at least, that was Sam’s assumption.
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“Isn’t my ability useful?” Ess asked.
Sam couldn’t say he agreed. Nwaps could already take control of someone’s mind, so Ess’ ability of taking someone’s soul and controlling it wasn’t that impressive. However, putting souls in inanimate objects to make them alive was pretty interesting, albeit a bit morbid. “You can take them out again, right?”
“Of course,” Ess said and flew onto the puppet. The butterfly’s mouthparts made contact with the puppet, and it stopped dancing, freezing with its hip pointed to the left, its arms raised towards the sky. The ball of light reappeared within the butterfly’s wings like a small star on the night sky. “If you want me to, I can place your soul in someone else’s body, or I can replace someone’s soul with one of your underling’s.”
The twin-headed snake slithered on Sam’s face, covering his eyes once more. The putrid scent filled his nostrils once more as Ess landed on his nose. Sam couldn’t help but wonder if his familiars would continue to rob him of his senses and mobility if his soul were placed in someone else’s body. Was his talent connected to his soul? If Ess switched Sam’s soul with Mr. Park’s, would Raindu and the rest follow Sam to Mr. Park’s body or stay by Sam’s occupied-by-a-foreign-soul body? Would Sam’s body gain Mr. Park’s ability to shift into different phases of matter? Were chakras tied to one’s soul, or were they tied to one’s body?
“I’ll swap you, so you can find out the answer to all your questions,” Ess said. The butterfly’s mouthparts made contact with Sam’s nose, and a wave of nausea washed over Sam. His psychic vision blurred, and the fringes of his All-Seeing Gaze receded, shrinking his view. Then, his vision returned to normal as Nwaps poked its head out of Sam’s nostril and batted the butterfly aside, causing Ess to shout, “Hey! What’s the big idea?”
“Don’t mess with our host,” Nwaps said. “We spent a lot of time cultivating him.”
“Don’t lie,” Ess said, readjusting its position on Sam’s face. “You’ve only recently arrived on this plane. If you can make choices for Sam’s future, why can’t I?”
“His thoughts might change if you give his soul a different brain,” Nwaps said. “Right now, he’s willing to do whatever we want, so don’t go messing around with what we have.”
Sam wasn’t sure how to feel about the tapeworm’s statement. Although it was true, he had taken a more passive approach when it came to leading his life, and it was also true his familiars had essentially robbed him of his independence, at least, he was living a good life now. Without his familiars, he’d be living a life fraught with hardship and insecurity: no finances, no food, living in abandoned homes hoping he wouldn’t be discovered. He was willing to give up some little things like freedom for a stable life. However, what if it was only his brain telling him that? If Nwaps was worried his mind might change if he experienced how someone else’s brain operated, then wasn’t there a good chance there was something wrong with his line of thinking?
“There’s nothing wrong with your line of thinking,” Vercedei said. “People are shaped by their environment and the chemicals in their brains. Some people would rather die than lose their freedom. Other people would willingly give up their freedom for comfort and security. Their ideals may be different, but does that mean one group has to be wrong? Of course not because, after all, your life is yours, and it’s up to you to decide how you live it.”
“That’s right,” Nwaps said. “I was simply afraid of what’d happen to your mind if your soul, which was shaped by your current brain, experienced the way someone else’s brain worked. There’d be a huge cognitive dissonance when you returned to your body after residing in someone else’s.”
“Nonsense,” Ess said. “The best way to grow as an individual is to experience the world through the lens of others. It’s impossible to see the bigger picture through a single perspective.”
Sam wasn’t sure if Ess was trying to harm him or help him. Even with multiple perspectives weighing in, those of his familiars, he was still confused, lending credence to Nwaps’ words. Perhaps he really would just lose what it meant to be himself if his soul was placed into another person’s body; then again, did he really know who he was? Was a person a collection of experiences that shaped them, or were they a set of principles dictating how they should act in a given situation? He was Sam, an ex-talentless, but if he were born with a talent, would he still be the same Sam he was today, someone who would trade freedom for security?
“Does it matter?” Vercedei asked. “Are you dissatisfied with the person you are today? You’re the strongest human in existence, and if you were born with a different talent, someone else would be lamenting their fate and wishing for beings like us to help them; then, you’d be one of those people mucking through corpses instead of the one bringing them back to life.”
The twin-headed snake had a point. He might’ve been unable to make his own decisions, but it wasn’t like those other humans could decide their own fates either. If Sam wasn’t here, the Surtakatul would’ve done devastating damage to humanity, and everyone would’ve perished whether they wanted to or not. Well, there would’ve been a few survivors, but where would they go after the majority of humans had died? Perhaps they’d turn into pets and live in Et Serpentium with their freedom stripped away from them.
An employee approached Sam while dragging Mr. Park unceremoniously along the ground by his arms. “Excuse me,” the employee said. “Something happened to Mr. Park. Can you bring him back to life?”
“Of course,” Vercedei said. “Leave him there and step back.”
The employee released Mr. Park and took a few steps back. A ray of light shone down from the sky, obscuring Mr. Park’s body from view. Ess flew forward and landed on the soulless man’s nose. The white light from its wings traveled into its body, through its mouthparts, and into Mr. Park’s face. Once the process was done, Ess flew back onto Sam’s face, and the ray of light vanished as Mr. Park’s eyes shot open. He sat up while screaming, his eyes wide with terror. He looked down at himself and patted his body with his hands before looking around. When his gaze landed on the earthen puppet his soul had recently occupied, he flinched and scrambled away while climbing to his feet.
“Mr. Park,” the employee said. “Are you alright? You suddenly collapsed, and your heart stopped beating.”
“I’m alright,” Mr. Park said as he touched his chest with his hand. He glanced at the earthen puppet, whose face was contorted in terror whilst dancing, and took in a deep breath. Unnatural incidences happened all the time in Oterra, but they had never happened to him until now. “Does anyone know what that statue is?”
The employee turned towards the direction Mr. Park was looking, but they didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “Statue, sir?”
Mr. Park’s face paled. The earthen puppet had vanished at some point, disappearing as if the ground had silently swallowed it up when no one was looking. “Never mind,” he said. It felt like his soul had been taken by the statue, and he was forced by a demon to dance. Hopefully, such an event wouldn’t happen again. “I must have been imagining things.”
“Perhaps it was a side effect of your heart attack,” the employee said.
Mr. Park nodded his head. “How’s the corpse collecting? Is it almost finished?”
“All the employees save for one have been located and revived,” the employee said. “They’re looking for the last person now, but they must’ve been directly stepped on by the calamity because their body isn’t showing up.”
“We found some bone fragments,” another employee said as they approached Sam with a handful of bloody shards. “Is this enough to bring them back to life?”
“The price will be much higher,” Vercedei said, “but it can be done.”
Mr. Park scratched his head. Sam was bringing the dead back to life, but it really seemed like there was no cost to him since he could revive everyone who had died even if all that remained of them was a small pile of bone shards. What if the man was simply robbing the CEOs of their wealth under the guise of being generous? Well, no one would mind it except for the six CEOs who had to shoulder the costs of resurrection; perhaps, some people would wish for Sam to extract more from them to even out the playing field since the CEOs were filthy rich compared to their underlings. Mr. Park sighed. What was going to happen was going to happen, and he wasn’t brave enough to stop what was to come. He had the sneaking suspicion his time spent as an earthen doll was due to Sam’s ability, and Mr. Park never wanted to experience such a thing again.