Chapter 803: Nevermore (Not Really): A Sandy World

A hooded young man walked through the busy streets, sticking with all the civilians who made sure to stay out of the way of the patrolling soldiers who occupied the middle of the road. They all invited respect, yet fear from everyone. It was not necessarily due to their own power but what they represented. Who they represented.

The orange skin of these people made them easily discernable from humans, even if there were many similarities. Many had tattoos that marked their caste and origin, too, many of which were prominently displayed. It was a society where one was born into their station in life with little hope of ever changing. The newest leader of the planet had enacted some change, allowing people to ascend by joining the army, but it was an arduous process that had only truly picked up speed after the system arrived.

Integration. That is what the common term was across the multiverse, but here, it was called the Celestial Prophecy. An event that was foreseen by their glorious and unquestionable leader. A being born under the Twin Maidens and the Golden Patriarch. The names of the two moons and sun that shone brightly in the sky. Due to the nature of his birth, he was of the highest caste, selected by the heavens themselves, and given a title the moment his provenance was discovered.

The Celestial Child. Ell'Hakan, the son of the twin moons and the sun itself. A living god in the eyes of many.

Born of the universe as a blessing to the Nahoom, their savior and leader by birthright. Legends flourished, how he was born on the day of the twin eclipse, having simply appeared atop the highest mountain on the planet. Another legend said he fell from the heavens, bringing with him rain and the best year of harvest in recorded history. There were too many legends to count, but they all had one thing in common.

They were all absolute bullshit.

Yet the natives believed every single one of them. How could they not? The Celestial Child had only brought miracle after miracle, and the entire planet had never been as united and happy as now. Well... at least they thought they were happy. But to his eyes, he saw something else.

Everything was wrong. The threads hung in the air, invisible yet frayed. Broken, incomplete, tangled, miscolored... nothing was as it should be. Their emotions toward one another were not as they should be. The karmic connections were not formed genuinely.

William continued to walk through the city, staying as inconspicuous as possible. His body was covered from head to toe, and despite his appearance so suspect, no one looked twice as if he blended into the environment.

If anyone with detection skills were around, they could surely find the karma mage, but there wasn't anyone of note around. Most of the powerful people on the planet had left for Nevermore already, leaving only the bare minimum. None of which were a threat to William and his purpose for visiting.

He had already been on the planet for a few months now, and he planned on staying a little longer. Looking at the karmic threads that spanned the planet, he had noticed a few that were very out of place - ones he had to research more than others to try and find the truth he had been searching for.

The rest of the day passed as William left the city and walked to the outskirt slums. Large orange mountains surrounded the city, having served as a natural barrier for millennia from both invaders and the environment. Flying to the top of one of these mountains, he sat down and stared out at the vast nothingness beyond the mountains.

An endless desert of sand continued as far as he could see, with the occasional movement of monsters being the only disturbance to the tranquil world. Compared to Earth, the Nahoom homeworld was simply far less dangerous, having apparently never spawned any creatures stronger than low-tier C-grade. It was also far smaller, being only about a third the size of current Earth, with most of its dangerous monsters could be found inside of the planet. Ell'Hakan had managed to conquer the world truly, having convinced every other nation to join him after the system arrived, with most having given in even before the initiation.

Before the system, things had been pretty bad, though. The environment was very dry, and the average temperature was quite a bit higher than on Earth. This meant something as basic as water was hard to come by, and large underground wells had to be dug for the people to survive. The entire planet was pretty much just a massive desert with only the occasional oasis here and there. It didn't have any true oceans, but just a few large rivers and lakes, with most of the ecosystem sustained due to many of the massive mountains spread across the planet getting covered in ice every year. Ah, and the poles also had ice, which was honestly a pretty common occurrence for habitable plants.

Turning away from the dunes and looking out over the city, William sighed as he saw the countless warped threads of karma once more. It was karmic power forged through false premises, lies, and delusion. All this falsehood was surrounded by golden buildings and grandeur as the massive capital city of the Nahoom homeworld stretched out before him. A city matching the largest Earth had ever seen, if not surpassing it, with tens of millions living there.

As he looked out over the city, he couldn't help but wonder how a place could even become like this. So whole, yet broken. There were so many things that were just wrong, and William wanted to get to the bottom of it. However, right as he thought this, he began to feel his body failing.

I guess it could only hold for that long, he thought as his arm began to crumble, and the very next second, his body fell apart into metal dust that was scattered by the wind.

Opening his eyes, William found himself back inside the cave, hidden away from the capital. His vessel had lasted quite a while this time around, William getting better at using the skill he had "taken" from his former dear Patron.

Being a Heretic had some benefits, the greatest of which was that William no longer found himself under the control of Eversmile. The bad part was that he couldn't get any teachings either, even if he could still get skills and the Primordial's Records. Sadly, even if he had technically broken free now, damage had still been done.

Taking out the Nevermore token from his spatial storage, he rubbed it a bit as he considered going but ultimately decided to delay. He had no reason to rush it. His trip to Nevermore would be less fruitful than most others due to Eversmile convincing him he had to go in D-grade. He would still go, though, if not just to escape from the Nahoom planet.

William had arrived there with the help of the space jellyfish that had originally helped bring Ell'Hakan to Earth and helped William get to Nevermore the first time around. It, too, had been blessed by Eversmile, but the Primordial had never communicated with it directly. Instead, William had relayed everything. After he turned his back on Eversmile, William still felt his connection to the jellyfish remain the same, making him believe it didn't know. This did indeed turn out to be the case, as it gladly helped him when he claimed it was on Eversmile's order. Of course, while the jellyfish was a damn good space mage, it could only teleport William to the Nahoom homeworld and not back again. Which is where the Nevermore teleportation token came in.

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Shaking his head, William put back the Nevermore token. It wasn't time yet. He still had an objective on the planet to complete, and he had to be done before anyone who knew who he was or could locate him returned from Nevermore.

Waving his hand, metal spurns appeared, which he quickly condensed into a humanoid form. Closing his eyes, he formed a connection as the empty husk came to life; William connected to it through karma. The construct was almost like a living karmic void, having no connection to even the world around it. This made it far harder to detect, and those who did notice it wouldn't pay any attention. Forming any karmic bond with it was incredibly difficult, after all.

The karmic vessel exited the cave soon after, headed for the capital once more as he had some things he still wanted to check out there. Evidence he needed to find to use against Ell'Hakan when the time was right. After that, he had another major city to visit.

And this time, the mission was on his own terms... even if he had effectively been hired for the job. But at least it was by a fellow Earthling and not some god, even if they did probably contact him at the behest of one.

"But it's, like, super hard..." the giant worm complained as they wiggled slightly after appearing in the middle of the vastness of space, another being teleporting in the very next second.

"You already know how to open them. Now you just need better control of where you reappear when you use them," the god who, in Sandy's eyes, was cruelty itself answered.

"Opening one is easy! It's like digging in the sand. You just plop down, start wiggling, and you make a hole! But... yeah, it's a bit hard to know exactly where you end up making the exit hole again... especially when you can't see where you're going and stuff... so can't we just agree it's impossible and go have dinner?" Sandy tried very hard.

"I was told expressly that there would be no food before you at least try to achieve minor success," the still-evil god insisted. Sandy knew the horrible man had been hired by the many-headed hydra to teach Sandy super complicated space stuff that Sandy really didn't feel like Sandy needed to learn.

As for what Sandy had to learn? Well, stuff about wormholes, duh.

Being a worm, Sandy naturally learned how to make wormholes. Wormholes were, in the simplest of terms - according to the teacher, anyway - two spots getting connected through a hole in space. In between these two spots, Sandy would have to swim through very dense cosmic dust, but after getting out on the other side, the former sandworm would find themselves somewhere entirely new, far away from the original spot.

Sandy's problem was exactly with this last part... where the wormhole would go. Trying to navigate while inside the dense cosmic dust was very hard, as it felt like really resistant sand. Also, the cosmic dust slowly damaged Sandy, even with all their resistance, so the worm had a limited duration inside of the hole in space.

This was also a bit of a problem, as the distance passed inside the cosmic dust correlated directly with how long Sandy would move in the outside world. Sandy did have the speed and resistance part pretty much figured out, though. Getting out was also technically pretty easy, as when Sandy had to go out again, Sandy just had to "imagine" a hole opening and then swim through it. This hole would also appear in the true universe to serve as an exit.

But how was Sandy supposed to also know where this hole would bring Sandy when Sandy didn't know anything about where Sandy was in the real world? It wasn't like there was any real direction inside of the cosmic dust. Sandy could swim straight in one direction and somehow end up entirely opposite. It was very confusing.

"Okay... if I have to learn to get food, tell me the trick!" Sandy insisted after getting over their frustration.

"There are no tricks, only comprehension. Follow your instincts and your will," the god said. "You are a natural-born talent at this. It's within you. You have already learned how to bend space far more efficiently, and your control of the space affinity is improving at an astonishing rate. However, only you can truly learn the secrets of the cosmic dust you see, so only you can find your own Path to comprehend it fully."

Sandy wiggled, annoyed at the damn teacher telling them that again. Why could a hydra with so many heads not figure out that Sandy needed a teacher who could also feel and see the same cosmic dust? Cosmic dust was everywhere, like sand in a desert, so it shouldn't be that hard.

Yet, for some reason, apparently only Sandy could see it. Sandy's teacher claimed it was because the cosmic sand didn't necessarily exist but was just Sandy's conceptual comprehension of the concept of space materialized through will... or some other dumb stuff like that Sandy was pretty sure was just an excuse for being blind. And that came from Sandy, who didn't even have any eyes!

"Can we just go back to normal space magic stuff?" Sandy asked after a bit more of trying to do wormholes properly but failing repeatedly.

"If that is what the Chosen desires, it can be arranged. However, we shall still do so with the intent of improving your understanding of this cosmic dust," the god said as he waved his hand.

Sandy found themselves surrounded by a cube-like barrier the very next moment, getting entirely trapped. A second later, a second layer appeared, then a third and a fourth popped into existence. Each of them sealed off space in different ways to stop Sandy from wriggling through.

This kind of training Sandy could understand. The flow of cosmic dust was disrupted by the sealed space, but it wasn't perfect. The god purposefully left the kind of vulnerabilities C-grades and early B-grades would also fail to fully address, allowing Sandy to find more loopholes to wiggle through. Sometimes, Sandy could also just eat their way through a barrier altogether, but that tended to be pretty hard and a waste of energy compared to just finding a weakness and exploiting that.

The training continued for a few more days as Sandy made good progress as usual. It was not surprising, considering Sandy was a super genius. After that, it was time to do stomach training again, where the cosmic worm worked on their internal world. Both with the intent of expanding it and designing it to be more useful, but also just to learn more about how it all worked. Sandy also had to check in on all the people Sandy had eaten recently. There were lots of bad people in there who had tried to say Sandy couldn't take food that clearly belonged to Sandy by virtue of existing. They would be let out again once they had learned their lesson. Definitely.

Speaking of stomachs...

"Starvation is a form of torture; did you know that?" Sandy asked as they had just finished another training session.

"I believe you have mentioned it a number of times, yes, with me always answering that as a C-grade, you cannot starve, not truly. Alas, your Path is related to consumption, so go ahead. We shall meet up again in a month's time," the god answered.

"Yay!" Sandy wriggled in excitement. The worm considered for a moment before deciding to head back to the Order branch located not that far away to get some food there before hunting down stashes of good stuff in the wild.

Deciding it was the fastest way, Sandy opened a wormhole back to the Order of the Malefic Viper branch as the worm just followed the tasty food. Wriggling through the dense cosmic dust within the wormhole, Sandy soon felt like food was close and dug their way out, appearing in the sky just outside of the branch.

However, before Sandy even had time to wriggle inside the large compound, their teacher popped up again, despite them just having agreed to meet up again in a month.

"What did you just do?" the god asked.

"I went to get food?" Sandy asked, confused. How could a god be that forgetful?

"Yes, through a wormhole. I planned on teleporting you with me, but you went by yourself and successfully appeared right outside of the branch... so how did you do it? How did you designate where you would appear outside of the condensed hyperspace of the wormhole?" the god asked. Sandy felt like the question was more there to make Sandy understand something than the god actually wanting to know. Which was a bit silly when the answer was so obvious.

"I just told you I went to where the food was," Sandy wriggled in disbelief.

"But how did you know where the food was?"

"Pfft, any good worm worth their tail can find food!"

"So, did you smell the food somehow while within hyperspace? Some other form of detection? I want you to try and recall exactly what you felt when you knew when to exit the wormhole."

Sandy tried to do just that and remember what they felt... with the answer being so obvious.

"I felt hungry."

"You always feel hungry."

"Exactly! Great talk, food time!"

With that, Sandy quickly escaped the clutches of the evil god that tried to stop them from eating tasty food. Sandy would definitely be putting in a complaint with the many-headed hydra for having a god teach them who didn't even have the common courtesy to offer snacks during work hours.