Feeding Frenzy

Feeling the water pressure through his nose broke Reginald from his thoughts. He was expecting to wake up and jerk his body a little but he didn't expect to go through the water.

He struggled for air, frantically swimming up while holding his breath when he realized he couldn't break through the surface. He was trapped inside the water, the surface was like a rubbery plastic that just stretched whenever he wanted to come up. Feeling light-headed he struggled for a good few minutes before he gave up and greedily sucked in the water inside his lungs. Yet, the feeling of drowning didn't occur to him as he felt like he breathed normally, no, in fact, he was like a scuba diver that greedily sucked the air inside the tank.

Relaxing a little, he stretched his hand and marveled at the sensation of the water surface that prohibited his rise. He was so fascinated by the phenomenon when a crashing sound reached his ears. Looking behind him, he saw the old man swimming to him like a certain god of the sea. Panicking a little he visualized a fishtail that turned him into a mermaid-no, merman, while swimming away, he realized that the gap between him and the old man was not increasing. He realized why, he doesn't know how to operate his tail. Searching through his memories, he recalled a certain documentary about how canned sardines were made fresh, thinking this, he transformed himself into a salmon and shot speedily into the depths of the water. 

"Hmph! It's no use" Hearing the old man utter these words, Reginald looked back, and to his horror, he witnessed how he transformed into a flood dragon heading in his direction. 

'Holy shit!' he cursed again when the situation dawned upon him, wriggling his body faster, he conjured a water current and rode inside it to increase his swimming speed. While he was diving down, he noticed several bubbles, ranging from fist-sized ones to humongous ones that reached a hundred times the size of basketballs. 

While focusing on one to know what they were, he felt a sudden situation of doom and hurriedly swerved to the side, dodging a gaping maw. The old man in the form of a dragon tried to constrict him with his body, which he escaped from by swimming through the gaps in his body.

Swimming downward for a few minutes, Reginald noticed the old man slowing down, at first he thought nothing of it, but then he realized the dragon's size had decreased. 

'Strange, doesn't he realize it?' he thought, he continued diving downwards when he encountered a bubble the size of a basketball. This particular bubble was floating upwards when he noticed that something was inside it. Looking closely, he saw a certain scene from his childhood inside the bubble, depicting him reading a book. 

Seeing his memories depicted, it finally dawned on him.

"!"

Although many psychologists refute the existence of the unconscious mind, the topic itself is still discussed. Being a psychologist himself, Reginald knew that he was in the hippocampus, his memories projected through bubbles by his subconscious. 

'So he's getting slower because he's deeper in my home ground huh?' thought as he smirked. He began leading the dragon-transformed old man deeper into the depths of his subconscious where he would begin his counterattack. 

"Give up boy! It doesn't matter where you go, I'll absorb your soul and existence along with that physique of yours. It's also time I get a new body and stretch these old bones." the old man roared as they got deeper into the dark depths of the ocean.

Reginald trembled in rage; he wasn't really an ill-tempered person, but these last few months had been a lot and this situation was the last straw. Stopping abruptly, turned around to look at the old man following him.

"Hey, why are you doing this? What physique are you talking about?" Reginald asked out of nowhere, surprising the old man.

"Well, as a last grace and as gratitude for your sacrifice, I'll answer your question" the old man replied.

"Each dimension has a physique that represents itself, the holder of the physique holds an unimaginable power and authority inside the dimension they represent. You are one such physique holder, representing the authority of the Dream Dimension. Although you have potential, you have not yet embarked on the path to power, and activating and harnessing Dimensional Physiques are hard to accomplish on their own. So I'll do you a favor and get it out of your hands." he continued.

Gritting his teeth, he recalled that time he prepared a swordfish for cooking and transformed himself into one. While using the authority inside his dream, he realized that he could only conjure and transform into things that he was familiar with. That explained the earlier situation where he wasn't able to mobilize the merman tail despite looking like one, he understood that he didn't know the mechanics of such an organism. 

Transforming into an aquatic samurai, he flashed forward and stabbed through the mid-section of the dragon.

Feeling a stabbing pain in his belly, the old man narrowed his dragon eyes. He just realized he was getting slower and wasn't able to react accordingly. 

"Surprised? I don't know what dimension bullshit you're on about, but this here is not a dimension. This is my subconscious." Reginald continued as he zoomed around the dragon stabbing here and there decreasing its size. 

"Impossible!" the old man could not believe what he was seeing, though he was not surprised about the situation. What he was alarmed about was the fact that he was able to enter the mind of another individual. 

Although possible through external means, techniques using the soul internally have been lost to time. The current soul-harvesting methods used by lesser gods to harvest soul power through belief are mediocre at best. 

A subconscious so to speak, delves into the inner workings of the mind and the soul sea. An area where current power systems know frighteningly little. 

His surprise was disturbed when he felt a stabbing pain in his chest and his transformation started undoing itself. 

"Can't feel your power now? This is my world bitch, you have no power here!" Reginald roared in excitement as he watched the dragon turn into an old man. 

Gritting his teeth, the old man had a grim look on his face which was replaced by a resolute expression. 

"No power you say? This is petty of me, but it seems I've been too lenient and my pride has been trampled on." he had a glint in his eyes as his lips curved into a smile. His body started to glow brighter by the second as the surrounding bubbles started popping. 

"Whatever, I'll just reincarnate and find the next physique holder, I've waited for millions of years, what's a million more?" he said as he opened his arms wide as if welcoming his failure. 

Feeling the soul-stirring pain of his memories and subconscious getting damaged, Reginald out of desperation fumbled for ideas on what to do. Hearing the old man's words, he relished in the futility of his situation. 

Staring into the depths of his crumbling subconscious, he thought about the deepest point of the ocean. He recalled a movie about scientists awakening an extinct species of oceanic predator and remembered his days as a Megalodon conspiracy theorist. As if on cue, his eyes widened at the realization.

He immediately transformed into a gigantic shark, which he was extremely familiar with. Swimming through the broken bubbles and oceanic debris, he appeared in front of the old man who had a terrified expression on his face. He opened his jaws wide and gobbled the old man in one go.