Darkness shrouded the whole area; small dots of stars were visible in the open space above earth. But the darkness paled a little in comparison to the huge pull travelling in that space. The bull was a menacing force of nature, its whole black body shrouded in the black energy darker than the space itself. Thick veins bulging from its muscle filled with purple energy flowing from them. Huge pristine white horns protruding out of its head.
The bull was Mahisha, mount of the god of death. Yamraj mounted leisurely on Mahisha with his eyes closed. Rudra's soul hanging beside Yamraj. In the darkness of the space no one noticed the golden bead with the banyan tree pattern rotating in Rudra's soul sending white energy to Rudra's soul.
*Snap*
'What is happening? Where am I?'
Rudra's eyes snapped open. For a few seconds, he could do nothing but stare, his translucent body was restrained by the Pasha, bound tightly as he lay against Mahisha's enormous back. Above him sat Yamraj, unmoving, his black robes fluttering gently despite the absence of any wind.
But Rudra barely noticed him. His gaze had already wandered beyond the massive bull, there was no ground, no sky, no mountain, no horizon, only space. An endless expanse of darkness stretched in every direction, yet it was not the empty darkness he had imagined when he once looked at the stars from Earth.
It was alive.
Countless points of light glittered across the void then Rudra realized they weren't stars, they were galaxies. Thousands upon thousands of them revolved through the darkness, each following an unseen path around something far greater than anything his mortal mind could comprehend.
And at the center of it all stood a colossal spiral. It was impossible to tell where the spiral began.
It seemed to rise from the depths of existence itself, constructed entirely from a translucent, flowing energy that resembled neither light nor matter. It was almost like a river suspended in space, twisting upward through the cosmos in an endless spiral.
The countless galaxies revolved around it. And within every galaxy—
Rudra's eyes widened as there were worlds , planets, stars, entire systems, entire civilizations. He could see countless Earths scattered across the galaxies, each revolving around its own radiant sun, its own moon, its own oceans, its own continents, its own atmosphere and perhaps even its own people.
For the first time since awakening as a soul, Rudra felt genuinely insignificant, the universe he had once believed to be impossibly vast suddenly seemed like a single room inside something far larger, but there was something even stranger, the suns themselves seemed to be feeding the spiral.
Thin streams of translucent energy continuously rose from every star, disappearing into the colossal structure, the spiral was not merely surrounding the galaxies, it was drawing something from them.
No—
It was drawing something from the suns themselves. Rudra stared in fascination as entire rivers of luminous energy flowed upward, vanishing into the higher reaches of the spiral, and the further upward his gaze travelled, the less familiar the scene became, the galaxies began to disappear into the distance.
The stars grew thinner, the darkness became deeper.
Yet above that darkness, faint structures could be seen floating beyond the limits of ordinary perception.
Structures that did not seem to obey the laws of space, golden bridges stretching between nothingness, massive floating realms hidden behind clouds of radiant mist, mountains suspended upside down, rivers of light flowing through the void without any source.
And, far above everything else, silhouettes of enormous celestial structures whose true forms were impossible to discern.
Rudra's breathing became meaningless.
His soul trembled.
'If my thinking is correct…'
His eyes slowly followed the ascending spiral.
'I may actually be dead.'
A strange excitement replaced the fear.
'Those galaxies below…'
His gaze returned to the countless worlds revolving beneath him.
'They must be Bhu-Lok.'
The realm of living beings, the mortal world, earth was not alone, it was merely one world among countless others. Rudra looked upward again.
'And this spiral…'
His eyes followed the translucent structure disappearing into the distance, this must be the path connecting the Lokas, his expression gradually changed, he remembered the ancient texts, the stories he had studied, the verses he had once dismissed as symbolic descriptions written by people who did not understand the universe.
'Bhu-Lok.
Bhuvar-Lok.
Svarga.'
The boundary between the mortal and divine realms, the worlds beyond human perception.
For his entire life, Rudra had searched through ruins, manuscripts, temples and forgotten civilizations for evidence that the myths of his ancestors contained fragments of truth. He had always believed there had to be something hidden beneath the stories.
Something real, something forgotten.
Now he was staring directly at it.
A faint smile appeared on his translucent face, despite being bound by the Pasha, despite being dead, despite sitting upon the mount of the God of Death himself—
Rudra was excited, not afraid, not even particularly concerned about his own fate and his eyes shone with the curiosity of the archaeologist he had always been.
"The Vedas were right..."
For the first time in his life, Rudra realized something terrifying.
'Humanity had not invented mythology.
They had merely remembered fragments of something far, far larger.'
And he was now travelling through it. After travelling for some time, Mahisha stops in front of the boundary of Bhu lok and Bhuvar Lok. With a stomp of its front right foot cracks start to form in front of Mahisha. It entered the cracked plane when Rudra felt a burning sensation all over his soul. The temperature suddenly starts rising.
"Hmm, looks like we have entered a different plane altogether."
Below the bull Rudra saw a totally different scene from the outer rest. It was a plain area with the boundaries made up of hot molten lava. There stood a huge castle half black and half white with a huge urn mounted at the very top of it.
*Waah* *Waah* *Waah*
Cries of pain and misery sounded from every part of the castle. When Mahisha suddenly flew down from the cracks to the entrance of the castle. Yamraj dismounts from Mahisha and drags Rudra's soul tied to the Pasha inside.
Inside the castle was a huge corridor made up of red and golden patterns. Images of souls being tortured, souls being blessed and finally souls being reincarnated were drawn on the side walls lit with torches.
Yamraj sits on the huge golden throne with his chin resting on his right fist and says to Rudra. "It seems you have managed to regain your consciousness on your own."
Rudra lying on the ground tied in the Pasha opens his eyes with a look of variness in them and looks at Yamraj.
"Is this Yamlok? The domain of judgement." Rudra asks Yamraj while sitting on the ground now.
"Yes, now it's my turn to ask. What were you doing in the Himalayas?" Yamraj asks Rudra in a curious voice as he wanted to know what had happened to Rudra for his soul giving such resistance on being taken.
"I am an archeologist, I was exploring the Himalayas searching for ancient ruins, but died under a sudden avalanche." Rudra decided to keep the information about the wheel and the ancient temple to himself as he had guessed that the existence of the mysterious wheel should not be revealed to others.
"So how is your soul strengthened enough to resist my powers to an extent? What happened in your life?" This was not a mere question from Yamraj but a command for Rudra to come clean as Yamraj knew, this was not a simple method.
"I believe you know more about my life than I do. After all you are the god of death. Everything a man does is predestined or so I had heard." Rudra retorts to Yamraj in order to not give out any other information to him.
"So be it." Yamraj says in anger and takes out an old ordinary looking book from the space itself. The book having amethyst color glowing comes into existence as if it was already there in the first place.
"This is the Agrasandhani, the cosmic record. It contains the record of every soul ever born, even some of the gods are here. Now we shall see what you have done in your whole life. Your karma is recorded here. Your virtue and your sins are all recorded in this. This will decide your judgement."
Yamraj sends his black energy to the book. The Agrasandhani starts flipping its pages at a terrifying speed and a purple light starts coming out of it. Flipping for a few seconds it stops with a bright purple light blinding everyone and comes to a stop on a certain page flipped open.
Yamraj stared at the page. For the first time since Rudra had entered Yamlok, the God of Death was silent.
His fingers slowly tightened around the armrest of his throne.
Then he looked at Rudra, there was no anger in his eyes.
Only disbelief.
"...What are you?"
A mace materialized in his hand.
"This should not exist."
To be continued…