CHAPTER 5 COSMIC OCEAN

Soul slowly approached the gate, the gate was opened a littler, pressure from the bloodlust became more and more intense as got close to the gate. The pressure he felt was more than what he could handle. He was unable to float any more, so, he started to walk. With every step he took, pressure increases, and he was thrown back a little. He did everything he could to reach the gate. On opening the gate, pressure from bloodlust made even soul lost his breath. He felt two kinds of bloodlust. One was from Yamraj, while the other was shockingly similar to Om's.

"What really is going on? Why is nothing going according to plan?"

Boom! Boom! Clank! Clank!

Soul heard noises of impact. He understood that the battle has already begun. He quickly picked pace towards the battle. On reaching the battle, he witnessed one-sided dominance. An old but muscular man, long black hair in a black suit was grabbed at his throat, on his knees. He witnessed death kneel before Om. Om was tightly holding that old man's neck with his right hand.

Terrified of the scene Yamraj shouted out loud, "Yamraj, who rules over death, he who drank the 'nectar of immortality- Amrita', he who is immortal. You can't be defeated, you are the second most powerful being in this universe right now."

Soul turned his gaze towards Om with fear in his eyes. "Om, what did you do to make this possible?"

Enraged, Om, "Look closely, he is paying for what he has done." With neutral face with anger in his red eyes Om expressed.

Upon a closer look, Soul found that Om took advantage of Yamraj's immortality and continuously using 'Rage of God' on Yamraj's body.

'Rage of God' a skill which can destroy anything was used to continuously destroy Yamraj's body while Yamraj's immortality continuously healing his body. From far it's not a big deal but between the cycle of continuous destruction and healing, the pain Yamraj's felt can't be expressed with words. Once Yamraj heals one part of the body, Om slowly destroys another part. From skin, muscle to bone and blood, an entire body part was slowly disintegrated and again regenerated. The quicker the regeneration was, the slower the disintegration become.

"Stop this now, Om!" shouted Soul.

Om replied with a light tone, "Why stop me? When you could have stopped him from doing this to the innocent civilians. They were kids, men, women, and elderly. Now he is paying for his deed."

With tears in his eyes, Soul kneeled on the ground at Om's feet and asked, "Just kill him already, you don't even know what he sacrificed for the those people. He knows the value of life more than us."

"Knows value of life! Hmm, stop kidding, and tell the truth." Angry Om shouted loud and intensified the skill which destroyed entire body of Yamraj except of his head.

Soul quickly grabbed the left leg of Om and begged, "Stop this right now. I will tell you everything, please stop."

Angry Om kicked the head, like it was a football. The head flown towards the ceiling and fell to the ground. Soul walked towards the fallen head of Yamraj. He took Yamraj's head, sat down and put it in his lap. The tears of Soul fell on the forehead of Yamraj. Yamraj's body again started to regenerate from his neck. In a few seconds, the entire body regenerated. As his body regenerated, the effects of 'rage of god' again started to destroy the body of Yamraj. Yamraj was crying, tears came from his eyes, still due to the effects of 'rage of God' tears turned into vapour.

Unable to move, Yamraj, in Soul's lap, cried with wet eyes, "This is what I deserved. He is right, let me feel all the pain. I'm the reason for their misery."

Soul staring at the disintegrating body of Yamraj, "Om, you want to know the truth. Why everything is the way it is? I will answer everything." Soul started to tell The beginning of everything.

Long ago, the king of heavens-Indra wandering outside of heaven on his Mount Airavata (king of elephants). During his tour, he came across sage Durvasa. Sage Durvasa, in respect to the king, offered a flower garland. Lord Indra accepted the garland and put that garland on Airavata's trunk. The elephant threw the garland on the ground.

On witnessing this, Sage Durvasa was angered as the garland was not an ordinary garland, but it was the abode of Sri (fortune and riches). Outraged with this act of pride, Sage Durvasa cursed Lord Indra and all the other Gods that they would lose all their powers and would be bereft of all their powers and fortunes.

(note:- Sri- a title of respect used before the name of a man, a god, or a sacred book.)

All gods lost their powers and it imbalanced the nature. Gods became weak, only had their physical strength, but it was not sufficient to efficiently run the universe. Demons took advantage of weaken state of god's and declared war on them. In the end, in leadership of demon king-Bali, demons emerged victorious. All gods were outcasted from the heavens. Out of misery, Vishnu-the preserver, a member of holy Trinity—Trimurti guided them.

(note:- The Trimurti are the trinity of supreme divinity in Hinduism, in which the cosmic functions of creation, preservation, and destruction are personified as a triad of deities.)

Vishnu asked them to get their powers and fortunes back, and for that, they need to do the churning of the "cosmic Ocean of milk".

(note:- some people believed that the Milky-Way galaxy is the cosmic ocean of milk in the story of 'Samudra Manthan')

Cosmic Ocean hold many treasures and fortunes, one of them which is useful to god's is "nectar of immortality- Amrita". But it's impossible for god's to churn the ocean due to its gigantic size. In lust for immortality, both gods and demons came to an agreement to churn the ocean together. It was decided that all the treasures would be distributed equally between both the gods and demons.

For some unknown reason, the holy Trinity-Trimurti and their consorts disappeared. Without the guidance from Trimurti, gods and demons were helpless and can't figure out how to churn the Ocean? Demon king Bali and king of God's Indra again came to an agreement and went to the son of the creator-Brahma, Vishwa karma-the god of architecture and creativity.

Vishwakarma took this chance as his responsibility in absence of his father creator-Brahma and agreed to help demon and gods. He created a giant device for churning the ocean. The device was similar to the modern-day churning machine, but enormous. But something of that much enormous size needs an enormous rope for demon and gods to hold. To remove this problem, 'Vasuki- the second king of serpents' came forward.

All the preparation were done. Holder of Vasuki's head were demons, while holder of tail were god's. Due to intense pain from churning, Vasuki released venomous toxicants which harmed the demon side, but Vasuki's control over toxicants helped lessen the damage.

Despite dispute between demon and gods, churning progressed smoothly. But something out of expectations happen. The first thing that came out of churning was 'Halahal- the cosmic poison' of no cure. The poison started to destroy everything in its path. Vasuki tried to contain it, but his efforts were in vain. His resistance from poisons only help him until all the gods and demons escaped. But Vasuki, in return for his effort, he too lost all his powers and lost somewhere in between cosmic Ocean. The Poison started to spread over the universe. Demon king Bali felt that demons were responsible for this disaster, while the god's side felt that they are responsible. Without their powers gods were helpless, demons choose to contain the poison and while gods with help of Vishwakarma created equipment that could help do their duties.

Vishwakarma was one of the figures to help both demon and gods to do their responsibilities. His equipments were helpful in containing poison as well as controlling laws of nature. Still, the part of Trimurti cannot be fulfilled. Without Trimurti, the balance of the universe took a massive blow.

"Trimurti? Who are they?" Om asked.

"The gods until now mentioned were not God, but beings who were given control over certain laws of nature. But, Trimurti were the reason behind all. They are omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. The Original God, the primordial, the reason behind everything is named with three different names according to his duties. Brahma-the creator, he creates the Universe, Vishnu-the preserver, he maintains the universe, and Shiva-the destroyer, he destroys the Universe. All three may sound different existences, but in reality they are a single consciousness."

Soul took a long deep breath similar to Om and again continued with his story.

"Through ages demon and gods tried their best did their duties but with time containment of poison become harder and harder until the time when containment finally broke. King Bali and few demons sacrificed themselves while protecting demon civilians. Thereafter, gods did their best, but poison was impossible to control and gods also lost."

Soul stopped for intense, his eyes were lifeless, tears fell to the ground. He tried to speak, but his mouth didn't listen. It was hard to breathe for him. The pictures inside his mind were like haunted nightmares.