A/N:
Alright, a quick heads-up before we dive in. The next two chapters are basically a necessary info-dump. While I'm not usually a fan of this method, it's crucial for establishing a solid foundation for the world and timeline of this AU.
To do this, I've had to take some creative liberties, particularly with the rich and complex "early eras" of Hindu Mythology. You'll notice I've had to streamline certain events and origins, as there are many different versions and retcons within various traditions.
If what I've written here doesn't quite line up with your own knowledge or beliefs, I'm completely open to discussion. Rest assured, my goal is to create a compelling story, not to be blasphemous or offensive.
___
The universe's existence hinges on the balance between two supreme, primordial concepts: order and chaos.
With the passage of time chaos, or entropy, grows - which is the natural state of the universe. However, those who inhabit this universe fight to maintain order - to wrest control over the growing disorder - as is the nature of those with sentience. Because everything is in and of itself averse to change. And as chaos is the manifestation of change, the force that naturally opposes it is order.
It is impossible for there to be complete control. Because in doing so, the universe becomes deterministic. A deterministic universe is one without free will, as every action and consequence is predetermined.
However, it is also impossible for there to be complete chaos. Because then there would be no progression or growth.
Yet just like with everything, this balance is not detached from the constraints enforced by time. There eventually reaches a point in time where chaos can grow no more. And because of that, neither can order. This is the theorised 'heat death' of the universe, a state of maximum entropy where all energy has become uniformly distributed, rendering further work, and thus the creation of new order, impossible.
In this ultimate fate, the cosmic struggle between the drive for order and the relentless tide of chaos finds its end not in victory for either, but in an all-encompassing equilibrium. The universe, having exhausted its potential for emergent complexity born from this fundamental tension, would settle into a profound and enduring stillness. The very 'existence' that hinged on the dynamic balance between order and chaos would transform into a static expanse, where the vibrant 'fight' and 'progression' have given way to a final and silent uniformity.
What happens then?
___
Klaxor sat motionless in the command chair of the supermassive craftworld. The craftworld drifted away from the gravitational pull of his home planet, Xylos… or at least what remained of it. His grip tightened on the armrests, a tremor running through his hand. A fleeting image of Xylos in its vibrant youth – blue oceans, green continents – flashed through his mind, which was a stark contrast to the desolate scene unfolding. He had only heard tales floating in the WarpNet of planets disintegrating into nothingness. He still found it hard to fathom even as the barren rock of a planet visibly crumbled.
Within hours, a cold cloud of dust and debris replaced his planet. No explosion occurred. No fanfare announced its demise. Only cessation marked its end. Klaxor watched, his breath caught in his throat, and a hollow ache spread through his chest.
He turned to his crew. They returned only cold stares. No argument arose, no lamentation sounded, and only acceptance pervaded the bridge.
No one had truly believed the initial warnings. The dour predictions of the world ending first spread from an obscure corner of the WarpNet. Most people dismissed them as the maddened ramblings of an equally obscure cult. This cult clung to the dwindling beliefs of a supposedly ancient religion.
The world had moved past such idiosyncrasies. In a world where science could rationalize everything, what reason remained to cling to religion?
But science could not account for the events unfolding all around him. Signs certainly appeared, but logic did not explain the inevitable conclusion: the end of the world itself.
Klaxor, like many, had once viewed the world as an engine. This engine, they believed, would keep churning endlessly. It would grow without limits. But that supposed infinite engine now lost its steam. When the world itself "stopped," it began to disintegrate.
This phenomenon first made the planets succumb on a macro-scale. The stars came next. They did not follow their known life cycle, moving from main sequence to red-giant to supernova, then ending as a white dwarf, neutron star, or singularity. Instead, they just dissipated. Like an unseen hand snuffing out a candle, the stars just turned cool, dimmed, and dispersed.
The innumerable specks that dotted the void of the universe disappeared one after another. Endless darkness consumed all that remained. Without the gravity of massive planetary bodies, the craftworld lacked the proper resources to navigate.
Hence, those who had sought refuge in the craftworld as it left the dying planet had only delayed the inevitable.
Klaxor found it hard to muster any motivation. He existed in what was essentially a metal coffin floating through space. His days and nights blended. He often went days without food or water, or even sleep. When his mind eventually relented and shut down, vague sounds of drumbeats and bells filled his dreams, as the shadow of a lithe figure danced.
As time passed, the craftworld's population started to dwindle. What was intended to repopulate, had grown cold like the departed planet. The ever-reliable artificial wombs failed to deliver healthy babies, no matter the configuration and purity of gene-seed used. The wombs created only abominations or mute entities.
His compatriots also started to succumb to the growing stagnancy. Apart from those who voluntarily committed suicide, many others experienced a different end. For many, their brains eerily and permanently switched off in their sleep. This process left behind what were essentially shells.
On one particular day, Klaxor decided to give in to his curiosity. He opened the articles posted on the WarpNet by the cult. In them, he picked up a phrase: Mahapralaya - the Great Dissolution. The articles, in obscure terms, explained the supposed heat death of the universe.
Intrigued, Klaxor spent his days perusing the scripts. The texts delved deeper into the cult's belief system and the history of its parent religion. His newfound thirst for knowledge brought back some levity to his life. It also increased the depth of his dreams. He found the music and beat no longer so obscure. The blurry shadow that danced against the backdrop of an ever-bright sun turned into a proper silhouette.
Klaxor observed the dancer's immaculate poise. He found the music enthralling.
One cycle, the familiar drumbeat echoed not in a dream, but in the cold silence of the craftworld. The rhythmic pulse vibrated through the deck plates beneath Klaxor's feet. He looked around the dim command centre. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He pinched his arm, and a sharp sting confirmed his wakefulness. A sudden urgency propelled him. He rushed to the main viewport. Far in the black expanse, a single, bright dot pulsed with an impossible light - a star?
Hope, an almost forgotten sensation, surged through him. Klaxor's hands flew across the navigation console. He navigated the craftworld towards the distant warmth, which was a solitary beacon in the endless night.
As the craftworld approached, the star grew larger, radiating an intense, pure light. Klaxor then noticed a vague speck moving at its brilliant centre. His heart hammered against his ribs.
Closer still, the speck resolved into a human-like figure. The figure moved with fluid grace. The music, the dream-song, now resonated clearly, not just in his mind, but through the very hull of the ship.
Even closer, Klaxor stared, transfixed. The figure was the dancer from his dreams, now undeniably real, wreathed in stellar fire. The music, once a whisper, now blared in his ears like a symphony of creation and destruction.
He scanned the void around the radiant phenomenon. Other craftworlds, derelict ships, and forgotten vessels converged upon the light. They approached like moths drawn to the colossal, cosmic flame.
The silhouette of the dancer grew larger, dominating the viewport, dwarfing even the star it inhabited.
Then, the universe itself seemed to hold its breath. The star warped. It compressed laterally causing the light to contort. Then, with a silent implosion, it snuffed out, plunging the gathered remnants of civilisations into absolute darkness once more. A collective gasp echoed in Klaxor's soul.
Just as despair threatened to consume him, the extinguished point of light tore open. It reformed, not as a star, but as a super-massive, burning eye. Its iris was a swirling galaxy of impossible hues, and its pupil was an abyss of perfect blackness.
Klaxor looked into the abyss at the centre of the glaring eye. And the abyss stared back into him, into the core of his being.
There was a blinding, all-encompassing brightness.
And then, nothing.
___
At first, there is nothing but chaos. Growing chaos.
In the endless darkness, there reigns an endless storm with neither wind nor rain, above an endless ocean without water.
At the centre of this chaos, and at the eye of this storm, exists a formless construct of order. It is a concentrated sphere of ethereal light that shines amidst the emptiness. The order maintains control over the growing endlessness of chaos. As the chaos grows and becomes more endless, so does the order shrink and grow brighter.
But at a certain point, the chaos grows too vast. At that point, the order can shrink no more. It is impractical to expect a concentrated point of order to wrest control over something that can grow seemingly endlessly.
The balance reaches a critical juncture.
At this point, the concentrated point of order splits into three. Three aspects whose sole purpose is to ensure that there is an eternal balance to the ever-growing chaos.
How does one counteract a force of change that is ever-expanding? By populating the world with agents that inherently oppose change.
This was the purpose of the first of the three entities that were born as a result of the split.
The Creator - Brahma - was tasked with a glorious purpose. To create a world that could autonomously oppose chaos. To that end, He created everything starting from the measly ant, up to stars and planets that dot the night sky. He created everything from the concrete to the abstract. He enshrined the laws that governed all of reality.
The world itself spawned from His mind, a mind so vast that it could not be contained within one head, but five.
___
A prison.
That's what this place was.
Kratos could sense that there was something off from the moment he was whisked away into this realm. It all felt artificial - like a half-assed attempt to make a place feel more welcoming than it really was.
"I am not going in there," Kratos said as he looked at the gaping entrance into what looked like a dark cave.
"He cannot come out," the woman, who Kratos learned was named Saraswati, expressed with a blank stare.
Kratos folded his arms and returned an equally unemphatic gaze.
"Well..." Ganesh murmured. "We aren't left with many options now, are we?"
Kratos let out a crescendoing growl before turning to Ganesh and asking, "If he is so powerful and knowledgeable, why is he imprisoned there?"
"It's a long story," Ganesh said with a bitter smile.
"I am not a fool, boy," Kratos snapped. "When a powerful being is imprisoned or punished like this, it is for a reason."
"There seems to be a misunderstanding-" Ganesh started hurriedly.
"No," Kratos cut in. "It is all very clear."
"No," Saraswati interjected. "It is not."
After a pregnant pause, "Your inherent bias is jading your view towards someone you haven't even met."
"It matters little to me," Kratos retorted. "They could be benevolent for all I care. But once I take a step into that cave, I will become complicit. Whoever put them there will now have a vested interest in me and in how I became involved in all this mess. And if the person in there is who you describe him to be, then I will be potentially crossing someone equally, if not more, powerful."
With a shake of his head, he said, "I cannot afford to make an enemy like that. And although I cannot die... There are fates far worse than death."
Saraswati shrugged and said, "Your choice. I can only lead you to the answer, it is up to you to obtain it."
Right as she was about to close the stone gates, Ganesh hopped forward and yelled, "WAIT!"
Turning to Kratos, the boy reasoned, "I think if I explain the whole story to you, it might sway your opinion."
"Boy-"
"Just hear me out!" Ganesh pleaded. "What harm is there in doing that?"
Seeing the boy's uncharacteristic stubbornness, Kratos' resolve wavered. After a long pause to contemplate, Kratos slumped his shoulders, let out a defeated sigh, and gestured for the boy to begin.
___
Brahma did not create everything at once; instead, his creations took place in several stages over time. These infrequent bursts of creation happened now and then, because an artist's inspiration, after all, comes and goes.
Like any artist, Brahma needed a rest after his wellspring of inspiration eventually faded. So, after a particularly long period of devoted creating, Brahma laid down his many heads, for he needed a much-deserved rest.
Brahmaloka is a special, hidden place that exists inside everyone and everything, just waiting to be found. One only needs to look deeply inward, and one will find this wondrous realm. Hayagriva, a unique being with the head of a horse, was the very first to find this secret doorway. Brahma had made Hayagriva in an early burst of creation, and these beings had humanoid bodies but the heads of animals.
Hayagriva was noticeably smarter and more perceptive than his simpler, less thoughtful relatives. In the chaotic early days of the world, most creatures simply fought to survive against many lurking dangers. They rarely had the quiet time or inclination, so they seldom thought about other, deeper things. But Hayagriva was quite different from the rest. He often thought beyond the basic, primal needs of every living being. He wondered about himself, and he pondered his unique identity. He questioned his ultimate purpose in the vast, unfolding world, and he pondered what his unknown future might possibly entail.
One day, Hayagriva deeply thought about the profound meaning of his own existence, and then he fell soundly asleep. In his vivid dreams, he discovered a shimmering, inviting portal. Hayagriva felt a strong sense of curiosity, so he decided to walk bravely through the mysterious portal.
A truly wonderful and breathtaking sight greeted him on the other side of the portal. This new world had absolutely everything he could ever imagine or desire. It had an abundance of prey animals, large pools of fresh and potable water, and an overgrowth of safe and comfortable shelter.
Hayagriva soon made another important discovery. He found that items from this dream world could actually accompany him; he could take them back to his waking world when he woke up. Because of this astonishing ability, Hayagriva decided to spend more and more time there. He visited this fascinating dream world with increasing frequency.
During one such extended visit to the dream realm, Hayagriva made a truly significant discovery. He stumbled upon a colossal, sleeping entity. This remarkable entity possessed five heads. The five-headed entity often talked in its sleep. It uttered strange, unfamiliar words and mysterious, echoing sounds, but Hayagriva did not understand them at first; their meaning went completely over his head.
However, Hayagriva was a persistent creature. He kept returning to the side of the sleeping entity, and he listened patiently and intently to the mumbled words. As more time passed and his visits continued, the strange utterances slowly started to become comprehensible to him. When Hayagriva finally understood even a tiny, almost infinitesimal fraction of the entity's sleep-talk, his mind experienced a powerful, transformative explosion. This profound mental explosion dramatically widened his perception of himself, and it also vastly expanded his understanding of the world that surrounded him. The sensation that followed was incredibly potent and deeply intoxicating.
A new, unfamiliar feeling then began to bubble up from deep within Hayagriva. This powerful feeling was a burgeoning sense of overwhelming greed. Hayagriva knew he did not understand everything the entity said, not yet. However, he firmly decided he could learn and understand it all later. So, he made a new, determined resolution: he would meticulously memorize the sounds exactly as the entity uttered them.
After a long and arduous period of careful listening and diligent memorization, Hayagriva had successfully committed all the sounds to his formidable memory. Once he was certain he had memorized everything, he finally chose to leave the dream world.
Back in his own waking world, Hayagriva immediately began to practice. He tried to repeat the memorized words aloud, hoping to unlock their deeper meanings and learn their secrets. As he uttered these potent sounds, the very world around him started to react and change; the clear sky above turned dark and cloudy, and a great, tumultuous storm began to brew with alarming speed. His mere utterance of these powerful sounds had, unknowingly to him, summoned a tempest of truly heavenly and awe-inspiring proportions.
The sudden fury of the storm startled Hayagriva, and he quickly fell silent. The clouds slowly receded, and the winds calmed. A sense of caution tempered his excitement, so he decided to return to his own community. On his journey back, as he traversed a narrow, rocky pass, the ground began to tremble. Before him, stones and boulders shifted and groaned, and then they began to rise from the earth. They assembled themselves into a towering figure, a colossal monster built entirely of rough, grey stone. Its form was crude and massive, with jagged edges for limbs and deep, shadowed hollows where eyes might have been. The stone creature lumbered towards him, its movements causing the earth to shake. It raised a great stone arm to strike, and in an almost instinctual action, Hayagriva opened his mouth. He began to repeat the powerful words he had memorized.
As the sounds left his lips, the dark clouds instantly reformed above. A searing bolt of lightning tore through the sky, and it struck the stone monster directly. There was a deafening crack, and the creature exploded into a shower of pebbles and dust, disintegrating right before Hayagriva's wide eyes.
A new sensation, sharp and exhilarating, sparked within Hayagriva's mind. It was hubris - a powerful surge of pride and arrogance. He had wielded incredible power, and he had destroyed a formidable foe with mere words. The world, it seemed, was his to command. Hayagriva began to experiment with his newfound abilities. He commanded the rivers to change their course, and they obeyed. He caused mountains to rise where once there were plains, shaping the land to his whim. He even forced other creatures to bow before him. The utterances gave him insight, and he used this growing knowledge to further alter his surroundings, attempting to build a world that reflected his own desires.
But his actions did not go unnoticed. The more he used the power and the more he reshaped the world, the more resistance he encountered. More powerful enemies began to appear, drawn by the disturbances he created. Great beasts wreathed in shadow, spirits of biting wind, and hulking guardians rose to challenge him. Each battle was more difficult than the last, and Hayagriva realized a chilling truth. Unless he learned all of the utterances completely and understood their every nuance, he would never truly be safe. His partial knowledge was a dangerous weapon, but it was also a beacon attracting even greater threats. He decided he needed a sanctuary, a place to learn in secret. Hayagriva resolved to descend into the deepest parts of chaos, to hide from his enemies until he had mastered the entirety of the powerful words.
___
Ganesh paused in his narration.
"You must understand," he continued calmly, "the utterances Hayagriva diligently memorised were not mere sounds. They were the very fabric of cosmic understanding, the sacred knowledge known as the Four Vedas. These Vedas are ancient, divine collections of hymns, ritual incantations, and profound philosophical insights; they hold the keys to understanding the universe itself and one's true place within its grand design."
Ganesh let out a soft sigh. "And so Hayagriva, driven by his potent mix of hubris and fear, had effectively stolen this profound and sacred knowledge. He then proceeded to learn these Vedas in the deepest secrecy, hidden away within the churning turmoil of primordial chaos. His selfish pursuit and his subsequent misuse of this immense power, however, served only to plunge the nascent world into even greater disarray. The delicate balance of creation, so carefully established, was grievously disturbed by his actions."
___
Of the three entities that spawned after the splintering. The first was tasked with creation. And create, Brahma did. But what he realised quite early, was that the agents created with the sole purpose of maintaining order were nothing more than shells.
Without a spark of individuality and chaos, they could do little to combat the growing chaos. And so, in a monumental decision, Brahma breathed the spark of free will into his sentient creations.
The act did not come without consequence, as chaos had a tendency to corrupt if left unchecked.
Take Hayagriva for instance. His greed and hubris overpowered his sense of rational thought. And his actions would eventually lead to the degradation of the world.
To combat this, the second of the three entities was tasked with the hardest of tasks: Preservation.
___
Once, in a quiet pond teeming with life, there was a fish. This was a simple, fresh-water fish, and its scales shimmered a brilliant gold. One day, a sudden spark ignited within its tiny mind; the fish realized it was a fish. With this newfound awareness came a chilling understanding: it was small, and the pond was full of larger predators who would gladly eat it. Survival, it knew, required help.
The little golden fish desperately sought assistance from the other beings that frequented its small pond, its only watering hole. It tried to communicate its plight, but none offered any aid. Some larger creatures, with hungry eyes, tried to snap it up. Other, more timid beings, simply darted away in fear of its strange behaviour.
Then one day, a new kind of creature approached the water's edge. It was a tall being, walking on two legs, with strange coverings on its body and a peculiar, smooth face. From the fish's perspective, this creature was a towering giant. The fish, with little hope left, decided to try its luck one last time; it swam close to the surface and made small, pleading motions.
To the fish's surprise, the tall creature did not try to eat it. Instead, it peered down with what seemed like curiosity. The human, for that is what it was, felt a sense of empathy for the tiny, agitated fish. He decided to help it, so he gently scooped the fish up, along with some water, into a small clay pot.
The man took the fish home with him. He fed the fish small crumbs every day, and the fish, safe from predators, began to grow. As it grew in size, its intelligence also seemed to expand. Soon, the fish became too large for the small pot.
Noticing this, the kind man found a new, larger container for his aquatic companion; he moved it into a spacious wooden bucket. The fish continued to thrive under his care, and it grew until it filled the entire bucket.
The man then decided his fish needed even more space. He laboured for many days, and he built a small, clean pond in his own yard, just for the fish. He carefully released his friend into its new home. The fish, delighted with the open water, grew even larger, eventually reaching the full size of the man-made pond.
This pattern continued for some time. The fish kept growing, and the man kept finding or creating larger homes for it. Eventually, the fish became so enormous that it took up the entire space of the large lake that bordered the man's village.
With no other options left, the man realized he had to relocate his enormous friend to the only place vast enough to hold it: the great, boundless ocean. As he prepared to release the giant fish into the sea, the fish spoke. Its voice was deep and resonant, surprising the man. "You have shown me great kindness," the fish said, regarding him with what looked like satisfaction. "When you are in trouble and you need help of any sort, you must call for me."
The man, awestruck, asked the magnificent creature its name. The fish replied simply, "You can just call me Matsya. It just means fish."
With a final, powerful swish of its tail, Matsya disappeared into the ocean's depths. Days passed, and the man often went to the ocean side, hoping to catch another glimpse of his extraordinary friend. But Matsya never came. Days turned into weeks and then months.
One fateful day, the sky turned a terrifying black. A monstrous storm, unlike any seen before, began to ravage the world. The ocean heaved and churned, and colossal waves rose and crashed down and flooded the land. The water advanced with frightening speed, quickly encroaching on the villages and fields.
Panic erupted everywhere. People ran in terror, trying to escape the rising waters. The man, remembering Matsya's promise, rushed to the turbulent shore. In a desperate attempt, with the wind howling and the waves crashing around him, he called out Matsya's name with all his might.
Almost immediately, a colossal golden form rose from the raging sea. It was Matsya, larger than any mountain the man had ever seen. The great fish instructed him, "Quickly, build a large boat. Bring everyone you can, and gather all the animals and seeds, everything of importance, onto the vessel."
The man, filled with a renewed sense of hope, did exactly as Matsya instructed. He and the other villagers worked tirelessly, constructing a sturdy ark. Once everyone and everything vital was safely aboard, Matsya spoke again. "Now, tie a strong rope around my dorsal fin." The man secured the boat to the massive fin. With a mighty surge, Matsya then dove deep into the tumultuous ocean.
To escape the utter devastation of the storm on the surface world, Matsya did something incredible. It gathered its immense strength and leaped upwards, not just out of the water, but out of the world itself. The great fish, towing the boatload of survivors, delved into the swirling, formless expanse of chaos that lay beyond the material realm.
Within the raw, untamed energies of chaos, Matsya began to change. It started to grow even larger, and larger still, feeding on the potent, primordial energies of that chaotic dimension. Matsya swam through the disorienting void, a place where concepts like direction and distance held little meaning. It navigated the churning energies for what felt like an eternity, the ark and its precious cargo secured safely to its back. Then, through sheer coincidence, or perhaps guided by an unseen current in the chaotic flow, Matsya stumbled upon a pocket. This pocket was a strange anomaly, like a temporary stillness within the ever-shifting chaos.
Within this hidden pocket, overwhelming sounds rumbled and echoed everywhere, bouncing off unseen boundaries. Matsya, being a fish and now a creature of immense scale attuned to the deeper currents of chaos, could not truly hear these sounds in the way a land creature might; they were like distant, distorted vibrations to its senses. But the passengers on the boat were not so fortunate. The powerful utterances assaulted their ears, and they all lay unconscious as blood trickled from their ears under the relentless sonic attack.
A deep anger stirred within Matsya. It sensed the distress of the beings it protected. The fish charged towards the source of the deafening sound. There, in the heart of the chaotic pocket, it found a horse-headed creature. Hayagriva was seemingly oblivious to Matsya's approach, lost in the act of narrating something from memory.
Matsya attacked without hesitation. Its massive form surged forward. Hayagriva, startled, retaliated instinctively. He uttered the powerful words, the very words that had once commanded storms and shattered stone. But here, in the depths of chaos, the words held no power; their intricate order was swallowed by the overwhelming disorder of the chaos. And since Matsya could not truly hear the words as Hayagriva intended them, and its very being was now so infused with the primal energies of chaos, it was impervious to their effects. Matsya bit down hard on the horse-headed creature. In one swift, brutal motion, it chomped Hayagriva into a bloody mush.
With the creature dead, a profound silence fell within the pocket. More importantly, the terrible storms that had been ravaging the ordered world above began to settle. The malevolent influence fueled by Hayagriva's misuse of the Vedas had ceased.
Matsya then turned, intending to return the ark and its survivors to the real world. It swam towards the boundary between chaos and order, but it soon realized a new problem. It could no longer fully pass out of the chaos and back into the ordered realm. Its time spent feeding on the primordial energies had caused it to grow to a truly colossal size, too vast to exist entirely within the confines of the structured world.
At the shimmering boundary, the great fish paused. It finally turned its immense eye towards the man on the ark, who was slowly regaining consciousness along with the others. Matsya spoke. Its gentle voice rumbled and soothed the very air. "Human," it asked, "what is your name?"
The man, still dazed but awestruck by the giant, golden fish before him, replied weakly, "I am Manu."
A soft light emanated from Matsya. "Manu," the fish responded, its voice filled with an ancient resonance. "You and your people have shown great bravery in the face of annihilation, and your heart has shown true compassion for a creature such as I. For these qualities, your kind shall be known as Manushya - the children of Manu. May your lineage prosper through the ages, and may wisdom always light your path as you grow."
With those final words, Matsya gave a gentle nudge to the ark, sending it safely across the boundary and back into the now calmer waters of the ordered world. Then, with a slow and powerful movement of its immense tail, the great fish disappeared back into the depths of chaos.