Aman appeared upon a tall mountain in the dreamland.

His body was the same as it had been in the Spirit Dimension, a featureless white humanoid and then over the next few minutes, just like it had there, his body gained features and colour.

Finally, he found himself standing upon a mountain peak, an exact replica of himself.

He moved his body to test his limits. He was pleasantly surprised to find that his movements were smoother and more natural than even in the Spirit Dimension.

Nama’s voice resounded in his mind.

[Testing. Can you hear me?]

“Yes.” He replied.

[Good. It looks like the data merge was successful. Whatever you see is recorded in your memory and I can read it from there with a short lag. The same applies to you and you can hear my thoughts with a small delay.]

“How large is this delay? Will it be a problem to withdraw me in emergencies?”

[In the order of milliseconds. Shouldn't be a problem.]

Aman looked around at the snow-covered peaks and heard the sound of the wind blowing in the area. He was just in his casual wear. He should have been feeling quite cold but he felt nothing.

Looking closely at his body he noticed a thin transparent layer covering him in a glossy coat.

“What’s this?”

[That’s something I picked up from the AI. The dreamland can be very erratic and there are a lot of natural hazards and hostile environments. Like you could be thrown into magma immediately. Or under water. That layer is there to protect you. It puts a barrier around you with nano-photons and until it is breached your soul won’t receive damage. But after it is broken, you will be just as squishy as in real life.]

“So, is this cold wind being kept off by this barrier?”

[Yes. It basically puts your soul body in an environment similar to what your real body is in. But that also consumes the barrier. I have set up the barrier’s durability as a percentage and put it in a HUD as a health bar. It will show you how much time you have left in the dreamland as I will pull you as soon as the barrier breaks.]

Aman looked up at the top right corner of his vision as a green health bar suddenly appeared.

“Whoa. HUD? Health bars? And infinite resurrection? This is looking more and more like an RPG.”

[The Spirit Dimension is basically a stripped-down version of the machine used in the Indian Institute of Eugenics to send people into the dreamland. The core concept for it was to treat the dreamland as an open-world game and the explorers like the players of a VRMMORPG.]

[The various nations are the factions and the goal is to dominate as much of the territory as possible. The members of the Indian Institute of Eugenics are only the pioneers and from some of the residual data I found, they plan to open up dreamland exploration to the public. Then it will really be like a VRMMO with the quest rewards actually carrying over to real life.]

“But that seems a bit far away. Don’t you think? The Spirit Dimension is so rudimentary, just a white space, and it is so expensive. To make the ‘game’ accessible to everyone…”

He shook his head and threw these speculations to the back of his mind and looked all around him at his environment to get any sort of clue as to where he was and what he could do.

Everywhere he looked, there were mountains towering up to the sky, the peaks of some even getting lost in the cloud layer. The one he was on was still on the shorter side but that was still roughly 4000 metres as per Nama’s triangulation tool on the HUD.

At this altitude he should be having difficulty breathing and the temperatures would be very low. But he didn’t feel any of it. It was as if he was still in his cosy bed. Only the steadily dropping health bar showed the harshness of the environment.

Suddenly, the ground vibrated under him and he nearly lost his footing. Then even as he regained his balance, it happened again.

A huge bellow reverberated off the mountains, causing several snow-covered peaks to start an avalanche.

He whipped his head around to the source of the sound and his eyes widened.

The shortest mountain was moving.

As it came closer, he realised that it wasn’t a mountain at all but a gigantic bull. It was jet black in colour and its sharp horns curved upwards, the points glinting red in the dim light. All around it, there was a demonic miasma that obscured its form but sometimes, the bloody red glint of its eyes as well as the jets of steam it released with each breath would be visible through the miasma. Every step it took caused the ground to vibrate from its weight.

Aman’s mind locked up in fear as he watched the demonic bull approach. His first thought was to run away but each step of the bull caused him to lose his footing as the earth quaked.

“Nama! Take me back!” he screamed.

But before he even heard a reply, a huge soul pressure covered him. It was incomparable to the pressures of the two experts he had felt before.

If those were like boulders pressing on his soul, then this was more like a mountain.

He felt insignificant, like a speck of dust in front of it.

[bzzt… bad signal… bzzt… trying to abort… failed…. Retry…]

That sound seemed to crush Aman’s last mental defence line and he just curled up into a ball and began to mutter.

“Idontwnnadieidontwannadiedontwannadie”

Suddenly, the cloud layer split and a sacred golden brilliance dyed the mountain peaks golden. Auspicious sounds rang out along with the sound of conch shells. Flowers rained down from the sky and the calming fragrance of burning incense filled the air.

The golden light drove away the miasma wherever it visited and the fragrance reached Aman. He suddenly felt that the soul pressure had weakened severely and that he wasn’t as fearful anymore.

Tentatively uncurling himself, he squinted against the light to look up. there from the sky, several bright golden clouds were descending. He could fuzzily make out figures sitting on the clouds but they were obscured by the light.

Only the foremost cloud was visible from where he was and on top of it sat a man.

Or, rather a God. For that was all he could be. even sitting there, he radiated an aura of superiority and command. His eyes were closed and he sat in the lotus position with his hands in his lap as if meditating. His apparel was a regal tunic embroidered with gold threads and covered by a gilded breastplate with ornate designs. On his lower body, he wore a pleated dhoti in white silk, embroidered with gold.

The most eye-catching feature was his ornate crown that had a large circular disc of engraved gold at the back of his head that framed his face. The disc shone with a halo that cast a shadow upon his face even in the ambient light, obscuring it.

But, what truly set him apart from a mortal was his size. Though incomparable with the demonic bull, the man was at least a hundred metres in height. Otherwise, Aman wouldn't be able to see him from where he was on the cloud.

The bull turned its head towards the golden light and narrowed its eyes. Then it bellowed at them in provocation.

The God’s eyes opened slowly and in his shadowed face, they glowed brightly with contained lightning. Sparks of electricity leaked from the corners of his eyes as he locked gazes with the bull.

Then he leisurely raised a finger and pointed upwards.

The clouds around him swirled in a huge vortex suddenly turning dark and crackling with thunder and lightning.

He pointed at the bull and a thick pillar of lightning crashed down from the massed clouds towards it as if listening to his command.

The bull bellowed arrogantly and swung its head, its horns glowing red as blood. The thick bolt of lightning was simply knocked away by it with ease.

The shockwave from the clash washed over Aman who was doing his best to hide behind a rock and with a cracking noise, his barrier collapsed.

He felt as if his soul would dissipate the next moment. He fell into despair.

His first time in the dreamland and he had to fall into the battleground of gods and demons. He didn’t want to die. He had a lot of things left unfinished.

[Connection established. Withdrawing. In 3, 2, 1…]

With a flash of light, he was gone. The next instant, a bolt of lightning deflected by the bull crashed into that very spot as the battle intensified.