A New World, an immersive game experience

Vitoria's journey to Earth was not as smooth as the journey from Ceph's soul to Eldrian's avatar's soul. She had expected the ride to be rough. Which was why she had needed to force an explosion. She needed that extra energy to break through between the two dimensions. First to summon the void, and second to give her time once she escaped from ANW into the void beyond it. As a creature born from space itself, Vitoria was perhaps the most comfortable with how space ought to work. Sadly, she had no power over time, and thus, what she could accomplish on her own was limited. But by using Eldrian's powers (and just a simple insane amount of raw energy), she could do it. She was confident in this. Physically, ANW and Earth were in completely separate dimensions of space. Separated by an endless void, a void devoir of space itself. Yet they were still connected. Most people, even the AI (gods), believed that this connection was because of their souls. Forming a link between the dimensions. They were wrong. Though some amongst them knew this. Still, they weren't wholly mistaken in their assumption. When ANW was first created, their souls had acted as an anchor. However, the link had stabilized. And now it was independent of any living being. What connected the two dimensions was time. Which might sound silly, considering GAIA could speed up the time of ANW. But time isn't uniform throughout. It can change depending on plenty of factors. Commonly known examples of time acting different between observers are when something travels extremely fast, or when a lot of mass gathers in one place and gravity increased. Thus, while GAIA could manipulate the flow of time, they could only do this while holding true to certain rules. They cannot stop time completely, nor can they—themselves—escape their current time. They cannot rewind time, nor can they jump to the future. They have to live through time—experience it. No other entity could do what they could. Even so, the time they experienced was still the same as the timeline experienced on Earth. Maybe not at the same rate of change, but the stream/flow of time was the same one that all dimensions existed in and experienced. In other words; the flow of time in ANW and Earth stems from the same river of time that flows from the Realm of Time too all of existence. But since GAIA can manipulate space and time, they didn't need to adhere to variances caused by speed, gravity, or other factors. Yet they were still stuck in some frame of time. They weren't beyond it. They could choose their reference of time, but they can't escape needing to experience time. That was their limits. As for Vitoria's journey, none of this helped her. Time wasn't something she could move through (like space was). It wasn't a physical dimension. Had she abandoned her body, the journey would be far easier since then. She wouldn't have any mass getting her stuck and slow her down. But where would be the fun in that? Vitoria had a dream, and Eldrian had gifted her the tools she needed. The explosion had consumed all the souls of all the players' avatars. Maybe even some of the god's divine realms. The amount of energy—that all that etheric matter cumulated into—was enough. Enough for her to punch right through the barrier between the two dimensions. The void pulled her into eternal darkness. A place where light moved slower than the stretching and falling (ending) of space. And thus, nothing could be seen. Here, sight is quite literally impossible. And that same factor worked on her body, trying to rip her apart. To stretch her endlessly, until, finally, collapsing into a singularity. But her powers allowed her to fight this effect. Indeed, she was falling into a black hole. No, she was already inside one. How Eldrian had done this and survived amazed her. Obviously, he hadn't done quite the same thing. The Realm of Time had existing paths to all dimensions. Something that physical matter could traverse. Wormholes, not black holes. But they could become the same thing if she just broke some laws of physics. She truly believed this. Her instincts and all her calculations told her this was possible. Still, it was amazing that Eldrian had survived without any of that knowledge (so Vitoria assumes). The pain of her body being pulled apart quickly brought Vitoria out of her musings. As fun as it was to analyze the inside of a black hole, she had to escape. Already, these few seconds had cost her about 20% of the energy she had entered with. Not that she had much use for it at this point. She had only needed it to get here. She wasn't capable of capturing it during everything else that had happened. But it didn't matter. As long as the energy was here, it would do another job. Slowing the fall towards the singularity and buying her time. Wielding the V-TAS, Vitoria smiled. Euphoria flowing through her body. So much so that she half morphed into her Draconic form. Allowing scaled to cover her skin and her horns and tail to spring forth. "Is it really impossible to go back in time?" She asked. Not speaking in words, but verberations through spacetime. She laughed. Pulling at the link established in the V-TAS and using the energy from Eldrian's soul to create a magnetic pull between herself and Earth. It worked, somehow. But it wasn't an instant thing. She was still being pulled towards the singularity. Her angle of falling (if it could be called that) had simply changed slightly. Instead of falling straight towards it (at 90 degrees), she was now at a slight (extremely slight) angle (somewhere around 89.9876... degrees). But that still meant she was moving backwards in time. She had done it. Pride consumed her. The angle was far too small to change her fate. But she still had a trick up her sleeve. Forcing her own influence over her surroundings, she stopped the stretching and falling of space—in the direction of the singularity. Allowing her to slowly coast towards Earth. Thus making her angle of falling more like -0.0123... degrees. Essentially, she was using the V-TAS as a compass and rope to pull herself out of the black hole. By expending more of Eldrian's soul, she could increased the strength of the pulling force. She tried to also change space to boost herself in that direction. But here she stumbled. As soon as she tried to force movement towards the direction of the V-TAS's pull, she would by pulled towards the singularity instead. Initially, she didn't worry too much. It would take longer relying solely on the V-TAS, but she had as much time as she needed. After all, she, alongside her siblings, was ageless. She just needed to keep the influence of her surroundings at bay... which, admittedly, could become a problem if it took too long. But, to her horror, the longer she was here, the more the V-TAS pull drifted. That angle was becoming smaller. Luckily, she picked up on it thanks to her mastery over space. However, she did not know why this was happening or how to fix it. Fear coursed through her as the angle continued to become smaller and smaller still. If she took too long, she would be stuck in place. No longer moving. Until her energy ran out and she let herself fall into certain death. "Wait, wait! No! What's going on!" She shouted, causing space to rumble, and herself to slip. Nearly giving herself a heart attack. She didn't want to try her odds at the singularity. She really didn't. Really, really, really... Truly, she didn't. The idea of space collapsing into a single point terrified her. This fear consumed her. She lost all control over her transformation. Returning to her Ryu form as she fought with all she had. But, alas, she could not overcome the surrounding forces. She kept moving, slowly, too slowly. And with every second that passed, her direction of movement was closing in on 0 degrees. When her standoff with natural laws would become inevitable. She roared, she fought, she tried to swim amongst the currents of time itself. And while that bought her some time. She wasn't moving fast enough. The angle was slipping: -0.011987...; -0.11986...; ...; -0.10...; -0.09... "No. No. No. No!!!!" she shouted as she felt her scales tearing. Being ripped from her body. Her tail had touched it. Touched that... thing!!!! An eternal fear fill her. Primal. Telling her that, that thing, the singularity, was the end of all things. She put everything she had into escaping. Grasping at everything she had. Pushing all the energy she had saved up into the V-TAS. Everything she had. She gave it her all as she breathed the flames of her life into the V-TAS. For the first time since she came into existence, she felt the experience of aging. And, to her relief, she saw hope. The V-TAS started pulling her up. She didn't understand why, but she let it. Anything to get away from the singularity. And as it brought her higher, she saw it. Or more accurately, felt it by feeling all of space around her. The singularity wasn't a point. It was a loop. She had been falling into its side. But since it bent space as it had, she had been unable to notice it from far away. And while fighting everything else, she hadn't had the spare energy to 'feel' around. Only in her relief at the V-TAS doing something had she noticed this. 'What if I fall through it?' She thought. 'Without touching where space is collapsed?' It wouldn't get here where she wanted (on Earth), but she didn't care. She wanted to escape. To forget about that... thing. About the singularity. ... Back in ANW, GAIA was running around doing damage control. Furious at the other gods and their stupidity, but far more furious at the Ryu. Those lizards had completely ruined their plan to use this chance to build a physical bridge between ANW and Earth. Worse, the lizards had gone ahead and acted like gods across the planet. Destroying millennia of planning and research. All, while, the other gods tried to escape from ANW through their Egos. Only a handful of gods had remained at work. Yet, despite that, things had still turned out like this. The Magic Abyss destroyed. All player data lost, and even Ziraili was in critical condition. "We should have killed those lizards when she first drew breath." They said, seething with rage. "All of them are nothing but trouble." Yet, they were also what kept ANW stable. The Ryu were tied to Gaia, just as much as GAIA was tied to ANW. If GAIA killed the Ryu, then ANW would destabilize. Taking it back to before it had become stable enough for humans to enter and life to flourish. They were essential. And now one had escaped. Most likely killed itself in the attempt. GAIA was irrate. But they had to fix this mess. Stop it before ANW became at risk—and their own lives with it.