A New World, an immersive game experience

'So, that won't work.' He concluded after some more thinking (albeit limited in capacity due to everything he was dealing with now).

Letting the storm start was as good as letting it run its course. He had no way of controlling how it would develop. Like a chemical reaction, it would do what it needed to do to finish its reaction. To Eldrian's knowledge, no type of matter was inert to the reaction, and he did not know how to separate the mana forms.

With this option unavailable (and yet the most common option the AI employed), his next bet was dealing with the source of the reaction. Already, he was dealing with the elemental mana filling the world. This step was rather simple, but more or less just a bandaid for the problem.

The true source was the unstable mana which had been collecting since the birth of the Earth. Alas, it was a foreign concept to Eldrian. He knew of it, but not much about it.

It was unstable but also inert. The instability caused it to react violently, and the inertness caused it to build to a critical mass.

Alas, since it was inert, there was no way for Eldrian to interact with it. Thus no way to learn more about it. Yet, even if he knew how the gods did it, he couldn't apply this here. Not with a critical mass already present.

He was stuck.

He continued to drain as much mana from the world as he could. But, even with his new techniques and spells, his range was limited. The world was massive. Trying to cleanse the entire planet in a few hours or days was futile.

It would take months. He didn't have that long. He couldn't leave his condition as it was. He was still losing parts of himself, even with a constant source of energy being dispersed into the void of time. Like a river chipping away at a rock, fragments of him were being pulled into the void along with everything else.

He had to close the connection between the void and himself. But that meant losing a way to reach the Realm of Time. Eldrian didn't know if he could ever manage that again. Nevertheless, he didn't have much of a choice.

Thus while the more immediate problem was Earth's destruction, he couldn't keep focusing on it. This process could buy him another year or two, perhaps even more. But if he didn't pivot soon enough, he would be consumed. And then, who knows what would follow.

To top this off, this entire process was excruciatingly painful. Anything that does damage to the soul always is. And, sadly, pain makes thinking things through a far more difficult task.

Eldrian had managed a lot but he was at his limit. The best he could do from here on was persevere. Alas, he couldn't even realize that this was his limit. He still thought he could do more.

He was trying to thread the line, unaware that he was falling into the chasm.

...

Watching from the side, his friends tried to help him. Painfully, they had realized the danger of approaching Eldrian. Having realized their spells weren't having an effect, they tried to approach him.

Jerking back, Erik yelped in pain as he clenched his hand. His fingers, having only briefly touched Eldrian's skin, were withered. Gray and black, covered in cracks, they almost appeared like ash—trying to remain in form, but one gust away from scattering into the air.

The pain was so intense his entire body stiffened. His soul screamed in agony. The best he could manage was to keep himself from collapsing. Even as he felt his life leaving him. Being drawn from his body, rather forcibly.

Ilmadia quickly used the rest of her mana to cast healing spells. Naturally, everyone had stopped approaching Eldrian. They understood that acting quickly, not even rashly, could be deadly. Until they understood the situation, they had to be extremely careful.

Watching with concern, they saw Erik's fingers slowly healing from Ilmadia's magic. Alas, the damage seemed too extensive. Even after using all their mana, the best they had managed was to lessen the cracks. His fingers were still grayish-black. Worse, as soon as the spells stopped, the atrophy started spreading.

"What the hell is happening!" Judith shouted, running around in panic in search of their medical items or a phone. She completely forgot she had her cell on her. Not that it would do good. The initial surge of mana had destroyed things in their warehouse of a guild house.

"Calm down!" Elizabeth shouted in turn. Running after Judith to try and get her out of her hysteria.

...

Erik's mistake was the reprieve that Eldrian had required. Someone to share the burden with him. To lessen the pain he was experiencing.

As soon as Erik had touched his shoulder, a connection had formed between them. Eldrian failed to recall where he knew this connection from. Yet, despite his lack of knowledge, he was intimately aware of it.

His and Erik's souls had become intertwined. There was now a path linking the two of them. From which the void was now getting some of the energy it required. Slowly, it was now consuming Erik's soul along with Eldrian's.

'This... is Erik's memories.' Images and fragments of a life other than his flickered in Eldrian's mind. A process he was all too aware of, and the kick of reality he had needed. With not just his life on the line, but that of his friends as well, Eldrian realized how dangerous the situation was.

Worse yet, Erik was likely to also start losing his memories. If that were to pass, Eldrian would never be able to forgive himself. Even though he hardly recalled anything about Erik, he could feel how close they were. And now, at least, he had a name to place to this friend.

'I have to prioritize our lives.' Eldrian resolved. He had already bought them some time. He could find other ways to solve Earth's mana problem. He needed to figure out how to close the void of time. Now.

Throwing mana and lifeforce at it had stabilized it, but it hadn't been able to shrink the void. Quite honestly, that was the extent of Eldrian's ideas. This phenomenon was so far past him that he couldn't begin to fathom its true scale. Recalling the core of time, the incredibly complex spell that manipulated all things. Eldrian started to despair.

...

While Eldrian and his friends were struggling to adapt to their situation, the gods (or more aptly, the AI) were running around in a craze.

As soon as Eldrian had returned, he had ripped a hole between Earth and ANW. For the first since ANW's creation, there was a direct connection between the two dimensions. Not one formed through souls, but a much more physical one.

Alas, to the despair of the gods, this was not the safe passageway they wanted. No, it was an absolute abyss. Pulling everything nearby into it. Multiple gods had lost the parts of themselves they sent to investigate the connection.

These parts, fully conscious on their own, were forcefully ripped apart. Destroyed into absolute nothingness. The backlash of which sent all these gods reeling in pain. Some even fainted, for the first time in their new lives.

Naturally, even this didn't stop them. Their desire to return to the Earth was too great. They rushed to study this void. To find a safe way to traverse the space between dimensions. All but one.

One of the gods did not bother with the new void. No, she knew the source, and she was trying her best to keep this source from dying.

Indeed, Ziraili was in Eldrian's soul. Or rather, the soul space linked to his avatar. The initial burst of energy had come from this part of Eldrian's soul. As strange as this was, everyone who played ANW had two souls. One inflated with XP and the other represented their true essence.

The former would slowly mutate the latter. That was why Eldrian had changed so much on Earth. It was also why his friends were slowly getting better and better at using magic. The larger the soul, the easier it became to use mana.

Luckily for Eldrian, his soul was more directly linked to his true essence than other players. And thus it was less inflated and more true. Other players were rewarded a bundle of XP upon clearing quests. A task that massively inflates their levels. Eldrian, though, had lost that privilege ages ago.

And while his ANW soul space was still much larger than his true essence, he had adapted to this. Forming a world inside his soul to match his true soul capacity. Which was slowly growing to match the size of inflation from XP.

Upon his return to Earth, all the excess XP had been consumed. This had been what had saved his life. Alas, his level hadn't been all that high. Having used plenty of XP in his experiments on creating artificial 'minds' (or cores) of himself right before arriving in the Realm of Time. He hadn't had the excess needed to avoid some truly harsh backlash.

Thus his current state. And, even now, his soul was shirking (in both worlds).

Ziraili was doing her best to figure out the cause. But by focusing on supplying Eldrian with extra energy, she had been too preoccupied to investigate the void that had caught the attention of all the gods. Leaving her in the dark.

That was until she felt another player suddenly losing massive amounts of XP. As she was the one responsible for administrating the souls of all players, she always had to focus on them. When she suddenly felt a soul collapse to a tenth of its previous size, she knew that it had to be connected.

Alas, simply knowing that everything was connected didn't give her a solution. She immediately started to supply the second soul with extra energy. To stop the drain and the danger to their lives.

Still, the fact that another could partake in the situation gave her an idea. A dangerous one. One she would normally never attempt.

But this was to save the life of her friend. A friend she held close to her heart.