A New World, an immersive game experience

Chapter 1045: Distortions in time

Curious despite his situation, Eldrian started looking around. However dire his situation was, that couldn't distract from the beauty of this place. A fragmented piece of reality. Distortions showing everything in existence.

Cracks in the fabric of reality. Giving him glimpses at all that is.

Here a fragment showed people conversing, there it showed them fighting, and then in another place, it showed a person going about their shopping.

Yet that was not all, people were the most common to appear in these distortions, but they weren't the only things to appear. A waterfall, a rabbit, a sprout, the moon, a star...

Wherever Eldrian looked, he saw something new. And he couldn't not "look". The entire space surrounding him was fragmented. Distortions surrounded him and even appeared when he tried to close his eyes. Perhaps because he wasn't here physically. As a simple consciousness, he couldn't not "see".

The passing of time continued. Unknown was its flow, but surely hours if not days had passed. Eldrian sometimes watched an entire person's life in mere moments. At other times, he spent hours observing the creation of a new spell.

He continued to observe, and as he did he came to realize what appeared before him tended to be of his interests. The more he wanted to see something, the more distortions would show that thing.

After a while, hours, days, perhaps weeks. Eldrian grew curious. Could he see something he willed? He tried to imagine seeing his soul.

Success. Or somewhat of a success. What he found was not what he thought he'd see. Instead, he saw his soul through the eyes of Core 1. Witnessed the birth of the artificial lifeform, its point of view into Eldrian's soul, and its death.

In Core 1's death, Eldrian saw a fragment of what this place was. It was, to put it simply, the collection of all time in the world.

It made no sense that there would be such a thing, but Eldrian was confident in this belief. And with that thought he tried to check on his friends and family.

Alas, he had no luck. Or rather, all that he could witness was what had happened before. Already in the past.

Eldrian watched the tragedy of his faked death from his parent's view, and it nearly broke him. Having failed to realize how great his disappearance had worn on them, he wished he could go visit them right away.

For fear of putting them in danger, he had kept his distance. Never realizing how much that must have hurt them.

"If I get out of here, I'm going home first thing." Eldrian declared. Though he felt the intention hollow. Certain that there was no escape from this 'place'.

More time passed, and Eldrian mastered altering the distortions to show what he wanted to see. He gathered a great deal of information. Confirmed the connection between ANW and Earth. Even witnessed the creation of ANW from GAIA's point of view while the two had still been human.

He came to know all the secrets Miracle held. All their cards. But he remained stuck within this place.

So much time passed, that his grasp on reality weakened. His resolve to visit his parents now felt like a wish made years ago.

Certain that he was already dead, that he had once again put his family through hell, Eldrian continued to "watch". That was all he could do. He had no way to end this. No way to even close his eyes to everything.

He saw many things he would never have wished to see. And he continued to watch, silently.

In time, his destroyed psyche healed. Certain that at least a decade had passed, Eldrian's curiosity finally gave him purpose.

"What is the beginning of time?" He wondered.

A recent 'distortion' has reminded him of a vision he had experienced when first using his bloodline. He wanted to witness what it had been about. If that was not his answer, then he wanted to see at least see the birth of the universe.

The Big Bang.

Confident that this would keep him occupied for the next few years, Eldrian started his journey back in time. Sadly, controlling the distortions was not easy. And Navigating back in time was incredibly difficult.

Large steps were impossible. Thus Eldrian was rewound by the significant events in history.

The creation of the internet. The creation of the first computer. The Cold War. World War 2. World War 1. The renaissance.

The black plague.

In time, he got better at controlling the time period the distortions showed. Became able to wind back further in a single step.

The roman Empire. The birth of Christianity...

That was when things started to change. Where magic started becoming something more common in his visions.

The further back he searched, the more common it became.

Until, finally, he saw the Olimpians. Saw Mount Olympos with gods going about their everyday lives.

Here, it seemed, even commoners could use magic. Not as powerful as that of the gods, but their lives were very much aided by magic. The world appeared almost modern with all the magical aids.

The streets were lit at night, they had flowing water much like a modern city, and even fast transport via tamed monsters or flying mounts.

The sight was baffling. So much so that Eldrian doubted this could be real. That this could be the Earth he knew.

Focusing his sights on the gods, he watched and learned. They had powers that normal people didn't. Powers connected to the world itself.

In other words, powers that used not mana, but lifeforce.

Eldrian continued to watch and saw several wars between divine factions. The world received great destruction by their hands. Entire cities disappear with a single clash.

This view was a familiar one. One Eldrian had seen happen far too often in ANW. However, here, the common people had no one helping them. The gods fought without a care for their lives. Killing millions each day.

"We need to stop!" One of the gods cried out. His desperation drew Eldrian's attention to this particular distortion of the thousands surrounding him.

"If we stop, they'll slaughter every one of us!" The other countered.

"The world won't last like this! We must—"

"Enough! If you feel so strongly about it, join the battle. I'm sure with your aid we can quickly end this."

The other god did not respond. He slumped, despair visible on his face. "If you won't stop, then I'll find my own way."

"As long as you don't turn on us, I don't care what you do."

The voices were vaguely familiar. But what truly convinced Eldrian was their conversation. He was certain that the one asking for the war to be stopped was Chronos. And the one he arguing with was probably Zeus. Or perhaps not, Eldrian wasn't sure. If he went with the myths, then Zeus would be Chronos' child.

But the one Chronos was arguing with appeared far older than Chronos himself.

Uncaring for who the other god was, Eldrian focussed on Chronos. Hoping to see his path in life. And what he did to save the world.

Eldrian was certain. Had things continued as he had seen. If the divine wars had continued, then the world have been destroyed long ago.

He watched several more distortions until he finally found another with Chronos in it. Alas, it was not the one he was looking for. Time passed an unknown amount. Counting by the number of wars he had witnessed, Eldrian felt ten decades or so had passed.

It seemed these gods did not age. The world around them changed, but they stayed eternally young.

Finally, Eldrian found a promising distortion. Chronos was standing before a familiar ball. It looked eerily similar to the core of ANW.

"This won't work." Chronos sighed, waving his hand and causing the complex hypersphere to disappear.

The quick glance Eldrian had seen of it, had made it clear that the spell had been exponentially more complex than what he had used to make Core 1. Heck, he was confident it was even more complex than the core of ANW.

"I need something that will stand the test of time. That will save the world forever..."

"....Perhaps that is impossible..." Chronos's voice was tinged with deep despair. He was at the end of his wits. "I no longer have the luxury of time. We are doomed to implode within the month..."

"Perhaps it is the rule of the universe."

"...All that is must come to an end."

"Our world was never meant to exist forever. Never meant to house billions..."

He sighed. "But I can't give up on us. This is too cruel a fate."

He clutched his hand, breathed into it, and opened it. And from it floated another complex spherical spell. Covered in runes, far too dense for Eldrian to even try and understand it. Its spinning and rotating in all three dimensions (even into itself) didn't make it any easier to analyze.

"Equal exchange. For life, we must offer something great. Something that will buy us time. Until, hopefully, we grow smarter as a collective."

Another sphere covered the first. And Chronos's hair turned white, his skin pale.

A third covered the second. And his hair fell to the ground. His skin covered in wrinkles.

Lastly, bands of glyphs wrapped around the third.

"I pray this holds until the end of time. But should it fail, let the inheriter of my will find it." Chronos said, breathing his last.

His body never fell to the ground. Instead, it turned to dust. Dust which then turned into nothing.

As Eldrian watched Chronos disappear, the bands covering the multi-layered sphere shot out of the room.

He tried to look, but couldn't change his view. In fact, all the other distortions had disappeared. The space he was in was no longer fragmented. It was whole.

And a sentence appeared before him.

To save the world, magic must cease to exist.

Keep the claws of death from the world.

I hope my life, along with all magic within the world, is a worthy price for the survival of the human race.