Ascension: Online

"Damn it…" Furuwa cursed, gritting her teeth.

"So that's the Creator, huh?" I muttered.

"No… it's probably a replica of him, or some sort of prerecorded automated message," Hina-nee argued. "The beginning of the message did say 'artifical intelligence activated'."

"True…"

"Hey, the two of you, are you not worried about this at all?" Furuwa asked in a panic. "Frustration evident on her face."

"Calm down. Didn't you say you were cool-headed, superior to me?" I snorted. "Sure as hell not acting like it."

"…!" Furuwa, realizing her own mistake, looked down and reluctantly apologized. "… Sorry. I just… panicked there."

I cleared my throat. "Anyway… he said we needed to find the core of this reality rift, right? Most of the time, the 'core' of something is at the center. I suggest we head there first."

"The center… that should be straight up ahead, considering that's where the orb was marked on the map," Hina-nee said.

To verify, I attempted to pull up my System one more time, but nothing happened.

"Huh… well, I guess that's to be expected. Time and space - the two integral parts of reality - are both essentially frozen here," I muttered. "We only have one day, so… better get moving."

The two girls nodded in agreement, and the three of us began continuing down the path we had been on, now in a completely frozen, grayscale world.

*****

- Meanwhile, Outside -

(3rd Person POV)

Hundreds of thousands of people in their AR sets woke up all at once, looking around in confusion and bewilderment.

They had just been playing the popular ARMMORPG Ascension: Online, when the servers suddenly crashed and everyone was booted out. Some had been in the middle of an important fight, others had just been preparing to start enjoying hot springs and whatnot within Ascentia. Panic and confusion spread across the globe, gamers and news stations alike.

Within minutes, various blogs were posted online asking if anyone else was forcibly kicked out from the game. After all, the internet was the first place people went to nowadays when something unexplainable occurred.

These forums quickly filled up, receiving replies from all around the world. And yet, all of these comments said the same thing:

"I can't play either."

Ascentech, the developers of both the game and AR technology itself, was quickly bombarded with support phone calls, emails, social media tags, you name it. However, naturally, they did not respond to any of these.

After all, the company was a mere ghost shell for A.R.X.A, made to cover her existence up from the public. There weren't any real employees to manage situations like this.

On that day, all of the gaming community suffered a devastating ripple effect of panic. Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do except hope that Ascentech, the mere illusion of a company, would respond to them and provide some sort of answer to all this confusion.

The fate of Ascension: Online - and all of reality, unbeknownst to everyone else - now rested on the shoulders of three mere teenagers.

Will they be able to fulfill their mission, or fail and let all of reality pay the price?

*****

- Within the Reality Rift -

(Kaze's Perspective)

After a while of walking, we at last arrived at the center of the reality rift. Before us was a massive black orb, glowing pale green and letting out an ominous, dark yet powerful energy. It was the only moving thing within this reality rift, apart from the three of us.

"This feeling… it's pretty uncomfortable," Furuwa muttered as we stepped closer to the black sphere.

The closer we got to it, the stronger this feeling of oppression became. Still, this was nothing compared to the utterly overpowering force the Creator had used on us when we first stepped into the reality rift. We were still able to move, though slightly difficult.

"So, we're supposed to destroy this thing?" Hina-nee murmured.

I lifted my arm, then pointed it towards my target.

"Basic Pyromancy Art - Pyrosphere."

After a few moments, a ball of fire formed in my hands, then shot out towards the black, corrupted… bigger ball. So, guess my hidden arts weren't frozen in time, since they were technically part of me.

I expected the two to collide in an explosion, but for some reason, a few inches before my flaming projectile was about to hit the core, right as it entered the green glow area, it was suddenly pushed back by a mysterious force, sending it flying back towards us.

The three of us immediately jumped out of the way as the attack struck the ground, exploding. The dirt on the floor should've been kicked up from the attack, but due to space-time being frozen here, it remained in place. The effects would only occur after we destroyed the core.

"Looks like attacks aren't really effective on the core at the moment," Hina-nee sighed.

"Yeah… that green energy around it seems to be propelling attacks away," I said. "If we were any slower, we would've gotten hit by my own attack."

"So how do we disable it?" Furuwa asked. "Brute strength is out of the question."

"Hm… maybe there are some kind of clues around?" Hina-nee murmured, looking around.

Furuwa and I began searching as well, slowly spreading out. However, even after several minutes of searching, we were still unable to find anything.

"We've looked all around… there's nothing," Furuwa sat down together with Hina-nee and I, exhausted. "Maybe there's some sort of secret weapon we needed in order to destroy these…"

All around…

Then, an idea hit me.

"No. We haven't looked all around yet," I cut in, standing up.

"Huh?" the two looked at me in confusion.

"There's still two directions we have yet to look… from above, and from below," I smirked.

"Below? That's out of the question - we'll die if we get too close to that thing. The pressure will become unbearable," Furuwa said.

"Which leaves only one direction," Hina-nee smiled, realizing my intention. "Up."

"Only question is… how to get up there…" I muttered in thought.

The core was enormous. The diameter was approximately three times my height - jumping onto it was practically impossible.

However… I did have a variety of skills to help me out. Within a few minutes, we had come up with a plan.

I was the tallest of the three, so it was decided that I would be the one to do the actual jumping.

First, the preparation work.

'Replica: Shadow.'

I created a clone of myself, then had it face the other direction as me, so it would be jumping away from the core. Perfect. And now…

Taking a deep breath, I got as close to the core as I could, then prepared to jump.

In my mind, I activated a skill.

'Transhesive Steps.'

Not wasting any of my one minute timer, I immediately jumped upwards. The enhanced jump height provided by this ability allowed me to get about 75% of the way to the height of the core.

I then activated a dash that came with the art, which propelled me upwards even more and managed to bring me up to the same elevation as the core.

'Vanishing Clouds.'

This, also a dash - but a separate ability - brought me above the core's height. However, it was still not enough.

'Blink.'

I blinked forwards, putting me directly above the core. Right after, my dash from Transhesive Steps was back up, so I immediately used that to propel myself upwards once more.

I looked down and managed to catch a glimpse of four lines, intersecting at the core diagonally. However, I didn't have much time, as I continued to fall. Unfortunately, gravity was still flowing for me. Otherwise, this would've been so much easier.

Right before I hit the core, I used the final card I had up my sleeve.

'Replica: Switch.'

In an instant, I switched locations with my shadow clone, landing safely on the ground a short distance away from the core. As for my replica, it wasn't so lucky. The moment it came into contact with the green glow, it got completely disintegrated.

"So? What did you see?" Furuwa asked as I walked back towards the two of them.

"I saw these… four glowing green lines, meeting at the core," I explained. "If the direction we're facing right now is north, then the four lines are respectively northwest, northeast, southwest, and southeast."

"So… you think there's going to be something if we just follow these directions?" Hina-nee tilted her head.

I nodded. "It's the best bet we have."

"Alright. I'll take southwest," Furuwa said. "Let's regroup back here in… let's say two hours."

"You sure splitting up is the best idea?" I asked, just to be safe.

"We don't have much time. This may not even be the right method. We can't afford to waste time going around to each one as a group," Furuwa argued, and I sighed.

"Yeah, that's fair. I'll take northwest then."

"That leaves me with southeast," Hina-nee concluded. "As for the fourth and final one, we can discuss that after we all meet up back here."

The three of us nodded in agreement to one another, then each set off in our own respective directions within the reality rift.