Chapter 1: Prologue - A True Singularity

Full-Dive VR Sandbox Open World Fantasy MMORPG (AIN SOPH) was naturally the most famous game in the world and the automatic answer anyone would give if asked what the number one game of the moment was.

Having emerged around the year 2569, it achieved the incredible feat of staying on top for 100 years, all because it was the first game in the world created using prototype military technology that used the players as testers.

Despite all the public criticism regarding users being used to test the prototype, the game was a massive success, an open-world MMORPG that could literally be described as "Infinite," which was, in fact, one of the reasons behind the choice of its name.

It had a map that expanded through a system of complex calculations that, in supercomputers, could calculate the position of celestial bodies in space with millimeter precision and a margin of error of only 0.00000000000000001%, and that was molded so a simple VR device could run on that same level of power.

Thanks to this super-computing machinery, not only was the map extremely interactive, though space limitations were added through its own calculations to prevent players from walking infinitely and getting irrecoverably lost or causing errors.

It also had over 100,000 active in-game NPCs that could provide quests, and the ability for players to create their own NPCs, as well as more than 5 million spells available for use, a dream for any player who enjoys a good adventure, all created using the same system that calculated the position of everything in space.

Preventing spells edited by players from causing errors, all this technology in a single game made the in-game world nearly real, with over 1,000 different races that players could use.

An immense array of spells, and a physics system without equal, even being a fantasy game it managed to break global records with more than half the world owning the game and using it for everything from adventures to simply living through various common professions.

It was like experiencing a new life, a new race, gender, lifestyle, literally a dream, and considering how polluted the world had become to the point where basic things were extremely expensive and even clean water became a luxury.

The truth is that the game was not just a game. The world decayed so much after humanity’s extreme consumption of resources that this game became a salvation both for individuals and for the general population, who spent far more time in the game, reducing real-world expenses.

Being able to escape reality through a device that was extremely cheap precisely for testing purposes became the escape for many people, from the rich to the poor.

Who no longer saw any hope in the normal world, dirty, gray, and where even breathing without smelling chemical pollution was a miracle.

Aside from obvious limitations against adult content, the game even allowed you to experience flavors, enabling truly unique gastronomic experiences and the possibility of earning real money through the game.

Could it get any better than this for everyone? Hardly, considering everything that came before it.

But of course, the biggest differential that made the game unique and impossible to replace for so long wasn’t just its technology, which 30 years after its launch became something various companies had. Much of the world, spells, and NPCs were made through this military system; almost everything used the same system to be made.

However, the developers of the equipment added their own masterstroke, creating secret NPCs, secret quests, secret races, among various secrets that would give absurd rewards and shaped three entire generations around this game.

To the point that even after 100 years, not even 20% of the game’s secrets had been discovered. Only the most addicted players, who turned their lives in the game into a profession as much as a source of income, spending almost 100% of their time in the game, ended up uncovering such secrets.

Many of these secrets, once discovered, affected the game globally, preventing other people from obtaining the benefits of those secrets, making them unique.

Of course, it wasn’t perfect. Even though the game had a maximum level cap of 100, the difficulty of leveling up just a single level made gameplay a true challenge of months to years to become minimally decent.

Unfortunately, the era of this great game ended. The cost to maintain it exceeded all limits while the data that was collected meant the game had fulfilled its role as a technological test.

As the information spread, many people began to simply sell everything they had in the game and leave. This accelerated the game’s decline even further, going from billions of active users to just a few thousand who decided to stay until the game’s end.

And of course, one of these users couldn’t be anyone other than [Níðhöggr Tiamat] herself, one of the most famous players in AIN SOPH. In the beginning, she was just another player.

But in a tournament held by the GMs, she managed to win and receive a request, albeit a limited one. And instead of asking for items, bonus levels, powers, or special bases as other users had requested in previous tournaments,

this user asked to become part of the game’s own Lore, being the first user to officially belong directly to the entire history of the game. Of course, even before that, she was already a powerful player, who had discovered some of the game’s secrets.

And her unusual request drew even more attention, even making her what was considered the first [World Boss] because of her Lore, even though the player’s strength was not increased.

As her request did not alter the game’s balance in any way, it ended up being accepted, although afterward any chance of making that request again was removed to avoid denaturing the world’s Lore.

In the end, it was just a few simple lines of Lore, which was considered little, but it was enough for the user herself, who also gained the title of [Singularity] as a bonus.

[The event horizon that precedes the singularity, an event as much chaotic around it, but perfect at its center, a title given to the divine beast that devoured Yggdrasil, but maintained the stability of the entire universe around it and at its center.]

In line with the Lore, [Níðhöggr Tiamat] was the divine beast that devoured Yggdrasil and took its place as the new center that sustained the entire universe of the game world.

What could be described as the dream of every player of that era ends up becoming the greatest nightmare of the person in question, nicknamed Nio by everyone since the pronunciation of her game Nick was difficult.

"...What...the hell...is this?" Nio looks at her hands. The game, when it was shut down, automatically expelled all players, turning off all devices and rendering them useless since the VR devices used were cheap and only had the game in question for use.

There was even a special animation for those who stayed until the end of the game, where they saw the game world being consumed by an anomalous "Singularity" that consumed everything.

"H-Hahaha...i-it can’t be, right?" Nio looks at the status screen in front of her, a screen far more limited than the game’s, but one that carries a warning that is quite symbolic, yet blatantly terrible.

[The Divine Beast Returns Home]

"No!!! How can I be inside the game!!" It didn’t take Nio long to realize she was not in reality. First, because the game’s physics, though excellent, didn’t allow various things like smelling scents with such precision since many players didn’t have a good sense of smell due to the world’s pollution.

The player rises from her throne, a white throne full of fluffy cushions, going completely against what her Lore stated, since the person in question, with a Lore that would place her almost as a being who nearly destroyed the universe, actually has an avatar with a very cute appearance.

Nio looks at her reflection on the black polished part of the system. What she sees is a beautiful girl with a pale skin tone. She is short, standing only 153 centimeters tall, with long platinum hair cascading down to her back.

"H-Hair!! Platinum hair!! Real!! It’s so...long..."

Having large black horns curved forward like those of a ram, her horns have a tone reminiscent of the universe, alternating between black, gold, blue, and purple like a galaxy with stars constantly shifting, but always maintaining the black tone.

"...Horns...well, I’d already received some jokes about possibly being a cuckold, but those were jokes. I’ve never even been in a relationship...having horns...is so strange..."

With large wings that have a white external skeletal structure, while the skin of the wings looks like a veil made of the universe itself, also alternating its colors just like the horns, while her tail is completely black with sparkles like stars running along its length.

"Tail and wings...I look like some kind of cute animal...why...why did this happen to me?! And with this avatar of all things..."

Having small breasts and a cute face with black eyes that also hold soft sparkles, this time in white tones like stars twinkling in a night sky.

"Small breasts...if I had known this, I would have made them bigger...no! I still had to maintain the Gap Moe...so they had to be small..."

Her ears are long and pointed while her teeth are sharp and her body is slender with few curves, looking more cute than seductive.

"I have such sharp teeth...it looks almost scary, and my ears are kind of soft..." She speaks while touching her pointed ears.

"W-Why am I in the body of this cute cosmic aberration?" Nio tries to click on the system, which she can barely interact with, because unlike the game, the current status has no buttons, there is no settings gear, and worse, there is no error reporting system, which was previously a giant option beside the status screen to inform any GM of an error to be resolved immediately.

"A-Ahh..." Nio looks on in despair, because years of gaming made her understand well the "symbolism" the system tends to use. After having to decipher thousands of investigation quests where a single phrase told an entire story, her ability to perceive this became monstrous.

The Divine Beast Returns Home. A phrase that could mean nothing, but knowing the game well, it means the living being described in the game world’s Lore returned to the place where it should be.

Which in short means that Níðhöggr Tiamat left from inside the game and was sent to somewhere she should be after the entire game universe was destroyed. And worse, if her Lore was sent, it means her mortal enemy, the place where she lived, and probably her customized NPCs were sent along with it.

’Th-This is bad!! This is bad!! If the Lore became real, then there’s nothing good about being a little cosmic aberration who has a natural enemy!!!’ She falls back into her throne, looking at the status screen that won’t let her modify anything.