Gaia didn’t forget about her original objective and immediately used her powers to open up a spatial portal right above the abandoned temple’s altar. It didn’t even take a minute to do as Gaia only had to charge a bit of her energy before swinging her arm down and ripping a portal open in the fabric of the dimension. Maria was calm since it wasn’t the first time she saw something like this happen. She knew the abilities of a deity were so tremendous that they could accomplish this unbelievable feat like it was nothing so it didn't surprise her since she's seen Death do it before.
Death only had to point with his fingers and a portal would open in an instant so this much wasn’t a surprise to Maria whose patron god was on a much higher level than Gaia. However, Gaia did impart a bit of her essence to her just like Death did so Maria felt a little obligated to complete the tasks she gave to her as best she could. She wasn’t an ungrateful person and would always pay back grace with even more grace than what was given to her.
“...Since you’ve helped me grow stronger, I’ll be sure to complete all of your quests to the best of my abilities so you don’t have to worry about the outcome of this war because you will win.”
“That’s reassuring to hear. Off you go now, but I do have a question, what makes you so confident that everything will end in my favor?” Gaia asked just before Maria passed through the portal into the Void Sea Realm.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Maria replied. “It’s because you have me as your temporary Envoy.”
Maria smirked at Gaia just before she passed through the portal. Gaia was left stunned in place as she smiled.
“Hmm, then go forth, my champion.”
"Yeah...but give me a minute..."
She didn't think that her quest would start right away like this, so she quickly sent Lilith a message and told her that they would have to reschedule their meet up because an emergency situation on her end suddenly cropped up. Thankfully, Lilith was understanding and told Maria not to mind it and quickly finish up whatever was on her end, so that they could have their meet up soon. Maria thanked her before turning to Gaia and nodding at her.
She quickly stepped through the portal and entered the realm that was beyond it.
*****
*DING*
You have entered and discovered the [Void Sea Realm]!
After passing through the portal, the first thing Maria saw was this system notification window that immediately popped up in front of her. She quickly dismissed the window before looking around and seeing that she was in some kind of dark, stellar space. Thanks to her innate [Night Vision], she was able to see that she was in some kind of inverted plane where she felt the world’s mana and laws twisting out of order all around her. When she became aware of this, Maria immediately began to feel very uncomfortable. The odd sensation was pricking at her mind and body, making her feel a little sick.
“Urgh...this is only supposed to be a game, so did they have to make it so real? This place feels so disgusting to be in…” Maria complained as she tried to shake off the uncomfortable feeling.
She felt like throwing up before feeling her neck go sore, but no matter how much she massaged or rolled it around, the feeling wouldn’t go away. Then her back started to feel the same, but just like with her neck, no matter what she did the uncomfortable feeling just wouldn't go away. Maria clicked her tongue in annoyance when she felt that she couldn’t do anything about it. However, she refused to believe that there was nothing she could do about this uncomfortable feeling so she tried everything until finally, she found a somewhat reliable solution. She cast a [Barrier] and [M. Barrier] on herself to see if they could help her repel the uncomfortable sensation and to some degree, it worked.
The feeling didn’t completely disappear, but it was alleviated to a more tolerable level unlike before. This allowed Maria let out a sigh of relief and start exploring the place. She needed to make sure that there were no hostile creatures around her. Maria would normally be able to sense if a hostile monster was around her, but the energy of the Void Sea Realm was inhibiting her senses. She needed to confirm with her own two eyes whether or not this area she was in was safe.
“Phew, I haven’t even been here for a long time but I’m already feeling annoyed and drained.”
Even flying was difficult. All Maria could do was levitate a meter or two above the ground. Speaking about the ground, it was actually filled with some kind of flowing water. It was indeed water, but at the same time it wasn’t the kind of water that Maria was familiar with. The water flowing on the ground wasn't H2O, but instead, it was the liquidated form of the energy inside of this inverted plane of existence that shaped and kept it stable. When she used [Inspect] on it, this was the description the system gave to her.
Void Sea Energy - the liquidated form of void energy that shapes the Void Realm and keeps it stable! It is completely harmless to creatures whose existence does not cross into the Divine Level, but it will give them some form of discomfort until they are acclimated with the energy. The closer they are to a divine existence, the more discomfort they will feel. Existences above the Divine Level will have their powers suppressed and energy slowly drained.
“...Is it because I'm an envoy for Death and a temporary envoy for Gaia that I'm feeling so much discomfort?”
This was the only explanation Maria could get for feeling so bad while just existing in this place. She doubted that other players would feel the level of discomfort she was feeling unless they were like her, a god's champion or envoy.
After making sure the area she was in was safe, Maria set up a landmark here to remind herself of this safe zone before deciding that it was time to explore deeper into this place. She left the assumed safe zone she was in and delve deeper into Void Sea Realm.
There really was nothing in this inverted space besides the dim shining light in the sky far above and the liquid energy below her feet. Although Maria did entertain the thought of absorbing it, she noticed that her body completely rejected the energy since it was the thing that was causing her so much discomfort.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Ugh, I better finish the quest quickly and subdue one of those Primals or whatever they’re called and get out of here.”
Maria didn’t want to spend another second here, so she quickly began roaming around the place aimlessly. Her minimap didn’t show anything except for the areas she had previously explored so she moved around completely blind. However, this was what she was normally doing in the first place, so she didn’t think there was anything different from before. Maria just roamed around the Void Sea Realm and eventually, she finally saw quite a few interesting and new things.
This inverted space wasn’t only filled with the Void Sea Energy. She was able to arrive at areas with actual landmasses and these landmasses were created by the Void Sea Energy solidifying into another form of energy called Void Core Energy. She was able to go to these places and even stand on them, but exploring those areas was off the question. With the concentration of void energy being much higher there than it was in the Void Sea, Maria found herself feeling sick to her stomach by just being there so she quickly left.
“Tch, I hope those Primals aren’t roaming around in those places…”
Maria continued to explore the area and finally finished mapping out the entire region she was in. To her dismay, however, she found that the Void Sea area she was in was like a large lake in the middle of a large landmass. That was right, she was surrounded on all sides by large land areas. Further beyond this ‘lake’ was the land created by the Void Sea Realm’s solidified energy, so the only way forward was to explore those regions.
“Ahh, come on!”
It was quite unfortunate, but if she wanted to make any progress with her quest, then she had to explore those land regions. She sighed and flew towards them. Once again the odd feeling returned and she felt like vomiting. The Void Energy in the area was permeating her body and shaking up her innards, making her feel sick. She tried flying up, but noticed that her body was so heavy that she could only fly 5 meters above the ground.
“Tsk, even the gravity is stronger...”
The energy concentration was still unbearable for her, so there was only one thing she could do. She had to raise her level of tolerance before she could continue with her quest. For the next few hours, Maria would go to the land area to try and temper her body's senses before quickly returning to the sea area once she felt herself reaching her limit. She kept on doing this over and over again when finally, a system notification window popped up in front of her.
*DING*
Your resistance and tolerance to Void Energy has increased! Conditions in the Void Realm have become more tolerable!
"Finally!"
Now, Maria was finally better equipped to explore the realm's land area. Although the uncomfortable feeling was still there, Maria at least wasn't feeling so sick anymore. She also found out that if she didn't make physical contact with the ground in the land area, things would become even more tolerable for her as the solidified Void Energy wouldn't be able to directly flow into her body. Thanks to her [Wrath’s Heart], she could just float around like she normally did. Coupled with her [Barrier] and [M.Barrier], the condition on the land areas became almost at the same level as the Sea area.
After a few hours of roaming around, Maria found nothing. It was all just a vast expanse of land as far as the eye could see. The only good thing that came out of this fruitless exploration was that her two barrier skills kept on rising in rank from her continuous use of them.
Your skills: [Barrier] and [M. Barrier] have increased in rank! Your skills: [Barrier] and [M. Barrier] have increased in rank! Your skills: [Barrier] and [M. Barrier] have increased in rank! Your skills: [Barrier] and [M. Barrier] have increased in rank! Your skills: [Barrier] and [M. Barrier] have increased in rank!
"Yay…”
The two weren’t skills that she normally used, so their ranks were low which was why they easily rose in rank. By the time Maria decided to take a break out of frustration, her two skills had both increased to rank B. She noticed that the increase in P. EXP was slowing down, but Maria hoped that the two skills would rise to Rank A or S by the time she got out of the Void Realm.
“They better be A or S rank once I get out of here…”
After a few hours of roaming around, it was odd that Maria hadn’t encountered any other living being inside of this realm yet. Gaia told her that she had sealed the numerous Gods and Demi-Gods of the Pantheon along with a vast majority of the Astrals of the Celestial Order. There should be a lot of people here if what Gaia said was true...or perhaps she had been looking at things in the wrong perspective.
Perhaps the population of Astrals, Gods, and Demi-Gods were so small to begin with that even if Gaia sealed a lot of them here, they wouldn't even be able to fill a tiny fraction of this place. This made more sense to her, but then what about the Primals that Gaia said were supposed to be living here? Since Primals were supposed to be the main occupants of this realm, then she should've at least been able to meet one of them by now!
Maria didn’t know how vast the Void Sea Realm was, but it was ridiculous that she hadn’t encountered anyone else here after roaming around for so long. When she checked her [Map] again, Maria saw that she had covered so much ground and was so far away from the sea area where she first arrived. When she zoomed out, Maria noticed that the area she had explored was only a tiny fraction of the entire place.
“What the heck...just how large is this realm? How long is it going to take for me to explore everything???”
Maria didn’t know, but the time inside of the Void Sea Realm moved a lot faster than in the normal plane. She had spent a few hours in here already, but back on the normal plane where the players were at, only half an hour had passed by. However, since Maria didn’t know about this, she began to grow a little bit anxious. If she took too long to complete this quest, who knows how long she’d be trapped in here. She was experiencing a moment of Deja vu as things were playing out similarly to when she first started playing the game and was trapped in some place for a very long time because of a quest. This wasn’t something she was quite fond of, so it was only natural that she began to grow anxious and impatient.
“Tsk.”
Maria stopped moving around leisurely as the empty void of this space was starting to get to her. She transformed into her Nightmare form and impatiently began to move around at supersonic speeds through the Void Sea Realm. Her Nightmare form even increased her tolerance level to Void Energy to the point where she no longer felt any discomfort at all. With her zero sense of direction, Maria just flew around randomly, trying to fill the areas that were blank on her map as quick as she could. This continued for an hour until her Nightmare form wore off and she stopped.
“Ahhh!!! Where the hell are you, you stupid Primals?!”
It had been 6 hours since she entered the Void Realm and 5 hours since she started exploring the land areas, but she hadn’t been able to find any signs of those Primals Gaia was talking about or any other signs of life for that matter. Even though Maria was experienced with doing a single quest for days, weeks, and months on end, she really wanted to give up. She didn't want to experience that kind of thing again and wanted to get out of this place right now.
“Ugh…”
Maria decided to log off and take a break. The Void Sea Realm’s energy was starting to get to her and she was losing her cool. If she happened to run into an enemy in that state, something bad was likely to happen to her. After logging off of the game, Maria looked straight at the clock and noticed something wrong with the time.
“Huh?”
Maria had a rather strong memory, so she remembered the exact time she started the game and the time she entered the Void Sea Realm.
“It’s only 10:41? But I'm sure that I spent almost 9 hours in total playing the game... right?” Maria asked herself.
“I started playing at 9, finished the quest in 1 hour then waited for Gaia to finish with her thing for almost half an hour, then I went through that ordeal in the temple...and then...hmmm. I entered the Void Sea Realm for 6 hours so...Huh? Huuuuuh???”
Maria was puzzled. She thought that it was noon already and it was about time she had to eat but that wasn't the case at all. She began thinking again and came to the conclusion that time ran differently inside of the Void Sea Realm than it did outside of it.
“Woah...that’s pretty cool! Doesn’t that mean I can use the Void Sea Realm to... Eheheheh~”
Maria had a sly smirk on her face as she quickly went down to the kitchen, grabbed a few snacks and drinks, ate for a bit, and rested. After that, she immediately dove back into the game again. Appearing back inside of the Void Sea Realm, Maria began enacting her 'genius' plan.
“I’m gonna use this place to train!”