"Doctor Wade says Ruby's a Telepath, hardwired to be sensitive to negative emotions. Ruby says she has a "condition". I say my sister has a fucking curse." -Yang Xiao Long
SB, TvTropes, Ao3
After the events of Volume 8, team RWBY finds themselves not in Ever After, but in a still standing Kingdom of Atlas, some thirtreen years in the past. Before Summer Rose vanished, before one Cinder Fall was ever found by Salem.
The Endless Now has ended, but in a world before the contact experiment, Blades would tear it appart as quickly as it came into existence. So the Origin shunted all Blades into another world, one where the Master Driver was born.