Mythos Of Narcissus: Reborn As An NPC In A Horror VRMMO-Chapter 313: Lupina VS The Theogrunt

The second bout was set to begin.

Lupina stepped forward, her wings flexing, her tail-booster idly flaring in anticipation. She carried herself with the confidence of someone who had already decided the outcome of the fight long before it had begun.

Which meant, of course, she had barely thought about it.

Charis, standing beside me, observed with sharp, analytical eyes. "This should be more advantageous for her," she noted. "She has enough reference now after watching the first round. That alone should give her a better chance."

"I must admit, she will most likely perform better than me," Verina said with no ill intent whatsoever. "Of course, it all depends on how well she can digest those references to better her tactics."

Lupina, overhearing the remark, furrowed her brow slightly. Then, with an awkward laugh, she scratched the back of her head. "Uh… sure, yeah. But I was gonna win regardless, you know?"

A slow silence.

Charis, Verina, and I all turned to look at her at the exact same time.

The unspoken realization settled between the two of them.

She had learned nothing.

"She wasn't paying attention, it seemed."

"Looks like someone wasn't paying any attention."

"She wasn't paying attention, unfortunately."

"Do you think that she will get juked by the same move that I got caught with?" Verina obnoxiously chuckled.

"It might be an interesting sight to see how she would react to the starting moveset of the Theogrunt," Charis smiled with both eyebrows raised.

"You two are too harsh on her. She would at least survive for ten seconds, you know?"

Lupina groaned in frustration, her tail flicking slightly in mild offense. "Oh, come on! I was watching, okay? I just—" She waved her hand vaguely. "I just don't need to overthink things. I work better when I just go with it."

"Ah, yes," I mused, my voice laced with amusement. "A flawless strategy, used by every mindless Calamity Object when facing a cozy square territory filled with walls and tiny folks living inside them."

Verina, for once, let out an obvious and expressive chuckle—a rare shift from her usual emotionless composure. "It seems like thinking is still you weakness, even with your new fancy vessel that we worked really hard to acquire."

"Actually, her new Theotech Vesseled improved her brain processing power by 200%. It's just that her initial value was so small that it barely matters." Charis mischievously added.

Lupina huffed, rolling her shoulders before reaffirming herself. "You'll see. I'll do better. Maybe not win, but definitely last longer than Verina did!

The casual air lingered only for a moment longer before settling into something sharper.

The Theogrunt stepped forward.

Silent. Unwavering. Waiting.

Unlike before, there was no adjustment period, no brief moment of calculation. It had already decided what its weapon would be long before the battle even started.

As its Prismforge shifted, it transformed into a massive spiraling helix lance, its length extending beyond standard proportions, reinforced with a full guard akin to that of an armored shield.

A defensive spear—built to pierce through but also block against unrelenting force.

Verina, still standing beside me, narrowed her eyes slightly. "It seems like they already determine their form of weapon before the battle starts." A simple observation. But her voice carried curiosity that was begging to be answered. She turned her head slightly toward me. "Is that a form of adaptation from the Gestalt Core? Or is it something influenced by the neuromorphic network primarily?"

I snickered, catching the deeper meaning of her question. "The latter."

Verina nodded. She had already figured it out. "Fighting the Theogrunt is obviously going to be harder than it seems."

"Do you know why?" I asked, watching as her eyes flickered with quiet amusement.

She answered immediately. "Because the Theogrunt is the Landship's neuromorphic network." Her words were calm, matter-of-fact. "Fighting it means fighting the collective wisdom of the bastion outside of the confidantes."

I grinned. "So you did come to that conclusion."

She gave a small, knowing glance. "It was obvious."

But Lupina—Lupina had not come to that conclusion.

And Verina, realizing that at the same moment I did, let out a rare, low chuckle.

A slight shift of amusement played at her lips—an expression that would've been imperceptible to most, but to those who knew her well, more so than their own self, it was as blatant as open laughter.

I let out a sigh, shaking my head slightly. "Not that it matters. You know how it is with Lupina."

"Of course," Verina murmured.

Charis, standing in the center of the field, raised her hand once more.

"Are both participants ready?" she called out.

Lupina cracked her knuckles. "Absolutely."

The Theogrunt nodded.

Charis' hand dropped.

"Begin."

Less than a second later.

A collision midair.

The air itself seemed to crack open as two opposing forces met in perfect violence.

Before the collision, Lupina's wings tore through the stillness, each beat displacing the air like miniature sonic booms, her tail-booster igniting in a sudden concussive burst that sent her rocketing forward at an almost untraceable speed. Her form blurred—a jagged silhouette streaking through the sky, a comet of raw, unrestrained energy hurtling straight toward her opponent.

But the Theogrunt did not hesitate. It did not second-guess, did not hesitate to react—because it did not need to.

The instant Lupina launched, the Theogrunt had already moved.

There was no buildup, no gradual acceleration. Her body simply shifted from stillness to motion, blinking from one velocity to another without transition, as if the concept of movement itself was something it could ignore. Something that befits the theme of a Theotech-natured entity.

Her helix lance—a spiraling, reinforced construct of Prismforge, dense and seamless, made for both absolute defense and decisive thrusts—was already angled forward, aimed not just at Lupina's charge, but at the trajectory of where she would be.

And then.

Impact.

Lance tip met rock-textured wing in a collision that rippled through reality itself.

For an instant, a single, inhumanly perfect moment, everything around them froze—the sheer magnitude of the force exchanged halting the very air around them, creating a vacuum-like distortion in the surrounding space.

An intense shockwave emerged after that.

A blast of sheer force tore outward from the point of contact, sending visible tremors rippling through the earth below, kicking up dust and scattering loose debris like fragments of shattered glass. But the aftermath of impact only affected Lupina's side—because the Theogrunt did not absorb kinetic force.

It displaced it.

Every ounce of power meant to push back against the Theogrunt was instead sent elsewhere, funneled into an adjacent dimension, nullifying what should have been a mutual recoil.

Lupina, however, knew better than to fight against the force.

She let it take her.

The instant the impact rolled through her body, she twisted with the momentum, her instincts melding with the inertia, her entire frame flowing like a slingshot released at full tension.

Instead of being repelled outright, she used the very force of her own attack as a means to escape, twisting into a sharp redirect, surfing the residual shockwave as if it were a tangible surface.

Her body slipped through the air like a streak of lightning, rebounding from the tremor itself, riding the expelled energy into a rapid escape maneuver—flipping backward through open space, her tail-booster flaring in staggered bursts to adjust her trajectory.

But the Theogrunt did not stop.

It pursued.

Its somashift ability stripped away any friction that might have resisted its speed, allowing it to accelerate unhindered—not just fast, but unnaturally precise, effortlessly closing the gap Lupina had created.

Lupina saw it coming.

And acted.

Her tail-booster fired at maximum output, a controlled detonation of pure force, propelling her body into a sudden, vicious U-turn midair.

The instant change in direction was unnatural, an impossibly sharp curve that ignored the usual limitations of aerodynamics.

The Theogrunt reacted instantly, shifting to match.

But it had already reached maximum momentum.

Even for a being that ignored physics as a mere suggestion, the sheer speed at which it had been moving could not be negated instantly.

It overshot.

A fraction of a second too late, its body still in the process of redirecting, its momentum too high to decelerate completely—

And Lupina saw it.

A weakness.

An opening so microscopic, so barely perceptible, that a single hesitation would've missed it entirely.

But Lupina was not the kind to hesitate.

She struck with her wildish abandon, making a mere beast look like a tamed pet in comparison.

Her rock-textured wings flexed, her muscles coiled, and with a feral grin, she kicked forward with a force that sent the air screaming in protest.

She closed the distance in an instant, her tail-booster sending her into a devastating spiral of momentum, twisting into the Theogrunt's now slightly misaligned defensive posture.

"Gotcha!"

Lupina's right wing arced through the air like a cleaving blade, a raw, unstoppable force, aimed directly at the Theogrunt's core.

The moment of impact should have shattered something.

But.

The Theogrunt did not react as expected.

Instead

Its lance twisted mid-motion, its full shield-like handguard folding inward just as the wing struck, creating an instantaneous deflection mechanism.

A sudden gravitational shift rippled through its form, and in that single instance, the Theogrunt became weightless.

Lupina's strike landed—but instead of crushing through, instead of staggering the target, the Theogrunt's entire body flowed with the impact, spinning outward in a seamless, controlled displacement.

Lupina's grin faltered.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from fгeewebnovёl.co𝙢.

That was not normal.

For the first time in the fight.

Of course, she should have known this if she took reference to Verina's fight back then.

"Uh oh."

She realized it was letting her hit it.

And that meant.

Counterattack.

The Theogrunt's weightless spin suddenly collapsed inward, its body snapping into a compact, folded posture before expanding outward in an explosive burst of force.

A full-bodied rotational strike, powered entirely by redirected kinetic energy, slingshotting the lance outward in a spiraling cleave.

Straight for Lupina's torso.

Her instincts screamed.

No time to dodge. No time to think.

Her body acted before her mind did.

Her tail-booster flared with everything it had, detonating a burst of force not to retreat—but to push herself forward.

Into the strike.

A direct engagement.

A full-contact clash of force against force, strength against strength.

The Theogrunt's lance met Lupina's armored wing once more, this time not in a passing strike, not in an indirect engagement.

But in a deadlock.

Raw power surged between them, a battle of pure momentum and pressure, two opposing forces grinding against each other in suspended motion.

Neither relenting.

Neither yielding.

And neither willing to be the first to fall.