Mythos Of Narcissus: Reborn As An NPC In A Horror VRMMO-Chapter 315: Lupina And Verina, Against A Theogrunt

Charis turned her gaze toward me, silver eyes gleaming with curiosity.

"Father," she began, her tone adorably thoughtful, "How do you think this will go?"

She was considering the possible synergy between Verina's calculated approach and Lupina's wild adaptability. To her, the combined efforts of those two should, in theory, counter the Theogrunt's overwhelming speed and precise aggression.

I merely smiled.

"It will be a very interesting learning window," I mused. "For both the neuromorphic network and for them."

And with that, one of the Duolos vessels hovering near the battlefield raised her hand.

The tension rose.

"Begin."

The signal barely left her lips before Lupina shot forward, her tail-booster flaring with a violent burst of propulsion. The ground beneath her cracked from the sheer force of her launch, her wings slicing through the air as she shot toward the Theogrunt like a living missile.

The Theogrunt reacted instantly.

It moved.

And then it stopped.

Mid-air.

Its entire form locked in place, surrounded by a warped, shimmering space that rippled unnaturally around it.

Lupina was still charging forward, eyes wide in brief confusion before realizing what had happened.

Verina, standing far in the distance with her musket raised, had already predicted this.

She had set a trap.

The spell she had cast wasn't a barrier. It wasn't telekinesis. It wasn't a force binding technique.

It was something more insidious.

A distortion of the imaginary heat of immovable inertia.

By manipulating the latent movement energy of the surrounding space, Verina had destabilized the very concept of motion for anything caught inside it.

It wasn't that the Theogrunt was being held in place.

It was simply incapable of progressing forward—its own kinetic force caught in a self-nullifying loop.

Lupina, finally realizing Verina's plan, grinned.

"Oh hell yeah!"

She twisted her body mid-air, wings outstretched, preparing to slam her full momentum into the immobilized Theogrunt.

And just before her strike connected.

Verina adjusted the spell's output.

The warped space collapsed in an instant, just as Lupina's wing was about to land. But not before Verina infused it with conceptual heat, turning the impact into something far beyond a mere physical strike.

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The Theogrunt, despite its vast processing power, had no way to register or anticipate an attack of this nature.

An overwhelming mix of spatial distortion, kinetic displacement, and conceptual heat augmentation?

There wasn't a single calculation in its database that could account for such a sudden and complicated event in such an extremely miniscule amount of time.

For the first time.

The Theogrunt took a direct hit.

Lupina's wing, infused with Verina's conceptual heat augmentation, crashed into its form with an impact so powerful that the very air around them fractured. The sheer force of the strike sent the Theogrunt rocketing across the battlefield, its small frame becoming nothing more than a streak of crimson light against the backdrop of Carcosa's ever-warped sky.

A sound like thunder meeting the earth rippled through the terrain, kicking up a violent explosion of dust and debris as the Theogrunt tumbled uncontrollably through the atmosphere. The hardened ground beneath the initial collision cracked and splintered outward, leaving behind a jagged crater where the force had been initially exchanged.

But before the dust could even think of settling.

The sky rained fire.

Verina did not hesitate.

From above, an overwhelming barrage of laser-like arcane projectiles rained down upon the Theogrunt's trajectory with pinpoint precision, each shot an unrelenting burst of sheer psychic and heart-infused devastation.

The impact was instant.

Explosions of violet and crimson light erupted midair, each burst sending shockwaves through the battlefield below.

The nightless sky was torn asunder, streaks of pure destruction cutting across the heavens in a relentless cascade. The raw energy from each projectile collided in synchronized succession, forming an interconnected web of detonation that left no possible avenue of escape.

A maelstrom of pure, obliterating fury swallowed the sky, turning it into a pulsing, searing inferno of destruction.

Meanwhile, below, on the ground.

Lupina, still recovering from the force of her own attack, barely had a moment to react before realizing what was happening.

She stared up at the flashing skyline of death and devastation, her ears flattening against her head as a sinking realization dawned upon her.

Somewhere beneath the deafening, earth-shaking destruction, her voice could barely be heard.

"VERINAAAAA!! HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO FOLLOW UP WHEN YOU'RE TURNING THE WHOLE SKY INTO A COMPREHENSION NIGHTMARE?!!"

Of course.

Verina ignored her entirely.

Her face, eternally neutral, remained fixed in perfect concentration, eyes glowing faintly from the overabundance of heat energy gathering around her.

Lupina's complaints were nothing more than white noise beneath the intensity of her arcane focus.

The bombardment continued, relentless and without pause. Each shot precise, each detonation folding into the next. The entire sky was being rewritten into a cascading tapestry of devastation, an overwhelming flood of energy designed to ensure that whatever had been caught in its wake would cease to exist.

And for a moment.

It looked like the Theogrunt had disappeared completely.

But then.

A shift.

Without warning.

The entire cascade of energy dispersed.

Gone.

Not blocked.

Not absorbed.

Simply—erased.

Verina's bombardment, an attack that had ripped through the battlefield with absolute destruction, had been nullified in an instant as if it had been entirely erased. Or to be exact, it had already been somashifted into the adjacent dimension.

A split second later.

The Theogrunt reappeared.

And it struck back.

Its movements were flawless, a blur of perfect calculation as it lunged from the dissipating remnants of Verina's attack with unwavering precision.

It had adjusted.

Lupina, who barely had time to process what was happening before, soon saw the world spun. A direct hit—a brutal, clean strike from the Theogrunt's helix-lance, aimed straight at Lupina's head.

The force of the impact sent her flying across the battlefield, head-first, tumbling uncontrollably.

The sheer kinetic power behind the strike folded the air upon impact, creating an audible shockwave that resonated across the entire combat field. Lupina's body skidded violently across the dirt, her rock-textured wings instinctively flaring out to absorb some of the force, but it wasn't enough. The sheer precision behind the Theogrunt's counterattack had been absolute.

Meanwhile, the Theogrunt, was completely unscathed, landed upon the cracked battlefield without a single wasted movement.

Her scarlet eyes burned with absolute focus. There was no hesitation. No adjustment period. No break in momentum.

The Theogrunt turned. And then, firmly planting one of her leg down, pushing it until the earth cracks and crushed under her massive force—she catapulted herself forward with an even greater speed than what it initially performed until this moment.

Its helix-lance extended forward, spiraling with sheer piercing velocity, aimed directly at Verina.

And Verina had already prepared.

High above, floating sigils of intricate energy patterns flickered into existence, each one containing stored energy signatures, waiting to be unleashed.

Verina's fingers barely twitched.

The first sigil ignited.

A second barrage began.

Meanwhile the caster began flying around in high speed, creating a cat and mouse game with the Theogrunt. Just that in this case, the cat was constantly being bombarded with a constant projectile that was more destructive than a modern artillery round.

Charis, watching the battle unfold, furrowed her brow.

"This… doesn't make sense."

I turned toward her, raising an eyebrow. "Oh?"

She gestured toward the battlefield, clearly confused. "Verina's using the same tactic again. But it's obviously not working. The Theogrunt already adapted to it, right? So why is she still wasting energy on these spell barrages?" She paused. "And besides, it's also obstructing Lupina from following up. It doesn't make sense to do that unless—"

She stopped.

She caught it.

A slow smirk curled on my lips.

"Charis," I mused. "You're quite smart, aren't you?"

Her eyes widened slightly—just as, down below, the answer became clear.

Lupina landed a hit.

Not just one.

A flurry of strikes.

Each precise, calculated, unexpected.

The Theogrunt failed to react in time.

It had been conditioned.

Verina's constant barrage of spellfire wasn't just meant for damage.

It was meant to overload the Theogrunt's sensory activity. Every explosion, every lingering trace of smoke, every deafening echo of energy.

A bombardment of input.

So much so that the Theogrunt's data processing became focused on adapting to it, and not keeping track of Lupina.

And that was the real plan.

The spells Verina used weren't just energy-based. They had sensory obstruction traits woven into them.

Lingering molten lava that masked motion detection. Thick, smoky aftermath that dulled optical tracking. High burnt odor that interfered with spatial awareness. And even traces of warped-space distortion that mimicked the initial trap.

The Theogrunt had become too fixated on reacting to Verina's magic.

And in that moment of predictable adjustment.

Lupina broke through.

She struck with wild, unrelenting force, her rock-textured wings carving through the Theogrunt's defenses like an avalanche of sheer momentum.

"VERINA, YOU DAMN PSYCHOPATH!"

Her voice echoed across the battlefield.

Charis finally pieced it together.

She turned toward me, eyes wide.

"So that's what she was doing…"

I chuckled, before reaching out and grabbing Charis by the waist, lifting her slightly to my side like a proud parent showing off their child.

"That's my girl," I praised.

Charis squirmed in mild embarrassment, but I could see the pleased smile tugging at the corner of her lips.