Mythos Of Narcissus: Reborn As An NPC In A Horror VRMMO

Watching Verina and Viviane fight wasn't merely a battle for my goal; it was an assault on my nerves. For all my composure and confidence, it was hard to keep my jaw from unhinging at the sheer spectacle unfolding before me—and also the amount of flickering light that might cause an epileptic seizure.

"Well, at this point, half of my plans will be rendered null if they manage to clash to this extent."

"Should I restrain Verina and get her to stop playing around with the Lady of the Lake?" Kuzunoha chimed.

"No, this is better, in fact."

The lake, once serene and shimmering, had transformed into a battlefield for titans of sorcery. Waves roared like living creatures, crashing against one another as Viviane's magic warped the waters to her will. Verina stood her ground atop a shimmering platform of arcane glyphs that act as both shield and traversal, and her musket crackling with untamed energy.

Kuzunoha, ever the spectator, was beside me on her own conjured platform, sipping tea as though we were at an opera…

Wait, she was seriously having tea in this situation! And that tea was not even a tea, it was a mix of my blood and some alcoholic beverage that I didn't know, all stirred in a pot that was poured onto a tea cup, what the heck!?

"You're taking this rather casually," I muttered, trying to appear less flustered than I was.

"And you're taking this far too seriously," she replied with a smirk, swirling her teacup lazily. "You should enjoy the show, my love~ Rarely do we witness such intensity from these kinds of clashes."

The two combatants exchanged no pleasantries—no banter, no posturing. The tension was broken not by words, but by Viviane raising her hand with an imperious gesture.

Water surged upward, coalescing into a towering figure—a titanic avatar of herself, sculpted entirely from the pristine lake. Its translucent form shimmered with an otherworldly glow, and its eyes burned with Viviane's fury.

"I'll show you," Viviane's voice boomed, echoing through the air as her water avatar raised its colossal arm, "What it means to challenge my authority!"

Verina responded not with words, but with action. Her musket flared to life, the barrel glowing with arcane light. She twirled it with a flourish, spinning the weapon before slamming the stock into her hand.

"Interesting," Verina said, her voice calm despite the chaos. "Let's see how long you can keep that stuck-up attitude."

She pointed the musket toward the avatar, and from its barrel erupted a beam of pure arcane energy, laced with glyphs that burned like miniature suns.

The beam sliced through the air, colliding with the water titan's raised arm.

For a moment, the lake glowed brighter than the sun on my former world, as the impact sent shockwaves rippling across the surface.

The titan's arm reformed almost instantly, but Verina was already in motion.

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With a sharp gesture, she wove an intricate arcane glyph in the air, the lines glowing with molten brilliance.

"What can kill a giant being made out of water?" Verina asked herself. "A giant blade that is hotter than Carcosa's summer!"

The glyph morphed into a massive blade as the musket served as its hilt. With a practiced motion, she gripped the weapon and swung it toward the titan—the arcane sword carving through the air with an ear-splitting hum.

Viviane's avatar countered, its watery arm shifting into a massive shield that absorbed the blow with a resonating crash. The impact sent torrents of water spraying into the sky, cascading down like rain.

"You're persistent," Viviane sneered, her voice carrying both amusement and irritation.

"And you're predictable," Verina shot back, her eerie smile never wavering. "All that power, and you resort to theatrics?"

Viviane's eyes narrowed. "Let's see if you find this theatrical."

She raised both hands, the air around her shimmering as reality itself seemed to bend. For a moment, the lake stilled, an unnatural calm settling over the battlefield. Then, with a deafening roar, a rift tore open in the fabric of reality.

From the rift emerged another Viviane, identical in appearance but radiating a different aura—darker, more feral.

Kuzunoha raised an eyebrow, her teacup pausing mid-air. "Ah, a self-summoning. Haven't seen that in centuries. I'm impressed that she remembers how to do it."

"Self-summoning?" I echoed, my voice rising with disbelief. "That's a thing?"

"Of course," Kuzunoha replied, setting her teacup down. "Why rely on insufferable allies when you can just multiply yourself?" She chuckled wholeheartedly. "Though, it's quite taxing. Viviane must be more desperate than she's letting on."

"I thought that fae's magic is supposed to be limitless."

"Again, it depends on the wielder's proficiency~ Most importantly, willpower and stamina."

"That doesn't sound any better than being a mortal to me."

"That's what is intriguing about fairies," Kuzunoha smiled with her gaze latched to me. "They sometimes forget that being ageless doesn't mean that they are truly immortal."

Viviane and her doppelgänger moved in unison, their hands weaving intricate patterns in the air. The lake responded immediately, forming whips of water that lashed out toward Verina with blinding speed.

Verina twirled her arcane blade, deflecting each strike with precision. Sparks flew as the blade met the water, each collision sending ripples of energy cascading outward.

While she wielded her massive arcane blade, numerous glyphs were endlessly summoned to attack the lake directly, putting constant pressure on Viviane's authority on her own domain.

"You'll have to do better than that," Verina taunted, her tone as casual as if she were sparring in a training yard.

Viviane's face twisted with frustration. "Oh, I intend to."

The two Vivianes raised their hands in perfect synchrony, and the lake erupted into a maelstrom. Geysers of water shot into the air, twisting into serpentine forms that lunged toward Verina with predatory intent.

Verina responded with a calculated calm, her hands moving in a blur as she cast a series of overlapping glyphs. The glyphs expanded into a barrier of shimmering light, each serpent colliding with it and disintegrating into harmless mist.

"That's enough." Verina's voice cut through the chaos, sharp and commanding. She raised her musket-turned-sword high, the blade glowing with an intensity that made my eyes water.

With a single swing, she unleashed a wave of arcane energy that split the lake in two. The force of the attack sent the Vivianes reeling, their watery forms flickering as they struggled to maintain their cohesion.

"Impressive," Kuzunoha murmured, a hint of respect in her voice. "She's really grown."

"I thought she is your rival," I quipped.

"A student once is a student forever~"

The doppelgänger dissolved into mist, unable to withstand the force of Verina's onslaught. Viviane herself staggered, her connection to the lake momentarily disrupted.

But she wasn't done yet.

Viviane clenched her fists, and the water around her began to churn violently. A new figure rose from the depths—a towering extension of maddening, living geometrics made entirely of water, its thousands eyes glowing with a malevolent light.

The incomprehensible being lunged toward Verina, its massive jaws opening wide.

"Not bad," Verina said, her eerie smile widening. "But not good."

She planted her feet firmly on the air as her pair of Black Wheels churned so violently, it created an oval flaming vortex that kept her position unchanged—her musket then shifting back to its original form.

With a single, precise motion, she fired a bolt of extreme concentration of photon energy straight into the maddening beings's maw.

The bolt detonated inside the creature and rebounded, and then exploded again, before chaining all of the former explosion for an even bigger chain of reactive cataclysm—causing the indomitable giant to collapse into a cascade of water.

Viviane fell to one knee, her breath ragged, but I doubted that she was far from over. "How…?"

Maybe she knew that anything further than this would be a pain in the ass on her side.

Verina stepped forward, her musket still glowing with residual energy. "Power without control is just noise," she said calmly. "And you, Lady of the Lake, are far too noisy."

Viviane sighed, "You're lucky that I'm feeling slothful, otherwise I would take you seriously."

"I'll take that excuse."

Verina, considering the nature of her magic, I didn't think that it was a mere excuse...

The lake stilled into pristine peace, the battle coming to an abrupt end.

I released a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding, my body relaxing as the tension dissipated.

Seemed like I really didn't need to enact my plan after all!

Hahahaha!

"Well," Kuzunoha said, finishing her tea with a flourish. "That was entertaining."

I shot her a look. "Yeah right, I guess violence is a major part of your entertainment"

"Details," she replied with a dismissive wave.

Verina turned to me, her rare smile softening into something more familiar, a deadpan that expressed a lot of emotion despite not a single inch of her face moving aside when she was talking. "Satisfied by my performance?"

I nodded, though my mind was already racing with a lot of things that I needed to keep in mind.

Viviane might have lost the battle, but this wasn't over. Not by a long shot.

"Thank you, Verina," I said. "You were incredible."

"Always am," she replied, her tone light but her eyes gleaming with satisfaction. "And I will be even more incredible."

"By the way, where is Lupina?"

"She is with the bastioneers," Verina replied casually. "I don't want to accidentally drop her."

As Viviane slowly rose, her gaze met mine. Despite her defeat, there was no bitterness in her eyes—only a grudging curl on her lips.

"Your whole troupe is relentless, Narcissus," she said, her voice quieter now. "I'll give you that."

"Flattered," I replied with a grin. "But you're not rid of me yet."

Viviane sighed, her shoulders slumping as though carrying a weight far heavier than the battle she'd just fought. "Fine," she muttered. "You've earned a conversation. Just… give me a moment to breathe."