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

Chapter 224 My Seventh Ordeal Of The Dusk

The spiraling moon of madness rose above the careening orange-dark sky, casting eerie tendrils of light that slithered across the barren landscape.

The arrival of the Ordeal of the Dusk heralded the onset of chaos. Yet, within the Landship, its engines thrumming with unshakable resolve, the mood remained calm but alert.

Still, it felt a little bit off without a constant notification pestering me nonstop throughout the day. Not to mention, the ominous warning that appeared before the reveal of the special type Calamity Object for the day.

Yeah, I no longer had those kinds of system functions attached to me. I also doubted that I could even open the information screen of Calamity Objects like how I used to.

"I never get used to this scenery of the night sky."

I stood at the observation deck, my heightened senses extending beyond the Landship's hull, far into the restless expanse of Carcosa. The air was heavy with tension, and through the augmented perception granted by my heightened existence, I saw it: a towering figure blocking our path.

The special type Calamity Object was nine meters tall, its gaunt frame clad in tattered black robes that seemed to bleed into the shadows around it. Its skull-like head held no eyes, yet I felt its gaze pierce through the Landship. In its skeletal hands was a weapon unlike anything mundane—a jagged, twisted firearm brimming with a dark, pulsing energy that screamed of entropy.

Through the MSUs, the bastioneers received the same vision. The Cognitive Engines processed the information that was scanned by all sorts of other Cognitive Engine sprawled around the Landship and displayed it with clinical precision, warning of potential threats.

Kuzunoha, standing beside me, tilted her head, her crimson eyes alight with intrigue. "Oh my, how dramatic. Shall we greet it, or let Verina flex her new toy?"

Before I could respond, the Calamity Object raised its firearm, its hollow face tilting slightly as though to aim. The air grew thick, heavy with the charge of impending destruction.

But before it could unleash whatever horrors it had planned, the sky lit up with a blinding surge of energy. A beam of gargantuan proportion, brilliant and searing, obliterated the Calamity Object in a single, deafening instant.

The creature's form disintegrated, leaving nothing but a faint afterimage burned into my vision.

The source of the beam descended from the heavens, reassembling itself in a smooth, fluid motion. It was Verina's crystalline musket, disassembled into a network of orbiting crystalline nodes that formed a protective satellite around the Landship. She had triggered it remotely from the command deck, her voice crackling through the internal communication system.

"Target neutralized," Verina reported, her tone steady but carrying a hint of satisfaction. "The path is clear."

"Efficient as always," I replied, my voice laced with approval. "Good work, Verina. But next time, remind us before you want to do any kind of spectacles. We wouldn't be able to properly cherish it otherwise."

The Landship surged forward once more, its screw-propellers churning the ground as we continued our journey. The Ordeal of the Dusk was far from over. As we moved, swarms of Calamity Objects began to manifest—some passive, their eerie forms watching us from the shadows, while others were hostile, drawn to the Landship like moths to a flame.

In this scenario where our destination was clear, the Landship was put into an autopilot.

The bastioneers sprang into action with a grace and precision that was nothing short of mesmerizing. Hatchways along the Landship's sides and rooftop deck slid open with a hiss, allowing the crew to emerge and confront the chaos. Armed with their versatile Prismforge weapons, each bastioneer became a whirlwind of skill and raw power, moving as though they were born to this battlefield.

Amelia and Lydia, the group's natural leaders, took command with seamless synergy. Amelia's crisp, strategic directives flowed through the communication channels of their Cognitive Engines, each word precise and calculated. Lydia complemented her perfectly, refining plans on the fly and anticipating threats with an uncanny foresight. Together, they guided their team like seasoned tacticians, their confidence infectious.

No longer was the day where formations and bronze tactics were used when your people just leap around the place like a grasshopper on steroids.

And both of them were more than an expert to lead and guide the rest of the bastion more than their Cognitive Engines ever could.

Well, now that I have already described two of my best-leading bastioneers, I guess it would only be fair for me to give a narration to the rest of them.

Yora, naturally quiet and unassuming as always, proved yet again that she was not to be underestimated. She moved with fluid, almost supernatural precision, her Prismforge weapon shifting effortlessly between forms—a blade one second, a longbow the next. Each strike and shot landed with unerring accuracy, her calm efficiency speaking volumes louder than words ever could.

As for how the longbow of the Prismforge works. It just simply used some part of itself to become the arrows. When out of it, all of the materials that were part of the Prismforge will be psychically recalled to the hand of its owner when it was reverted to its stable suitcase form.

Theotech was surely one hell of a technology.

Kara, the team's brute force embodied, charged forward with a primal roar that reverberated through the air. She morphed Prismforge weapon into a massive war hammer, its head glinting with psychic energy.

She swung with earth-shaking force, every blow sending shockwaves that tore through the swarms of hostile Calamity Objects like a tempest unleashed. "Get out of my way!" she bellowed, her voice both a challenge and a promise of devastation.

Since she already had a Theotech strengthening factor in her veins, her genetic modification and extra Theotech enhancement was much more extreme than the other.

Hypothetically, she might be able to move an entire mountain if she used all of her strength possible. Though, that would also torn her body into multiple pieces.

Erika, in stark contrast, fought with a zeal that bordered on madness. Her laughter echoed over the battlefield as she tore through the enemy with twin blades formed from her Prismforge weapon, each strike a perfectly calculated flourish of destruction.

"You think you can touch our holy bastion?!" she yelled, a manic grin splitting her face as she darted and sliced, her movements so fast they seemed almost like a dance. "Be purged, infidels!"

To be honest, she had only become even crazier ever since the event of Nihil, and even more overtime after we tasked her and Sera to be the one to choose which mystical tools and artifacts to be brought back with us to Carcosa.

Well, as long as Charis didn't put her in our blacklist, I won't really meddle much since that insanity somehow also empowered her further than a mere mortal in the playground of Carcosa.

And then there was Sera, the ever-cautious medic. She stayed closer to the center of the action, her focus on support and defense.

Her Prismforge weapon transformed into a shimmering shield, an impenetrable barrier that deflected attacks aimed at her teammates. Her voice, calm and steady, cut through the din as she monitored vitals through her MSU.

"Kara, you're overextending! Pull back five meters. Erika, tone down the theatrics—you're wasting energy!"

She really did remove all of her meek and submissive persona and just went all out with her true self. Truly, she made me proud.

Aside from the fact that I had already revealed my Valtherion blood to everyone when we were still in Kuzunoha's mansion, Sera had also become some sort of a miracle surgeon that could stitch up a person that had been strewn around into twenty pieces after being hit by an explosion.

I also supplied her with some of my Valtherion blood in case of severe emergency, but she appeared to be motivated to not ever use them since it would mean that I must bleed myself to procure this means of medication.

She was a good and reliable bastioneer in that regard.

Opposite to her, Callista was playful and sharp as always, and was everywhere at once. She darted across the deck like a shadow, her Prismforge weapon taking the form of a sleek sniper rifle. Perched atop a vantage point, she picked off threats with surgical precision.

"Gotcha!" she quipped as her shot obliterated a hostile Calamity Object in the distance. Her laughter crackled through the comms. "You'd think these things would teach you to duck."

Yes, the sniper's ammunition works the same way with the longbow. As for why Yora didn't just transform her Prismforge into a gun instead of a bow, it was all a matter of preference.

Both the sniper and the longbow form were equally as powerful, anyway.

Then there was Naosi, always thinking outside the box. Her Prismforge weapon shifted into a myriad of forms as she deployed traps, gadgets, and distractions that threw the enemy into disarray. One moment, she was setting up an intricate snare; the next, her weapon had transformed into a chain-like whip, binding a Calamity Object and hurling it into another with a calculated flourish.

"Let's keep things interesting, shall we?" she muttered, a smirk tugging at her lips.

Then came to our last bastioneer in this highlight.

Primus was not as communicative as everyone in the comms, but her neural network had been processing information and learning new skills by just existing inside this chaotic battlefield surrounding the moving Landship.

Of course, this didn't mean that she was not on good terms with everyone. It was the opposite, actually. Primus was greatly accepted by the bastioneers as part of their own.

And unlike the rest of the bastioneers, Primus was capable of using more than one Primsforge, thanks to her ever-evolving processing power that even beat the enhanced super-soldiers of my tampering.

This led to some crazy scenario where she would just stack five Prismforges all at once to create a mobile artillery that constantly bombard the surrounding like a hail of meteors.

Sometimes, this overexertion of the Prismforges' materials lead to its deterioration, weakening the efficiency and the output of it until Primus finds a better calibration of her performance output on the battlefield.

And don't worry about the damaged Prismforges.

We had more than enough Prismforges as spares and all sorts of experimentations in our lab area of the Landship. We also had the schematic and enough Theotech parts to recreate more of it.

Also, if it wasn't obvious enough, the bastioneers were just bruteforcing the majority of the Calamity Objects we encountered because of their newfound strenght.

For some of the really ginmicky and persistent ones, I gave the reign to the bastioneers' wit and intelligence, and only interfere if they hit a massive roadblock.

But so far, they haven't hit any roadblock.

"Finally, the moment where I can just do nothing and watch the show."

The scene was a total symphony of controlled chaos, each bastioneer playing their part with unmatched efficiency. They moved with the precision of a well-oiled machine, their synergy was the result of their relentless training and enhancements.

Watching them in action, it was easy to forget that they had once been ordinary. Now, with their genetic augmentations, the guidance of their Cognitive Engines, and the treasures from Kuzunoha's mansion, they had become a force of nature—an unstoppable vanguard against the horrors of Carcosa.

From my vantage point, I observed the battle while carefully inspecting the Landship's design in action. Every angle, every vulnerable point, was meticulously noted. The deck's layout was functional, but some areas needed fortification. The rooftop hatchways were efficient for deploying the bastioneers, but their placement left certain blind spots.

"We'll need to adjust the defensive coverage near the rear propellers," I mused aloud, my words carried to Kuzunoha through our telepathic link.

"Noted, love~" she replied, her tone light but focused. "Shall I prepare additional arcane fortifications for the Cognitive Engines that act as the sensors for the Neuromorphic Network of the Landship?"

"Yes. And perhaps redesign the rooftop access points to allow for better crossfire coverage."

"Ah, the perfectionist at work." Her amusement was palpable, even through the telepathic channel.

While the battle raged outside, I made my way to one of the Landship's most important sections.

The indoor hydroponic farm.