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

The corruption spread.

The harpooneer's twisted body convulsed as the pale membranes covering it swelled and pulsed, stretching outward like an infection with no restraint. The web of writhing tendrils slithered across the ground, consuming everything in its reach. They dug through the terrain like burrowing roots, unearthing harpoons buried beneath the surface. The moment they surfaced, the tainted mass twisted around them, wrenching them from the ground as if reclaiming something that had always belonged to it.

The foreign realm itself reacted.

Abstract creatures, the living anomalies that wandered this place, attempted to flee. The floating water droplets scattered, their crystalline surfaces shattering as they tried to escape the encroaching corruption. Winged fish twisted erratically through the air, their translucent bodies distorting as if they were being erased the moment they came into contact with the spreading mass.

But escape was impossible.

From the pulsating filth, new forms began to emerge. The tendrils curled inward, folding over themselves like a festering wound, and from the writhing heaps, grotesque entities took shape.

Some were nothing more than amalgamated masses, blobs of fused flesh and sinew, shifting and reshaping without pattern or reason. Their malformed limbs stretched and split apart, moving with the blind determination of a cancerous growth. Others twisted into spitters, hollow, grotesque figures that lurched upward, the cavities in their bodies stretching wide before spewing a thick, corrosive liquid that sizzled the moment it touched the air.

I exhaled, my patience wearing thin.

This place was not mine yet, but I would not allow it to be reduced to something unrecognizable.

"Yeah, this is too much."

A harpoon rose into my waiting grasp, its spectral surface thrumming in my palm, the built-up wrath of the weapon demanding to be used. I wasted no time obliging.

My first throw ripped through three of the malformed masses, splitting them apart in an instant. Their bodies, though grotesque and fluid in nature, reacted violently to the harpoon's touch. They burst apart, not just from the impact, but from something deeper—an incompatibility between their wretched existence and the weapon meant to pierce them.

I didn't stop.

A second harpoon materialized in my grip, and this time, I didn't throw it—I wielded it like a blade. My form blurred as I carved through the encroaching tendrils, each swing severing and disintegrating the filth before it could regenerate.

Spitters reared back, their bloated throats convulsing before launching a volley of acidic projectiles toward me. I tilted my existence, letting the very concept of my form shift out of alignment, the projectiles sailing harmlessly through where I had once been.

My retaliation came an instant later—as I repeated the process again and again, with increased speed, increased annoyance, increased precision.

A flurry of harpoons streaking through the air, each one finding its mark before the creatures could fire again as I blinked in and out of the space and time of this realm, harassing the ever living hell out of miserable wretch of an existence.@@novelbin@@

Corrupted masses fell apart faster than they could reform.

For every tendril that surged forward, I severed ten more. Every harpoon I threw shattered through the unnatural forms, erasing them from existence as if they had never belonged in this space to begin with. I moved faster than the infection could spread, outpacing its attempts to claim more of this realm.

And then—there was only the harpooneer.

The corrupted figure stood amidst the remnants of its failed offspring, its tattered form riddled with spectral harpoons that now pinned it to the very ground it had tried to consume. Its movements were sluggish, as if the accumulated weight of its injuries had finally caught up to it. Its membranous flesh twitched, and then—it stopped.

It wasn't moving.

For a brief moment, the entire realm held its breath.

The grotesque filth still remained, its sickly pallor staining the landscape, but the source had fallen silent.

It should have been over.

"Leaving this realm like this gave a bad taste on my mouth."

As much as I want to dip out from this realm and go back to my Landship, now that this realm had been reduced of its value by the amount of impurity that it possessed, I felt a tug of something condensing, an empathic emotion that not an average mortal possessed.

"Is this pity?"

A new sensation filled me. One I had never felt before.

"Or is it a grandiose order, a divine will emanating from my divinity?"

A hum, deep in my core, like a current of something vast and untapped, a power lingering just beyond my reach. It was not the raw force of destruction, nor the efficiency of my divine dexterity. This was something else.

Something waiting to be called upon.

I did not hesitate.

I willed it forward.

"Whatever it is, I believe that it is the for the betterment."

The change was immediate.

The radiant golden light spread from my body, flowing outward in delicate, intertwining threads. It was not fire, nor was it pure energy—it was something more refined, a woven radiance that carried intent.

The golden threads sank into the tainted ground, the sheer contrast of its existence against the Pallid corruption causing the membranes to recoil violently. Where my light touched, the filth withered and peeled away, as if rejecting its very presence.

The tendrils that had once dug into the land crumbled into dust, unraveling before they could retreat. The spilled ichor of the corrupted harpooneer disintegrated, wiped away as if it had never been.

And then, for the first time, this place felt still.

Not in the way it had when the Pallid Whale had loomed above.

But in the way of something being at peace.

I exhaled slowly, lowering my gaze to my own hands.

"... Have I somehow manifested a miracle of my own, without housing much divinity inside me?"

A divine manifestation. One I had never intentionally called upon before.

"I barely have a divine domain yet, but I guess it is possible to make a big-sca;e miracle like that without it, huh."

I had fought, bled, and triumphed countless times since arriving in Carcosa, yet only now did my dormant divinity stir in a way that felt natural—not a borrowed power, not an external force, but something of my own making.

Something not of conquest, but of a gentle and domineering preservation.

I clenched my fingers into a loose fist, the golden light fading from my skin.

The remnants of the Pallid Whale's filth were gone, the land left pure in its absence, but still a little bit quieter, now that its inhabitants had been reduced in numbers and liveliness.

The harpoons were also no longer scattered, as if they were too got purified in the process of cleansing the impurity that I sighted in this beautiful realm I once knew.

But I wasn't foolish enough to believe this was over.

Even as I stood amidst the cleansed landscape, my perceptive extension stretched beyond the boundaries of this realm.

I reached outward, past the empty, untainted space that had once been infested with writhing Pallid corruption. The spectral remnants of the harpoons had faded, their purpose fulfilled, leaving nothing but the open expanse of this strange, foreign land. But even as my awareness scoured every inch of this place, something in me remained restless.

The Pallid Mermaid had fled. The corrupted harpooneer had fallen. The filth left behind had been erased, burned away by my divine manifestation.

And yet, the thought still lingered—was it truly over?

I focused, letting my perception stretch further.

Beyond this realm, the Pallid Whale had once loomed, an incomprehensible behemoth that had pressed against the very fabric of this space. I searched for it—not just its presence, but any lingering trace of its existence. A scent of its influence. A whisper of its return.

But there was nothing.

No massive weight pressing in. No residual distortion in the sky where it had once attempted to impose itself. No flickering remnants of its unfathomable gaze.

Even the Pallid Mermaids—creatures that had once swarmed me in desperate, coordinated hunts—had vanished entirely. Not a single ripple in time or space marked their presence.

The hunt was over.

The thought came with a slow exhale, the tension in my body finally unwinding.

I let my stance loosen as I surveyed the realm once more. The air was still, but no longer suffocating. The sky, abstract and shifting as it was, no longer carried the weight of an unseen predator lurking beyond its veil.

This place was quiet. Truly quiet.

And for the first time since my arrival, I let myself fall.

With no immediate reason to remain standing, I lowered myself onto the ground, my back meeting the strange, solid-yet-intangible surface of the realm. It did not feel like dirt, nor stone, nor anything that I had walked upon before. It was something undefined—something that simply was.

I didn't care.

My gaze drifted upward.

The sky—if it could be called that—was a sight I could never see in Carcosa.

The winged fish had returned, drifting lazily once more, undisturbed by the chaos that had unfolded moments before. The floating water droplets pulsed with faint light, refracting impossible hues, forming new constellations that flickered with unknowable patterns. The marching plants, shaken from their disrupted paths, had started moving again, their rhythmic steps resuming their unknowable journey.

Everything was returning to what it had been.

And for a moment, I simply watched.

The exhaustion settled into my limbs—not a physical exhaustion, but a deeper one. A mental, existential tiredness that came from facing something I should not have survived.

"Well, that was something."

I chuckled to myself.

At the end of everything, I was still here.

"Hmm?"

Something manifested beside me.

It was not a presence. Not an entity.

Not alive.

And yet, it was there.

I turned my head, not abruptly, but slowly—carefully, as if instinct warned me that this was something beyond my comprehension.

And what I saw was nothing.

No form. No shape. No discernible figure.

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Just a distortion.

A rippling mirage of something conceptual, something that could not be defined by sight or sense, only by the will it carried.

It had no sentience, no identity—yet, in that moment, I understood.

It beckoned.

That was all it did.

It did not attempt to speak. It did not impose itself upon me. It simply existed beside me, its formless presence waiting—urging me to acknowledge it.

Before long, itt vanished.

Gone, as if it had never been there to begin with.

But something remained.

A string—thin, delicate, yet unbreakable—atched onto my soul.

I felt it instantly.

A spiritual connection. Not a burden, not a shackle—a key.

Like some sort of a proof of ownership.

"I didn't expect the acquisition to be this way."

This realm, once unclaimed, was now mine.

A slow smile formed on my lips. I had won something after all.

It hadn't just been an aimless fight. This place, this bizarre, beautiful, surreal realm that had no past and no owner—it was mine now.

I traced my fingers along my chest, feeling the faint pulse of the spiritual string within me.

Then, with a satisfied sigh, I sat up.

As much as I wanted to enjoy my newfound ownership a little longer, I had a Landship to return to.

I shifted my focus inward, reaching for the only constant in my existence—my contract with Kuzunoha.

Even through the veil of this separate realm, I could still feel her presence, a distant but stable tether connecting me to Carcosa.

That meant I could use it as a reference point.

With a slow, deliberate breath, I stood, letting the sensation of Floating Through Life take hold once more. My body detached from conventional space, aligning itself with the threads of my own will rather than the laws of movement.

I shifted.

And the realm shifted with me.

The sky, the land, the abstract, surreal beauty of it all began to fold away, as if retreating into the background of my awareness, allowing me to leave without resistance.