Jaune moved through the battlefield like a spear thrown by an angry god.
The countless Grimm flooding across the crimson flesh of the Sleeper's body barely registered in his awareness anymore. Lesser creatures simply dissolved into ash and slurry the instant they entered the range of Weakness, while those sturdy enough to survive the first contact simply found themselves reduced to brittle husks moments later as their strength, speed and vitality were siphoned away through Plunder and fed directly back into Jaune's own body.
The effect had become increasingly horrifying ever since Null had begun interacting with the other two runes.
Ordinarily there were limits to how much could be stolen, but Null ignored those limits. It treated laws the same way fire treated paper.
The moment Jaune's runes latched onto a target, the theft no longer stopped at thirty percent or forty percent or even fifty.
It simply continued.
Growing with an exponential speed until there was nothing left.
Ahead of him another mountain sized Grimm collapsed as its body suddenly forgot how to remain alive, its flesh withering and crumbling into dust as perhaps centuries worth of accumulated strength flowed into Jaune's limbs only to dissolve back into nothingness as it died.
He barely noticed.
His eyes had already found something else.
Several kilometers ahead, a cluster of awakened had formed a defensive position amid the sea of monsters.
The situation looked very bad.
Jaune narrowed his eyes and his perception sharpened.
To him the battlefield slowed.
Simply a consequence of his body becoming increasingly absurd as more and more Grimm had their existence siphoned into him.
Explosions became lazy bursts of light and flying debris drifted through the air like leaves. The movements of Rank 1 Grimm resembled children stumbling through mud.
And standing at the center of the storm... was Winter Schnee of all people, Weiss's sister.
His eyebrows rose slightly.
The older Schnee stood surrounded by translucent walls of crystalline force and countless chains of radiant light that surged outward in every direction like the roots of some celestial tree. Behind her, perhaps twenty awakened clustered together, mostly Rank Ones with a few Rank Zeros mixed among them.
From the looks of things they were terrified and from the looks of things...
Winter was losing.
A gigantic Beringel crashed into one of her barriers hard enough to crack it from top to bottom. The creature possessed four arms and each limb glowed with strange black-red runic energy.
Then Jaune noticed it.
Larger phantom limbs layered over the creature's real ones, almost like spiritual echoes wrapped around its body. The giant ape roared and all eight arms slammed down simultaneously.
The barrier shattered.
Fortunately, chains exploded outward from Winter's position and wrapped around the creature's body, pinning it in place and forcing it to the ground.
Unfortunately that only created another problem. The gigantic Nevermore circling overhead immediately burst apart into dozens of smaller forms.
Smaller was relative. Each fragment was still the size of a building and the sky became black with wings.
Winter released more chains and the glowing bindings wrapped around the incoming creatures, slowing them, diverting them, restraining them.
Not killing them.
Simply buying time.
The Rank Ones behind her looked like reeds standing in front of a hurricane. Most could barely follow the movements occurring around them.
Shockwaves alone were enough to throw them off balance.
The only reason any of them remained alive was because Winter Schnee was dedicating most of her strength toward protecting them rather than fighting properly.
Meanwhile the colossal Rank 2 Ursa simply watched, standing silently at the edge of the battlefield.
Jaune frowned, then his runes latched ahead.
The effects struck all three Rank Two Grimm simultaneously. The Nevermore faltered mid flight, the Beringel's muscles visibly weakened and the Ursa's posture dipped.
Strength began pouring from them. Jaune felt it rush into his body like floodwaters breaching a dam as the theft accelerated with every passing second until it transformed into pure predation.
The stronger Jaune became, the faster he stole. The faster he stole, the stronger he became. A feedback loop.
Akin to a snowball turning into avalanche.
The Nevermore shrieked, but then a blur of blond hair collided with its fragmented flock. The sky exploded.
Winter's eyes widened.
One moment dozens of building sized birds had existed, the next moment they were simply gone. The Beringel roared and swung one of its enormous fists.
Then it froze as a hole appeared in its chest. The creature stared downward in confusion before its gigantic body toppled sideways and crashed into the crimson ground.
The Ursa reacted immediately, its claw lighting up with runic energy.
Claw.
Jaune recognized the rune it was using instinctively.
Simple, direct and powerful.
But...
The rune vanished, causing the giant bear to look confused. The runic construct disappeared from existence as Null ripped it away from existence.
The Ursa's actual claw continued descending regardless.
Jaune raised one hand and the impact shattered the landscape. A crater spread outward beneath his feet.
The awakened behind Winter screamed.
Dust exploded skyward.
And there stood Jaune Arc casually holding the limb of a hill sized Grimm as though stopping an annoyed child from throwing a tantrum.
The Ursa pulled but nothing happened.
Instead, its arm disappeared.
Simply gone.
The beast stared at the empty space where its limb had once existed. It roared in pain and tried to move back, but then, all of a sudden, confusion entered its eyes as if it had lost its train of thought.
A moment later its head vanished too.
Jaune stood beneath the gigantic corpse holding the severed head above him with one hand. Considering the thing was roughly the size of a large house, the image looked faintly ridiculous.
Winter stared.
"...You're Jaune Arc? Weiss's friend?"
He glanced toward her and nodded once.
"That's me."
The giant head hit the ground behind him and started to dissolve. Winter looked around at the battlefield that no longer existed.
Then back at him.
The implications were difficult to ignore. This wasn't the Jaune Arc from LUCID files. This wasn't the talented rookie operative that she had seen just a year or so ago.
This was something else entirely.
Jaune pointed toward the distant horizon.
"Head toward the core."
Winter frowned.
"The core?"
"I'll carve you a path."
His gaze moved toward the distant floating landmasses connected by rivers of glowing red runic light.
"Follow if you can."
Winter stepped forward.
"Wait. We need to regroup first. There are probably survivors scattered across the moon and..."
Jaune shook his head.
"I'm sorry. I don't have time."
There was no arrogance in his voice, simply certainty. Winter's expression hardened.
"What did you mean by the core?"
Jaune pointed toward the horizon once more before his finger moved toward the endless broken wasteland surrounding them. Then, toward the distant intact celestial landmasses floating impossibly above.
"The moon is divided into two regions. The broken section and the unbroken section."
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"We're going to use the broken area to enter the center of Her body."
Winter froze.
Her body?
The implication hit immediately.
The Sleeper.
The moon was the Sleeper.
Jaune didn't elaborate further.
A shockwave erupted beneath his feet and he vanished into the distance, carving a tunnel through the sea of Grimm through sheer momentum alone.
Winter stared after him.
"Damn it."
The curse escaped before she could stop it. Around her the surviving awakened looked toward her expectantly.
Winter inhaled slowly.
"Brace yourselves."
Glass barriers formed around the group and wrapped them in protective layers. Then she accelerated after Jaune's trail. Several seconds later she realized something strange.
There were no Grimm.
For nearly an entire kilometer around Jaune's path every single creature had already been reduced to drifting ash.
Winter's eyes widened slightly.
His runes...
No.
His strength.
Somewhere between the LUCID reports and today, Jaune Arc had become something far more terrifying than she had ever imagined possible.
.
.
Oscar's world had become a blur of battle.
One moment his crossed daggers caught the descending strike of a blade formed entirely from liquid, and the next the weapon lost all solidity, unraveling into a writhing serpent of water that snapped toward his face with jaws formed from spinning currents sharp enough to cut steel.
Oscar twisted aside and kicked against empty air, narrowly avoiding the strike as he flipped backwards over another attack entirely.
Below him, a titanic Rank Two Beowolf surged upward with impossible speed, its jaws opening wide enough to swallow multiple trucks whole. Runic energy condensed around its teeth in the shape of larger spectral jaws layered over the originals and the bite snapped shut exactly where Oscar had occupied a fraction of a second earlier.
The water serpent did not stop there, its body split apart. One head became two and two became five.
By the time Oscar landed, a hydra of living water hovered behind the Sleepless operative, each head opening its mouth as streams of poisonous liquid erupted toward him like artillery fire.
Oscar's body blurred and became intangible.
The venomous torrents passed harmlessly through him before he threw both daggers forward in response, the weapons spinning through the air toward the woman standing atop the crimson terrain below.
She moved immediately.
The Sleepless operative dropped low, the spinning blades missing her neck by centimeters as they flew overhead.
Unfortunately for her, that had been the point.
Space twisted and Oscar vanished.
A heartbeat later he reappeared directly behind her in a flash of pale light as his rune, Blink, deposited him at his daggers' position. His hands closed around the hilts and both blades swept toward her throat in one smooth motion.
The woman reacted instantly.
She had sensed him. Her body began twisting away from the strike but then, suddenly, she froze. As though some invisible hand had seized hold of the air around her and declared that movement was no longer permitted.
Force.
Oscar's Rune had activated. His daggers passed cleanly through her neck. Yet the sensation was wrong. There was no resistance.
Oscar's eyes narrowed, but just as he was about to attack yet again, instinct screamed. He activated Blink again and vanished backwards just as an enormous claw crashed into the spot he had occupied.
The Rank Two Beowolf landed with enough force to crater the moon ground beneath it. The body of the Sleepless operative was crushed beneath its claw.
Oscar watched carefully.
The Sleepless operative had not died.
Instead, the severed body collapsed into water and flowed harmlessly around the Beowolf's descending limb before reforming atop the gigantic Grimm's head moments later.
The woman stood there silently, Grimm mask glowing with a faint crimson light while her arms shifted and twisted back into the shape of writhing hydra serpents.
Around Oscar, more Grimm were beginning to gather.
Beowolves and nevermores. Grimm creatures he didn't even recognize. Drawn by the presence of awakened life like sharks smelling blood in the ocean.
Yet strangely, Oscar barely noticed them.
His grip tightened around his daggers as a single thought repeated itself over and over in the back of his mind.
'Please, Mocha. Be safe.'