The chase that cut through the battlefield was harrowing.
Jaune and Pyrrha surged forward atop their shifting platform of metal, skimming just above rivers of molten shadow as the air itself trembled with overlapping forces. Ahead of them, Adam and Grise carved a path through the air on their floating swords.
Each motion of Adam's blade released arcs of condensed red kinetic force, thin at the origin but expanding into devastating crescents that screamed through the air toward Jaune and Pyrrha. They came in waves, layered and relentless, cutting across trajectories that left almost no room for error.
Grise complemented him perfectly. Dozens of conjured swords spun into existence around him, each one launching forward in controlled bursts. They curved mid flight, weaving through the gaps left by Adam's arcs, turning the space between the two sides into a lethal web of steel and energy.
Jaune met it head on.
His blades moved in tight arcs, deflecting what he could and shattering what he could not. Weakness flared through his perception, unraveling the structure of incoming swords and destabilizing their composition mid flight. Those that slipped past his direct defense slowed, warped, or dissolved just enough for him to redirect them away from Pyrrha.
Behind him, Pyrrha's focus was absolute.
The platform beneath them shifted and adjusted constantly under her control, angling forward, rising, dipping, threading through the chaos with impossible precision. She did not waste effort on offense. Every ounce of her concentration was dedicated to closing the distance.
The battlefield ahead loomed larger with every passing second.
Jaune's eyes flicked between their enemies and the growing distortion in the distance.
It was not Adam or Grise's prowess that unsettled any longer.
It was the titanic rift.
Even from afar, it had been astonishing. Now, as they approached, that feeling became undeniable. It loomed in the sky like a wound carved into reality, edges jagged and unstable.
Jaune narrowed his eyes.
It led to the Dream Realm.
How Sleepless had done such a thing was a mystery to Jaune.
LUCID's goal was to extract the Gheist grimm from Velik's fragment as soon as possible. They had to make sure that the fragment didn't enter the Dream Realm or Reality before-hand.
Sleepless's goal was the exact opposite. They needed to forcefully drag the fragment into the Dream realm or reality so that the Grimm would be able to take over.
Originally, it was likely that Plan A was for Sleepless of fight against LUCID, and forcefully extract the fragment back into reality or the Dream realm.
However, it seemed like things didn't go according to what they had hoped, which meant that they had to fall back towards this Plan B.
At least, if Adam's words were to be believed.
Adam and Grise's forward momentum suddenly decreased as both of them turned their attention toward the rift.
Jaune and Pyrrha took the opportunity, accelerating the platform beneath them in response. The distance closed rapidly and Jaune preparing to intercept before they could do anything further.
Adam, however seemed to have already been prepared.
His blade cut through empty space and a thin line appeared, then widened into a rift. A portal, sharp and clean, formed in front of him. Without hesitation, he and Grise slipped through it and the portal snapped shut.
Jaune's strike met nothing.
"Damn it," he cursed, his gaze snapping around as his senses expanded outward, searching for the slightest disturbance that would signal where they would reappear.
Nothing.
Not immediately, at least
Instead, something else pulled at his attention.
The titanic spatial rift.
They were close enough now to truly see the finer details of it.
The Rank 2 battlefield stretched ahead, which had now become a large landscape of destruction and molten shadow. Taiyang, Clover and Zeki moved through it, engaged in a brutal clash against Cinder Fall and another Rank 2 Sleepless member. Cinder moved like a streak fire, her attacks manifesting as crystalline arrows that shattered into explosions of heat and razor fragments upon impact.
Further out, Velik's fragment stood unmoving in the middle of the molten expanse, a silhouette cloaked in darkness, untouched by the chaos around it.
But even that was not what held Jaune's focus.
The rift was changing.
Expanding in size.
At first it was gradual, then, absolutely undeniable. The edges of the tear began to stretch outward, widening and extending in all directions.
The atmosphere around it cracked visibly like the very air was made of glass. Akin to a clear window that was under stress. The air fractured and then gave way entirely as the boundary between realms peeled back, revealing more of what lay beyond.
The Dream Realm bled through.
Horizontally and vertically. As far as the eye could see, the tear spread, devouring even the very sky.
Shadow lava surged upward, drawn toward the opening, spilling into the Dream Realm as if gravity itself had shifted. The two realities began to merge, bleeding into one another in a way that made Jaune's stomach twist
Jaune wasn't sure why, but a subtle dread began to emerge from the tips of his toes to the top of head.
If he could give name to the dread, he would classify it as awareness. He felt a creeping sensation that something was turning its gaze here. Something impossibly large and impossibly powerful.
He shook the thought out of his mind and simply watched the rift. He didn't have time worry about non existent gazes.
Through the expanding tear, he could see it clearly.
A ruined cityscape.
Rusted and decayed. A broken world beneath a blood red broken moon.
Grimm moved within it.
They noticed and turned to watch the expanding tear..
"I think… we should…" Jaune began, his voice trailing as unease settled into something heavier.
Then something howled.
Not in the air but in the recess of his mind.
It tore through his thoughts like a blade, carrying intent so sharp it bordered on madness.
"No! That body is mine!"
Jaune froze for a fraction of a second and then everything shifted. The oppressive weight of Velik's domain lifted.
Not completely, but enough.
It was replaced by something else.
Two other presences which had once disappeared slammed back into the space, pressing against the lingering force like titans colliding. Domains clashed and their influence grinded against one another, distorting the very fabric of the battlefield.
Jaune felt that the suppression on his Will had eased.
Not gone, but weakened just enough. He could use his other eclectic abilities again. Before he could rejoice, something else had happened.
A shape massive shape emerged from the distance.
A mountain of shifting black shadow surged forwards with its form constantly changing, never stable and never fixed. It moved with purpose, its presence seemingly warping the very shadowed ground around it.
Behind it came another.
A golden lion.
Not flesh and blood, but something ethereal. Its body glowed with a radiant, almost divine light, its mane flowing like molten sunlight. Each step it took seemed to press against reality itself.
The Formless Stalker.
And that other Rank 3 from Sleepless.
They converged on Velik's fragment.
The shadow mass struck first, enveloping the fragment entirely. It wrapped around it, folding inward, forming a cocoon of writhing darkness.
For a brief moment, it seemed as though it had succeeded.
Then the lion leaped and brought its paw down.
The impact was catastrophic and the world around them detonated.
A shockwave erupted outward with a force that defied comprehension, flattening everything in its path. The molten ground was crushed, forced outward in a tidal explosion that carried both fire and shadow.
Rank 2 combatants were thrown like ragdolls, their forms ripped from their positions and hurled across the battlefield.
It felt like standing at the center of a nuclear detonation.
Pyrrha reacted instantly.
Metal surged around them, forming a dense shell that encased both her and Jaune in an instant. At the same time, she forced the structure downward, plunging them into the molten shadow ground below.
The shockwave hit.
Even through the layers of protection, the force was immense. The metal groaned, compressed under pressure that threatened to crush it inward.
Jaune acted.
His Weakness rune flared and he pushed further and harder.
His senses expanded, stretching beyond what they had ever reached before. The chaos, the pressure, the sheer scale of the destruction forced something within him to adapt.
He felt the air.
Not as a whole, but as pieces.
Particles.
Individual fragments of existence.
For the first time, his Weakness sense touched against something intangible and made it tangible within his perception.
And then he weakened it.
The force of the shockwave fractured under his influence, its cohesion disrupted just enough to lessen its impact against them.
It was not perfect, but it was just enough.
The pressure eased and the metal shell held. The molten ground absorbed what remained.
When it was over, the world outside was unrecognizable.
Inside the shell, Jaune exhaled slowly, his body tense, his mind still processing what had just happened.
Fortunately neither he nor Pyrrha appeared to be seriously injured.
When they emerged from the molten ground, the world that greeted them felt as though it had been wiped clean by an indifferent hand.
A colossal crater stretched in every direction, vast enough to swallow kilometers of distance. What had once been jagged terrain, fractured ridges, and scattered mountains was now nothing more than a flattened basin of churning molten shadow.
Heat curled around them, heavy and suffocating, though it was manageable compared to what they had just endured. He exhaled slowly, grounding himself, only to realize that something else had changed.
Everything had gone quiet.
The thunder of clashing runes, the explosive collisions of Rank 2 combatants, the relentless chaos that had defined the battlefield moments ago had simply ceased. In its place was an unnatural stillness that pressed against the senses.
Only two figures remained at the center of it all.
The golden lion stood radiant and immovable, its presence casting a strange, almost sacred light across the molten shadow. Opposite it was the Formless Stalker, its shape shifting endlessly, never settling, like a thought that refused to be contained. The two faced one another in silence, as if the entire battlefield had narrowed into a single point of tension between them.
Above, the rift continued to expand.
It stretched wider with every passing second, devouring the sky as though reality itself was being peeled back layer by layer. The edges of the tear shimmered and fractured, revealing glimpses of another world beyond.
Jaune narrowed his eyes, unease settling into his chest.
Then the molten shadow beside them surged upward.
It rose violently, forming a crest that twisted in a way that made no sense. Jaune reacted instantly, raising his sword ready to strike whatever emerged.
But before he could act, two familiar presences brushed against his senses.
He stopped.
The molten surge burst apart, and Raven and Qrow emerged from within it.
They landed heavily on the unstable surface. Pyrrha reacted immediately, expanding her platform outward beneath them, stabilizing their footing. Raven stumbled as soon as she landed, her balance faltering just enough to reveal the strain she was under.
Qrow caught her before she could fall.
Jaune stepped forward, concern flickering across his face. "You alright?"
Qrow steadied her, exhaling quietly. "She's fine. Just pushed herself too far. That meta rune of hers takes a toll."
Raven did not argue. She straightened herself, though the faint pallor of her face betrayed how much it had cost her.
Jaune hesitated for a moment before reaching toward his belt. "I've still got a few healing runes. Want one?"
Raven shook her head almost immediately. "No. Those mass produced ones won't do much at my level."
Her voice remained steady, even if her body suggested otherwise. Jaune nodded and lowered his hand, accepting her decision without pushing further.
Qrow rolled his shoulders, gaze drifting toward the distant figures of the golden lion and the Formless Stalker. "Well, looks like we finally figured out why that Stalker was so eager to help us."
Jaune followed his line of sight. "It wanted Velik's fragment."
"Exactly." Qrow's tone carried a hint of grim amusement. "That hunger didn't go away when it ranked up. It just got sharper. More focused."
He let out a quiet breath before continuing. "Should've realized it back when we ran into those Asura Stalkers. They were always sniffing around our runes like addicts."
Jaune frowned slightly. "But how would it even use something like that?"
Qrow glanced at him. "You're standing right there as the answer, kid."
Jaune blinked, then looked down at his own Stalker form. Understanding settled over him slowly. "It used me as a reference," he said. "It wants to merge with the fragment and take the runes for itself?"
Qrow nodded. "Velik's Master Rune is partially built on the Darkness meta rune. That ties it directly to the Shadow Realm. If anything could figure out how to fuse with it, it'd be that thing."
Jaune's expression tightened. "What about the Grimm inside the fragment?"
"My guess?" Qrow scratched lightly at his jaw. "It was waiting for us to deal with that part first. Cleaner meal and lesser complications. But now…" He gestured toward the sky. "…now it doesn't have the luxury of patience anymore."
Pyrrha stepped forward, her eyes flicking between the expanding rift and the two looming entities. "Should we retreat?" she asked. "That rift isn't stable."
Qrow shook his head. "No. If anything, this might be our only chance."
"To do what?" she pressed.
"To get into the Dream Realm properly," he replied. "If we make it through, we can warn Ozpin and the other Rank 3s. Let them know what's happening here."
He paused, then added more quietly, "But... there's a bit of a problem."
Jaune crossed his arms slightly. "We die trying?"
Qrow huffed faintly. "That's one way to put it."
Pyrrha frowned. "Why?"
Qrow pointed toward the rift. "Look closely. That place… it looks like Mistral."
Jaune squinted, trying to make out the distant structures beyond the distortion of the rift. "Yeah… it does."
Qrow's expression hardened. "And... I recognize that lion."
They all turned toward it.
"That rune signature," Qrow continued. "I've felt it before. Its the Rank 3 of Mistral."
Jaune's face darkened. "Lionheart?"
Qrow nodded once.
"Which means one thing."
"He's a LUCID traitor," Jaune said.
Pyrrha's voice came quieter, but no less sharp. "And if that location really is Mistral City…"
"…then the entire place might already be compromised," Jaune finished.
The implication settled heavily over them. An entire branch of LUCID potentially turned.
Qrow let out a dry laugh. "Sorry, kid. Every time I bring you along, things spiral out of control."
Jaune glanced at him and gave a faint smirk. "Probably your Misfortune rune."
Qrow shrugged. "Wouldn't be surprised."
For a brief moment, the tension eased.
Then the rift surged again.
It expanded faster than before, swallowing everything in sight. The sky vanished entirely, replaced by the growing tear between realms.
And that abnormal feeling started to intensify.
Jaune stiffened as a suffocating pressure crept over him. It was not like a domain. It was something else entirely.
He looked at the others. "You feel that?"
Raven nodded. Qrow's expression turned serious. Even Pyrrha's composure tightened.
Jaune swallowed. "That's not a domain, is it?"
Raven shook her head slowly. "No. We've already felt all three domains here."
Jaune frowned, unease coiling tighter in his chest, threading through muscle and bone until it felt less like a feeling and more like a presence.
It wasn't just that he felt watched. It was that the act of noticing it made the sensation deepen.
As if awareness itself was a door.
And he had just opened it.
The air thickened around him. Not physically, but perceptually, like something had shifted just out of alignment with reality. The false light from above dimmed without changing, the ground stretched without moving, and every surface seemed to carry a quiet, unbearable attention.
Not directed at him but at all of them. The entire battlefield.
Jaune's breath slowed, by instinct, like some buried part of him understood that drawing attention was dangerous. Futile, but dangerous.
The sensation grew sharper.
It pressed against his thoughts, invading them, in a way that made privacy feel like a lie he had always told himself. His mind felt… thin. Transparent.
Something vast and incomprehensible was looking through him, not just at the surface, but through every layer beneath it.
It wasn't probing, because it didn't even need to do so. Everything about him felt laid bare in an instant.
Every memory, instinct and every flicker of fear or hesitation. His body, his blood, the strange fusion of human and Stalker that defined his current existence. It all felt exposed, like a billion unseen lenses were cutting through him from every possible angle at once.
Not analyzing, or judging.
Simply seeing.
And that was worse.
Jaune swallowed, but the motion felt distant, like it belonged to someone else.
And then—
He understood something that made his spine lock rigid. Jaune's vision trembled at the edges.
Slowly, almost unwillingly, he lifted his head.
The Black Sun had changed.
It no longer resembled anything celestial. Its surface had collapsed inward, folding and twisting into something organic, something that rejected the idea of being a "thing" that could be truly understood.
An eye.
A massive eye stared down at them.
It was looking through them, into them, past them, and beyond them all at once. Distance meant nothing. Scale meant nothing. Jaune had the overwhelming, nauseating certainty that if he reached up, he would never touch it and yet would never be able to escape it.
Jaune felt ice crawl through his veins as memory surfaced. The Asura Stalker's words. The mention of the Source. The Eye.
"…Oh. Fuck." he whispered.
Beside him, Pyrrha, Raven, and Qrow followed his gaze. No one spoke because there was nothing to say that could matter in the face of something like that. Words felt small. Thought felt fragile.
Then the rift expanded one final time. It surged outward, swallowing the crater, the battlefield, the lion, and the Stalker. It swallowed them whole.
The oppressive gaze and feeling surrounding them vanished instantly.
Jaune sucked in a breath, sharp and uneven, his chest tightening as sensation rushed back into something resembling normalcy. His thoughts reassembled, though the echo of that presence lingered like a bruise pressed into his mind.
The weight lifted, the heat shifted and even the air changed.
When Jaune blinked, the world was different. They stood beneath a broken, blood red moon. Ruined building stretched endlessly around them, silent and decayed, watching in their own lifeless way.
They had entered the Dream Realm.