Oscar vanished.
Not because he wished to attack, or because he sought an opening, but because remaining stationary for even the smallest fraction of a second had become synonymous with death.
Space around him as Blink carried him several dozen meters sideways, and scarcely had his feet once again touched the crimson earth, the ground he had just previously occupied, erupted beneath a tidal wave of grasping flesh.
Thousands of clawed hands burst upward in an expanding forest, every limb writhing with grotesque life as though an unseen ocean of bodies lay buried beneath the moon's scarlet crust. The hands reached skyward with frantic hunger, fingers stretching impossibly long before splitting apart into new wrists and palms, each freshly born hand immediately giving birth to yet more appendages.
Flesh begot flesh in a grotesque cycle of endless multiplication until the battlefield resembled less a landscape and more a living jungle whose branches had been replaced by grasping arms. Then, the transformation worsened.
Mouths tore open along forearms without warning. Jagged teeth erupted where knuckles should have been. Fingers peeled apart into rows of snapping jaws while tongues lashed outward like predatory worms, every grotesque mutation reaching toward Oscar with murderous intent. The entire crimson plain seemed determined to seize him, consume him, tear him apart piece by piece, and only the continuous flashes of Blink prevented him from vanishing beneath that impossible sea of living flesh.
Oscar vanished again and again in rapid succession.
Each Blink occurred less than a heartbeat after the previous one, carrying him from one shrinking pocket of safety into another as clawed hands crashed together behind him. Wherever he had stood, countless grasping limbs converged immediately afterward, snapping shut around empty air before branching outward into even more horrific growths.
The sheer density of attacks left almost no room to maneuver.
The only reason Oscar remained alive was because this exact scenario had been something he had unknowingly spent years preparing for.
Back when he had still been Rank One, when everything had been simpler...
His thoughts flashed briefly toward another battlefield entirely, not because nostalgia had chosen such an inconvenient moment, but because instinct naturally sought familiar footing amidst overwhelming pressure.
He remembered the countless Dream Realm expeditions alongside Jaune, Ren and Nora. LUCID had officially designated them as a four-person operational squad shortly after Jaune's arrival, and although the assignment had initially seemed temporary, the four of them had eventually settled into roles that fit one another with surprising perfection.
Ren had naturally become the long-range specialist.
His calm temperament, impeccable accuracy and patient mindset allowed him to engage enemies before they ever reached the rest of the squad.
Nora had been exactly the opposite.
She had crashed headfirst into every battle like a lightning bolt that had enough enthusiasm to frighten Grimm themselves and had become their dedicated close-combat specialist capable of overwhelming nearly anything through raw aggression.
Jaune had occupied perhaps the most unusual role among them.
The controller.
Not because he physically restrained opponents, but because every battlefield somehow bent itself around him. His runes continuously manipulated the flow of combat, weakening enemies, stealing resources and disrupting formations long enough that even stronger opponents couldn't react except to follow the pace that he set.
Which had left Oscar.
Someone needed to strike the killing blow. Someone needed to appear where enemies least expected and where needed mobility above all else.
Oscar had become the assassin.
Truthfully, it had been a remarkably balanced composition. Perhaps even more balanced than was truly necessary for simple Grimm extermination missions. Grimm rarely demanded such tactical specialization. Yet their squad had never spent all of its time fighting Grimm, had it?
Sleepless had entered their lives.
Conspiracies, assassinations, ambushes.
Hidden laboratories.
Every new scenario had drifted further away from ordinary Grimm extermination and closer toward outright warfare against awakened opponents.
Oscar had adapted after Jaune disappeared and his training had even shifted accordingly.
Rather than competing directly against stronger fighters, he leaned ever further into mobility, precision and overwhelming burst attacks. Blink became more than transportation but instinct itself.
Force amplified every assassination attempt while allowing impossible changes in momentum that few opponents could predict. He had deliberately built himself into something resembling the rogues from old fantasy novels, an awakened capable of appearing, killing and disappearing before retaliation could arrive.
Unfortunately...
Carnis was exactly the kind of opponent that rendered assassins miserable.
Oscar Blinked through another lattice of snapping jaws before immediately teleporting again as hundreds of grasping hands burst upward where he would have landed. Sweat rolled down the side of his face despite Rank Two physiology rarely succumbing to genuine physical exhaustion. His breathing remained steady enough, his muscles still obeyed him flawlessly, yet something else steadily accumulated.
Mental fatigue.
Blink demanded concentration.
Every teleport required precise spatial calculations performed almost subconsciously. Every appearance had to account for incoming attacks, terrain, momentum, Carnis's position and the ever-changing locations of thousands upon thousands of grasping limbs. Rank Two bodies rarely tired physically unless subjected to absurd punishment.
Minds were another matter entirely.
Oscar exhaled slowly while another Blink carried him through an opening scarcely larger than his own shoulders.
He was being overwhelmed. Not because Carnis attacked faster than he could react but simply because the attacks seemed to occur everywhere simultaneously.
Sure, Oscar could technically just blink far away, outside of the range of the attacks. Oscar's Blink rune at comprehension could do such a thing. Not to mention his Rank 2 aura reserves.
But... if he left, it was almost certain that Carnis would go after the fleeing Rank 1's. And Oscar simply couldn't allow that to happen.
He needed to draw Carnis's attention away from them and onto him. E
ven if it put him in danger.
Oscar glanced toward the monstrous flesh sphere dominating the battlefield.
Whatever runes Carnis possessed, whatever horrifying combination had created this impossible monster, they granted complete dominion over flesh itself.
His flesh could become weapons and shields. Practically an army in the guise of a man. And somehow... damage only seemed to make everything worse.
Oscar's own Force Rune, a power capable of crushing buildings through multiplied momentum, accomplished almost nothing against such overwhelming durability. Every slash enhanced by Force simply disappeared beneath mountains of regenerating muscle.
Only Toxin mattered— Oscar's poison was the only things that was inflicting meaningful damage. Oscar Blinked through another curtain of grasping limbs before accelerating toward Carnis's central body, hoping to bypass the endless appendages entirely.
He never reached it as a fresh forest of grasping limbs erupted before him. Hundreds of tentacles split into hands and hands once again split into mouths.
Oscar was getting quite irritated.
Every attempted path immediately became blocked by newly grown appendages before he could exploit the opening.
Oscar clicked his tongue.
'This isn't good. From the way he's throwing around the scale of these attacks it's clear he doesn't give a shit about aura consumption. Most likely due to influence of Perpetuity giving him extra aura reserve imbued runes.'
He abandoned the advance immediately, teleporting backward several hundred meters before finally allowing himself to stop.
He stood motionless, panting softly. The exertion showed only in his eyes—not his body. His thoughts raced instead.
His brain strained beneath the relentless calculations demanded by Blink.
At this rate, Carnis would win by sheer attrition alone.
Across the battlefield...
The enormous flesh sphere also became still.
For several strange seconds...
Neither moved.
Then, almost as though Carnis had arrived at precisely the same conclusion, the gigantic monster suddenly changed.
Every single appendage retracting into its colossal body simultaneously. Thousands upon thousands of grasping limbs disappeared and the battlefield abruptly fell silent.
Oscar frowned.
Something was wrong. Then four gigantic seven-fingered hands erupted outward from the flesh sphere.
Each larger than buildings and connected directly to the enormous body. They stretched into the heavens, fingers spreading impossibly wide until it resembled some enormous creature attempting to embrace the entire battlefield itself.
Above them...
The building-sized flesh sphere descended.
Oscar simply watched it fall.
The sheer absurdity of everything that had happened finally caught up with him for the briefest instant.
He sighed.
Quietly, almost tiredly.
As though wondering where exactly his life had taken such a catastrophic wrong turn that fighting a descending mountain of sentient flesh had somehow become an ordinary Tuesday.
His fingers relaxed and both daggers slipped from his hands. They clattered softly against crimson stone.
The sound almost disappeared beneath the approaching roar of Carnis's descent. Then, purple smoke began gathering around Oscar's empty hands.
Unlike the earlier greenish toxin coating his daggers, this poison condensed with extraordinary density. Force continuously compressed the poisonous mist inward, refining it again, again and again.
The smoke darkened into a deep shade of violet.
Then, almost black.
Eventually two perfectly formed daggers emerged entirely from condensed toxin itself, their edges shimmering with unnatural purple light while thick poisonous vapor continuously curled from their surfaces.
Oscar inhaled.
Carnis struck.
The gigantic flesh sphere crashed into the crimson moon with seemingly enough force to shake the horizon itself.
The impact detonated like a meteor and an entire nearby hill disappeared beneath expanding shockwaves while the crimson stone shattered beneath the impossible pressure.
Oscar vanished and reappeared directly atop the still-descending flesh sphere before its momentum had completely settled. Both purple daggers plunged downward simultaneously.
This time, the resistance of the flesh vanished. The blades entered Carnis's flesh almost effortlessly. Not merely cutting but akin to melting it. Like heated knives sliding through softened butter.
Oscar released both weapons immediately and did not attempt to retrieve them.
Instead...
The condensed toxin erupted outward.
Purple veins burst from the point of impact before racing across Carnis's gigantic body with terrifying speed. They spread like some impossible disease, branching through living flesh faster than blood could flow, forming countless glowing networks that crawled over every visible surface.
The poison was not behaving like before. Necrosis barely appeared.
Instead...
Carnis's gigantic body began swelling irregularly and bulges formed beneath the flesh. Entire sections convulsed violently and the enormous sphere visibly destabilized as purple veins pulsed brighter and brighter, causing huge portions of living tissue to distort almost beyond recognition.
Oscar immediately backflipped away, as tendril of flesh exploded upward where he had stood only an instant before.
Blink carried him farther still.
Then, he watched as the purple veins continued multiplying. Bulging and expanding. The gigantic flesh sphere quivered violently.
A few moments later...
It exploded—collapsing into itself before dissolving into an ocean of thick purple sludge that splashed across the battlefield.
Silence followed.
Floating within the center of the dissolving biomass, Carnis's original human body slowly descended.
He landed upright with purple toxic flesh spread beneath his feet like shallow water while faint violet veins crawled lazily across his featureless skin.
Yet...
He appeared utterly unconcerned.
No panic or frustration.
Only curiosity.
A smile slowly spread across the mouth occupying his otherwise blank face. He began walking toward Oscar through the sea of dissolved flesh.
"Truly remarkable," Carnis said conversationally, almost sounding pleased.
"You know... all this time, I never thought about using poison. To find a poison Rune user like yourself is... a new experience. I for one have never seen one, you know?"
His eyeless face turned slightly toward his own arm as though admiring the purple veins slowly crawling across it despite possessing no eyes with which to actually see.
Oscar answered with silence.
His hands were empty.
Creating those condensed toxin daggers had consumed an alarming quantity of Aura. Toxin was his newest rune and he hadn't yet reached comprehension in it yet. Maintaining constructs entirely composed of condensed poisonous energy required tremendous concentration in addition to Aura expenditure.
His head throbbed faintly as mental fatigue accumulated steadily.
Still...
It had worked.
Somehow.
That technique had actually destabilized Carnis's monstrous transformation. He simply needed to repeat it. Or perhaps condense it even further so that it would actually kill Carnis.
A shiver of hope bloomed through his mind seeing the sight. Yet... something else refused to settle within Oscar's chest. Something that dashed the bloom of hope away.
Carnis remained far too calm.
The giant's smile widened and without warning, his calves suddenly expanded grotesquely and muscle erupted beneath skin.
Oscar's instincts screamed.
Fresh purple daggers immediately began condensing within both hands but he was too slow. A sonic boom shattered the battlefield as Carnis vanished into sheer speed.
Oscar's pupils contracted as a gigantic hand already filled his vision.
'Fast!'
The word danced across his thought involuntarily. Thick fingers closed around his face before he could fully react and momentum carried Carnis downward as he attempted to smash Oscar headfirst into the crimson earth with enough force to pulverize mountains.
However, just before impact, Oscar disappeared from within Carnis's grasp scarcely a heartbeat away.
He reappeared behind the giant and fresh toxin daggers were already descending toward the back of Carnis's neck.
Except, the attack never landed. The flesh at Carnis's neck suddenly split apart and a spear-like appendage erupted outward faster than thought itself.
Its tip unfolded into a grotesque maw lined with countless razor teeth. The jaws snapped shut around Oscar's daggers and stopped them completely.
Carnis slowly turned his head.
"I already know that trick."
Oscar Blinked away instantly and not a moment too soon as the flesh spear continued growing.
Rapidly and violently.
Branching outwards into an enormous coral reef composed entirely of writhing flesh, grasping hands and snapping mouths, every branch lunging after Oscar with impossible speed.
Space folded repeatedly as Oscar teleported multiple times. One claw nevertheless grazed his shoulder before the next Blink carried him beyond its reach.
Pain blossomed immediately as small beads of crimson spilled across his arm. Oscar landed several hundred meters away, breathing harder now and watching.
The grotesque flesh coral continued expanding for another heartbeat before reversing completely and retracted smoothly back into Carnis's neck until no trace remained.
As though none of it had ever existed.
Oscar frowned deeply.
Inside his own thoughts, a cold realization steadily solidified.
'I'm really not imagining it.He's become much faster.'
His eyes remained fixed upon Carnis.
'Something about damaging him... only made him stronger.'
The realization chilled him more than the injury on his shoulder ever could.
'What rune does he have?'
Oscar tightened his grip upon the newly condensed toxin daggers while Force quietly gathered throughout his body once more.
'I have to find the limits of this physical strength and speed increase.'
His gaze never left the smiling monster standing opposite him.
'If I don't... problems are going to occur.'
.
.
Carnis remained where he stood amidst the sea of ruined crimson stone and dissolving violet flesh, his featureless face tilted ever so slightly as though admiring the poison that continued threading itself beneath his skin.
The purple veins, born from Oscar's newest rune, still kept crawling lazily across his forearms in branching patterns that looked almost decorative against the pale flesh, and rather than attempting to remove them, he slowly raised one massive hand and traced the glowing lines with the tip of an index finger. His expression never lost that unsettling smile.
"You know," he said almost conversationally, "I think I really like this poison of yours. I think I'll keep it for a little while longer."
His finger continued following one of the branching veins before he chuckled quietly to himself. "If only she weren't missing, I would have been able to commission a..."
He paused midway through the sentence, as though realizing the thought had already become impossible.
"But, I suppose it's too late now. Oh well. I'm sure Nicholas has accounted for that. Though..." His smile narrowed ever so slightly. "I do wonder why he didn't mention it to any of us."
Oscar's brow furrowed. Carnis clearly wasn't speaking to him anymore. He was thinking aloud and more importantly...
Nicholas?
Jaune's father.
The name immediately caught Oscar's attention, and despite every instinct screaming that he needed to remain focused on the battle, his thoughts couldn't help wandering for the briefest instant.
What had Carnis meant?
Commission what?
Who was missing?
What would Nicholas have accounted for?
The conversation made almost no sense as each sentence sounding like one fragment torn from a much larger picture that Oscar couldn't begin piecing together. It bothered him more than he cared to admit.
Nicholas Arc had always been several moves ahead of everyone else, even his own allies apparently. If Carnis genuinely believed Nicholas had planned for something, then the implications were deeply unsettling.
Oscar could only hope that Jaune had confronted his father and won. Otherwise...
Oscar forced the thoughts aside. There would be time to analyze strange remarks later. If he and the others survived.
Anything beyond the present battle simply couldn't occupy his attention right now.
Carnis eventually lowered his arm and allowed his gaze to drift away from Oscar altogether, turning instead toward the distant horizon where the Rank Ones had fled. They had covered an impressive distance during the battle, tiny figures now racing across the endless crimson landscape in pursuit of whatever safety this moon could possibly offer. To ordinary eyes they might have appeared impossibly far away.
To Rank Twos, however, they weren't far at all. Oscar estimated the distance almost automatically. Perhaps two minutes or less, if they traveled without interruption.
Unfortunately, he also saw what Carnis was looking at.
Dark shapes.
Grimm.
More and more of them were converging toward the fleeing awakened from multiple directions, cutting off escape routes and forming intercepting lines across the crimson plains. Beowolves. Ursas and even nevermores circling overhead. Shapes too distant to immediately identify. The survivors hadn't escaped danger.
They had simply exchanged one nightmare for another. Oscar's grip tightened around his toxin daggers. His mind raced through possibility after possibility before discarding each one almost immediately.
He couldn't beat Carnis.
Not like this.
Everything he had attempted had accomplished almost nothing. Force barely affected him and Blink only delayed the inevitable.
Toxin had worked, but only briefly.
If anything, damaging Carnis appeared to only accelerate his evolution, making him faster, stronger and somehow even more dangerous than before.
Oscar hated admitting it yet he could no longer deny reality. He wasn't winning this fight.
Then...
A thought appeared. Cold and treacherous.
Blink wasn't merely a short-range teleportation ability anymore. At Rank Two, its range had expanded beyond what most awakened could even comprehend. He could cross an entire city in moments if he truly committed himself. Carrying an entire group would be impossible but carrying one person... wouldn't be.
Mocha.
He could simply grab her and blink away. Keep teleporting and never stop. Carnis would never catch him.
The others however...
Oscar closed his eyes for the briefest instant.
No.
He already knew the answer before the thought had even fully formed. He couldn't do it. That wasn't who he was.
Perhaps someone more pragmatic would have abandoned twenty strangers to preserve someone they loved.
Oscar simply couldn't.
Not after everything LUCID had taught him. Not after hearing about every mission where someone had stayed behind so others could escape.
If there was even the smallest chance he could save them...
Then he had to try.
Even if it meant... dying here. Oscar released a slow breath and then another. He didn't need a faster attack or a stronger poison.
He needed an entirely different plan.
Something he hadn't thought of yet.
Unfortunately...
Carnis appeared unwilling to grant him even another second.
The massive Sleepless operative slowly rolled one shoulder before stretching his neck with an audible crack.
"Alright..." he said, sounding almost disappointed that their conversation had reached its conclusion.
"I think I've wasted enough time here." He tilted his head slightly before continuing, "I have a schedule to keep, after all."
Oscar's instincts sharpened instantly.
Something about Carnis's tone...
Something had changed.
The giant casually reached into one of the pouches attached beneath the tattered remains of his clothing before withdrawing something impossibly familiar.
An imbued rune.
Oscar's pupils contracted as Carnis crushed it between his fingers. Runic light flashed only briefly before vanishing entirely.
Nothing happened or at least, nothing visible.
Instead...
An invisible pulse expanded outward from Carnis's body. Oscar couldn't see it, hear it or even properly sense it.
Yet every instinct within him screamed.
Danger.
The hairs along the back of his neck stood upright. Carnis calmly lowered his hand before reaching toward his waist. His fingers wrapped around the Grimm mask that had remained hanging there throughout the battle.
Slowly, almost deliberately, he lifted it and then placed it over his face. The crimson markings carved into the mask immediately ignited.
They glowed brighter and brighter until they resembled fresh blood illuminated from within. Oscar's heartbeat quickened.
An instant later, the ground beneath his feet shook.
Pebbles bounced across the crimson earth and cracks spread through shattered stone. The battlefield itself began vibrating with steadily increasing violence.
Carnis remained perfectly still throughout it all.
"You know..." he said, his voice now slightly muffled behind the Grimm mask. "I almost forgot to mention this part just because it was so fun to fight you."
His tone carried genuine amusement.
"Truly. I mean it."
The trembling intensified further.
"But..." Carnis continued calmly, "...now that time's up..."
The earth ruptured beneath Carnis himself.
The crimson ground exploded upward as something unimaginably massive forced its way through the moon's crust, showering the battlefield in broken stone and crimson dust. Segments longer than train cars burst into the open one after another, each plated in thick white armor that reflected the moonlight like polished obsidian. The creature continued rising, impossibly long, impossibly enormous, until Oscar realized with dawning horror that he still couldn't see where its body ended beneath the ground.
A Grimm worm.
No...
Calling it merely a worm felt absurdly inadequate. Its diameter rivaled entire buildings. Its segmented body stretched beyond Oscar's field of vision.
At its foremost end, dozens upon dozens of armored plates peeled apart like grotesque flower petals, revealing concentric rings of rotating teeth that spun endlessly around a cavernous maw that seemed large enough to swallow entire hills whole.
Carnis stood effortlessly atop the creature's head.
Balanced and motionless, as though he had done so countless times before. The gigantic Grimm lifted him high above the battlefield while its monstrous mouth bore down toward Oscar.
Only then did Carnis finish speaking.
"I should mention..."
The colossal maw opened wider still and its endless rings of grinding teeth churned hungrily.
"I'm not alone."