The flood of Grimm didn't stop.
There was no end to the claws, the fangs, the roar of Grimm pouring through the shattered defenses of Atlas. They came like black tidewater, foaming at the edges, gnashing in blind hunger. And Jaune was alone in the eye of the storm.
His sword carved through a Sabyr's outstretched limb, severing it mid-lunge. With a quick twist of his body, he caught the flailing limb on the edge of his shield-strapped left arm. Using the momentum, he swung it like a club into the face of another creature, caving in its jaw. Black mist splashed in bursts around him, remains of what had once been living death.
He didn't slow.
Couldn't.
Don't think. Just focus what's in front of you
Every part of him moved with brutal intent. When he had no room to swing, he kneed. When his legs were tangled, he used his forehead. When his shield was pinned, he drove his elbow into snarling jaws. When his sword found bone, he twisted and drove deeper. Every inch of space around him was filled with Grimm. Every breath tasted of iron and rot and fire.
A claw struck him.
The edge scraped along his armor, gouging a silver line across his side. Another Grimm leapt from the flank, howling, a blur of teeth and bone-plate, and swiped.
Jaune turned too late.
The force struck his helmet, wrenching it free. It spiraled into the air, lost among the chaos. Blood ran down his brow, hot and blinding. In response, Jaune roared.
He threw himself forward, cracked his bare skull against the Grimm. The wet crunch reverberated through his bones. The Grimm reeled, stunned, but not dead.
Jaune buried Crocea Mors into its throat and dragged the blade free with a savage twist. The head came with it.
The next attack came from behind. Jaune ducked under the swing, felt the heat of it graze his hair. He spun, dropped low, and stabbed deep into the creature's armpit, soft, vulnerable. He didn't wait to confirm the kill. Another came. Jaune turned his back to it, took the blow on his armored pauldron, then pivoted off the pain, planting a boot into its gut and launching it backward.
Another Grimm pounced.
Jaune jumped.
Midair, he brought his sword down like judgment.
The thing split in half, two halves screaming in separate directions.
And still they came.
Still the darkness surged.
Still he fought.
His aura pulsed like a second heart around him, bright, then dim, then bright again. With every brutal swing, every reckless motion, he sacrificed speed and defense for power. Aura burning burning in gold of hued red. His blade moved like a reaper's scythe, cleaving through ten with a single motion. Crocea Mors blurred with speed, its edge glowing faintly with aura-infused strength. For every one he cut down, ten more tried to drown him.
He was a beacon.
A single mote of light in an ocean of pitch darkness.
And that light began to flicker.
Every step was slower.
Every breath was a grind.
His lungs burned. His chest heaved. He couldn't even tell if the pain in his side was a wound or just another rib breaking from strain.
His knees buckled.
A Beowolf slammed into him from the side, and then two more, clawing at his legs. Jaune stabbed downward, impaling the first, and shoved back against the others with his shield. He staggered, stumbled, and then—
A claw slammed into his back, driving him forward.
Another smashed into the back of his neck, sending him down to one knee.
He tried to rise.
A heavy foot found the back of his head and drove him to the ground.
For a moment, Jaune saw nothing but stone and blood.
The Grimm howled.
The swarm descended.
But then—
He moved.
Exploding his aura to stun.
A sound, more scream than breath, then tore from his throat as he shoved up with every ounce of strength remaining. His legs shook. His aura flared, sputtering sparks across his broken armor. The foot on his head slipped. Jaune reached up with his shield arm, caught the ankle of the Grimm, and twisted with a roar.
The Grimm lost its balance.
Jaune surged up like a mountain cracking.
He charged forward, body low, shield up. A dozen Grimm stood in his path. He didn't care. He roared again, voice raw and broken, and rammed through them like a battering ram.
Bodies went flying.
He didn't stop.
He couldn't.
His legs moved on instinct. His arms moved like hammers. His blade carved like it had a mind of its own.
He punched a Sabyr in the throat, then took its limp body and hurled it into two more. He used a torn limb from an Ursa as a club. When a Lancer swooped from the sky, he grabbed its stinger mid-strike and yanked it from the air, slamming it down with a crash that shattered the stone.
He was drenched in blood. Some of it was his. Most of it wasn't as it evaporated. Sizzling off him.
He no longer knew if he was screaming or laughing or both.
And still they came.
And still he fought.
He wasn't a man anymore.
He was a force.
He was defiance given flesh.
But even a force could falter.
His aura cracked again, shattering in flashes of pale yellow. He felt the pain seep in now, no longer dulled by his soul's protection. His shoulder was dislocated. His leg was limp. His eyes barely stayed open.
How many blood did I lose?
And still…
Still…
He swung.
He wasn't sure if he was awake anymore. Reality came in flashes, blood-slick hands, the snap of teeth, the whiplash of movement. Pain had replaced thought long ago. What kept him upright was something older, more ingrained than logic. Instinct, maybe. Or the echoes of lessons beaten into his bones.
He could still hear his master's voice, cold and firm, growling in his ears like it never left.
"Always protect your vitals. Don't lost your limb in a fight. You can regenerate it. As long as you have a scrape of aura left, you can fight. And don't fall asleep. The moment you get knocked out mid-fight, it's over."
It was pain that kept him awake.
So he welcomed it.
Jaune swung. Punched. Kicked. He bit a Grimm once, tore out part of its face, and moved on.
He had long since lost most of his armor. Plates had been stripped from his body piece by piece. The only thing that still remained intact was Crocea Mors shield, now strapped across his back to guard his spine. He left the aura to cover the rest. What little remained of it.
He didn't know how long he had been fighting.
Time had no meaning here.
Two hours. Maybe more.
Three hours since the last portal had been sealed.
Three hours since the last fallback point had gone silent.
Jaune kept moving. Kept standing.
He didn't know why. Didn't question it. He didn't need to.
All that mattered was that Pyrrha had made it out. Winter and the remaining Huntsmen had made it out. The civilians had made it out too.
So he fought.
He fought in the blood-misted ruin of Atlas Academy's, where the walls collapsed and the courtyard cracked from cannon fire and endless Grimm footprints.
He fought where the sky above was a boiling black, filled with flying shadows. Where the world was closing in on him, yet Jaune refused to kneel.
His aura shattered again.
A Lancer dove from the sky, too fast to react.
Its stinger punched through his stomach, passed clean through.
Jaune didn't scream.
He couldn't.
He just coughed blood, staggered, ripped the charging Grimm in half with a wild swing, and kept going.
Another Grimm slashed at him, he blocked with a gauntlet, not with aura, just the bare metal of his forearm, which cracked under the force.
His hand hung limp.
He ignored it.
Jaune switched grip with his other arm and scraped his aura together with the sputtering of his soul. Just enough. Just enough to bring his shield back active for one more defense. His aura acting like a brace.
That was all he needed. One more.
A Boarbatusk charged him.
Jaune saw it too late.
It hit him square in the chest, lifted him from the ground and hurled him back through a broken wall, then another. He landed hard, wood and concrete collapsing around him.
He rolled to his feet before the debris even settled.
An Alpha Beowolf lunged.
Its claws tore into his side. It grabbed him and sank its teeth into his right arm. Jaune didn't flinch. He reached forward with his other aura-braced hand, jammed his fingers into the beast's mouth, gripped its tongue, and pulled.
The creature's head ripped free with a wet snap.
Jaune dropped it. Raised his sword again. Forced his dead fingers to move.
Then he kept swinging.
He used his legs, his elbows, the momentum of his ruined body to carve open another handful of beasts. At some point, it didn't even feel like fighting anymore. It was just movement. Pure survival. A ritual now, old and instinctive.
He didn't stop when his aura shattered and sputtered back to life..
He didn't stop when his breathing wheezed through broken ribs.
He didn't stop when a claw carved across his face and took part of his ear.
Because the moment he stopped, it would be over.
But even stubbornness had limits.
A creature leapt forward, aiming for his throat, and Jaune could do nothing.
His arms still regenerating.
He planned to hit the Grimm with his head.
But-
Then the Grimm's head popped off like a cork under a thunderous blow.
Jaune blinked through blood-soaked eyes.
A figure stepped into the fray beside him, barely a man now, more machine than flesh, a battered silhouette wreathed in sparks and flame. One leg dragging, half his face burned, flayed down to metal, but his eyes were sharp.
General James Ironwood stood, breathing hard, gun hanging from one ruined arm. The other, a mangled prosthetic, extended toward Jaune.
He said nothing at first. Only stared, blood dripping from his chin, mouth trembling under the weight of exhaustion.
Then, in a broken, raspy voice. "I see I am not the only one who stayed. Civilians. Out?"
Jaune let out a bitter, broken laugh, half sob, half breath.
"Yeah," he rasped. "They're out."
Ironwood nodded, like it was the only thing that mattered to him now.
Grimm roared. He reloaded Due Process.
"Can you fight, Mr. Arc?"
Jaune hesitated. His limbs were shattered. His aura was a flicker. His body was failing.
But he still stood.
He tightened his grip on Crocea Mors and gave a grim smile.
"Yes, sir."
Ironwood grinned through broken teeth.
"Good."
Then they turned, shoulder to shoulder, and charged.
The flood met them.
The two met the Grimm with both fists like sledgehammers.
Each Grimm closes in around them like jaws.
Every strike a scream of defiance.
They fought.
And they fought.
It was a slaughter.
Not clean. Not efficient. Not graceful.
It was raw. Ugly. Vicious.
Jaune and Ironwood had long since stopped fighting sane. There was no form left, just instinct, violence, and grit. The Grimm tore into them, and they tore right back.
Ironwood's right fist shattered another Beowolf's skull, sending teeth scattering like gravel. His left gripped Due Process, not like a weapon, but like a warhammer. He swung it into a Beringel's gut, then up into its chin, shattering its face. Sparks and viscera sprayed from the impact. The general grunted, breath ragged, and pressed forward, limping but unyielding.
Beside him, Jaune's deflected what his flickering aura couldn't. Jaune roared as he brought his sword down, cleaving a Creeper into two twitching halves.
They stood back to back, the eye of a storm.
Jaune parried a claw, spun, and beheaded the creature with a single motion.
Ironwood turned, elbowed a Boarbatusk charging him, and then planted a boot on its neck, firing Due Process point-blank into its skull.
Black mist exploded into the air.
There was no time to think. No time to feel.
More came.
They kept swinging.
Two auras, flickering bright against a flood of darkness. Two warriors, too stubborn to stop. Too furious to fall.
And then, a beat of wings.
They both heard it. Felt it.
A presence larger than the rest.
They turned in unison as the air pressure dropped. From the cracked streets above, a creature descended, talons like spears and wings like torn sails.
A Hound.
But not like the ones from before. This one was different.
It had massive ragged wings. Its face was skull-like, elongated, eyes burning red. The bones across its chest were thicker, pulsing with Grimm corruption. Its claws raked the earth with every step.
It dropped down, hissing through its twisted jaw, and leapt.
It came straight for them.
Jaune didn't think.
Ironwood didn't flinch.
Together, they stepped into its path.
The Hound crashed into them.
But it didn't send them flying. It stopped.
Because Jaune's shield now braced the front, locked against Ironwood's mechanical shoulder, and they didn't give an inch.
Then they punched it. Together.
The force of both their strikes made the Hound rear back.
Jaune broke first, snarling like a wild dog, lunging upward. He drove Crocea Mors straight into the Hound's throat, the blade punching through the bone.
The Hound screamed.
Ironwood didn't wait. He stepped forward and rolled it in the chest, left hook, right cross, uppercut, each punch hitting like a shockwave, the last one slamming the hilt of Crocea Mors deeper.
Jaune screamed, twisted the sword inside, tearing the Hound's throat open in a spray of black mist.
It fell with a wet thud.
But they didn't stop.
More Grimm were coming. Always more. Endless.
Jaune shared his aura.
Didn't even think about it. His hand went to Ironwood's shoulder, and he forced everything into it. Soul, breath, whatever he had left. He scraped every piece of his soul and poured it into the general. And into himself.
No fear of breaking.
Only the will to burn everything he had left.
He felt like a man burning in a stake of his own doing.
Still…
He fought.
They kept going. Killing. Shouting. Fighting.
Until—
Something exploded.
A flash of orange and red lit the horizon.
Then came the groan.
Like the world itself was bending.
The city shifted.
Atlas… fully tilted.
Buildings screamed as metal wrenched apart. Wrecked airships spun out of control. Fires broke out across the upper districts. And then the ground slid.
The very street began to fall.
Grimm began to slide.
Everything started sliding.
Jaune's boots scraped against the ground. He reached out his flayed and broken hand grabbing the bent remains of a streetlamp. With his other, he clung to Ironwood's arm.
The general had been about to fall.
"Hold on!" Jaune shouted, his voice hoarse.
Below, Grimm were tumbling through the air like leaves caught in a storm.
Some didn't fall.
Some leapt.
Three of them, bounding across falling debris, diving for the two dangling men.
Jaune's aura flared to life. He lifted his arm and blocked the first with a rising parry. Then kicked it away.
The second grabbed his leg, clawing into his shin.
He stabbed it with his free hand, driving Crocea Mors into its skull.
It went limp. Jaune let it fall.
The third tackled them both.
The pole bent. Jaune's arm almost dislocated.
Ironwood screamed as the Grimm tried to bite him, but Jaune flung himself into it, headbutted the creature, then slashed it across the neck.
Black Blood sprayed across his face.
Another boom echoed.
More tilting.
Atlas was falling.
And they were still in the air.
Ironwood looked down, saw the shattered remains of a fallen rooftop below.
"There."
Another Grimm lunged at them mid-air
Jaune snarled.
They dropped.
Jaune wrapped himself around Ironwood mid-air, Crocea Mors in hand.
They slammed through a canvas tarp, fell two stories, crashed through a storefront window, and skidded across the ground.
Everything went white for a second.
He felt it. His ribs were broken. Arm dislocated. Skin flayed open from the shattered glass.
But he still breathed.
Ironwood groaned beside him, alive, barely.
Jaune tried to move.
Couldn't.
He stared up at the crooked sky above as now Atlas leaned at a suicidal angle.
Where Grimm still poured through the cracks.
But they were alive.
They were still alive.
And that meant they could still fight.
And so, Jaune gritted his teeth.
Pushed his broken body up.
The ground trembled beneath Jaune's broken boots once more.
He knew.
They knew.
That the city, the skyborne miracle of metal, science, and dreams was now fully crumbling. Splintering. The bombs Adam Taurus had planted had gone off in sequence, detonating along the very structures that held the floating kingdom aloft. The steel beneath their feet groaned like a dying beast.
Jaune stood, barely. His muscles were torn, bones cracked. Blood soaked through every part of him, seeping into the seams. His aura sputtered into life. Brittle. Yet burning.
Ironwood was beside him. At least what remained of him.
The General's power armor was fully shattered, limbs hanging by threads of metal and burning wires. Half his face was truly gone, the synthetic side cracked and sparking, one eye dimmed to a dead glow. But his other eye, his human eye, still blazed.
Still defiant.
Still fighting.
Together, they rose.
The earth beneath them split. Great fissures cracked open through the metal streets of Atlas, sending buildings tipping sideways and airships crashing into one another. The sky was filled with fire. The wind howled with the screams of dying airships still flying and the roars of Grimm. From every shadow, claws reached. From every corner, teeth snapped.
But Jaune and Ironwood kept going.
Even as the city broke and fell.
They did not run.
They did not retreat.
They fought.
Ironwood's metal fist punched through the skull of a charging Ursa, and fired into the mouth of a Grimm lunging at Jaune's exposed flank, then reloaded mid-stride and fired again.
Jaune tore through a Beowolf, then another. His sword. His shield. His fists. His elbows. His knees. His rage. Each strike came with a cost, and his body was fast running out of currency. But he kept going.
They stood back to back. And then another Hound came flying at them.
Its wings beat with sonic force, sending shockwaves through the ruined buildings.
Talons extended, mouth gaping open with an unearthly screech.
They met it in the air.
Jaune hurled himself forward, shield raised, his entire body thrown into the momentum. Ironwood followed an instant later, both their forms slamming into the Hound mid-air and stopping it cold. The force cracked the street on impact. Ironwood twisted mid-motion and punched the creature's head, while Jaune, screaming, drove Crocea Mors into its throat.
The Hound shrieked. Jaune kept pushing the blade. Ironwood began hammering its chest like a piston engine. Together, they drove it back, then down, slamming it into the cracked ground with such force that dust and blood and metal scattered like confetti.
Jaune twisted the blade.
Ironwood emptied Due Process into its skull.
And it died.
More Grimm fell from the sky like rain as the city now fully tilted. Some splattered on the pavement. Some fell below the crater.
Others soared still, diving toward them with bloodlust.
One landed nearby. Then another. Too many.
"I… I wonder," Ironwood muttered, blood leaking from his lips, "if this means… a tin man like me… had a heart after all. That I'm more of a man than a machine .."
Jaune's chest clenched.
Ironwood's organic eye met his.
"Do you think I have a heart, Arc?"
Jaune stared at him, tears mingling with sweat.
"Yes, sir," he whispered. "I think you have. You wouldn't be here if you haven't."
Ironwood smiled.
Then he ran.
With what strength remained, the General activated the self-destruct buried deep in his prosthetic core. The glowing light in his chest turned from blue to white-hot.
Ironwood met the wave of Grimm charging at them head-on.
And then he exploded.
The shockwave slammed into Jaune like a hammer from heaven.
It sent him flying.
Through the air. Through debris. Through shattered windows and broken roads. He hit the ground, bounced, rolled, and lay still.
Then he rose.
He rose.
His right eye barely opened. Blood poured from a dozen wounds.
He looked around.
The Grimm were still coming.
A flood.
Jaune stood on shaking legs.
He scraped his soul.
Nothing came.
No aura.
Nothing left.
The soul was willing, but the body didn't cooperate.
But he stood.
Grimm charged him.
A Beowolf slashed his chest. Blood sprayed.
Jaune tackled it.
He bit it.
Then stabbed it.
One died.
Another came.
Jaune fell to his knees.
A claw raked across his back.
He stood again.
One hand on a wall.
One boot dragging behind.
Blood trailing behind him.
Looked down at his chest, where blood poured in waves.
He tried to lift his sword.
He couldn't.
No aura.
No strength.
Nothing left.
He opened his mouth. No sound came.
He felt it.
Death.
No, the tree simply reaching out.
Welcoming.
He smiled slightly.
As the city broke before he did.
The ground beneath him split wide.
Then—
His aura flickered away.
And he felt like he was falling forever.
But there was a strange peace to it.
it was... just quiet.
The wind whispered over the still sands of a strange shoreline.
Gentle waves lapped against the pale shore, rhythmically washing over golden grains.
Above, two suns hung in the sky, twin orbs of light casting long shadows across a landscape.
A Jackalope stood still near the surf, its paws pressed gently into the damp sand. Its golden antlers shimmered under the dual sunlight, delicate but strong, and its wide eyes stared unblinking at the figure lying just beyond the tide.
A man.
No, a corpse.
Bent and blackened, broken from battles he never asked to fight. His blond hair was soaked in blood, dirt, and viscera. His body was ruined, gutted, unmoving, breathless. Limbs bent and barely attached.
The Jackalope slightly turned when heavy footsteps fell behind it.
A tall knight stood at the edge of the beach, covered in layered rusted armor that groaned softly as he knelt beside the body. His helm hid the face beneath, but there was something familiar in the way he moved. Familiar in the way his hands reached out.
Gentle.
Careful.
The knight gathered the body, cradling it like a fallen brother.
No words were spoken. There was no eulogy, no mourning.
Only silence. Only purpose.
Leaves began to stir.
At first it was a few, red, orange, gold fluttering from nowhere, swirling on unseen wind. But then they came in full, dancing around the knight and the Jackalope in a flurry of color.
The beach rippled beneath them, and the world itself seemed to bend in quiet reverence.
The knight stood, the body resting in his arms.
The Jackalope turned, facing the leaves. Its antlers glowed.
And then—
They vanished.
Leaves scattered, falling where they had stood, floating gently to the earth like snowflakes of fire.
And the beach was empty once more.