The weight pressing down on him was suffocating.
Jaune could barely breathe, with the Creep's slavering jaws clamped inches from his face, its breath a putrid mix of bile and rot. Its teeth gnashed, a row of jagged blades grinding against the long chef's knife he'd managed to wedge between them. The steel shrieked under the pressure.
Crk—crk.
The sound was unmistakable: the blade was already cracking.
Jaune's arms trembled as he forced the knife handle upward, keeping the monster's fangs from closing around his skull. Every second was agony. His shoulders burned, his wrists screamed, his lungs begged for air—but the worst part was knowing how close he was to death. A single snap, and his head would be pulp in its jaws.
He thrashed beneath it with his legs kicking wildly, shoes slamming against the Creep's hindquarters. He tried to shove, to buck and to wriggle free, but the monster's mass pinned him like a boulder. Every desperate kick thudded uselessly against the creature's bone-plated legs. The angle was wrong. He couldn't generate power.
Helpless. Again.
Jaune's fury boiled up, hotter than the creature's breath.
He was angry at the Creep, its rancid stench and crushing weight. Angry at the flesh-walls that pulsed at the edges of his vision, mocking him with their endless hunger. Angry at the Beowolves still prowling outside, waiting for him to slip. Angry at the writhing amalgamation deeper in the restaurant, the root cause of this nightmare.
But most of all, Jaune was angry at himself.
At his weakness and his uselessness. His constant failures. Every fight felt like the same—him pinned down, on the edge of death or surviving by accident rather than skill. It almost felt like every time he thought he was getting stronger, reality reminded him that he wasn't enough.
The knife shrieked again, metal splintering. His arms quivered violently, bones ready to give way.
And then—
"Get OFF HIM!"
Jade's voice cracked through the chaos like lightning.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jaune saw her. His older sister, face streaked with tears, pan raised high in both trembling hands.
"Leave him alone!" she screamed.
The cast-iron skillet came down with a bone-rattling clang on the Creep's maw.
The impact rang out like a church bell in the dead of night. One of the monster's teeth cracked audibly, a shard skittering across the blood-slick tiles. The Creep flinched, its jaws loosening just slightly.
But that slight hesitation was all Jaune needed.
He roared—an inhuman cry of rage—and surged upward. With one desperate heave, he twisted his body, wriggling from under the monster's bulk and rolling to its flank. His arm locked around its neck in a crude chokehold, more leverage than technique, and he tore the half-broken knife from between its teeth.
The blade dragged free with a wet rip, slicing a gash through the side of the Creep's maw. Black ichor spattered across Jaune's chest, burning against his skin like acid. The monster shrieked, thrashing, its body convulsing with raw fury.
Jaune didn't let go.
Flipping the knife into a reverse grip, he drove it into the side of its skull. Over and over, stabbing wildly, fueled by hatred, fear, and raw desperation. The blade sank deep into the soft tissue around its eyes, bursting them in sprays of oily black gore.
"DIE!" he screamed, each word punctuated with another frenzied stab.
"DIE! DIE! DIE!"
The knife finally snapped in his hand, shards of steel digging into his palm. But by then, it didn't matter.
The Creep convulsed one last time and then dissolved into smoke, its body disintegrating into the same black ash as the others.
Jaune collapsed with it, falling to his knees on the tile. He was panting, coughing, his whole body trembling. He pressed his hand to the floor, trying to steady himself, but his muscles spasmed violently, refusing to obey.
His teeth were clenched so hard his jaw ached, every nerve vibrating with leftover adrenaline. He couldn't stop shaking. It felt like his bones might splinter from the sheer tension.
A small, broken voice cut through the silence.
"J…Jaune?"
He looked up. Jade was standing a few feet away, the skillet still clutched in her hands. Her knuckles were white around the handle. Her knuckles were white around the handle, and for a moment Jaune couldn't tell if her fear was for the monsters—or for him.
Tears glistened on her cheeks. "Are… are you okay?"
Jaune tried to smile, to reassure her, but all he managed was a grimace. His face twisted with pain, every breath sending fresh fire through his chest. His body felt like it was about to collapse in on itself.
"I'm fine," he rasped, though the words were a lie. His voice cracked, raw from shouting. He didn't feel fine. He felt hollow. Drained.
Tired.
The truth was, his stamina was gone. Every reserve of strength had been burned out in that single desperate struggle. Between the tendrils, the flesh wall, the Creeps and being pinned down, he had pushed himself to his limits.
But there was no time to rest.
Jaune forced himself to his feet, legs wobbling beneath him. His chest rose and fell in uneven bursts, sweat dripping into his eyes.
"We're not done," he muttered. "Not yet."
Jade swallowed hard, her grip tightening on the skillet. "What do we do?"
Jaune looked past her, deeper into the kitchen. The EXIT sign still glowed faintly above the blocked steel door. Beyond it, he knew, was freedom—or at least a step closer to it. But the fleshy mass clogging the way was still there.
If they didn't find a way to get rid of it soon, more Grimm would spill out and more innocents would die.
His whole body screamed at him to give up and to collapse, to just stop. But he couldn't. Not with Jade here. Not with the patrons still screaming in the dining room. Not while the nightmare beasts kept spreading.
Jaune clenched his bloody fist around the broken hilt of the knife, staring at the seething wall of flesh.
"Let's see how the dining room is doing," he spat out, voice hoarse.
Jade's lip quivered, but she nodded.
Jaune drew in a ragged breath, forcing his aching legs to move, one step at a time. Every part of him hurt, and even his vision swam. But anger kept him upright.
He wasn't going to fail.
Not today.
.
.
The adrenaline that had been pumping through him was fading slowly, leaving only pain.
Jaune staggered forward, one arm pressed to his ribs as though that might hold him together. His throat still burned from screaming, and every breath that escape his lungs seemed to scrape a bolt of fire through his chest. Jade hurried to his side without being asked, slipping an arm beneath his shoulder to bear some of his weight. She wasn't strong like him, but her steady presence kept him from toppling over completely.
Jaune had to be strong. For her.
For survival.
Her other hand was still clutched around her skillet, ichor residue remained where she'd struck the Creep. The fact that she hadn't let go of it even after everything made Jaune's chest tighten, though he didn't say anything. He couldn't. Words would take too much strength.
Instead, he bent, teeth grit against the ache in his legs, and retrieved the wok he'd thrown earlier. The cast-iron pan seemed a little banged up from the repeated impacts, but it was still whole. Heavy and reliable. He switched it into his off-hand, then stooped down once again to scoop up a new long chef's knife glinting on the floor. This one was relatively clean, unchipped—no scars of desperate combat yet. Jaune ran a thumb along the flat of the blade and nodded faintly to himself.
Steel and iron. That would have to do.
The kitchen was quiet now except for the faint, wet pulse of the flesh wall at the far exit. Without Grimm, the silence felt wrong, like the pause between heartbeats. Jaune knew it wouldn't last. The wall hadn't spawned any new ones yet, likely because it didn't have any human biomass to draw from.
Which meant that the kitchen was relatively safe now. As long as no one went too close to it and got skewered.
Now, it was better to move before it had the chance.
He glanced at Jade, who was watching him with wide, unsettled eyes. Her face was pale, streaked with dirt and sweat. "Stay with me," he muttered, voice still raw. "We need to check on the rest of the patrons."
She nodded, swallowing hard, and kept her grip on his shoulder.
As they walked toward the kitchen doors, the booms from above rattled dust from the cracked ceiling. Weiss was still fighting the Amalgamation. Jaune grimaced. A Rank 1 at full force was a building-breaker, and judging by the spreading frost visible through the hole overhead, Weiss was pushing her rune to its limits. The entire restaurant might collapse on them before this was done.
They had to survive long enough for Weiss to finish her fight.
If she even could.
But Jade's voice broke through his thoughts, trembling and insistent. "H-how did you do all that, Jaune? Back there… the way you fought. Does studying the sword arts really allow someone to do all that? You shouldn't even be standing after—after—" She trailed off, unable to find the words.
Jaune didn't look at her.
"Later," he said flatly.
"Later?" she repeated, incredulous. "We—"
"We don't have time," he snapped, harsher than he meant. His eyes stayed locked on the door, the glow of the dining hall's lights flickering through the cracks.
Jade flinched, then quieted. Her knuckles tightened around the skillet.
Jaune hated himself for it, but he wasn't about to explain. Even if he wanted to, what could he say? That he'd been dragged into a nightmare world, forced to fight monsters every night until his instincts became something more than human? That he'd been training with superhumans every day just to make sure he could survive potential storms?
No. He didn't have the luxury of telling her the truth. And if they survived this, LUCID would erase her memory anyway. Just like the others. Just like every poor soul who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Better to let her think he was lying, or hiding, or simply too cold to answer. Better than giving her hope in something she'd never be allowed to remember.
He shoved the thought away as they reached the kitchen doors. He didn't have the luxury to think about it at this point in time. Slowly, he pushed one open just enough to peer through.
The scene beyond made his stomach twist.
The dining hall was chaos.
Broken chairs and overturned tables littered the ground, some reduced to splinters. The elegant Atlesian chandeliers above had all but shattered, leaving only the harsh emergency lights flickering weakly across the room. Shadows of writhing bodies leapt across the walls as men and women fought, screamed, and died.
Jaune forced himself to focus. Count. Always count.
Seven Beowolves. Their black forms darted through the wreckage, claws scraping sparks off marble as they lunged at survivors. He noted the way they moved—quick, coordinated, always pressing toward the same corner of the hall.
And there it was.
The flesh wall. Its bloated surface pulsed wetly where it blocked the restaurant's main entrance. From its center, tendrils lashed outward like searching whips, trying to corral the patrons. Their reach was limited, only extending a few meters from the wall, but that was enough. Every time a survivor broke from the main group, the tendrils snapped after them, herding them back toward the wolves.
The Beowolves weren't just killing—they were driving the patrons closer and closer to the wall. To feeding range.
Jaune's hands tightened around his weapons.
The defenders had formed a rough barricade with a massive banquet table. He could see the two security guards bracing their shoulders against it, blocking charge after charge. Their uniforms were torn, blood streaking down one guard's leg, but somehow they were still alive. A few other patrons, men who looked strong enough to swing, had taken up positions beside them, gripping cleavers, broken chair legs, and serving trays bent into crude shields.
Behind them, twenty or so survivors huddled together, clutching makeshift weapons or nothing at all. Terrified eyes darted from the Beowolves to the pulsing wall. Jaune recognized the wide-eyed stare—they were waiting to die.
Another scream tore through the air as one of the Beowolves broke past the barricade, dragging down a man before anyone could stop it. Blood sprayed across the tiles. The body twitched once, then went still.
Jaune's gut clenched. He forced himself to count again. That made at least five more bodies since he'd last looked.
Jade gasped softly behind him. He shut the door a little tighter, blocking her view.
"Stay behind me," Jaune said. His voice was low but firm. "No matter what happens. Don't run forward. Don't try to fight unless one gets past me."
She hesitated, then nodded quickly, her face pale but her grip on the skillet firm.
Jaune leaned back against the door, his body trembling with exhaustion. Every part of him wanted to collapse, to just let go and rest. But the screams from the dining hall clawed at him, and the thud of Beowolves against the table made it clear they couldn't hold much longer.
His eyes flicked back to the kitchen's rear exit—the other flesh wall. It still pulsed quietly, unmoving. It wasn't spawning anything.
That was their window.
Jaune clenched his teeth, flexing his raw grip around the chef's knife. His arms still burned, his lungs still screamed, but none of it mattered. He had to push forward. If the front wall and the back both started spawning at once, the survivors wouldn't stand a chance.
He drew a slow, shaky breath and glanced at Jade one last time. Her eyes met his, full of fear but also a flicker of trust.
He grimaced, then nodded.
"Alright," Jaune whispered, half to her, half to himself. "Time to even the odds."
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AN: Advanced chapters are available on patreon