Jaune's breath came fast, fogging the air in front of his face as he pressed his palm against the doorframe of the kitchen. The smell of blood and ash clung to everything—an oppressive reminder of the carnage already dealt in this building. Every bruise and torn muscle fiber begged him to collapse, but his mind knew better. If he stopped now, if he wasted even a few more seconds catching his breath, more people would die.
He glanced back at Jade. She had her hands wrapped around her own shoulders as though she were trying to physically stop herself from shaking. Her lips were pressed tight, but he could see the tremor there, the faint wobble of someone holding back both questions and terror.
"On second thought, I think... its best if you stay here," Jaune said finally, voice steady despite the adrenaline pounding through his veins.
Her eyes widened. "What? No, you can't just—"
"Jade." His tone sharpened, not cruel, but final. He angled his body so she could see the gore splattered along his arms and the jagged streaks of red running down his jacket. "The kitchen's safer. The flesh wall isn't spawning anything here yet. You'll be fine. But... keep an eye on the wall. If it starts spawning more grimm, get out of here and enter the dining room."
Her jaw worked, ready to protest, but then her gaze flicked to the dining room door. The muffled sounds of claws raking across wood, of furniture scraping against tile, of men and women screaming—it was all too vivid. Her eyes fell lower, onto the streaks of blood smeared across the floorboards where one of the sous chefs had died earlier, and the defiance drained from her face. She swallowed, nodded rapidly, and backed a step away from the door.
"Good," Jaune muttered, not unkindly. "Don't move unless you have to. I'll be back."
Before she could say another word, he pushed through the swinging double doors and into hell.
The patrons—those who had survived this long—were clustered in the center of the room, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder behind the table they had dragged into position. It was flipped on its side, legs outward like pikes, forming a makeshift barricade. Every impact from claw or fang rattled the wood and sent dust and splinters flying. The security guards barked orders, both appearing injured, but refusing to fall.
Opposite them, the seven Beowolves prowled. Their hulking, blackened frames gleamed in the dim light, bone masks shining like cracked porcelain. They moved with animalistic cunning, lunging forward in waves, trying to herd the survivors toward the wall of writhing, pulsing flesh that sealed off the main exit. Jaune could see the tendrils twitching there, probing blindly at the air, but never stretching further than a few meters. That limitation which kept them contained was a godsend in this situation.
Three of the Grimm had their claws sunk into the barricade, dragging and wrenching, snarling with feral rage as they tried to tear the table out of the survivors' grasp. The other four paced like wolves circling a herd, waiting for the shield to collapse.
Perfect.
Jaune tightened his grip on the chef's knife, feeling its handle dig into his palm. His other hand flexed around the iron wok, still banged up from earlier but still solid enough to take a hit. Then, without giving himself a chance to hesitate, he charged.
His steps were silent compared to the chaos—Grimm ears twitched toward him only at the last second. By then it was too late. Jaune darted between the legs of the grimm. His knife flashed in the dim light as he slashed low, across tendon and bone.
One Beowolf shrieked, its ankle nearly severed as it collapsed awkwardly onto one knee. Another staggered, its leg dragging uselessly as Jaune ripped through muscle with brutal precision. The third twisted just in time, claws scraping sparks from the floor as it pulled back, dodging his strike.
It didn't retreat when it saw him, however, instead, it lunged.
Jaune barely had time to duck. He let momentum carry him into a baseball slide beneath the beast's claws. Sparks flew as talons shredded the wooden floor above his head. Jaune angled the knife upward, jamming it deep into the exposed armpit as he passed beneath the monster. The blade bit through flesh and sinew, and Jaune wrenched it outward in a spray of black ichor.
The Grimm howled, body jerking as it twisted to crush him. Its free arm came down in a brutal hammer-fist.
Jaune was already moving. He rolled sideways, raised the wok with both arms, and caught the blow on iron. The shock rattled his bones, nearly tearing the weapon from his grasp, but he held. With gritted teeth, he shoved sideways, deflecting the strike just enough. Then he surged forward, stabbing his knife into the soft tissue beneath the Grimm's jaw. The blade slid upward, puncturing through palate and brain. The Beowolf convulsed once before collapsing into ash.
From the corner of his eye, Jaune saw the two crippled Grimm still writhing on the ground, screeching as they tried to rise. The barricade of survivors surged forward, shoving the table onto them. The combined weight of ten desperate humans pinned the beasts down.
"Now!" shouted one of the guards.
They obeyed. Pans, butcher knives, even a broken wine bottle—all came down in a frenzy. The first guard in particular slammed his pan over and over against his the Grimm's mask, each impact cracking it wider until the bone shattered and the beast dissolved. The other guard coordinated the crowd, directing them as they hacked, stabbed, and bludgeoned the second until its cries turned into nothing but black smoke.
The three Grimm—crippled, stabbed, and overwhelmed—faded into ash nearly at the same time.
That left four.
The remaining Beowolves had pulled back, regrouping in a loose half-circle around the survivors. Their snarls filled the air, low and hungry, but there was hesitation there now. One of their kind had fallen to this lone human with a wok and a kitchen knife. Two more had been crippled and destroyed by prey that should have been helpless.
Jaune wiped blood and ash from his eyes with the back of his sleeve. His chest rose and fell like a bellows. His body was screaming for rest again, but his mind was sharp, honed on the edge of survival.
Four left. He adjusted his grip on the knife, raising the wok like a shield. The survivors behind the barricade were breathing hard, their faces pale and streaked with sweat, but there was a new light in their eyes—hope.
Jaune set his stance and glared at the remaining Grimm.
Their masks gleamed pale in the dim light and their low snarls resonated through the wreckage of overturned chairs and shattered glass with a terrifying hunger. He was just about to step forward when he glanced back at the patrons. The two guards, though battered and bloodied, were still standing. One still clutched his frying pan like a mace, and the other was wielding a broken chair leg. Why the guard had gotten rid of his knife weapon, Jaune didn't know, but their presence alone kept the survivors from descending into panic.
"Distract the two at the back," Jaune called, his voice rough but clear. He pointed with the chef's knife, already mapping out his plan. "Keep them busy. I'll deal with the ones on front first."
The guards locked eyes with him. Exhaustion and pain lined their faces, but neither hesitated. Both nodded firmly, gripping their makeshift weapons tighter. For a brief moment, Jaune almost believed they could pull this off.
But fate didn't care about belief.
The world gave a warning groan above their heads. A low, splitting crack that sent a chill down Jaune's spine. His eyes darted upward, pupils shrinking as the ceiling fissured like broken glass.
"MOVE!" Jaune shouted.
The words had barely left his mouth when the entire ceiling gave way.
The collapse was deafening—wood, plaster, and steel beams tearing apart as if the building itself was screaming. Dust exploded across the room. Patrons screamed, diving to the ground. Jaune acted on instinct alone, throwing himself under the flipped table barricade. The survivors around him followed, squeezing together as rubble thundered down around them.
But it wasn't just debris that fell.
Through the storm of dust and splinters, in mid air, came something far worse—something that could even make the most hardened of men recoil.
The Amalgamation.
Jaune had only caught glimpses of it before, back when it had been in the midst of transforming and that massive tendril that had speared out from the kitchen doors. The chaos of the kitchen had kept his focus elsewhere. Now, as the beast was about to slam into the dining room floor with earth-shaking force, he saw it in its entirety.
It was a monster born from nightmares. It was at least eight feet tall, and its skin was blacker than soot, slick with pulsing veins of oily red light. Its body was humanoid but grotesque, twisted into a mockery of man. Atop its shoulders sat a caricature of a Beowolf's skull, jagged teeth opening in a flower-like fashon and snapping in rabid fury. From its back writhed a nest of tentacles, some tipped with gleaming bone spurs and other with sharp tiny mouths. Worse still was its chest: split down the middle by a vertical maw that yawned open, a grotesque tongue-like tendril lashing free from its ribcage.
Both its legs had been severed, frozen stumps gleaming with thick layers of hoarfrost. Ice still crept outward from the wounds, crawling like veins across the floor tiles. Yet the beast refused to die.
Because it wasn't falling alone.
Pinned against it, locked in brutal combat, was Weiss Schnee.
Her once-pristine dress was now little more than ribbons, soaked through with blood. Jagged lacerations striped her pale arms and legs, and her breath came ragged between clenched teeth. But her frost rapier was steady and its shining blade was driven deep toward the Amalgamation's skull.
The monster resisted her with every limb that it had. Its clawed arms—massive, furred things more like an Ursa's paws than a wolf's—held against her attack. Its jaws clamped down on her rapier's blade, gnashing sparks as it tried to bite clean through the ice that was as hard as steel. Tentacles whipped against the blade and lashed out trying to hold the blade back.
And yet Weiss held firm.
Jaune's eyes widened further—not because of her sheer tenacity, but because of what floated around her.
Three tiny figures spun in orbit, glowing like miniature stars. One was a little snowflake-shaped spirit with a perpetually angry face, its frosted brows furrowed in rage. Another was a flickering fireball, crackling with cheerful energy, smiling so brightly it looked out of place amidst the carnage. The third was a tiny whirlwind with stubby arms, flexing comically as if to cheer Weiss on.
For a moment, Jaune could only gape.
Ruby's words surfaced unbidden in his mind.
'Weiss's second Rune is so funny. It called Spirit. You'd probably laugh if you saw it—it's way cuter than her personality lets on.'
Back then, Jaune hadn't really understood what Ruby meant. Cute? Weiss Schnee, the icy rich girl with a tongue sharp enough to cut steel, wielding something "cute"?
Now he understood. And it left him more than a little dumbfounded.
His awe was cut short as the Amalgamation slammed into the ground with a thunderous impact, dragging Weiss down with it. The tiles cracked, forming a shallow crater where they struck. The shockwave blasted outward in a concussive burst, flinging everyone across the dining room.
Jaune felt his ribs compress as the air was punched from his lungs. He tumbled across the blood-slick floor, ears ringing, vision swimming. Chairs, bodies, and Beowolves alike were hurled aside in the chaos.
He groaned, forcing himself onto an elbow. His arms shook with the effort. Dust clogged his throat, each cough scraping raw against the back of his mouth.
But when he raised his eyes, he saw it.
Weiss—still there, still alive, her blade trembling but unbroken—locked in a deadly struggle against the monster. The Amalgamation's chest maw split wider, drool-like ichor spilling from its jagged edges as it tried to force her back. Its claws tried scraping against her, but the frost spirit blew out a gust of ice that formed a shield which stopped its attacks against her. Sparks flew from each clash. Her face twisted with fury and pain, yet she refused to yield.
Jaune's heart hammered in his chest.
Here she was—Weiss Schnee, bleeding and battered, still fighting when any sane person would already be dead.
And here he was, on his knees, just barely able to breathe.
The gulf between them was staggering.
But that didn't matter. Not now.
Not while Weiss was alone against that thing.
Jaune grit his teeth, forcing his shaky legs under him. His hand closed tighter around the long chef's knife, the blade already nicked. His other hand lifted the dented and warped wok but it was still serviceable for his needs.
He coughed, spitting out dust.
Then, despite the tremor in his limbs, he pushed forward.
Because this was his chance to attack!
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AN: Advanced chapters are available on patreon