The man's voice warbled into something ancient, vibrating through the cracked landscape like the growl of a machine running on blood. He raised his head toward the red moon and began to chant.
"The Sleeper beyond the grave—"
"Raven!" Qrow's voice cut through the air like a blade.
She didn't hesitate. Her Shadow Rune flared, and a blooming vortex of inky darkness emerged from the giant's own mouth. Dozens of tiny black shadowy hands burst outward. They clawed their way from his throat, his mouth, even his nostrils. Writhing appendages of darkness that pried his jaw wide open and stopping his voice. The man gagged mid-syllable, ritual sputtering as the shadows forced his head back. His muffled roar tore through the night, but he could no longer form words.
Qrow smirked. "Looks like you choked on your own sermon."
His aura erupted in a crimson flash. The air warped, and three silhouettes stepped out from his form, identical echoes of himself, each dripping dark red light from their eyes and shoulders. The clones flickered, limbs twisting unnaturally before bursting into monstrous shapes.
Feathers scattered like shards of glass as the three Qrows shifted into grotesque crow-like beasts — talons thick as pillars, beaks like jagged obsidian scythes. Their wings beat once, generating shockwaves that shattered the dust underfoot.
"Go!" the original Qrow barked with a distorted terror inducing voice, and his beasts obeyed.
The area erupted into chaos.
The giant tore free from the shadows gripping his body just in time to see the first crow dive at him. The impact was cataclysmic — a thunderclap of muscle and power colliding. The ground cratered, stone and metal pulverized beneath the clash. The monster-man grappled with the crow's beak, both straining against each other's raw force. Another crow slammed into his side, talons digging into his rune frame before it was thrown off by a backhand that split the air like a cannon blast.
The third crow swooped low, catching him by the leg and dragging him across the cracked ground in a maelstrom of wings and dust. The red light of the moon turned the entire scene into a painting of malevolent violence.
Meanwhile—
Winter and Raven dashed forward, the power of their stats blazing through the laws of physics. Massive bullets rained down from the ridge, each one like a meteor crashing into the earth. The Rank 1 man on the hill knelt beside his massive spear-cannon, firing continuously. Each shot came faster than the last, the barrel glowing hotter, and the recoil shaking the mountainside.
Raven didn't bother dodging conventionally — she slipped through the shots, blurring into black shadow that moved between the streams of destruction. Winter raised her hand,
"Aegis Formation!"
Translucent barriers appeared in layers, each absorbing the impacts of a bullet before shattering, only for another to instantly take its place. The air howled with the force of repeated detonations.
Fortunately, the man's strength was only Rank 1, which meant that Winter didn't need to use too much Aura to condense her barriers. She only needed to match the strength against the force the man was outputting.
Raven broke forward.
Her shadow expanded outward, and cloaked her body in black tendril-like arms that further sharpened into gleaming blades. They extended from her shoulders, elbows, and back, until she looked like a many-armed demon holding a variety of shadow weapons. A shadow asura.
She was silent as she launched herself at the nearest enemy.
Winter followed, slamming her palm into the ground. The earth trembled — then split. From beneath the shattered terrain rose figures shaped from dirt and stone, faceless soldiers armored in white radiance and silver chains. They surged forward, weapons formed from crystalized soil.
"Kill," Winter commanded.
Chains of light erupted from her fingertips, streaking across the air to ensnare the man with twin blades. He snarled and cut through one with sheer aura reinforcement, but three more latched onto his limbs, dragging him down.
"Go to hell!" he spat, his cleavers flaring molten orange. The air hissed as his Rune burned away the bindings.
Winter didn't flinch. "Language."
She twisted her hand and a hidden seal on his back detonated, sending him crashing into the side of a broken truck.
Raven's battlefield, however, was chaos incarnate.
She moved like smoke between blades. The man with the hook claws lunged, chains glowing along his arms, each swing trailing phantom talons that tore through the landscape. When he slashed forward, the attack carved deep, crimson lines through the air — energy slashes the size of buildings.
Raven's body flickered. Her form dissolved into her own shadow as the claws sliced through where her head had been. She reappeared behind him, sword poised to strike through his spine — only for his body to vanish in a teleport.
Her instincts screamed.
Raven ducked just as he reappeared in front of her, claws thrusting toward her skull. The air parted around the strike, but she backflipped out of range, skidding across the dust—
Straight into the other opponent.
The katana wielder was waiting for her. His blade swung in a perfect horizontal arc. Raven twisted sideways, her hair catching the edge of the strike. Sparks flew.
The clawed man teleported again, appearing behind her, his claws aimed for her neck. But this time he didn't release another energy slash — he couldn't risk hitting his ally.
Raven was trapped between both.
Her shadows flared outward in defense then tightened like coiled whips.
The katana man smirked — then his blade split.
One became two. Two became three. Three became four.
Each hovered in the air, moving like puppets guided by invisible strings. Four identical blades slashed from four directions, while the man's real body lunged with the fifth.
Raven's eyes narrowed. "Cute trick."
She raised her arms, the shadows forming around her like a shield wall. Dozens of shadow blades materialized in her defense, clashing with the flying katanas in a storm of sparks and darks.
The battlefield was a blur of movement — blades cutting through air faster than the eye could track and teleportations flashing like camera shutters. Every time Raven stepped into a shadow to evade, the hook-clawed man appeared in another, forcing her to constantly readjust.
But she wasn't without counters.
Her eyes glowed crimson.
A ripple of black light surged outward, and the shadows of every combatant distorted. Raven stepped through one shadow — and exited from another behind the katana user, slashing upward. He barely raised his sword in time. The impact sent him sprawling backward, his injured arm flaring in protest.
The hook-clawed man lunged again, claws glowing hotter — a teleport feint. But Raven anticipated it. She dropped low, her blade cutting through the spot where he'd appear. Blood sprayed into the air as her strike caught his side.
He grunted in pain but vanished before she could finish him, reappearing above her with claws raised.
Raven was able to block, just barely. Sparks showered her, both fighters locking blades midair, their aura pressures colliding like storms.
Down below, Winter's army of earth soldiers surged forward again, engaging the man with molten cleavers as Qrow's monstrous forms wrestled the giant in the background. The entire hillside was smashed to ruins with every blow, pillars of soil and dust shooting skyward.
The giant leader's laughter was a mixture of amusement and fury — deep and ruinous, echoing across the ruined terrain. His body had swollen with each passing second, veins of black crawling beneath his skin like corrupted roots. What had once been a man was now something else entirely — a blasphemous monument of flesh.
Qrow's monstrous forms circled above him, wings spread wide enough to blot out the fractured red moon. The air shimmered with their killing intent, each flap of their wings shaking loose fragments of broken ground.
Then the Qrows dove.
The nearest Crow-beast streaked down like a comet, talons first. It slammed into the giant's chest with an explosion of force that sent a sonic booming shockwave which shattered the surrounding landscape into spiraling debris. The man was launched backward — only for another Crow-form to intercept him midair, claws raking across his armored Rune frame. The blackened metal screeched under the pressure before cracking.
The third Qrow slammed into him from behind, all three forming a blur of tearing wings and claws that shredded the air into ribbons.
The man's body smashed through layers of stone and dirt as Qrow's clones juggled him around and in midair— a brutal dance of violence and precision. One moment he was flung upward, the next he was struck down again, then across, never touching ground. The earth beneath them cratered into a vast bowl from the accumulated shockwaves.
And yet…
The man was unscathed.
With each blow, his Rune armor shattered further, the once-glowing lines of his protection fracturing like glass. But beneath that — beneath the black plates — his flesh gleamed wet and unmarred.
Qrow's monstrous faces snarled as realization struck.
"Impossible…"
The giant's grin widened, blood seeping from between his teeth as he finally caught one of Qrow's talons mid-swing. The impact rippled through the air like a thunderclap.
Then the world shook.
A sound erupted from his throat— a roar that was neither man nor beast. It was a cacophony of pain, rage, and madness. A sound so heavy it made the hills groan. The air rippled with the force of it, waves of distorted space expanding outward in every direction.
It was like the world itself was trying to crawl away from the sound.
The Qrow-beasts were thrown back, wings folding as they tumbled through the air. The sonic shockwave shattered stone spires and cracked the earth beneath them into molten lines.
When Qrow steadied himself in the sky, he saw the man standing on air.
The giant's flesh pulsed. His veins glowed black-red. And from his back erupted a bubbling, tar-like mass. It surged and writhed, forming into colossal arms — monstrous, bone-plated limbs tipped with claws that gleamed like obsidian. Grimm matter dripped from them in sticky strands that hissed against the ground.
Qrow's eyes widened. "...You're not even human anymore, are you?"
The man tilted his head — and his voice came out in two tones, overlapping, one human, one inhuman.
"Hahaha... Human!?" he gurgled.
The mass of flesh on his back flexed, and the newly formed arms tore through the air. Dozens of tendrils uncoiled from his shoulders and spine, slashing toward Qrow like whips.
Qrow's crows screeched and met them head-on. The sky became a blur of wings, tendrils, and claws, each strike carving gusts of pressure that gouged new trenches into the ruined landscape below. Qrow's clones darted and spun in a deadly dance, slicing through tendrils that regrew as fast as they were cut.
The man lunged forward on all fours, tearing through the air with unnatural speed, his limbs cracking the atmosphere with each movement. His head snapped forward, the Grimm mask on his face liquefying — merging into his flesh.
His mouth split open. Wider and wider.
Until there were no eyes and no nose — only a vertical maw that stretched across his entire head.
Rows upon rows of jagged teeth gleamed under the red light.
The thing roared and bit.
The nearest Qrow-clone didn't dodge in time. The massive maw clamped down over its torso, crunching through wings and bone with a sickening crack. The Crow shrieked, claws tearing at the beast's face even as it was being devoured.
The other two Qrows didn't hesitate. They slammed into the monster's back, tackling it out of the air. All three crashed to the ground in a storm of dust and shattered stone.
The world became chaos.
Wings beat against flesh. Talons tore into sinew. Claws met claws, each blow sending concussive waves through the air. The ground beneath them disintegrated under the sheer weight of their auras colliding.
Qrow's monstrous bodies twisted and merged again, his form fluctuating — growing larger, darker, more grotesque. His feathers turned larger and his eyes to burning embers. The presence of his aura warped into something akin to a visible heat haze around him.
The Murder Rune pulsed inside him, wild and unstable. He could feel it slipping — slipping past control, past reason. The edges of his vision bled crimson.
'Focus, damn it.'
But the Rune howled, feeding on the carnage, urging him to kill.
The giant's claws tore open one of Qrow's wings; black blood spattered across the dirt. Qrow retaliated by ramming his beak through the monster's shoulder, ripping away chunks of corrupted flesh that squirmed and tried to reattach.
They rolled, smashed, and tore through what little remained of the battlefield, their clash shaking the air.
The shockwaves reached even the others.
Raven and Winter, still fighting below, were thrown off their feet. The impact rippled through the ground like an earthquake, sending dust and debris cascading.
"Qrow!" Winter shouted over the noise. Her barriers flickered under the pressure.
Raven grit her teeth. She could feel Qrow's Will unraveling — too wild and too unstable.
"Damn it. He's losing control."
The air around her began to darken. Her body dissolved into shadow, reforming as her own aura surged outward. Her form stretched, expanded, consuming the light around her. Within seconds, her silhouette had grown — not just in size, but in presence.
A colossal raven emerged, wings of darkness spreading wide enough to cover the battlefield. The ground quaked as her shadow engulfed the land, swallowing stone and flame alike.
Winter didn't waste the moment and leapt onto the giant raven's back, her aura flaring bright white into the world, stabilizing her balance. She raised both hands and conjured spears of air, larger than buildings.
"Suppress and destroy!"
She hurled the spears downward — each one a pillar of compressed wind that exploded upon impact, forcing the other enemy Rank 2s to scatter backward.
"Now!"
Raven's vast wings beat once, creating a storm of darkness. Together, they shot forward, ignoring the weak distant shots from the Rank 1 sniper on the ridge.
The massive crow-beasts and the giant below were locked in brutal combat, but Raven and Winter didn't hesitate.
They flew — straight toward the monster.
The world convulsed.
Raven's enormous shadow form dove, wings spread wide enough to engulf the horizon. Winter, atop her back, brandished her blade like a banner of frost, white chains of the Seal Rune swirling around it as her energy blazed to life.
Suddenly, with impossible speed, the flesh monstrosity's colossal arms surged outward — blurring through the air faster than the eye could follow. The first struck against Qrow's central form square across the chest, halting his momentum instantly. Another coiled around his torso like a serpent, talons digging into black feathers and flesh.
Before Raven could react, a second arm swept upward, snaring her own titanic raven form midflight. She screamed, a sound that rippled through both shadow and air, but it was cut short as another limb locked around her. The sky itself seemed to buckle under the force.
Qrow thrashed, claws raking, wings beating hurricanes into existence — to no avail. Raven's shadow mass writhed, black silhouettes splitting apart and reforming in desperate resistance. But the giant's grip did not loosen.
More arms erupted from his back, from his sides, seemingly from the very void around him — an unending mass of black limbs all clawing forward. They seized Qrow's other crow forms, they tangled in Raven's wings, they grasped and constricted until both were fully bound.
Winter, still clinging to Raven's back, saw the opening and leapt.
Her boots struck the massive arm that held Raven aloft. She sprinted along it, the glowing energy of her Seal Rune trailing behind her in luminous chains. Her rapier gleamed white-blue, gathering light as it spun, and her face was a storm of focus and defiance.
The air rippled with frost as she neared the giant's chest.
But the arm she ran upon began to ripple too — the skin bubbling and splitting apart.
From within it, smaller arms burst outward, grotesque and human-shaped, dozens of them. They clawed for her ankles, her wrists, her waist. Winter sliced them away with precise, lightning-fast cuts, her blade singing through the air — but there were too many. Each one she cut spawned two more, and soon they overwhelmed her.
One wrapped around her leg. Another coiled about her sword arm. Then another wound around her neck.
In seconds, she too was held fast.
The flesh monstrosity raised his head, body convulsing as a grotesque grin split his vertical maw. The transformation had erased all trace of humanity. His body was no longer skin and bone — it was a pulsating, tumor-like mass of Grimm flesh, slick and black, threaded through with glowing red veins.
He was no longer even resembled a man. He was was something that could only be described as an eldritch being.
Something born of... a powerful Rune... of some sort.
Dozens of tendrils burst from his body, each tipped with an open mouth. Their teeth were human and animal both, jagged and mismatched. From those mouths came a sound that was not of this world — a unified chant, deep and ancient, recited in perfect rhythm:
"The Sleeper Beyond the Grave,
Matron of Slumbering Nightmares,
The Horror Who Denies The Sun!"
The words crawled through the air like living things and in that instant, the very world stilled.
The very concept of sound seemed to die in reverence.
Then came the pressure.
It wasn't wind or weight, but something older. Something vast. An awareness that pressed down upon reality itself.
A gaze, unseen yet absolute, turned toward the battlefield.
It was not a sight that saw but a sight that made itself known. It saw them not as beings, but as motes of dust in an infinite storm.
History itself seemed to tremble. The mountains on the horizon appeared to bleed red like viscous bool.
Winter gasped, falling to one knee even as she was held aloft. Raven screamed, her shadow form convulsing before dissolving in a storm of feathers. Qrow's monstrous shapes flickered, twisted — and then shattered, revealing his human self beneath.
The three of them plummeted to the ground, their Runes flickering like dying embers.
The crushing weight of that ancient being forced them flat. They couldn't even breathe.
Their bodies were pinned as if gravity had been multiplied a thousand fold. The earth itself groaned under the pressure.
Qrow's fingers dug into the dirt, veins bulging as he tried to rise — he couldn't even lift his head. His Will sputtered trying to generate an Aura strong enough to withstand the pressure of that presence.
Raven's hand twitched toward her sword, but it was futile. The hilt might as well have been forged from lead.
Winter's vision blurred. Her Seal Rune was still glowing faintly, chains of light trembling against the invisible force — but they were breaking one by one.
Then, as quickly as it had come, the chanting stopped.
The giant — the man — slowly straightened. His massive, deformed body began to shrink. The dozens of arms retracted back into him. The black flesh solidified, bone cracking, skin reforming. His shape condensed until he stood once again as a man, tall and broad, the Grimm flesh fading into his veins like retreating ink.
A black mask of bone reformed over his face, sealing his features once more.
He turned to his followers — the Rank 2s who had been watching from afar — and they bowed. None dared speak. All eyes turned to the sky, to the invisible weight still pressing down on the world.
And then, slowly, the man looked at Qrow, Winter, and Raven.
"You wonder why I do not finish you," he said, his voice both calm and reverent, as if speaking within a temple. "But there is no need to harm what already belongs to Her."
His tone deepened — almost worshipful.
"All life, in the end, will return to the Sleeper Eternal. It is not our right to take what has already been claimed. Only the one who sleeps eternal decides when reality and dream ends."
Qrow's jaw clenched. He tried to speak, but his voice broke under the weight of that unseen gaze. His consciousness was slipping — fading away as though the world itself was expelling him.
Raven's vision was tunneling into darkness. She recognized the feeling — the same sensation of leaving the Nightmare Realm when invoking the Dream Authority exit.
Except this time… it wasn't their choice through the system.
It was that entity's will.
Winter's body grew heavy, her limbs dissolving into motes of silver light. The same happened to Qrow and Raven — their bodies disintegrating into luminous fragments, pulled away by unseen hands.
The giant man watched them fade, his masked face unreadable.
When only their heads remained, he lifted one hand and gave a small, casual wave.
"We will see each other again soon, LUCID. This, I promise..." he said softly.
The last thing they saw before vanishing entirely — before awakening in the real world — was that faint, reverent smile beneath the mask.
And behind it all, in the silence that followed, lingered a whisper: the echo of a voice too vast for words.
"The broken eye that watches the world. Stolen power of a god forced to slumber. Stolen authority of deity beyond time. May you awaken, oh great dreamer and return all to the void of the night."