Jaune surged forward like a living catastrophe.
The sea of Grimm stretching across the vast celestial crimson moon flesh of the Sleeper's body might as well not have existed.
Lesser creatures exploded apart the moment they came into contact with him, their bodies rupturing into black slurry as he tore through their ranks without slowing. Some attempted to leap at him from the sides while others charged headlong from the front, yet the result was always the same.
Weakness cloaked his body like an invisible mantle, condensed so densely around his form that reality itself seemed to bend beneath its influence.
Anything that touched the aura surrounding him began to unravel. Bone softened. Flesh dissolved. Grimm that might have survived for centuries on this rock, disintegrated in moments, reduced to pools of foul black matter that splashed across the crimson ground before evaporating into smoke.
Jaune did not even look at them for his mind was elsewhere.
The plan.
Everything depended on the plan.
His father had spent the last two days explaining the ritual in painstaking detail, outlining possibilities, contingencies, and fragments of potential futures stitched together from what his Foresight could see.
It wasn't perfect, Null had ensured that.
For the first time in decades Nicholas Arc was forced to rely upon guesswork and probability instead of certainty. Yet even then, the old man had managed to carve out a path forward through the coming apocalypse.
Whether that path would actually work remained to be seen.
Jaune crushed through a charging Grimm the size of a truck and continued onward, his feet tearing furrows through the flesh-like terrain beneath him as he accelerated toward the distant horizon. Above him floated vast fragments of ivory land suspended and connected by ethereal rivers of glowing runic energy that resembled veins pumping life throughout the celestial object.
The sight was disturbing.
The moon.
The entire broken moon was her, Salem's body.
His father had also referred to it as the "Eye of the Sleeper." It was curious to note how all of these gods seemed to have bodies that resembled eyes. The black sun had turned into an eye, and even this moon was also known as an eye.
Surely there was some sort of connection there.
In any case, the realization was relatively absurd.
But what was more absurd was what he could feel beneath his feet. A pulsing, that somewhat resembled a heartbeat. A slow, incomprehensibly vast rhythm echoing through the landscape itself.
His father hadn't lied. This place was certainly alive.
There was some sort of instinctive feeling that the deeper he went across the landscape, the greater the finding would be.
Jaune leapt over a swarm of Grimm and landed atop the skull of a monstrous serpent-like creature, crushing it flat before launching himself onward again. The wind tore past his face as he crossed hundreds of meters in seconds, his thoughts remaining fixed upon the singular obstacle standing between him and victory.
Rank Three.
Everything began there.
Tyrian stood upon the threshold of Rank Four and Salem herself, existed beyond that. Compared to such monsters, Jaune was still a Rank Two.
An exceptionally powerful Rank Two, perhaps, but the gap between ranks only became more horrifying the higher one climbed.
Jaune had seen it firsthand.
A Rank Three possessed a Domain and could distort reality itself. A Rank Three stood at the apex of humanity and Jaune needed to become one as quickly as possible as that would be the only way for him to slingshot into the realm of Rank 4.
Unfortunately, that presented a problem.
He was not ready.
To create a master rune, he required mastery and mastery required a great comprehensive understanding of his runes that was currently beyond him.
All of this required time, time that he no longer possessed.
Weakness was the closest.
As he ran, Jaune could practically feel the state of the rune within his soul. Weakness had grown rapidly over the past months, driven by endless combat and constant experimentation. Out of all three of his runes it stood nearest to the threshold of true mastery.
Yet even then...
He could feel that it was only at around twenty percent.
Perhaps slightly more, but nowhere near enough.
Plunder lagged further behind at around ten percent.
The rune possessed immense versatility and terrifying potential, but potential alone did not translate into mastery. Every new application required understanding and every stolen concept required digestion. Every interaction demanded comprehension.
Then there was Null.
Jaune almost laughed.
Null was absurd and terrifying. Possibly one of the most dangerous runes ever conceived. And yet despite all that, it was still practically a newborn.
Less than one percent, a mere fraction of a fraction away from true mastery. The only reason it seemed so overwhelming was because its conceptual hierarchy existed at such an outrageous level.
But power and understanding were different things. Jaune lacked understanding, which left him with a problem.
Ordinarily, he might have eventually solved it through Plunder.
The thought crossed his mind as he barreled through another horde of Grimm, tearing a bloody path across the battlefield. Plunder possessed the ability to steal more than just energy and strength.
It could steal comprehension and understanding itself.
If the apocalypse had not arrived, if Sleepless had not accelerated everything toward disaster, then Jaune likely could have spent an extra year harvesting fragments of understanding from enemy awakened around the world. Different concepts and different perspectives regarding runes.
None of them would have directly related to Weakness, Plunder, or Null, yet understanding itself created connections and these connections could overlap.
Ideas usually intersected.
A person studying fire might gain insights relevant to destruction. A person studying destruction might uncover truths related to entropy and entropy might overlap with decay.
Decay with weakness and Weakness with countless other principles.
Cross-comprehension.
That was the term he understood. Enough fragments gathered together would eventually form a whole. Had circumstances been different, Jaune suspected he would have reached mastery far sooner than most awakened in history.
Of course, had circumstances been different, none of this would have happened at all.
No Sleepless, Salem, apocalypse, awakening or even runes. After all, his awakening was only due to his father.
The thought was so absurd that he dismissed it immediately.
What ifs no longer mattered.
Only reality mattered and reality was currently attempting to end the world. A distant roar shook the crimson landscape.
Jaune ignored it.
His destination remained fixed within his mind.
Knowledge.
The Supreme Rune.
The cornerstone of everything.
His father had been very clear regarding that. If Jaune wanted to reach into the realm of mastery as soon as possible, then he needed Knowledge.
Only Knowledge possessed the authority necessary to accelerate understanding on such a scale and could bridge the impossible gap separating him from mastery within the tiny amount of time that remained.
There was just one problem.
Finding it.
His father had told him where it would appear... or rather the description of where it should appear.
The distinction was important.
Foresight couldn't provide coordinates.
It could not hand Jaune a map, especially now that he had Null.
Nicholas had described the landmarks, terrain formations and the rivers of runic energy that Knowledge would appear at. The moon area had many strange structures. He had repeated the descriptions over and over until Jaune could practically recite them from memory.
Yet memory was all he possessed, no guiding thread and prophetic vision. Only fragments of information and his own ability to navigate.
Jaune clenched his jaw, then he accelerated. The crimson landscape blurred around him as another army of Grimm rushed to intercept his path, but they never had a chance.
The horde shattered against him like waves crashing against a cliff face, their bodies dissolving beneath the influence of Weakness before they could even slow his advance. Black blood splattered across the ground as Jaune continued forward without hesitation, his eyes scanning the distant horizon.
Somewhere on this monstrous moon, upon the body of the Sleeper.
Knowledge waited.
And if his memory failed him now, then everything that followed would become infinitely harder.
.
.
The ritual had begun while Ruby was standing in the living room.
One moment she had been at home with Yang and her father, hastily scrambling to throw on Crescent Rose's harness while the news channels screamed about anomalies appearing throughout the world.
The next, reality itself had simply ceased to cooperate. There had been no sensation of movement, or flash of light. One instant she was standing on the floorboards of her house and the next she was plummeting through open air.
The wind slammed into her immediately.
Ruby's cloak snapped violently behind her as she tumbled through empty space, instinctively righting herself into a stable fall. Above her stretched a blood-red sky filled with descending figures, while beneath her lay an endless landscape of white-crimson landscape and distant floating continents connected by rivers of glowing runic energy.
Her heart skipped a beat.
'The Dream realm's moon!'
Somehow, instinctively, she knew. The realization seemed to arrive fully formed within her thoughts. Then, she heard screaming.
"RUBY?!"
Ruby turned her head.
To her complete bewilderment, Sun Wukong was falling through the air not far from her, limbs extended as he fought against the wind.
"What the hell is going on?!" he shouted.
Ruby blinked.
Of all the people she had expected to find falling beside her during the apocalypse, Sun had not even made the list.
"Sun?!"
The Primate user kicked the air slightly before stabilizing himself.
"Yeah, it's me! You know what's going on?"
Ruby immediately kicked off the air as well using bursts of Will to alter her trajectory. Her body curved through the sky until she drifted closer to him, both of them continuing their descent side by side while the landscape rushed upward beneath them.
"I think it's beginning," she shouted over the roaring wind.
Sun looked at the landscape and his expression immediately darkened. His voice became noticeably quieter.
"Shit... this place..."
Ruby already knew what he was about to say.
"It's the Dream Realm's moon."
Ruby nodded grimly. For a few moments neither spoke as they stared at the landscape beneath them that was rapidly approaching, then Ruby pointed.
"Heads up. Sea of Grimm below."
Sun followed her gaze before grimacing.
"Yeah. I noticed."
His eyes shifted elsewhere, then he pointed toward the distant sky.
"There."
Ruby turned and other figures were falling as well. Hundreds. Some were stabilizing themselves while others appeared to be panicking.
Even from this distance, the fluctuations of Aura made it obvious that many of them were weaker awakened.
Rank Ones and Zeros.
People who might not survive what was waiting below. Sun's jaw tightened and Ruby seemed to already understood what he was thinking.
"I think those guys are Rank Ones."
"Yeah. We should go help them."
Sun grinned.
"Thought you'd say that."
Moments later the ground arrived.
Ruby struck first.
The impact created a crater as crimson earth exploded outward in all directions. Grimm caught beneath the shockwave shattered instantly, crushed beneath forces they could not hope to resist. Sun landed seconds later nearby, creating a second crater that flattened another cluster of creatures.
Neither paused as both immediately launched toward the distant awakened they had spotted from the air.
The environment could wait. People needed help.
.
.
Several hundred kilometers away from Ruby, Weiss Schnee was falling.
Unlike Ruby, she had not been at home when the ritual began. She had been inside LUCID Headquarters, training within one of the organization's practice facilities while Oscar assisted her with refining several applications of her runes.
One moment she had been standing within reinforced training chambers, and the next she was plummeting through the sky.
The abrupt transition had left her disoriented for only a fraction of a second before training took over. Weiss quickly stabilized herself, spreading her body to slow her descent as she assessed her surroundings.
Then she noticed who was falling beside her.
"Commander Ozpin?!"
The man appeared completely unbothered by the experience. While Weiss fell spread-eagled through the air, Ozpin descended vertically, feet pointed downward as though gravity itself had politely requested his cooperation.
The older man glanced toward her.
"Miss Schnee."
Weiss stared and the wind howled around them as she adjusted her position, eventually aligning herself beside him.
"What's going on?"
Ozpin looked downward, his expression remained calm, though Weiss could detect a faint tension behind his eyes.
"I believe.... that it appears as if, all awakened across the world have been displaced."
His gaze swept across the horizon.
"A random teleportation event, perhaps."
Weiss followed his line of sight and witnessed several figures that filled the sky. Then Ozpin spoke again, his voice became thoughtful.
"And... I also believe we are currently on the Dream Realm's moon."
Weiss froze and a dozen puzzle pieces immediately slammed together inside her head. The ritual. The Sleeper. The purpose of Sleepless.
Her eyes widened.
"The Sleeper's on the moon?"
Ozpin slowly shook his head.
"No."
For the first time since she had known him, Weiss detected genuine unease in his expression.
"I suspect..."
His eyes drifted toward the endless crimson landscape.
"She is the moon."
Weiss felt her stomach drop.
.
.
Yang Xiao Long found herself surrounded by strangers. The transition had been so sudden that she barely had time to register it before she was already falling through the sky.
Unlike Ruby, she recognized nobody around her.
Several awakened plummeted nearby, their panicked expressions and weak Aura signatures making their strength obvious.
Rank Zeros and Ones. Far too weak for what awaited below.
Yang sighed.
Of course.
The world ended and she immediately became babysitter. She rolled her shoulders and prepared to move toward the nearest group.
Then shadows appeared.
Darkness flowed across the air itself, coalescing around every awakened nearby. The phenomenon was so sudden that several people screamed but Yang merely blinked.
She recognized that flavour of runic energy instantly and didn't fight it.
A second later the world vanished and space folded.
The sky disappeared and everyone found themselves standing safely upon the crimson surface of the moon.
The confused awakened stumbled in shock.
Yang turned and saw a familiar figure emerge from the shadows behind her. Long black hair and cold crimson eyes.
A perpetually smug and cold expression.
Raven Branwen.
The gathered awakened immediately grew silent. Even they could sense the pressure radiating from both women.
Rank Twos, and powerful ones.
Yang crossed her arms.
"If you expect me to be grateful, you've got another thing coming."
Raven's lips curved upward as her gaze swept over Yang.
"Well, well. The little pup's learned to bare her fangs."
Yang cracked her knuckles and heat gathered around her fists.
"You know, I haven't seen you since I reached Rank Two. Don't think I forgot what you did."
To her irritation, Raven looked proud. Not apologetic or guilty but proud. The older woman smirked. Then her expression shifted.
"Let's save it for later. We have incoming."
Yang could feel them herself. Dozens of Grimm were converging from every direction.
"I know."
Without another word, Yang launched herself forward like a cannonball and the nearest Grimm exploded upon impact.
.
.
Elsewhere across the moon, Blake Belladonna's heart nearly stopped. The moment she regained her bearings after the teleportation, she noticed him.
The air rushed past them both as they fell.
At first she thought it was impossible, then she saw the sword and the red hair, with that unmistakable mask.
And behind them, were those unmistakable blue eyes.
Adam Taurus.
For a brief moment Blake could only stare. In her heart, she had hoped that what Pyrrha had said was simply a coincidence. Surely the Adam that she had mentioned during the Shadow Realm expedition wasn't the same Adam that she knew...
But now...
She could only stare.
Every memory she possessed seemed to surface simultaneously.
Fear, anger, betrayal.
Shock.
"Adam!"
The name tore itself from her throat. The masked man slowly turned his head and his gaze settled upon her. And despite the chaos of the apocalypse unfolding around them, despite the endless sky and the impossible moon beneath them, Adam smiled.
"Hello, Blake."
The words were carried away by the wind.
Yet somehow they felt louder than anything else in the world.