Wind tore past him like a physical thing.
Ren's body spun upward through the into the crimson haze of the Nightmare, thrown with the kind of force only Nora could produce. His lungs compressed slightly, from the sudden launch and his stomach flipped as the distant ground dropped away beneath him. The operating ward—if it could still be called that—was a yawning maw of a seemingly endless vertical chamber now. Walls twisted away into blackened tendrils and arms which pulsed faintly like the insides of some titanic organism.
From his height, Ren could see everything—the broken ward, the glint of weapons, the flickering rune lights of his teammates as they fell through the chaos and Qrow's monstrous form clashing with the surgeons. The impact of each blow distorted the very air itself and sent shockwaves of power crashing through the atmosphere. The ground fractured and churned like boiling liquid.
He exhaled, eyes narrowing as gravity began to reclaim him.
Nora's launch had been powerful, but it was still finite. The ceiling, housing that sprawling mass of black arteries, was at least another hundred meters away. He was rising fast… but not fast enough.
Suddenly, his instincts screamed, alerting him to movement ahead of him and from behind.
A screeching sound pierced the air as a swarm of insectoid Grimm peeled from the dark ceiling like living tar. Tens of them. Some were shaped like hornets and others, like flying centipedes with mismatched limbs. All of them turned toward him, mandibles gnashing.
This was the automatic defense mechanism of the Amalgamation, which meant that Qrow was right. The core weren't the surgeons, it was probably hidden within the ceiling somewhere.
Ren spared a glance behind him and saw a portion of the swarm that were fighting his squad mates below, separate and head up towards him.
Fortunately, these grimm were all Rank 0s. To a Rank 1 like him, it was child's play.
Ren's calm returned. He flipped in midair, spinning both bladed pistols. His Aura pulsed along the rune-tech barrels, igniting invisible lines that spiraled across their frames.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Each shot was precise and cold.
Calculated.
The first few Grimm burst apart mid-flight, dissolving into motes of black. The second lost its wings and tumbled into another, tearing both apart. The third tried to veer around him, but Ren flicked a switch in his mind—the bullet curved, arcing upward into the creature's abdomen. The round exploded from within, showering black into the air.
Trajectory.
His Rune flared behind him, translucent and geometric—a golden web of vectors and intersecting lines forming a spiraling vortex that mirrored the pattern of his breathing.
He could feel the lines of force in everything around him—his bullets, the wind, even his own body. Each could be bent, curved, redirected.
It wasn't true telekinesis. But it was close enough.
A trio of Grimm dove at him from above. Ren didn't even look up. He twisted his guns in opposite directions, firing six shots that ricocheted through the swarm in perfect arcs. The bullets pinged between the creatures like guided metal bees, carving through chitin and bone until the air was filled only with dust and their dying shrieks.
He used their dissolving bodies as footholds, kicking off them one by one. The recoil from each step gave him another burst of upward momentum.
"Almost there," he muttered under his breath, spinning his pistols once before holstering one to free his hand.
His eyes flicked down again—then widened slightly.
Through the smoke and distortion, two shadows moved like mountains colliding. The first was Qrow—or what had once been him. The Crow monstrosity was unrecognizable now, wings and talons large enough to split towers in half. Every motion dripped with predatory rage.
The second—an even darker silhouette—was the Raven that had perched on his shoulder. It wasn't made of flesh or feathers but of pure shadow, defined only by the absence of light.
They slammed into the surgeon beasts with cataclysmic force, each blow sending waves of distortion across the entire ward. The veins along the walls flared red, reacting to the impact like a heartbeat.
Ren actually paused, mid-ascent, stunned. The scale of it was somewhat unreal.
'What kind of rune does Qrow have? Is that Raven also one of his Rune skills?'
Those thoughts slipped out unbidden. He didn't have time for an answer. The next moment, gravity pulled him back down—and his last platform of Grimm disintegrated into nothing.
For a split second, he was suspended, weightless.
Then he began to fall.
Ren's breathing slowed. Fear didn't take hold. He'd already anticipated this.
His Rune brightened again, and threads of golden light radiated outwards in his eyes, like spider silk.
"All right… let's try this."
He raised one pistol, aimed nowhere in particular, and fired three rounds downward. But instead of releasing them, he caught them mid-flight in his Rune's grasp.
The bullets froze in the air beneath him.
He reached out with his will—and the lines connected.
A pulse of Aura rippled out from his chest, threading into the bullets. They glowed faintly, humming. He stepped on the first one, and it held, shimmering under his boots. The platform wavered but didn't collapse.
"Good enough," Ren murmured.
He fired another three, chaining them upward. Then another set.
Step by step, bullet by bullet, he climbed.
Each time his boots left one, the shot dissolved into light and drifted away. The closer he got to the ceiling, the heavier the air became. He could feel something up there—something vast and hollow. A low, rhythmic pulsing that wasn't sound but pressure.
When he was within reach, he hooked his guns with practiced speed and drove both pistols backward. The blades mounted beneath the barrels gleamed with faint Aura.
He force anchored them into the black surface above him.
The sound was wet.
Ren grimaced. The "ceiling" didn't have the feel of stone—it was organic. Layers of vein-like tissue intertwined into a massive arterial network, each vessel thicker than a subway tunnel. The texture pulsed faintly, like muscle.
The veins weren't alive. But they weren't dead either.
Grimm matter.
Black ichor oozed from the puncture points, sliding down his arms. He felt it vibrate faintly, like static crawling under his skin.
"Disgusting," he muttered. "But I'm now in position."
He risked a glance down. The battlefield was a blur of chaos—his team scattered, fighting through the swarm while Qrow and the Raven tore apart what remained of the surgeon beasts. The ground itself appeared to be moving now, expanding and contracting in sync with the pulses from the veins around him.
Rank 1 zones were nothing like Rank 2 zones. Scale-wise, they were relatively smaller. This place truly was a Nightmare.
Ren's breath steadied again.
He holstered one pistol, keeping the other drawn. His free hand traced along the artery nearest to him, following its direction. It branched into dozens of thinner vessels spreading like spiderwebs across the ceiling. Each vein glowed faintly, carrying light downward toward the main body of the surgeons.
That was the connection. The root system.
If they were going to destabilize this Zone, these needed to be destroyed.
Ren tilted his head slightly, studying the angles. He could already see the lines—vectors of collapse, points of tension, weak spots hidden in the pattern.
Below, Nora's laughter rang out—a thunderous crash following seconds later. Jaune's shout echoed. Weiss's light flared. Ruby's red streak carved across the swarm.
For a brief moment, Ren smiled faintly.
"They've got it handled," he said quietly. "Guess it's my turn."
He leveled his pistol, Aura pooling at the barrel, and let his Rune bloom to full. The lines of trajectory multiplied, filling the space like a constellation of possibilities.
Every shot mattered.
Every path was his to command.
The bullets buried into the black arteries above him with a wet, crunching sound. For half a second, nothing happened—then the world convulsed and the ceiling began to scream..
A spray of black blood erupted from the wound, splattering across the ceiling and raining down in fat droplets that hissed as they hit the air. The blood didn't fall naturally. It pulsed—like it was trying to crawl back upward.
Ren ducked instinctively, twisting his body along the line of his Rune as the droplets drifted past him, warping midair. They didn't hit the floor. Instead, they began to swell, their shapes trembling and splitting apart as something inside them began to form.
"Oh, great," Ren muttered. "Of course."
The blood exploded outward with a wet pop, birthing the first creature.
It was massive—more than twice his size even hunched over. The upper half was shaped like a praying mantis, its scythe arms long enough to slice through a car. But below the waist, it shifted into something worse: a centipede's body, slick with black chitin and sprouting dozens of legs that twitched and scraped against the ceiling.
The sound alone made Ren's skin crawl.
He didn't have a fear of insects. But this was... simply disgusting. Every joint bent too many times. Every movement, too deliberate. The creature's eyeless face tilted toward him, and its jaws opened in a slow, trembling hiss.
"Rank one," Ren muttered, leveling his pistols. "Upper range or peak, probably."
The mantis-centipede screeched, and the ceiling shook as it launched forward. Ren fired twice. The first bullet hit one of its scythe arms, deflecting uselessly. The second curved at the last second—Trajectory bending its path into the joint behind its head. The Grimm shrieked but didn't stop.
The force of its lunge shattered the arterial flesh where its claws landed.
Ren leapt back—if "back" could be called that when gravity was sideways. He pivoted his weight, kicked off the artery's side, and fired another volley midair. The bullets curved around him in perfect arcs, forcing the creature to twist its long body to intercept them.
Then he heard another sound—a droning hum, sharp and rhythmic, like metal vibrating.
From the surrounding arterial tunnels, shapes poured out. Wasps. Dozens of them. Each one the size of a person, bone stingers glinting with faint red light.
"Fantastic," Ren sighed.
One of the wasps fired—its stinger glowing before releasing a thin beam of crimson energy. The laser burned through the air, cutting through one of the veins near him and sending a splatter of black blood upward.
Ren twisted his body sideways, sliding along the curvature of the ceiling like a dancer mid-spin. Two more beams followed, slicing through where his torso had been moments ago.
"Lower end Rank 1s," he said under his breath. "Fast, ranged, low defense. Manageable."
He aimed down and fired six shots in quick succession. Each bullet curved upward at different angles, slamming into a wasp from multiple sides. The creature exploded into shadow and bone fragments.
The recoil pushed him higher. He grabbed one of the smaller arteries above him, anchoring himself by jamming one pistol blade into the fleshy surface.
The mantis-centipede hissed again, rushing towards him effortlessly, all while somehow defying gravity. Its scythes dragged across the black tissue, sparks flying where they scraped. Its bottom half flexed, crawling in a rhythm that made Ren's stomach tighten.
It was fast.
Ren barely ducked in time as a scythe swung through where his neck had been. The blade left a deep red line of energy in its wake—an arc of condensed energy cutting through the air.
He twisted upside down, feet finding purchase on the artery behind him.
"Range attacks now?" he muttered. "Of course."
The mantis's scythes began glowing, the crimson energy condensing into arcs that shimmered like liquid glass. It swung—and red blades shot through the air, slashing everything in their path.
Ren fired downward, curving his bullets to meet the arcs. The shots detonated midair, bursting into small concussive flares that disrupted the incoming energy. Still, some slipped through—one cutting a line across his chest and another grazing his shoulder.
Fortunately, his rune frame held strong. Though, deep gouges were left on the armor.
"Too close."
He shifted again, leaping toward one of the wasps. His boots landed square on its back. The creature shrieked and bucked wildly, trying to shake him off. Ren jammed the barrel of his pistol into the base of its wing and fired once. The wing shattered.
The Grimm plummeted. Ren jumped just before it hit the artery, flipping through the air.
Another arc of red energy tore through where he'd been.
'The thing's adapting,' Ren realized grimly.
The mantis-chimera centipede grimm thing was learning how to track his movement. Each strike was coming faster, and the energy, more focused. The sound alone—like air being torn apart—set his nerves on edge.
Ren holstered one pistol and extended his hand. An invisible line of light formed between his fingers—a marker of his rune.
"Trajectory: full burst."
The light shot forward, splitting into a dozen invisible threads that traced complex spirals around the ceiling. He fired into the pattern, each bullet catching one of the lines. The shots bounced between them, curving through impossible arcs—ricocheting off the arterial walls, looping back, and striking the wasps one after another.
The swarm thinned in seconds, leaving only drifting shadows.
But the mantis was still there. It lunged again, body coiling like a spring.
Ren met it head-on.
He fired three times, each bullet redirecting in midair. The first hit its shoulder, the second its chest, and the third—he twisted his wrist—angled it into its underbelly, detonating it.
The creature screeched, its lower body thrashing violently.
Ren used the momentum of his shots to leap back, flipping through the air. His boots hit another artery, and he reloaded in one seamless motion.
Then he saw it—his Rune counter flashing faintly at the edge of his vision.
[Runes: 100]
Ren's breathing slowed. That number had been crept up all fight—each kill, each moment of heightened focus feeding into it.
He could feel it in his chest. The pressure. The subtle, electric hum that came when the Nightmare itself acknowledged growth.
He'd hit the threshold.
"Guess I'm due for an upgrade," he murmured.
The mantis let out a high-pitched shriek, its scythes beginning to glow again.
Ren leveled both pistols, his Aura crackling faintly across the barrels. The lines of his Trajectory Rune shimmered brighter, filling the air with faint golden vectors.
Each bullet he held now felt alive, vibrating with intent. He could already see where they'd travel, how they'd bend, what they'd destroy.
"You're not the only one who can cut through air."
The mantis swung.
Ren fired.
His bullets curved—not just in one direction, but in several, forming intersecting spirals that tore through the air like invisible blades. The arcs met the red energy halfway and sliced through it, the impact producing a shockwave that shattered the artery beneath them.
He clung from the ceiling, smoke curling from his pistols.
The smoke obscure the creature for a moment before revealing it in all its glory. It was... unhurt.
'Damn it. It looks like I can't kill it without some serious power.'
Without a second though, Ren prompted the nightmare system.
It was time to create his second rune.
.
.
AN: Advanced chapters are available on patreon