The word Rank carried weight.
It wasn't just a measure of strength nor was it a convenient shorthand for danger. It was a framework that both humans and the Nightmare system itself followed. It was imposed order that structured the power of all beings that had access to the dream realm.
Both awakened and Grimm were classified within the same numerical ladder. Rank Zero through Rank Three. On paper, it suggested parity, but in practice, it was a lie of convenience.
So, what exactly was a Rank Three Grimm?
The question surfaced in Jaune's mind with an unsettling calm, as if his thoughts were deliberately slowing themselves down to avoid panic. He had heard the term before, of course. Everyone who had even a passing familiarity with LUCID had, let alone he, who was a part of this organization.
Rank Three sat at the very top of the classification system, looming over it like a warning label rather than a category.
Jaune had experience with Rank Three awakened.
Limited experience, but experience nonetheless.
Ironwood and Ozpin.
Their presence was odd and couldn't be properly quantified. However, the way the air itself seemed to acknowledge them and how space felt heavier around them, indicated that they were not merely powerful. They were authoritative, and reality itself seemed to listen when they moved.
Curiously enough, Jaune's weakness sense, was somehow not able to find any weaknesses on their bodies. It was like his sense slid over them such that they didn't exist.
But Grimm were not the same as awakened.
And that difference mattered more than most people understood.
At Rank Zero, Grimm were dangerous but comprehensible. They existed within the margins of human struggle. A sufficiently trained adult, given a proper weapon and a measure of luck, could fight one and live. Victory was never clean, and mistakes were punished harshly, but the odds were not absolute.
Beowolves. Creeps. Even an Ursa, under the right circumstances.
These Grimm were predators, but they still obeyed limitations. Their bodies bled, their bones broke and they could be outmaneuvered, exhausted, or cornered. Rank Zero Grimm were monsters, but monsters that could be learned, studied, and overcome.
Rank One was where that understanding began to fracture.
At that point, unawakened humans ceased to matter in any meaningful combat calculation. Rank One Grimm were larger, stronger, faster, and more resilient. Their forms expanded grotesquely, Beowolves growing to the size of trucks, Ursas looming like walking buildings. Their claws could tear through steel. Their hides shrugged off conventional weapons.
Only awakened individuals at the same rank could stand against them.
Even then, it was not trivial. Rank One awakened had access to two Runes, and that made the difference. Grimm at that level condensed only one. That imbalance allowed awakened fighters to dominate through versatility, synergy, and refinement. Physical strength mattered less than application.
Rank One battles were dangerous, but they were still battles.
Rank Two erased any illusion of fairness.
Rank Two Grimm were massive. Their size alone became a weapon. Their bodies were dense beyond reason, layered with condensed nightmare matter that resisted most forms of damage. Blades dulled. Energy dispersed. Explosions failed to penetrate beyond the surface.
Their second Rune pushed them beyond brute force. They gained abilities that warped the battlefield itself.
To fight a Rank Two Grimm, an awakened had to impose Will.
Not Body or Aura but Will.
At Rank Two, awakened individuals learned how to force reality to accept their intent. A strike could carry multiplied impact. Distance became negotiable and even Cause and effect loosened their grip. This was the level where awakened stopped playing by the same rules as the world around them.
Even so, Rank Two Grimm remained brutally dangerous. Their bodies were impenetrable to anyone not of the same rank. A Rank One awakened stood no chance. A Rank Zero awakened might as well have been invisible.
Then came Rank Three. It wasn't a step upward.
It was a category failure.
Grimm at that level were not just stronger. They were something else entirely. Their mass alone defied comprehension. City sized was not an exaggeration. It was a minimum. Entire skylines vanished behind their forms. Streets, towers, and districts were reduced to scale references rather than obstacles.
Each Rank Three Grimm was unique.
Not variants, but singular entities.
Their bodies had adapted to take negligible damage from nearly every known method of attack. Fire. Kinetic force. Energy constructs. Conceptual effects. Most attacks simply failed to register. Damage that would obliterate a Rank Two Grimm barely disturbed the surface of a Rank Three.
Their density was absurd. Their mass compressed nightmare matter to a degree that resisted penetration even from Rank Three awakened. Killing one was not a matter of power alone. It was a problem of application, endurance, and attrition.
Even Rank Three awakened struggled to fight them.
Jaune knew what Rank Three awakened were capable of. He had seen fragments of it from videos and each one proved that they were catastrophically powerful.
And still, Rank Three Grimm pushed back.
What made it worse was their intelligence.
Rank Three Grimm were not mindless. They were not driven by simple hunger or instinct. At that level, something changed. They learned, they observed and... weirdly enough, they planned.
They chose when and where to act and, perhaps most disturbing of all, they did not attack indiscriminately.
Unlike lower ranked Grimm, Rank Three entities did not swarm cities, hunt populations, or rampage endlessly through the Dream Realm. They did not care about ordinary life. They ignored it entirely.
Instead, they waited.
For reasons no one fully understood, Rank Three Grimm only became active when a Rank Three awakened entered the Dream Realm.
Then they moved.
Almost all confirmed instances followed the same pattern. The moment a Rank Three awakened manifested within the Dream Realm, Rank Three Grimm would respond. They would converge. Sometimes slowly and almost always violently.
But always deliberate
They hunted the awakened.
Ninety nine point nine nine percent of the time, this behavior held true.
They would even allow other awakened to pass unchallenged if they were not the target. Their focus narrowed completely onto the Rank Three presence.
Why this happened was unknown.
Some theorized it was territorial. Others believed it was instinctive, a reaction to power that threatened their dominance. There were theories involving resonance, Rune interference, or some deeper layer of the Nightmare System that had never been properly understood.
None of them had been proven.
What was proven was consistency.
Rank Three Grimm appeared when Rank Three awakened did.
Which was why this situation was wrong.
Winter Schnee had said Rime.
A Rank Three Grimm had appeared there.
And as far as Jaune knew, no Rank Three awakened had entered the Dream Realm in that region.
That was the part that made his stomach tighten.
Because if the pattern had broken, then something else had changed.
Either a Rank Three awakened had entered the Dream Realm without public acknowledgment, which was unlikely, or the Grimm had manifested independently.
Both possibilities were bad.
One implied secrecy at the highest level.
The other implied escalation.
Jaune exhaled slowly, his thoughts circling back to the same conclusion no matter how he approached it.
A city sized monster had appeared. One that could shrug off nearly every form of attack and was intelligent enough to choose its battles. One that should not have been there at all.
The most important question was not how powerful it was. The question was why it had shown up.
And what it intended to do next.
Jaune's phone vibrated.
The sound cut through the rising murmur of the hall far more sharply than any spoken word could have. He pulled it from his pocket almost without thinking, Weiss and Blake already turning toward him as their own devices lit up in near perfect unison.
The screen was stark.
LUCID ALERT
ALL AWAKENED PERSONNEL
IMMEDIATE RETURN TO NEAREST LUCID BASE
PRIORITY OMEGA
Jaune's didn't need to read it twice.
"Well," Blake said quietly, forcing calm into her voice. "That answers that."
Around them, the ballroom fractured.
The composed elegance of moments earlier collapsed into organized urgency. Delegates were already pulling away from one another, phones pressed to ears, voices lowered but rapid. Assistants appeared as if summoned from the walls themselves, whispering instructions, guiding groups toward exits.
Jaune caught fragments as they passed.
"Confirm with Vacuo Command."
"Tell Atlas Council immediately."
"Pull our people back from the Dream Realm."
Whatever decorum had once ruled the night evaporated. This was no longer a ball.
Weiss met Jaune's eyes, her expression grim and focused. "We should go. Now."
Jaune nodded. "Yeah."
They moved quickly, blending into the flow of departing guests. The great doors at the far end of the hall were thrown open, cold night air rushing in as people spilled out onto the grounds. Vehicles were already being brought around, engines humming impatiently.
Jaune's thoughts felt oddly distant, like they were being forced through a narrowing corridor.
Rank Three Grimm.
The words echoed again and again.
As they passed near the stage, Jaune's attention snagged on movement.
Arthur Watts and Pietro Pollendina were exiting from the opposite side, flanked by attendants. Pietro's hands were gripping the arms of his wheelchair more tightly than usual. His brow was furrowed and concern etched deep into his features.
Watts, however…
Jaune slowed half a step.
His weakness sense flared unbidden.
Everyone else radiated tension. Fear, alarm and a tight coil of dread that vibrated through the room like static.
Watts didn't.
His emotions were sharp and bright.
Excitement.
And beneath it, something else.
Glee.
It was subtle. Carefully controlled. Anyone without Jaune's sense would have missed it entirely. But it was there, unmistakable. A restrained thrill that had no place in a moment like this.
Watts noticed Jaune looking.
For the briefest instant, their eyes met.
Watts' expression did not change. He had a countenance that was outwardly showing stress.
But the feeling did not vanish. How odd.
Jaune forced himself to look away, now was clearly not the time.
They pushed through the doors into the open night. The manicured grounds of the Schnee estate were awash in light and movement. Guards coordinated departures. Airships idled overhead and their engines rumbled like distant thunder.
Weiss glanced back once, her jaw tight. "This... is bad."
Blake nodded. "Rank Three means escalation, across everything."
Jaune slipped his phone back into his pocket, his pulse steady but heavy. "Whatever's happening in Rime… it's not staying contained."
They reached their vehicle, whose doors were already already open.
The drive was silent.
The city lights of Atlas blurred past the windows as their vehicle cut through traffic lanes cleared with unnerving efficiency. Emergency protocols were already in motion. Signals blinked across overhead displays. Security drones swept the skies in tight, purposeful patterns.
Atlas city was going under lockdown...
The military base rose ahead of them like a slab of reinforced intent, floodlights washing the perimeter in white glare. Gates opened without pause. No questions or delays. Their clearance had already been flagged the moment the alert went out.
They entered the LUCID base a different way from how they had been doing before. Their vehicle descended into an underground access tunnel and the outside world sealed itself away behind layers of armored stone and metal. Weiss straightened beside him, her composure locking into place like a familiar armor. Blake leaned forward slightly, eyes scanning everything despite knowing there was nothing to see.
They passed through multiple checkpoints in rapid succession.
Then deeper and even deeper still.
The LUCID base unfolded beneath the city like a buried nerve center.
It was already alive with motion.
Operators filled command pits and raised platforms, holographic displays projecting layered maps of the Dream Realm over real world geography. Lines of light marked active Nightmare zones. Clusters pulsed ominously over the northern regions.
Rime burned brightest of all.
There was no wailing sirens or chaos. This was worse. Controlled urgency and orders relayed in clipped phrases. Units deploying. Telemetry updating in real time.
Jaune stepped out into it and felt the weight settle fully on his shoulders.
Weiss moved beside him, her gaze flicking across the displays with practiced speed. "They're mobilizing everyone."
"All Rank Two operatives," Blake said quietly, confirming it as she listened to overlapping channels. "Ace teams included and... specialists too?"
Jaune's brow furrowed.
That was everything Atlas had at that level.
A nearby screen flared, showing the Dream Realm overlay of Rime. The city's dream reflection was already destabilizing. Nightmare density readings spiked in waves, rising and falling like a pulse.
"Shit... Nightmare zones are popping up, more and more in Rime. I thought only amalgamations could do something like that. How is this even possible?"
"Rank 3 grimm are weird. This is... I don't know." Blake responded.
"It doesn't matter. Once Ironwood engages," Weiss said slowly, putting the pieces together, "Rank Two Grimm will converge on the location, anyway."
Jaune nodded. "Like vultures..."
Rank Threes acted like beacons. When Ironwood clashed with the entity, the resonance alone would draw Grimm from miles away within the Dream Realm. Rank Two Grimm did not swarm randomly. They followed pressure, power and conflict.
And they would come in force.
"Which puts the local LUCID base at risk," Blake added. "If enough Rank Two Grimm gather and enter the Nightmare zones... they won't stay contained."
Jaune's eyes tracked the projected fault lines spreading outward from Rime. "They'll erupt..."
Into the real world.
Nightmare breaches cascading through the region as reality strained under the weight of that much condensed nightmare matter. Entire zones spilling over at once.
"It'll be like how it was in Vale, all over again..."
"That's why the Rank Twos are being sent ahead," Weiss said. "They're not just fighting but they're going to be containing."
Clearing the wilderness surrounding Rime. Intercepting converging Grimm before they could stack pressure. Pulling awakened operatives out of the danger zone who had not yet secured kills and thus could not safely exit.
Jaune swallowed.
If an awakened had not yet killed a Grimm, their link to the outside world was non existent.
The Rank Twos would be extracting people under fire.
All of them.
A voice echoed across the command floor. "Atlas Rank Two deployment confirmed. All teams entering Dream Realm in staggered waves. Maintain perimeter integrity."
The map shifted again.
Atlas City glowed faintly at the center.
And around it, emptiness.
Jaune noticed it then. The absence.
"Wait," he said quietly. "There are no Rank Two signatures left here."
Weiss followed his gaze. Her fingers curled slowly. "They've all been sent."
Every single one.
The Ace operatives. The Specialists. Veteran Rank 2's. Mobile suppression units.
Gone.
The Atlas city LUCID base was stripped of its highest tier field operatives.
Blake frowned. "That leaves…"
Jaune finished it for her. "Only Rank Ones and below."
And two exceptions.
His eyes drifted instinctively toward the far end of the command floor.
Arthur Watts stood near a terminal, hands clasped behind his back, posture relaxed in a way that did not match the gravity of the situation. He watched the unfolding data with keen interest, head tilted slightly, as if observing an experiment reaching a critical phase.
Pietro Pollendina was nearby, speaking urgently with several operators. His expression was drawn tight, concern evident in every motion. He gestured toward the Centurion deployment feeds, clearly coordinating contingency protocols.
Only two Rank Twos remained in Atlas.
Watts and Pietro.
Not because they were meant to fight.
But because they were deemed too valuable to deploy.
Jaune wasn't sure why, but a bad feeling started to crawl up onto his spine. Like icy claws that were digging for purchase, one talon at a time.
.
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AN: Advanced chapters are available on patreon