The heat clawed Bann back into awareness.
It was a suffocating, skin-blistering presence that pressed against him from all directions. It seeped through his armor and seemingly through thought itself, wrapping him in a suffocating embrace that made every breath feel like inhaling burning ash.
Then came the dreadful weight and the pain of broken bones.
He was buried and injured badly.
Shadow-soil and fractured rock pressed down on him from above and all sides, packed dense from the collapse of the mountain. Somewhere beyond that crushing mass, red shadow magma flowed, its presence felt not just through heat but through a low, ominous vibration that hummed through the ground like a living thing.
Bann forced his thoughts into order as he quickly summoned his spectral animals to push away the crushing weight that was on him.
A hulking bear, a horned Ram beast and a giant spectral tiger which he wedged between the layers of collapsing terrain. Their massive spectral forms visibly strained against the weight.
He shifted, carefully, testing the new space around him and activating a healing rune to repair his broken body.
Fortunately, his summons were holding.
Barely.
The problem was not the rock. Bann could break through stone if he wanted. That part was simple. The problem was the magma.
The red shadow lava flowed in slow, dangerous currents through the gaps above and around them. One wrong move and one collapse in the wrong direction would cause it to flood in, swallowing them whole. Even with Rank 1 capability, that kind of heat would not be something they could endure for long.
He clicked his tongue under his breath.
Forcing his way out was possible, but it would cost him. Aura, stamina, maybe more of the limited healing runes he had been given.
He carefully sensed the vibrations that were occurring above. It seemed that there were still people fighting. Which meant that it wouldn't do him any good to waste his healing runes. Not when a potential battle above was still ongoing.
He turned his head.
Next to him lay the broken remains of one of the researchers.
The upper half of the man's body was gone, reduced to something unrecognizable beneath the crushing weight of the collapse. What remained of his lower half was twisted at unnatural angles, armor crumpled like paper.
Dead.
Instantly, most likely. Bann forced himself to look away. There was nothing he could do for him. Beside the body, another figure lay partially buried.
Javan.
Bann shifted closer, ignoring the way the heat bit into his skin as he reached out and grabbed the man by the shoulder.
"Hey," he said, his voice rough. "Wake up."
No response.
Javan's body was in terrible condition. Burns covered large portions of his frame, and his breathing was shallow, uneven. One arm was bent wrong, clearly broken, and his breath flickered weakly around him like a dying flame.
Bann exhaled sharply and quickly used a healing rune on Javan to stabilize his condition, watching mechanically as his flesh repaired itself before his eyes.
He had already used two of his healing runes.
Bann raised his hand and slapped Javan lightly across the face.
"Wake up," he repeated, more firmly this time.
Javan groaned.
Bann slapped him again, harder.
"Come on," he said. "We don't have time to nap."
Javan's eyes snapped open.
For a moment, they were unfocused, dazed, but then awareness returned in a rush. He sucked in a sharp breath, immediately tensing as pain shot through his body.
"What… happened?" he rasped, his voice strained.
Bann didn't waste time.
"Mountain exploded, from the Rank 3 clash. We got buried and lava is everywhere. When the shockwave happened, your rune kept us from getting turned completely into paste. but now we're burried."
Javan blinked, trying to process that through the haze of pain. Then, he swore.
"Damn Sleepless…"
"Yeah," Bann muttered. "Join the club."
Javan shifted, wincing as he pushed himself upright. His aura flickered again, trying to stabilize his injuries. It was weak, but functional.
"Anyone else?" he asked, glancing around.
Bann shook his head once.
"Don't know," he said. "One researcher's dead and you were out. I've been holding this together. But I think there are people above who are fighting."
As if to emphasize his point, the ground above them trembled.
A deep, violent vibration rippled through the surrounding earth, sending small fragments of rock tumbling down around them. The spectral beasts braced harder, growling silently as they resisted the shifting pressure.
Javan's eyes narrowed.
The tremors weren't random. They carried rhythm, impact and force. The kind that came from combat, from powerful clashes that shook the very terrain.
People were still fighting and that meant that people had survived.
Javan exhaled sharply, resolve settling into his expression.
"Then we're not staying here," he said. "Let's get out."
Bann snorted softly.
"Was hoping you'd say that."
Javan raised his good hand and pressed it against the ground.
Aura flared and his Earth Rune activated.
The surrounding shadow-soil responded immediately, shifting under his control. Where Bann had been holding the structure in place, Javan began reshaping it entirely.
A tunnel formed cutting through the unstable mass without disturbing the flow of magma around them. The red shadow lava parted, guided away as if repelled by an invisible force.
The tunnel extended upward, carving a safe path through the wreckage. Bann withdrew some of his summons, allowing Javan's control to take over the stabilization entirely.
"Lets move," Javan said.
Bann didn't argue.
Together, they climbed using Javan's rune as an elevator to move up.
The heat seemingly intensified as they moved closer to the surface, with the air growing thicker and heavier. The sounds of battle became clearer too. Clashing metal, explosive impacts and the distant roar of something far too large to comprehend.
Then they broke through and emerged into chaos.
The mountain that they were originally on was gone. What remained was a large crater, its edges jagged and unstable, filled with flowing streams of red shadow magma that carved glowing veins through the dark terrain.
Above them, the sky churned.
In the distance, the clash of Rank 3 entities tore at the horizon itself, sending shockwaves rippling across the landscape like aftershocks of a world-ending storm.
Closer, the battlefield was no less intense.
Bann's eyes immediately locked onto two familiar figures who were fighting close by. Sun Wukong and Neptune Vasilias stood side by side, facing a red-haired swordsman whose presence cut through the chaos like a blade.
Neptune had summoned water.
A swirling mass of it hung in the air around them, forming a localized storm that clashed violently with the surrounding heat. Steam hissed where droplets met molten ground, creating a constant veil of vapor.
Sun, already transformed into his full primate form, moving with explosive agility. His light staff spun and struck, deflecting arcs of red energy that the swordsman unleashed with terrifying precision.
The surrounding shadow rock and soil was disintegrating under the power of his light, but the enemy was skilled.
Far too skilled.
Each swing of his blade sent crescents of crimson force tearing through the air, forcing Sun and Neptune to fight defensively just to stay alive.
Bann took a step forward, ready to move in.
But Javan grabbed his arm.
"Wait."
Bann followed his gaze and saw something unfortunate.
Rajah.
Javan's teammate stood not far from them, locked in combat with Pyrrha Nikos. Space warped around him as he moved, bending attacks and redirecting trajectories in ways that made no sense.
Pyrrha fought back with everything she had, summoning spears in rapid succession, her control over metal stretching to its limit as she tried to pin him down.
But she wasn't winning.
Nearby, another fight raged.
Auberyn clashed against Coppal, whose entire body radiated heat like a living furnace. The air around him shimmered violently as he met Auberyn's stellar constructs head-on, burning through them with sheer thermal force.
And they weren't alone.
Other masked figures moved across the battlefield.
Sleepless.
Engaging, overwhelming, dismantling the other scattered members of their expedition.
"What the hell is going on?" Bann muttered.
Sun heard him.
Even in the middle of combat, he spared them a glance.
"They're being controlled!" he shouted, his voice cutting through the noise. "Coppal and Rajah! Emerald's mind rune!"
Javan's grip tightened.
"Shit. Of course…" he muttered, anger flashing across his face as he recalled Rajah's strange behaviour.
Bann clenched his fists. That explained it but it didn't make it any easier to see. For a brief moment, the two of them stood there, taking it all in. The scale of the fight. The chaos. The allies turned enemies.
No extra words were needed.
Together, they surged forward, diving straight into the battlefield to pull their teammates back from whatever control had been forced upon them.
.
.
The battlefield of the Rank 2s existed as its own world.
Far from the shattered crater where the Rank 1s struggled to survive, and the desperate clashes near its molten remains—the battle of the Rank 2s was something else entirely. Distance did not bring safety. It only revealed scale.
Here, the land itself had been rewritten.
The ground was no longer stable terrain but a fractured expanse of ruptured shadow stone and flowing magma in its entirety.
Entire ridgelines had been carved away by shockwaves, leaving behind jagged trenches that glowed with red light. Geysers of shadow lava erupted at irregular intervals, thrown skyward by the force of repeated impacts, only to rain back down in burning sheets.
Above it all, the sky churned.
The distant war of Rank 3 beings bled into everything, their domains colliding in ways that warped the very air. Pressure rippled through the atmosphere in visible distortions, like waves rolling across an invisible ocean. Each pulse reached the battlefield seconds later, crashing into the Rank 2s as a constant reminder of how small they were compared to what loomed beyond.
And still, they fought. Nine against nine. Every clash was a detonation.
Raven moved through it like a sovereign of darkness.
Shadows surged outward in vast, sweeping arcs, forming blades, spears, and snapping tendrils that carved through the battlefield with ruthless precision. Each movement she made tore open new angles of attack, shadows slipping through space itself to strike from directions that did not exist a moment prior.
Her opponent was driven back almost immediately.
There was no contest in the opening exchange. She overwhelmed him completely, her mastery of shadow in this realm reaching a level that bordered on absolute.
Then the balance broke. Another Sleepless operative entered her range and the moment he did, the shadows themselves resisted her control.
It was subtle, but Raven felt it instantly.
This man was another Shadow Rune user.
His presence collided with hers, and the battlefield twisted. His shadows rose in opposition, thick and invasive, spreading outward like an encroaching tide. Where Raven's control was sharp and refined, his was heavy and suffocating, overwhelming through sheer saturation.
Their powers clashed violently.
Darkness struck darkness, tearing itself apart in writhing masses that exploded across the terrain. The ground beneath them cracked and split as their control fought for dominance, each trying to overwrite the other.
Raven's advantage vanished.
Now, every movement she made was contested and every attempt to shape the battlefield was resisted. What had been a domination became a brutal stalemate, fought within a storm of colliding shadows that devoured everything caught between them.
Not far from that clash, the ground rose in defiance of destruction.
Zeki stood at the center of a growing forest.
Massive roots burst from the shadow-soil, tearing through rock and diverting streams of magma as they surged outward in thick, coiling masses. They layered over one another, forming barriers, spears, and shifting structures that turned the battlefield into a living stronghold.
Beside him, Clover moved with supreme precision.
"Right flank," Clover called.
Zeki responded instantly.
A wall of roots erupted upward just in time to intercept a compressed blast of air that struck with enough force to shatter stone. The impact splintered the structure, sending fragments scattering, but the barrier held long enough.
Two Sleepless Rank 2s pressed them hard.
One manipulated pressure, compressing the air into invisible hammers that slammed into Zeki's constructs, cracking them apart with each impact. The other moved in short bursts of acceleration, appearing and disappearing across the battlefield with violent speed, striking at weak points the moment they formed.
Clover met every opening with he giant elemental fishes. His weapon flashed in tight, controlled arcs, deflecting and countering with precision while simultaneously launching his fishes like they were explosives.
Zeki reinforced him relentlessly.
Roots surged upward from below, snapping toward their enemies in attempts to bind or impale. The terrain itself became a weapon, shifting constantly under their control.
Even so, they were being pushed.
Elsewhere, the battlefield transformed into a storm of sand and glass.
Two fighters from Menagerie stood against their opponents, their runes forcing an unnatural environment into existence. Sand poured outward in massive quantities, forming waves that crashed and spiraled across the molten ground.
It should not have existed here.
But it did.
The sand moved like a living sea, rising into towering walls that blocked incoming attacks before collapsing into grinding vortices meant to trap and crush.
Their enemies adapted quickly.
One of the Sleepless fighters radiated intense flaming heat, turning sections of the sand into molten glass mid-motion. The battlefield glittered with jagged formations that cut as easily as blades.
The other manipulated airflow, sending slicing currents through the sandstorms, breaking apart their structure and carving paths through the chaos.
The clash became a grinding war of terrain control, neither side able to fully overpower the other.
And cutting through that battlefield like a streak of fire was Cinder.
She moved with fluid grace, her attacks creating flames that bloomed from her strikes in controlled bursts that cut through both sand and air alike. Her opponent, a Menagerie Rank 2, responded with overwhelming force, dragging vast quantities of sand upward to encase her in crushing waves.
Fire met sand and heat met pressure.
Cinder's flames burned through the constructs, turning them to glass before they could fully close around her. She pivoted seamlessly, launching arcs of fire that forced her opponent back step by step.
And when glass was made, she controlled that too. Her expression remained calm and focused. Not a hint of hesitation as she fought her supposed ally with lethal intent.
Above it all, Qrow turned the sky into his battlefield.
His form split again and again into flocks of crows, scattering in erratic patterns that made tracking him nearly impossible. Each cluster moved independently, diving and regrouping in chaotic waves.
His opponent answered with precision.
The Sleepless fighter blinked through space in sharp bursts, teleporting from one position to another, each reappearance marked by a blade already in motion. Every strike cut through clusters of his crows, dispersing them into feathers.
Qrow reformed and split again, never staying still, never giving a clean target.
Blades flashed through the air and feathers scattered like ash.
"Tai!" Qrow shouted, intercepting another teleport strike mid-motion. "You good for a bit?!"
Below, Taiyang answered with a roar.
"I'm fine!"
He stood against a giant. The Sleepless leader had grown. His body expanded grotesquely, muscles swelling as his frame stretched larger and larger. Flesh thickened, hardening into something disgusting.
At first, he had been forced to dodge as Taiyang's attacks came too fast and too explosive with force.
Now, he stood his ground even when Taiyang's fist slammed into the man's torso with a thunderous impact that sent a shockwave tearing across the battlefield. Lava erupted nearby, flung skyward as the force displaced everything around them.
The man absorbed it and his body rippled, compressing the impact before dispersing it across his massive frame.
Taiyang's expression hardened. He drew in more energy and the next few strikes came heavier and heavier.
Each punch carried more kinetic force than the last, his aura feeding into the blows as he escalated, forcing his opponent to endure increasing levels of raw power.
The leader smiled beneath his mask.
Then he struck back.
The counterattack collided with Taiyang's guard and shattered the ground beneath them. The terrain split open, molten rock surging upward between them as the force rippled outward.
Qrow broke away from his opponent in a storm of crows.
"I'll handle this one!"
He intercepted the teleporting fighter again, forcing him into a direct engagement.
"Stay on him!"
Taiyang didn't respond.