Qrow and Raven didn't waste even a heartbeat.
The moment Bob's declaration reverberated through the sky, Raven's rune surged across the air like a living tide. The shadow beneath Qrow became like liquid, and pulled both him and Raven through a folding veil of darkness. Qrow did not resist. He felt the familiar pull of his sister's shadow step and the sudden weightlessness as the world inverted, and then the sensation of solid air beneath his legs again as they appeared directly behind the massive masked figure.
They emerged and struck without hesitation.
Raven's six shadow-forged blades erupted forwards, curving deceptive paths that aimed for ribs, throat, spine, and heart. Her body twisted with a dancer's precision, each blade thrust weaving into the next with almost hypnotic fluidity. Qrow followed her in the same breath, bringing his massive greatsword down in a brutal overhead arc that tore the air apart with raw force.
In that instant, both of them saw it.
The man's smile.
He twisted around and raised both arms high above his head, crossing them to intercept Qrow's descending blade. The impact cracked the air like shattering glass and sent rings of pressure rippling in every direction. At the same time, Raven's six blades struck his torso. They sank into his flesh, but only shallowly. Each cut opened a line of dark red, but the blades could not penetrate deeply. The wounds resisted her shadows as if his flesh were sculpted from reinforced steel.
He did not flinch from either attack.
He only smiled wider.
The force of Qrow's strike pushed him back, sliding him through the air as if he were being dragged by an unseen hand. The shockwave that followed struck Bob from the side and hurled him several meters away, but Evergreen's jade jungle immediately surged in. Trees the size of towers and beasts that appeared as if carved from shimmering green crystal lunged forward, snapping branches and fangs at Bob in a relentless wave. Bob twisted through them, his displacement and shaping runes distorting space to slip between claws and maws without resistance.
But Qrow barely paid Bob any attention. The masked giant in front of him commanded all of his focus.
The man opened his mouth, as though he intended to speak. Raven moved instantly. A dozen thin shadow blades suddenly erupted from the darkness around of his open mouth. They slid out from between his teeth and plunged outwards from the inside of his throat, tearing internal flesh with precise, vicious cuts. The man's blood spilled down his chest in a scarlet sheet, but he did not make a sound and his smile did not fade.
It widened.
His body began to expand.
His torso swelled outward, muscles ballooning in grotesque waves. Bone shifted beneath skin with a sound like grinding boulders. Flesh pulsed and stretched as though something massive inside him was tearing its way to the surface.
The expansion happened in a single, horrifying instant and sent a massive wave of pressure into the air.
The resulting wave blasted both Qrow and Raven away, striking them with enough force to rattle their bones and send them tumbling through the air. Qrow recovered quickly, twisting mid-flight and steadying his position. Raven righted herself as well, her shadow cloak rippling around her like a second pair of wings.
Qrow did not need to give any order. One of his Crow clones, already circling above like a silent predator, dove at the expanding monster at supersonic speed. The air cracked around it as it struck the giant's shoulder, snapping its beak down with tremendous force. Flesh tore. The clone's jaws clamped tight around meat and ligament.
The giant did not slow.
A bone spear erupted from his arm, piercing straight through the clone's body. The moment it skewered the clone, Qrow released his connection and dismissed it before the feedback could reach him. A heartbeat later, another Crow clone swooped in from below and bit into the monster's leg, latching on and tearing a large chunk free before the flesh could reinforce itself.
But the giant continued to grow.
Flesh writhed across his skin. Thick tendrils of meat pushed through newly formed pores. Each tendril ended in a bulbous mouth lined with jagged teeth. Long, slick tongues extended outward, flickering across the air as if tasting the ruined air of the Dream Realm.
Raven's eyes sharpened immediately.
She surged forward, hurling knives of shadow at every writhing tendril. Some sliced cleanly through. Others wrapped around her arms and were severed by shadow claws that extended from her fingertips. She moved through the storm of mouths with fluid speed, cutting them down one after another before they could open wide enough to speak.
Qrow launched himself toward the giant again. He closed the distance in a single kick against the air and aimed his sword for the creature's heart. The blade struck dead center in the monster's chest.
It bounced off.
Qrow felt the recoil shudder up his arms. The force shook the joints in his elbows and shoulders. He stared for a brief moment, eyes narrowing. A faint line of red marked where the sword had hit. The wound closed instantly, swelling shut with pulsing meat until it disappeared completely.
Recognition struck him like ice.
The man's flesh monstrosity form was returning.
Again.
He gritted his teeth and forced down a curse.
They couldn't hold back anymore.
Qrow's main body exhaled, steady and resigned. His form exploded outward in a swirl of feathers and rising black aura. Bones elongated. Wings stretched. His legs twisted and reshaped themselves into taloned limbs built for tearing through steel. In moments his body became the massive Monster Crow once more, towering over the jade trees below.
Raven leapt onto his back, her shadow mantle pulling tight around her before flaring outward again.
Something changed.
The shadows that cloaked her did not simply wrap around her own body. They extended outward, spilling onto Qrow's feathers and sinking into them. The black aura of her rune threaded itself seamlessly into the monstrous body of the Crow. Her shadow merged with his being, fusing into the very structure of his massive form.
The transformation spread across Qrow's body like rippling ink.
His feathers hardened into plates of shadow-forged armor that shimmered with a dim, lightless glow. The armor did not reflect the bloody moonlight. It consumed it.
From his shoulders, new limbs of shadow formed. Massive talons wrapped in darkness emerged from his wings. And from the side of his neck, another head rose. Sleek, elegant, and fearsome, Raven's monstrous avian visage stared outward, its eyes burning with crimson malice.
Qrow's wings spread, blotting out the sky beneath them.
The resulting gust tore trees from Evergreen's jade forest and scattered them like leaves.
The two headed avian titan launched forward.
Its screech shook the world and sent cracks of force spiraling across the air. The monstrous Crow body surged ahead, its shadow armored talons gleaming. Raven's avian head roared beside Qrow's, weaving shadow energy into a spiraling volley aimed at the fleshy giant.
The colossal bird soared like a living storm, its body a union of will and shadow, fury and precision.
It hurled itself at the building sized flesh monstrosity.
And the sky split apart as titan met abomination with the force of a descending meteor. Their clash erupted into a storm of shockwaves that rolled outward in expanding rings, shaking and rattling the ruined Dream Realm ground far below. Even though the battle took place high above the broken cityscape, no awakened fighting beneath them could possibly ignore the thunderous conflict. The very atmosphere trembled as if the world were holding its breath.
Raven maintained her focus with iron discipline. Her shadowy arms and tendrils stretched across the monstrous bird's fused body, plunging downward to seize the writhing, tooth lined mouths sprouting from the abomination's rapidly mutating frame. Each tendril latched onto a mouth and forced it shut. Every time a new maw split open on the creature's surface, Raven's shadows surged in, constricting it before the first syllable of the forbidden chant could escape.
Her concentration never wavered. She knew that if the creature managed to utter even the first fragment of the Sleeper's invocation, everything would be swallowed by the presence that lurked beneath reality, a presence that no one could hope to oppose.
The fused monster bird let out a deafening shriek. Both avian heads lunged forward in perfect unison, their jaws clamping down on the abomination's hardened flesh. Sparks erupted upon contact. The friction of sharpened beaks carving across metallic flesh lit the sky with arcs of fire. Each movement streaked the air with blazing trails as the giant bird scraped and tore at the grotesque mass of muscle and bone.
The abomination retaliated. Tendrils thicker than tree trunks burst from its expanding body, each one thrusting forward like a living spear. They jabbed, stabbed, and coiled, trying desperately to puncture the monster bird's chest and rip through the organs hidden behind layers of armored feathers. But Qrow's monster form was wrapped in Raven's shadows, forming a living armor that shifted and thickened wherever the attacks landed. The tendrils pierced the shadow armor but stopped short of reaching Qrow's true flesh. Each impact sent ripples through the shadow plating, but none broke through.
Qrow's vast wings beat once, creating a shockwave so powerful it scattered the tendrils like brittle twigs. At the same time, smaller crow-like shapes tore free from the armor that covered his colossal body. They emerged fully formed from the swirling shadows at his chest and shoulders. These were not simple clones. They were monstrous house sized versions of Qrow's Crow form, birthed directly from the fusion of his monstrous rune and Raven's shadow mantle.
Each one shrieked with a distorted cry that echoed unnaturally across the sky. They flapped their wings once and dove into the melee. They circled the abomination in a storm of feathers and talons, tearing into its flesh again and again. Teeth and beaks ripped at slabs of meat, peeling away layers faster than the creature could regenerate.
Each crow grew more savage with every attack. A dim red aura formed around their bodies. It seeped outward, brightening with each passing second, transforming them from simple shadow-beasts into warped reflections of Qrow's monstrous soul. Their talons elongated until they resembled scythes of bone. Extra claws sprouted beneath their wings. Their feathers became jagged, razor edged shards that dripped runic energy. As they spiraled around the abomination, the leaking energy left a luminous trail that poisoned the air itself. The sound it produced was not quite a hiss and not quite a screech. It was an unsettling resonance that vibrated in the bones of everyone on the battlefield.
Below them, Evergreen and Bob paused briefly in their own deadly struggle. A jade wolf leapt from Evergreen's command, crashing into Bob's displacement barrier and shattering into green shards. Bob countered with a black rip of distorted space that carved a trench across the sky. Yet both men found their attention drawn upward against their will.
Evergreen's breath caught in his throat. His focus faltered for the first time.
Bob's expression twisted into something between awe and fury.
To their right, the titanic avian fusion and the gargantuan flesh abomination clashed with an intensity that dwarfed their own confrontation. The sky seemed to darken even further from the pressure of the forces colliding.
Both men felt an intrusive whisper slip into their minds.
Murder.
Murder.
Murder.
The word pulsed in their skulls, not in any voice they recognized, but in a chorus of distorted echoes. It was the aura of Qrow's monstrous rune surging through the air, amplified by Raven's influence. It rattled their thoughts, squeezing their chests with a primal instinct neither could fully suppress.
Evergreen clenched his teeth, and his jaw popped loudly. He wanted to tear his eyes away from the sight, but he could not.
He whispered a frantic curse under his breath and spat it into the wind. This was Bob's fault. All of it. By bringing this abomination of a man into the fight, Bob had forced Qrow and Raven to reveal their hidden form. He had pushed them to unleash a power Evergreen had never wanted to see again.
Bob sensed his gaze but did not back down. He glared at Evergreen with pure hatred, the kind of hatred that had been simmering beneath his calm words earlier. He did not care what Evergreen thought. He did not care what would happen next. The cost had never mattered to him. Only his daughter mattered. Every life that fell in the wake of this war was insignificant compared to getting her back.
Above them, the battle intensified.
She kept feeling monster attempting to speak beneath her tendrils. She felt the vibrations building within its throats. She felt the words of the forbidden chant clawing against her hold like a frantic animal.
She hardened the shadows further. She wrapped new layers into the old. She poured her entire will into sealing every mouth. Sweat beaded on her brow despite the cold wind whipping past her. The Sleeper must not hear the call. The world must never be forced to witness what would rise if the chant reached the void.
Qrow moved in perfect sync. His primary head tore into the abomination's chest. Raven's avian head snapped at its neck. The giant bird beat its wings once more and plunged downward, slamming the abomination through the air with crushing force. Bone spears flew wildly from the creature, but the bird tanked the blows, its armor absorbing each hit.
The world shook.
The sky became their battlefield.
And the city below felt every consequence of their rage.
.
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AN: Advanced chapters are available on patreon.