Bloody Evolution Chapter 9 Alt POV (Patreon)

Silent tears of anguish fell to the forest floor as the sun crested over the horizon and the true horror of the never-ending Grimm tide showed its might.

With blank eyes. Nora Valkyrie held the decapitated head of Lie Ren to her chest uncaring of her own wounds as part of her died on the inside and the Grimm didn't even notice her as she was curled up against a tree as they finished tearing the rest of Lie Ren's corpse into a slurry that couldn't be recognized.

The initiation had seemingly started so well. The Atlesian Royal and the Vacuo noble dragging the vast majority of the Grimm towards their entrenched positions.

But as Nora and Ren were going to make their way to the Vacuo Royal's fortress that was easily wiping out so many Grimm, they ran into a small pack of Beowulfs.

"Come on Renny! We just gotta put down some the bad puppers and then we can sleep nice and easy in that ship after we do some guard duty or something!" Nora said happily as she danced in between lunging Beowulfs and easily smashed several to death with her hammer grenade launcher Magnhild.

Lie Ren gave a soft nod as he kept a solid pace behind his excited friend, watching her back and skillfully killing any Beowulfs that had the fortune to dodge or avoid Nora's extremely powerful but somewhat slow blows.

"I will use my semblance to make us invisible to the Grimm as we pass through the bridge, just make sure to avoid using your grenades to gain any Grimm's attention Nora." Ren spoke in warning as although he trusted Nora with his life...

He knew Nora was a bit too excited at times and didn't think about her actions.

And he held in a sigh at seeing Nora cheer out. "Rennie! Look a super boar, let's ride it to get to the bridge!" 

"Nora slow down!" Ren called out in exasperation as the hyperactive Valkyrie sprinted forward and then leaped into the air and smashed a leaping Beowulf alpha into paste before landing on the back of a squealing Boarbatusk of good age with Nora's strong thighs forcing it to turn its charge to the side allowing Nora to grab Ren as she passed by him and they were off!

"Come on Rennie! We gotta get to the bridge before it turns to night! Otherwise the really bad Grimm will start coming for us with how we are the open!"

To that... Ren could only agree as he and Nora had survived in the wilds for very short stints only due to the semblance that made him and her invisible to the Grimm's passive detection for souls and emotional radar.

And thus Ren knew all to well the horrors of the more magical Grimm that came out during the night when the sun's gaze was on the world.

But only minutes into using the Boarbatusk as a charging steed Nora cried out with Ren's eyes widening as he watched in slow motion as the Boarbutusk's legs seemingly slipped off and fell behind with them all pitching forward.

"Razor Arachne!" Ren cursed aloud and Nora instantly shot her grenade launcher in all directions not far from them with a loud screech ringing out as the fire dust grenades quickly catching the razor-thin and sharp threads hidden between the tree on fire with Ren quickly locking onto the horse-sized Grimm spider hiding in a tree and spraying the unarmored Grimm to death with his dual automatic pistols.

"Alright Rennie lets get a move-"

Ren's thoughts cut off as he felt a wetness cross his throat and down his chest and he put a hand over his throat and looked down slightly... Only to realize that his entire front was painted in red. In his own blood instead of a light green of his typical clothes.

'Oh... I was too tall and I went through wire.' Ren thought with a weak smile as he staggered as he felt the seams of the wound opening with every heartbeat, every movement.

And with his final thoughts, he marshaled all his remaining aura as Nora looked at him with wide eyes and he lifted a hand.

His form glowed in a bright grey aurora of his soul's flaring energy as he activated his semblance with all his might and pushed it into Nora as he choked through his blood-filled throat to hiss as he put his hand on Nora's chest. "Go to the bridge... Eat well, and be good Nora."

And then all the movement was just too much... Maybe if the initiation wasn't an all-or-nothing thing. Maybe if a healer was there things could have changed.

Lie Ren's head fell from his shoulders into Nora Valkeries hands as she stared blindly ahead as Ren's overflowing semblance drowned out all her emotional and soul energies making her no different than a rock to a Grimm's senses and she only moved away woodenly to curl up against a tree with Ren's head while more roving Grimm drawn to Ren's aura came and tore apart his corpse.

-

"Hmm, the Schnee is doing well as was expected... To say nothing of Jingliu the Frozen Sword Saintess being at her side." Grand Wizard Ozpin spoke dully as he watched through camera's and scrying spells alike as students fought and died under his gaze.

Not a single one, whether royal or commoner would be helped if they were overwhelmed by the staff of Beacon. The very creed of Beacon was thus. [Become the Beacon of Light for Humanity. It's Bulwark in the Darkness.]

If they couldn't survive three days with all their supplies, plenty of preparation, and the ability to make teams and just... Hide without even fighting. Then they didn't deserve to even bear the name of Huntsmen in training.

As Huntsmen were the greatest force for all life on this world against the Grimm. The Dukes were powerful indeed but they were tied up in defending the main city and the resource-producing towns. Who was the one who defended mines where Dust was mined by robots and automatons?

Hunters did it.

Who defended the mega-farms and the families who ran them from the Grimm and bandits?

Hunters did it.

There was a reason that seventy-five percent of Dukes were previously Hunter's after all. 

But even with all the knowledge and power in his hands... Ozpin the S rank mage raised an eyebrow of interest as he watched the several cameras and scrying tools that had turned to the enigma that had taken over the gorge crossover point.

"Glynda, that boy... Jake Bariss, does he have any established lineage?" He questioned coldly as he watched as some fool of a girl drove a Boarbatusk through a Razor Arachne's lair with her friend paying for the mistake with his head falling off.

Glynda the Goodwitch trawled through her enchanted book and with a noise of sliding paper she spoke. "According to the Vale's registry, he is an orphan with his lineage being of common soldiers on both lines that for recorded decades have no ties to the Abizar's of Vacou and they would have shown the bloodline semblance if they had it." 

Ozpin grunted before saying. "Hmm, so it's a new mass manifestation semblance... I wonder about its drawbacks, is his constructs all but hollow like the Abizar's? Is his manifestations dangerous for other people to handle?" 

There was a moment of silence before a voice with a velvet candor spoke out coldly. "The students are destroying the heads of their peers when they are dying... And their words are an insult to my craft."

The teachers whether master combatants or powerful mages gave the Beacon, Necromancer Lord, and Lich Calia the Death's Embrace. Nods, of agreement.

Although they understood that necromancy being performed on their colleagues and allies was... Distasteful to say the least. But its existence here in Vale was one of the reasons Vale was one of the best-defended kingdom cities out of the four kingdoms of this world.

Because the dead could be endlessly put back together with only their brains needed to remain in a decent state so the enchantments and control anchors could control the corpse...

And if the corpse was fresh, and the soul was powerful enough, they could anchor the soul back into the body and create higher-end undead that had their own levels of intelligence and sometimes even had large parts of their previous personalities and memories remaining.

So seeing the noble children going out of their way to smash the heads of any human or faunus corpses they came across... Ozpin sighed as he muttered. "Calia, you are free to make an example out of a couple of them. Necromancy is after all offered within Beacon's halls just as any other magic that can be turned against the Grimm. Lower-leveled nobility has no right to insult your craft in doing so." 

Ozpin wasn't consigning a couple of young men to a terrible death via being flesh-crafted into a higher-tier augmented zombie just to support Calia and her craft... This was purely a punch to the jaw of the nobility as he was disgusted at seeing so many noble children literally hiding in caves and utterly avoiding any conflict.

'Huntsman who just avoid fighting Grimm. Utterly ridiculous, you should remain within the walls and be a good sheep if you can't lay your life down for humanity.' Ozpin snorted as he watched with cold eyes from one scrying ward as the descendant of the Winchester Viscount Family sexually shared his two surviving female retainers with his two friends as they hid within a deep cave system.

So seeing Jake Bariss, and his team doing Huntsmen's main job in taking a point and making it a Grimm killing zone... Gave Ozpin a feeling of satisfaction knowing that this year there were going to be some people who already knew the core tenant of being a Huntsmen.

"Sir, Ruby Rose." Glynda spoke and Ozpin's eyes snapped over to another warding system that was following the latest generational carrier of the magical Silver-Eyes.

Wherever Ruby looked, her partially activated Silver Eye's made the Grimm freeze as the powerful holy seemingly light within her eyes made the outer layer of the Grimm's bodies stiffen to the point they could barely move.

And with Ruby's speed semblance that was almost a match for her mother's semblance. Ozpin watched as the scion of the Summer Duke House just casually slaughtered hundreds of Grimm as her form blitzed through the hordes with her enchanted scythe cutting through bone and chitin like they weren't even there.

"She will manage, so long as she doesn't get picked off as she is sleeping." Ozpin spoke with surety before his lips twitched and he looked over Taiyang Xiao-Long's older mistake in the women he made the error of bedding who was fighting in another section of the forest.

Yang Xiao-Long was a weapon of violence as she used a bastardized sword that looked like the crossbreed of a Falchion that mated with an Odachi. A long Odachi that had a thicker blade and at the end it flared out with a weighted end that carved through flesh and bone with Yang's impressive strength for her age.

But... Yang was no the descendant of a Duke house like Ruby Rose who had congenital magic at birth in the Silver Eyes. Yang if she kept up the noise she was making as night fell... Would falter and fail.

"Hmm Taiyang does have some good genes, maybe we replace a sperm bank with his seed or pay to have some women carry his seed to term." Glynda coldly spoke as she noted both girl's physical talents that came from the almost S rank Hunter Taiyang Xiao-Long the Giant Dragon.

A dark voice spoke with the shadows in the room roiling at his words. "They are both too impetuous... They both may not live through the first night, to say nothing of the third night where the farther away Grimm will converge on the source of magic and aura being spent."

Ozpin gave a nod to the resident master Umbramancer who was responsible for the forces who cleared out Vale's sewer and cave systems with his shadow manipulation magic. As it was true.

But after a while Glynda asked with some amusement. "So. The real question is, who plans to take Jake Barris as their apprentice? As many of you are still A rank hunters and need an apprentice to reach A rank as well to reach an official S rank."

Hearing that Ozpin couldn't help a chuckle as Jake truly was the perfect apprentice for the status and resource-hungry A-rank hunters who wanted the last piece in a legacy that would have the Royal Family name them S rank and open their libraries to them.

Both there was just one last note to look upon.

The scion of the Nikos clan of Mistral that had fled here to Vale. 

"The Nikos are still demanding we hand over Pyhrra Nikos to them. She is still set to be wedded into the Xiao Family." Glynda reported with amusement and Ozpin loudly sipped from his mug of hot chocolate.

And only after an unnecessarily long slurp of his drink did he say bluntly as he watched as seemingly endless streams of iron sand crushed Grimm while swirling saw blades zipped through the air at high speed carving through Grimm in the air.

"The Nikos can pound sand... I killed their previous head on the coastline and I will do it again should they reach into Vale's resources. An assured future A rank is an asset of Vale I am willing to kill for, to say the least."

-

"There is too damned many!" Yang snarled as she back-handed the head off of an Ursa as used the blow to retreat from a seemingly ever-growing pile of Grimm that she just couldn't kill fast enough.

Idly she wondered how her... Half-sister was doing before she shut that thought down as she and her half-sister. Didn't exactly get along with how Summer Rose almost killed her own mother when they fought after realizing Taiyang was cheating on the two of them.

Raven Branwen was strong... Very strong and killed with her favored enchanted Dust Odachi's she could cut through small armies of Grimm with without issue. But she wasn't a Duke, she didn't have millennia of magical knowledge at her fingertips and her semblance wasn't even combat-applicable.

All those thoughts were put aside as Yang finally snarled as she punched with a massive fireball from her punch breaking through the lines of Grimm surrounding her with her ran off to the gorge as she realized that she wasn't going to be able to last through the night with the never ending hordes of Grimm coming for her.

"I just need to get past the Grimm on the bridge to get to that bastard... Why the hell didn't he say he was taking a literal fucking army with him and all the ammo the kingdom goes through in a week!?" Yang cursed to herself as she cursed the noble who obviously had some kind of spatial magic or something that could store all the ammo he was pissing away.

Yang had to dodge several more dangerous Grimm like Deathropers that used spiked tendrils to grab their prey and she got stabbed by a Lancedevil in the side as she didn't manage to fully dodge the needle on the wasp Grimm.

But soon enough she reached the bridge on the gorge, and as she did so. She blinked as she realized that the stone bridge had been seemingly replaced by metal as her boots made soft clicking noises as they rebounded on thick metal covering the top of the bridge.

"Move to the tower in the center of the platform. Get the fuck out of the middle of the firing lane dumbass!" A voice roared out of a loudspeaker making Yang shrink in at the volume before she realized... That she standing in front of the lanes in which the scary as fuck heavy machine guns and cannons were firing from all day.

"I am coming!" Yang yelled as she felt her stomach clench at the thought of a fresh meal as she hadn't had any time to sit down and eat beyond shoving some nutrient bars in her mouth as she endlessly fought.

Though even in a rush... Yang smartly ran close to the edge the guardless metal bridge and for good reason as the Grimm that were initially following her came to the bridge and Yang had to cover her ears with aura as the machine guns and cannons all but deafened her.

But soon enough Yang reached the tower at the center of the platform... And as soon as the metal door leading into the door was opened. Yang thought she was dreaming as a beautiful woman with light blue hair opened the door with a wide grin and held out a large platter of literally steaming hot pizza. "Did you smell the fresh pizza and want some? Oh, and my Admiral says if you ask for Hawaiian he will throw you off the platform." 

And without an ounce of shame, Yang grinned and said. "At this point, I would be happy with just some sausage you know."