Arc Royale [Ch. 28, Ch. 30]

Drawing his sword, he stabbed it down into the ground and threw back his cloak. He knelt, touching one hand to the grass and closed his eyes briefly. His power spread out, singing underground in search of metal. He found plenty. Then again, this city was more metal than stone and wood. Much of it was likely important in one way or another. He'd have to apologise later for usurping it. Pipes and metal wiring inches thick snapped and coiled underground - turned cherry red and slag hot, then rushed up through soil to burst out and wrap around him. Burning hot, it would have melted the flesh from anyone, himself included, if not for his Passive protecting him. He could suffer no harm from the heat of his own forge. So amusing to think, years ago, that he'd dismissed such a Passive as mere convenience and nothing more.

Concentrating, he shaped the metal as he might have with hammer and forge, pushing and moulding it down, stretching out links and tying molten threads like string, then cooling them rapidly. Hardening, tempering, all happening in real time and without a forge. Within a minute, no more than sixty seconds, he stood again, resplendent in gleaming plate armour that covered him from foot to neck. More leaked up over his head, encasing his hair and face before hardening to silver steel.

—Arc Royale [Ch. 28]



The mist rose, drifted and swam up through the air, accompanied by the deafening sound of thousands – tens of thousands – of fluttering wings.

A droning cacophony that would be heard all the way from outside the walls to within Beacon itself. The cloud swarmed up and into the air, flashing around Grimm as the tiny bodies, many less than the size of a fingernail, took to the air. Lancers. Hundreds of thousands of miniature lancers, rising over Vale like a swam of locusts, with their tiny, venom-tipped stingers angled downward.

[...]

Instincts honed from campaigns, war and numerous Quests warned him of the attack. Despite the Grimm all around him, he looked up, sensing the danger in time to see the man come hurtling out the sky. There was a brief moment of confusion, a short widening of his eyes as he questioned why Grimm – best suited to sitting far out of attack range and summoning Grimm – would willingly throw his life away like this, but there was little time to think further. Little time to choose another path, either. He was fast, yes, but a man moving at terminal velocity was still that, and with the Grimm surrounding him on all sides, there was little room to move aside.

Little reason to, either.

Crocea Mors came up, his knee bunched and one foot sliding back in preparation of the sudden weight he would take as the body came crashing down onto the sword's tip. He was prepared for a Nevermore to catch Grimm and take him aside, or for Beowolves to swarm him and wrench his sword away at the last.

What he did not expect was for his hardened and tempered steel to punch through the bone-plated chest, through aura that shattered in a sparkle of red light, and through flesh, muscle and organs in one go.

Grimm – the iteration version of himself that was the son of Salem – slid down his sword to Knight's hands, blood – red, he noticed, just like his own – pouring down over his gauntlets and vambraces.

Knight's eyes widened. "Why…?" he asked.

Grimm looked up, his red on black eyes tinged with agony, "B-Because I must."

The tentacles that the man used speared out and around Knight, threatening to stab into his back. He trusted his armour and his Constitution Stat to protect him. Sure enough, when the prehensile limbs punched against his plate, they failed to penetrate through. When he heard the click of buckles, however, he understood their true plan.

[...]

His sword came down, one boot pressing on Grimm's stomach and pushing. For all his unnatural strength and determination, he could not hold up to Knight's raw Strength Statistic and slid down the metal so harshly it cut into his bare hands, sliding out the man's ruined chest with a horrible squelch and a spray of blood. His sword cut a circle then, slicing through the tentacles on either side of him and causing them to flop harmlessly down to the ground.

They had unlatched some of his armour in a valiant effort, but it had all happened so quickly that they'd not been able to fully remove any. The only thing he managed was to helplessly knock Knight's helmet off.

[...]

"I… I…" the man's lips worked softly, stuttering. Heedless of the Grimm all about him, Knight knelt so as to hear his final words. The man on the ground was crying. "I… I'm sorry… as well…" Grimm rasped out. And he looked it. He looked agonised. Guilty. "B… But this… This is the o-only way I can s-see to beat you. I'm so sorry."

The buzzing reached his ears.

Knight's head snapped up.

The swarm descended on him like a wave of sand – pouring over his body and his armour until he was painted black. They worked their way into every crevice, between every joint and under every opening. He felt their stingers against his skin, felt them trying futilely to poison him. With a roar, he swung his arms and crushed thousands in one go, then threw himself to the ground and rolled, squashing tens of thousands more. It was as he did that he felt the first of them on his face, under his helmet, crawling into his mouth.

Realisation struck. Fear came with it. His teeth slammed shut, crunching through tiny carapaces, but more came, and it was in numbers he couldn't hold back. They crawled over his face and his shut eyes, up his nose, into his ears. Some had already lodged themselves in the back of his mouth and he choked on them, gasping for air. That proved the end. As his mouth opened, more swarmed in, filling his throat until there was no way to breathe. He could slay any Grimm, prove impervious to more, even to the ones that stung the inside of his throat, but no matter his strength and endurance there was one factor that would prove the same in this world as in his own. The need to draw breath.

—Arc Royale [Ch. 30]