Chapter 50

The Ursa in front of me roared, lunging at me with a bite. Holding my spear out horizontally, I blocked the fangs of the large grimm. The Ursa hung onto my weapon, slowly pushing me back with its large size.

"Oh no you don't!" Yanking my weapon down, the Ursa's head was pulled downwards as I drove my knee upwards into the bear's chin. Its eyes widened in pain and it stumbled back under the force of my blow. "Now!" Lashing out with my weapon, I aimed for the neck of the Grimm. My blade dug into the creature's neck, producing a small burst of shadows from its throat. The grimm staggered back, injured, but still alive.

"Damn, it was too shallow!" I had to limit the length of my swing, otherwise, I'd have hit the icy pillar instead. Even though the pillars were preventing us from being overwhelmed, they also limited the movements of someone with a long weapon like me.

As my injured Ursa staggered back, another one tried to take its place, slowly inching past the other. However, I wasn't about to just sit back and make that easy for it. Quickly thrusting my spear forward, the blade stabbed into the grimm's eye while it was stuck trying to squeeze in.

GWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAR!

The monster cried out pain, covering the destroyed eye with one of its paws. But while I was busy dealing with the second grimm, the first one had already launched its crushing blow. A heavy paw from above landing squarely on my chest and knocking me flat on my back.

"Aero!"

"I'm fine! Focus on your own grimm!"

The last thing we needed right now was someone having a lapse in concentration. If even a single person couldn't hold the line, we were doomed.

The Ursa from before fell towards me, intending to crush me with both of its claws.

"Dammit!"

Pointing the other end of my spear at the grimm, I fired the grappling hook at the creature's head. With the metal claws dug painfully into its face, the Ursa panicked. As the beast wildly thrashed around, it gave me time to quickly jump to my feet.

Pressing one of the buttons on my spear again, the grappling hook retracted. Quickly yanking the large grimm towards me.

"HAAAAAAH!"

Lunging forward with my weapon, my spear stabbed fiercely through the creature's neck, completely piercing through the other side. Yanking my weapon back, I kicked the dead Ursa. The large grimm falling lifelessly onto its back.

"Phew..."

Sadly I was far from being done, as a new grimm immediately noticed the available gap to me, and began advancing to take the dead one's place. The Ursa who had one of its eyes gouged out was still there, but had become more cautious to attack.

Having a brief moment, I quickly looked around at the others.

Weiss seemed to be holding her ground relatively well. Her precise and elegant moves allowing her to maximize what little room she had to fight. She seemed to be carefully maneuvering the grimm she was fighting so that the one behind it never got a chance to interrupt. Unfortunately, her rapier, while fast, wasn't meant to cause heavy damage, so she seemed to be having trouble dealing any serious injuries to the Ursa's thick hide. And she didn't have any time to focus on using her dust attacks.

Russel was only just BARELY holding on. His acrobatic combat style was quite restricted in this small fighting space. Not to mention that in the show, he wasn't very strong either. Russel's speed seemed to be his saving grace. His fast knife attacks discouraging his grimm from advancing very much.

Raelin was...oh wow. I thought she'd have the hardest time holding the line out of the others. However, one of the grimm in front of her quietly stood in place, making it tough for the ones behind it to attack. Every now and again, one of the grimm would start to squeeze past the docile Ursa, only to be met with quick slashes that forced them to retreat again. If I had to guess, I'd say that Raelin has some sort of calming semblance.

This stalemate went for for a while with both sides pushing each other back and forth, making no real progress.

My Ursa roared charging towards me as I quickly took a step back to avoid its attack. The large paw ended up missing and slamming into one of the pillars of ice around us. The pillars were starting to take considerable damage from the many grimm and beginning to fall apart. At this rate, they won't last much longer.

'This...this won't do.' I thought to myself.

Right now our team was only managing to hold off the grimm. But sooner or later, one of our members is probably going to fall before we kill them all. Russel being the most likely person. We NEED to reduce the Ursa's numbers to get through this, even if it's risky.

"Raelin." I continued to fight off the ursa in front of me while speaking. "Can you use your semblance on more than one of these grimm?"

I expected her to simply nod or shake her head, but surprisingly enough, she spoke.

"No, I can only use my semblance on one target at a time. And it's better that way."

"Wait, why did you choose NOW to start ta- nevermind, got it." I shook my head, giving up on that idea. "Weiss, I need your help with something."

"I'm a little busy right now in case you hadn't noticed!" the girl bit out, her breath somewhat tired.

"We're going to create a small distraction, when that happens, everyone push back your Grimm. Weiss, I want you to remove the ice pillars, and then support me with glyphs."

"Are you crazy?!" Russel was already tired, but he still found the energy to scream that out. "Those things are keeping the grimm OUT!"

"You're going collapse any minute Russel. When that happens, grimm will rush through that opening and we're barely holding them off as it is! We have to take the gamble!"

Several of the grimm crashed into the pillars, causing the structure to shake. By now the grimm had stopped targeting us, instead attacking the icy pillars, knowing their destruction would likely mean ours as well. Through the gaps around us, we could all see the grimm glaring at us with their glowing red eyes on all sides.

"That's it! Screw this all of this!" Seeing the terrifying image in front of us, the exhausted Russel finally broke down. "I'm getting out of here! I'm not just going to go down with the rest of you chumps!"