No! I don't want to be a Super Necromancer!

Kubwa Chaka's movements were raw, powerful, and instinctual—like a beast in a frenzy—but instinct was a pattern. And Damien Bloodbane had spent his life breaking patterns.

The moment Mbwa Mwitu stumbled from the disrupted spin, Damien moved.

He didn't retreat. He didn't reposition.

He walked forward.

Slow. Deliberate.

Blade low, shoulders relaxed, like a butcher approaching a half-slaughtered bull.

The crowd buzzed with confusion.

"Wait… what's he doing?" Grumpy Bear barked. "Why isn't he backing off? This is where you disengage, heal, regroup, anything!"

Sleepy Smile's voice dropped into a low hum. "He smells blood."

Mbwa Mwitu reared back on its hind limbs, confusion flickering across its beast-like frame. Its AI momentarily froze—predators weren't used to prey approaching them. And Damien? Damien wasn't prey.

He dashed.

Low.

A blur of black across the battlefield.

Mbwa Mwitu snapped out of its hesitation and slashed with a brutal left hook—but Damien twisted beneath the strike, his mecha gliding under the blow like water slipping past a boulder. In one smooth motion, he circled the beast and slashed at the side of its rear leg.

Sparks.

The beast roared and spun—but Damien was already at its flank.

The tail flicked out with bone-breaking force, a blur of segmented steel meant to impale him.

But this time…

Damien grabbed it.

He caught the tail mid-swing with both hands and yanked it downward, twisting the momentum into the ground, planting his foot against the beast's hind leg for leverage. Then with surgical precision, he drove his blade straight into the anchor point at the base of the tail, just under the flexible armor ridge.

The scream that followed wasn't mechanical—it sounded alive.

Sparks flew. The tail spasmed once.

Then went limp.

"OH! MY! GOD!" Grumpy Bear howled. "HE DISARMED THE TAIL! HE JUST CUT OFF THE MOST DANGEROUS SECONDARY WEAPON IN THE ENTIRE TOURNAMENT LIKE IT WAS A DECORATION!"

Sleepy Smile gave a small, reverent nod. "He's cutting the beast apart. Piece by piece."

Damien didn't stop.

Another slash—this time at the knee joint. The leg buckled. The beast snarled and swiped wildly.

But Damien ducked again, stepped in close.

Another slash, this time at the shoulder rotor. The right arm sputtered, lost coordination.

Then, before anyone could react...

Damien jumped.

One powerful step onto the beast's back. The black mecha landed square between its shoulder plates, riding the convulsing monster like a war god taming a demon.

The entire stadium erupted into pure, unfiltered chaos.

"He's ON it?! Are you kidding me?! HE'S RIDING IT LIKE A BLOODY BRONCO!" Grumpy Bear was practically upside down in his chair. "SOMEONE CHECK THE RULEBOOK! IS THAT EVEN ALLOWED?!"

"Oh, this is going to be poetic," Sleepy Smile murmured, eyes gleaming. "A knight slaying the beast from atop its back. I love it."

Damien's blade lifted.

One strike.

No flourish. No scream. Just a single, clean downward thrust.

Straight into the upper reactor hatch.

The outer casing cracked like a shell under a boot.

Mbwa Mwitu screamed. It bucked, twisted, thrashed like a rabid animal trying to shake off the inevitable. But Damien stayed locked in place, his blade buried to the hilt.

And then...

He twisted.

Vicious. Final.

The reactor sparked violently.

Then died.

The beast's legs stiffened. Steam burst from every vent. The hydraulic muscles groaned—and then fell still.

A hiss. A whimper. And then…

Silence.

The lights of Mbwa Mwitu dimmed to zero.

Frozen mid-roar, the once-mighty king of the arena slumped forward like a felled beast.

Damien stood atop it, unmoving.

The crowd stared, mouths open, unable to process what they'd just witnessed.

Then the screen flashed.

Round One: Hungry Monster wins.

Grumpy Bear was practically climbing onto the desk, screaming into his mic. "He's a demon! A black-coated death demon! He rode the Wild Dog into the dirt and buried it there like a damn chew toy!"

Sleepy Smile remained in his seat, a serene grin on his face. "I would kill for a freeze-frame of that moment. Damien, standing atop Mbwa Mwitu like it's his personal hunting trophy."

He turned lazily to the camera and added with a wink, "And that, dear viewers, is how you teach an old dog new fear."

In the VIP box above, none of the generals were seated anymore.

General Hong Fei's hands trembled as he gripped the railing. "He's really going to win this… isn't he?"

General Maru gave a slow, heavy nod. "That's one."

General Riki was already laughing, shaking his head in disbelief. "Unless that African is a cyborg with no nervous system, that's as good as winning the whole round. Nobody recovers from a humiliating beatdown like that."

General Riki was absolutely right.

A beast, once tamed and broken, never fought the same again.

Mbwa Mwitu might not have been an actual creature of flesh and blood, but it was built to fight like one.

Wild, furious and unstoppable. Its strength came from chaos, from overwhelming its opponents before they could react.

But that only worked when the fear stayed intact.

And Damien had shattered it.

The savage rhythm had been broken. The monstrous pressure had been halted. The beast's momentum, the very thing it relied on, had been flipped on its back and pinned down like an unruly animal.

It didn't matter how advanced its systems were. Once the wild dog had tasted submission, it could no longer face Damien with the same ferocity.

And that first fight proved one thing to everyone watching.

The real monster wasn't the beast from Africa.

It was the black phantom who hunted it down without flinching.

It was the Hungry Monster.

In a high-security viewing tower far above the arena, a room sealed with layered mana wards and lined with surveillance arrays that could scry down to a heartbeat, the Grand Marshal of the Chinese Republic, Li Qingshan, sat with a grim expression and a twitching eye.

Grand Marshal Li Qingshan, an old war god wrapped in a silver-trimmed robe of military authority, his eyes sharper than daggers and his voice known to silence entire battalions, leaned forward in his seat. His tea had gone cold. His aura had not.

He watched the screenplay Damien's final blow again, slower this time, yet still too fast to fully process.

The mecha dropped. The beast powered down. The blade twisted. The black phantom walked away.

Again.

And again.

A third time for emotional damage.