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

Three hours after his brutal takedown of Mbwa Mwitu, Damien stepped into the arena once more, this time for the semifinals.

The crowd was louder than ever, a pulsing, restless sea of banners, screams, and camera flashes. The tension was different now. It wasn't just excitement. It was awe. The people had started to believe.

Even the commentators had changed their tone.

Grumpy Bear adjusted his headset, grumbling. "Alright, alright. Look, I admit it. The kid's not bad. He might actually scrape this one through."

Sleepy Smile raised a brow. "Scrape? You mean disassemble his opponent bolt by bolt like he's been doing for four rounds?"

Grumpy Bear pointed a finger. "Hey, I'm cautiously optimistic now. That's progress."

A new screen blinked to life.

SEMI-FINALS: SPECIAL COMBAT TRIAL

Grumpy Bear leaned forward. "Now this… this is what we've all been waiting for. The semifinals are not just duels. They're simulation-based combat trials modeled after real-world warfare. And today's trial? Beast wave suppression."

Sleepy Smile leaned forward. "Each contestant will be dropped into an advanced simulation pod. They'll face a full-scale beast wave, built using real battle data from the Northern Ridge Incursion. Thousands of awakened beasts. All variants. Fire types, shadow leapers, mistwalkers, even mid-tier world eaters. Whoever kills more, wins."

"And they only get one shot," Grumpy Bear added. "No retries. No saves. Just you, your mecha, and the hell outside the wall."

Across the arena, the opposing gate opened.

Blake Johnson walked out like he owned the place, helmet tucked under one arm, his American-flag-themed mecha shimmering behind him. He waved casually to the crowd, flexing like a showman and winking at one of the nearby camera drones.

Back in the waiting bay, Damien leaned silently against the wall as Blake's live interview started playing on the big screens.

"Blake, what's your plan going into this trial?" the reporter asked.

Blake grinned. "Simple. Tear through every awakened beast model they throw at us and show China how we do things back in the States."

"Any thoughts on your opponent? Hungry Monster?"

Blake laughed. "Who? Never heard of him."

The crowd murmured.

"He's been quite the sensation here. Some are calling him the favorite to win now."

Blake smirked. "The only Chinese warrior I ever respected is a guy named Damien Bloodbane. He is an exceptional fighter with monstrous abilities. Him, I fear. This Hungry Monster? Not so much."

He looked around theatrically.

"Too bad I'm not fighting that guy."

Damien, watching from the staging platform, raised an eyebrow and gave a single exhale that might've been a laugh.

Up in the VIP booth, General Maru choked on his drink. "Did—did he just—"

General Riki was wheezing. "He just said—"

General Hong Fei was already doubled over. "I can't—he thinks it's someone else—"

They exploded with laughter.

On the field, Damien walked out in his usual matte-black mech, silent and unassuming.

Grumpy Bear squinted. "I still don't know who this guy is, but damn if I'm not starting to root for him."

Sleepy Smile nodded. "You're growing. Emotionally."

The challenge began.

Both pilots were dropped into separate enclosed arenas, each one constructed to replicate a ravaged borderland under siege. Simulated ruins. Collapsed buildings. A cratered wall. And beyond it…

The beasts came.

Waves of them. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. Their bodies glowed with elemental cores, their limbs twisted in monstrous fusion with mana and muscle. The ground trembled under their advance. Some ran. Some flew. Some crawled on all fours, or shimmered through shadow.

Blake Johnson's screen filled with light and fire as he surged forward, his mecha spraying controlled bursts of plasma and shredding through the first line.

"Damn good technique," Grumpy Bear muttered. "No wasted shots. That's textbook American war doctrine."

Sleepy Smile agreed. "Clean form. Tactical bursts. And look—he's dropping drones to monitor blind spots."

But then Damien's screen lit up.

And everything changed.

Inside the simulation, time did not seem to move normally for Damien.

The tide of awakened beasts, furred, scaled, armored, elemental, charged with deafening roars and violent hunger, but he heard none of it.

Not truly.

The world had quieted around him, leaving only breath, motion and the familiar golden path running through each and every critical hit within his sight.

He moved like water sliding across ice.

His blade rose, drew a line through the throat of a flaming serpent-beast, and dropped without pause to sever the limbs of a charging brute with lightning skin.

Its electricity hissed through the air, arcing in all directions, but Damien was already elsewhere, two steps away, blade reversing into a backhand sweep that tore open the chest of a burrowing mana-fanged mole.

Each strike was poetry.

Each dodge was precision.

There were no wide swings. No panic-flailing. Every action was born from the space between thoughts, pure instinct refined through endless, punishing repetition.

And Damien did not feel pride.

He did not feel fear.

He simply… acted.

His blade dragged the trajectory of a wide arc, slicing through a horde of smaller beasts lunging at him in tandem. Their bodies scattered like broken clay, and before the first even hit the ground, he had already pivoted to meet the next.

His thoughts were quiet.

Not entirely emotionless, but distant, like a man returning to the home he once hated but now knew better than any place on earth.

Three coming from the left. One shadow-tiger. Two glass-skinned flyers. Wind element.

His blade danced between them. A downward flick shattered the flier's wing, the follow-through impaled the shadow-tiger's core, and a reverse grip gutted the last one mid-turn.

Another wave surged.

Too many to count.

Dozens. Hundreds. All twisted, awakened, foaming with mana corruption.

But Damien stepped forward.

Sovereign Stride bloomed again, silent and invisible.

His body blurred, not from speed, but from alignment, a subtle shift of intention.

A perfect position. An angle born of spatial understanding and pure death instinct.

His mech slid between two charging elemental hounds. They collided behind him, dazed, and were crushed under the weight of their own kin before Damien turned and drove his blade through the back of a crystal rhino.

His HUD blinked.

Kill Count: 512.

Not enough.

He didn't chase speed.

He chased momentum.

And momentum had become him.

Far above, Grumpy Bear had gone quiet.

"I…" he said softly, gripping his mic. "I don't know what I'm watching."

Sleepy Smile nodded slowly. "It's not even a battle."

"It's… Poetry."