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

Damien hit speed dial with the same energy most people reserved for checking the weather.

"General Maru," he said flatly. "One of your goddamn underlings is trying to kill me near the Imperial Serpent Auction House. You might want to come save him before I tear him to pieces and eat him for dinner."

Qian Yuze burst out laughing, loud, theatrical, and echoing across the quiet plaza with the swagger of a man who believed he had already won.

"You hear this clown?" he snorted, turning to his bodyguards like they were a live audience. "He just said he's gonna eat me for dinner. Can you believe it?"

One of the guards chuckled under his breath. The other just smirked, cracking his knuckles as if already imagining Damien's bones under his boot.

Qian swaggered forward, hands spread wide in mockery, pacing slowly in a semicircle around Damien.

"Let me guess," he continued. "You've got your daddy on the line? No, wait, your mysterious secret sponsor from the military? Some shadowy backer from the warfront? Please. If you had anyone backing you, they'd have stopped you from bidding against me in the first place."

He took another step forward, voice rising with each word.

"You think a few scary words and a call to someone you wish had authority is going to save you? Kid, I don't care if you call the Emperor himself. Nobody's coming for you."

He turned toward the fountain, arms wide as if presenting the world.

"This is Beijing, in case you forgot. My father commands half the artillery routes for the eastern seaboard. My mother bankrolls half the capital's military contracts. I have senators on speed dial and generals who owe me their grandchildren's tuition."

He spun on his heel and jabbed a finger toward Damien, voice sharp with arrogance.

"You think I'm scared of some street rat with a weak-ass backer and no manners?"

Damien didn't respond.

Qian Yuze sneered, his face twisting with disdain. "Listen closely, you little bastard. And you, whoever the hell is on the other end of that call. Listen well." He stepped closer, venom in every word. "I am Qian Yuze. You give me that orb, or I'll cut the balls off both of you and make you eat each other's. You hear me? Fucking morons!"

Damien chuckled, still holding the chronolink to his ear. On the other side, General Maru was already wheezing in barely-contained fury, spitting out fragments of profanities too scrambled to be real words.

"I hope you're moving fast and with lots of firepower, General," Damien said with a sincere laugh. "Apparently he wants you to eat my balls."

Qian's bodyguards snorted with amusement but then one of them frowned. He leaned toward his own chronolink, which had begun to flash.

"Uh… sir…" he said cautiously.

"What now?" Qian Yuze snapped with irritation.

The bodyguard turned his wrist, showing the device. A bright red pulse blinked in the center of the screen.

"High-priority distress beacon just went active. It's tagged to this location." He glanced around, eyes narrowing. "That doesn't make sense. There's nobody else here. Just us."

And then a sharp hum filled the plaza.

First came the whine of rotors, growing louder and closer, followed by the sudden rush of wind as helicopters emerged from behind nearby towers. Their mana rotors screamed across the plaza, floodlights crashing down like judgment from the sky.

The ground shimmered.

Military-grade teleportation gates flared into being, circles of blue light spinning to life as B-Rank mages in full combat gear stepped through, wands and blades drawn, armor gleaming with the seal of the military's emergency response division.

Dozens of them.

They surrounded the plaza in seconds, cutting off every escape.

Each one locked onto Qian Yuze, his bodyguards, Fatty and Damien with frightening precision.

Mana suppressors engaged.

Spells crackled in the air.

From above, a voice shouted through a loudspeaker.

"All unauthorized combatants! Drop your weapons and raise your hands! You are surrounded! This is a military rescue operation!"

Fatty threw his hands up in a panic.

Damien sighed. "What the hell are those old men thinking…" he muttered. "It's not like I was really going to eat him."

Still, he raised his hands.

A mage captain shouted, "Hold your fire! Generals en route!"

And sure enough, the sound of armored vehicles and mana thrusters soon filled the plaza. A high-speed military hovercar screeched to a halt at the plaza's edge. Its doors burst open—

And out stormed General Maru, red-faced and roaring, his fists already clenched, his eyes bloodshot with righteous fury.

"There he is! That's the bastard!" he roared, pointing at Qian Yuze like he had personally offended his ancestors.

Qian Yuze tried to speak, but all that came out was a pathetic sputter of disbelief. "W-wait, there's been a misunderstanding—"

Whatever he planned to say died the moment General Maru's fist crashed into his face with a sound like someone slapping a watermelon full of wet cement.

"YOU WANT MY BALLS?!" Maru bellowed. "YOU WANT TO MAKE ME EAT SOMEONE'S BALLS?! I'LL FEED YOU YOUR OWN KIDNEYS FIRST!"

He picked Qian Yuze up by the collar and hurled him into the dragon fountain.

With a splash and a yelp, the young master flailed among the decorative spouts of liquid mana.

General Hong Fei didn't miss a beat. He drop kicked one of the bodyguards in the chest so hard the man did a full backflip and landed on a fruit cart.

"You thought we wouldn't come?! This boy's basically our grandchild, you inbred mana cockroach!"

General Riki was laughing like a lunatic, already slapping the second bodyguard repeatedly across the head.

"Did you think he was bluffing? Bluff this, you mana-drunk meat puppet!"

He spun once and planted a foot into the bodyguard's ribs, sending him tumbling into a bench that exploded into splinters.

The bodyguards didn't retaliate.

They didn't even move.

No one dared.

Because every soldier and mage present understood one thing deep in their bones—those four weren't just generals.

They were walking calamities dressed in military honor.

They were the stories cadets whispered during night drills, the cautionary tales officers told their juniors before real deployments.

They were war incarnate.

And when legends like that got angry, even the fearless shut their mouths and prayed they weren't standing too close.

General Liang, usually the most composed among them, was foaming at the mouth like a berserker priest mid-exorcism.

"He said he was going to feed my brother our balls! OUR BALLS!"