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

The pillow exploded against Damien's head like a soft, overstuffed grenade.

"Elly," he said flatly, brushing feathers from his shoulder.

"I regret nothing!" she shouted from behind the couch, hurling another one with alarming precision. It smacked Fatty directly in the face, knocking him off his chair with a yelp and a half-eaten duck bun.

"Battle formation, Elly!" Fatty declared from the floor, flinging two pillows in rapid succession.

"You got it, commander!"

Pillows were flying. The room had devolved into chaotic, squealing war.

And right at that moment, the dorm door slid open with a hiss.

Ji Chen stepped inside, blinking once at the airborne fluff, then ducking just in time as a high-velocity pillow whizzed past his head and slammed into the wall with a thump.

"…Did I walk into a training simulation or a kid's birthday party?" he asked mildly.

Elly gasped. "Enemy sighted! Engage!"

Another pillow sailed toward him, but it bounced harmlessly off a faint ripple of wind around his body.

Ji Chen blinked. "Really?"

"You dare deflect my throws?" Elly narrowed her eyes in mock fury and immediately launched a second volley. Two pillows whirled through the air like missiles, only to spiral off-course and thud uselessly against the walls.

He sighed and raised his hand slightly, reinforcing his barrier. "You can throw as many as you like. It's not going to work."

"Oh?" Elly grinned mischievously and dropped into a low stance. "Challenge accepted."

With a foxlike war cry, she began hurling pillows faster and faster, each one backed by a surge of minor wind spells and some deeply unnecessary enthusiasm.

Ji Chen didn't even flinch. "While I enjoy this bizarre interpretation of combat training," he said dryly, "I actually came here with a real problem."

Damien, who had been quietly observing the nonsense from the couch, lifted his eyes. His tone shifted, quiet and firm.

"Elly."

Instantly, Elly froze mid-throw, pillow hovering in her hand.

"Yes, Master?" she asked sweetly, imaginary tail twitching once behind her.

"Stop."

She set the pillow down with surprising obedience and perched quietly on the edge of the couch.

Jiang Xiao Yu blinked in astonishment. "You trained her?"

"I told her I'd cancel dessert privileges for a week," Damien replied with a shrug.

"…Impressive."

Ji Chen stepped forward and activated his Chronolink, casting a projected map into the air. The chaotic energy in the room evaporated as everyone leaned in.

"I intercepted a buried report from a city tech named Lin Ke," Ji Chen began. "Turns out there's a mana siphoning operation going on beneath Beijing's power grid. Every seven minutes, mana gets drained from specific points in Sector 4A, just enough to avoid tripping the official alarms."

Jiang Xiao Yu's face darkened immediately. "You're sure?"

Ji Chen nodded. "I double-checked the grid activity. It's not being consumed. It's being stored. And the convergence points form a strategic formation… right beneath the defensive network of the city."

Damien's expression sharpened. "So if those mana pockets detonate…"

"The city goes dark," Ji Chen confirmed. "Turrets down. Barrier systems offline. Beijing becomes exposed. It's coordinated sabotage. And nobody's reacting."

A long silence filled the room.

"Who else knows?" Jiang Xiao Yu asked, her tone sharp and focused.

"Technically… no one," Ji Chen replied. "The technician who discovered it got told to file a generic report. His superior assumed it was faulty cables. He did send the data to a few department heads, but most ignored it."

"And you?" Damien asked, gaze narrowing.

"I only saw it because I was… browsing the secure network for unrelated reasons."

"Casual hacking," Fatty muttered under his breath.

"You're welcome," Ji Chen said flatly.

Damien crossed his arms. "We track the convergence points. If they're physical, we find who planted them."

"We'll need to move quietly," Jiang Xiao Yu warned. "If whoever's behind this realizes they've been discovered, they'll either vanish or set off the traps."

Elly raised a hand eagerly. "So… I can fight something after all, right?"

Damien gave a single, quiet nod.

Her face lit up with fang-toothed delight. "Finally."

They all leaned in, huddling around the floating map projected midair—Beijing's mana grid glowing in thin red threads, like veins across a sleeping beast. Elly's illusion magic gave the room an eerie blue glow, and Ji Chen's heavily modified tablet kept feeding in new data.

Glowing dots marked the convergence points, underground nodes where mana pooled to power shields, turret networks, emergency grids, and medical reserves.

Normally silent, unnoticed. But now, dangerous.

Jiang Xiao Yu tapped one of the red marks. "This one's under a civilian hospital. If it explodes, hundreds could die. I still think we should inform Principal Tian Long."

"No." Damien's voice cut clean through the conversation like the edge of a blade.

The whole group went still.

He leaned back on the couch, calm but sharp-eyed. Shadows flickered subtly around him, like even the air didn't want to interrupt. "We don't know how high this goes. If we alert the wrong person, we might trigger whatever they're planning."

Jiang Xiao Yu hesitated, then nodded. "So… we treat this as an internal op?"

"Everyone's a suspect," Damien said simply. "Except us."

Elly gasped. "We're the secret agents now! Can I have a codename?"

"No," Jiang said automatically.

"Too late, I'm Fox Unit Zero."

Fatty grinned. "I'm Duck Commander."

"No, you're not," Ji Chen muttered.

"I'm just saying," Fatty added, "if I die on this mission, I want my obituary to include the words 'sacrificed for the mana grid.'"

Jiang Xiao Yu stared at them, deadpan. "If only you all had this much initiative when I asked you to study our national tournament opponents."

Damien didn't even blink. "The tournament doesn't threaten civilian lives."

Fatty shrugged. "Also, Elly promised to bite fewer people this time."

"No, I didn't," Elly said cheerfully.

Jiang Xiao Yu massaged her temple. "This is my life now."

But despite the banter, the room was different now. The levity couldn't mask the tension beneath the surface. The map hovered in silence, glowing ominously.

Danger was real. The threat was buried deep in their own city. And only they were aware of it.