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

General Hong Fei barked orders into a secure comm-crystal. "Elevate Code Yellow to Red in the outer provinces! Assign two A-Rankers to every convergence hub! If you don't have them, borrow, steal, or wake the retired ones!"

Mana operators scrambled across terminals, fingers flying over crystal-engraved keyboards.

Holographic maps projected above the table updated in real time. Each city blinked into red and gold, red where mana pools were confirmed compromised, gold where diagnostic teams were en route.

A separate wall screen displayed active data pulls from all 32 provincial capitals.

They showed the same thing.

The same slow siphoning signature.

The same rogue frequency signature.

The same military-grade construction fused into civilian infrastructure.

"It's nationwide," General Liang said grimly, staring at the rising tide of convergence points being flagged. "This isn't just sabotage anymore. This is pre-invasion softening."

The tension in the room spiked as the implication landed.

A silent war had been waged beneath their feet for months.

President Jiang's voice crackled to life through a private frequency embedded in the war table.

Her image didn't appear, just her voice, cold and clipped. "Activate backup grid shielding nationwide. Place all cities under code-level yellow lockdown. Begin evacuation protocols for high-density civilian zones within ten kilometers of any convergence point."

"Yes, Madam President," multiple voices echoed.

"Start blacklisting all intercity teleportation arrays. Only military and medical clearance gets through," ordered General Zhou Yu.

At that moment, Damien's voice cut through the commotion like a blade. Calm, quiet, and deadly.

"We shouldn't evacuate. The cities offer better protection than the outskirts. If we scatter people into suburban zones, they'll just be hunted down by the beast waves."

The room froze.

Even the glow from the holographic displays seemed to flicker more slowly, as if the very air hesitated.

Only the low hum of ambient mana pulsed in the silence beneath the war room's reinforced shielding.

Then President Jiang responded, her voice quiet but unwavering.

"Scattered, many will be hunted… yes. But some will survive." She paused, eyes distant. "Grouped together, we risk losing tens of thousands in a single wave if we fail to hold the cities. This… is the lesser of two evils."

Damien nodded slowly.

He didn't argue.

He understood the cold logic behind it, and the immense burden that came with making such a choice. This wasn't fear. It was strategy at its cruelest edge.

President Jiang, he realized, was preparing for the cities to fall. It was an extremely difficult scenario to even imagine, much less plan around.

She was carrying a nation on her shoulders, and she was preparing for the worst.

General Riki stood slowly, fingers flexing.

His lightning mana buzzed faintly along the seams of his uniform. "We've found her. It's General Yao Mei. Shadow Corps have already been deployed to lock down the traitor's last known location."

"That little bitch." growled General Maru. "Capture her alive. We have much to discuss.

"Deploy the teams," General Riki ordered, his voice low and grim. "Capture the traitor. Secure the cities."

It was like turning a key in the heart of a war machine. The moment the words left his mouth, the engine roared to life.

Commands rippled through the ranks. Boots pounded. Radios crackled.

One floor below the war room, squads of elite mana teams were already strapping on battle-gear.

A-Ranked enchanters were engraving emergency glyphs onto reinforced sigils meant for suppressing energy detonations. Medical teams were assembling mobile clinics in preparation for city-wide failures.

In the outer eastern districts, a rogue convergence point was found beneath a water purification hub.

Five A-Rank combat engineers and two tech mages worked together to disable it, layer by layer.

One engineer triggered a failsafe too early and was instantly consumed by a burst of compressed dark mana. His partner wept as he continued the work alone, finishing the disarm thirty seconds before the cascade reached the next mana relay.

In the northern outskirts of Guangzhou, a military cadet named Lin Yao spotted a suspicious technician near a convergence gate. She called it in. The man tried to flee.

Within ninety seconds, a pair of veterans from the Firewatch Division descended like falling stars, disabling the rogue with brutal efficiency. When interrogated, the man tried to bite through his own tongue but was stopped mid-action by a psionic freeze spell.

"Confirmed rogue. Badge faked. Imbued with beast energy," the report read.

It was a fearsome systematic infiltration of the highest complexity.

By midnight, eight cities had reported failed attacks, explosions that were narrowly prevented by emergency shielding.

Three cities had not been so lucky.

In Kunming, the main convergence point under the central rail network detonated. The shield grid failed. The mecha hangars lost power for seven minutes. Five thousand reservists had to be manually evacuated from collapsing bunkers. Over a hundred were injured.

And still, the operations continued.

Every spare S-Rank was assigned to a city. Every reserve battalion was activated. Underground mana lines were being drained, redirected, shielded, or collapsed depending on the risk level.

In the war room, a young aide sprinted in with a shaking datapad.

He handed it to General Liang.

One glance, and the man swore under his breath.

"What is it?" Maru asked.

General Liang passed the datapad over. "We were right to act when we did. The mana density buildup was nearing Phase Two."

"Which is?"

"Cascade failure. Simultaneous collapse across twenty-four major relay zones. Including Beijing."

A long silence followed.

Damien stood slightly apart from the rest, watching the red dots fade from the map one by one as cities reported success or damage control.

The ones that remained glowed brighter.

The traitor's final act had nearly succeeded.

And yet, through the desperate efforts of their teams, a sliver of their defense network still remained.

30% operational.

70% down.

If the beasts attacked now, they would be able to hang on - barely.

"Let's hope that General Yao Mei was working alone." President Jiang whispered silently to herself. "If she was colluding with the awakened beasts and they took this opportunity to attack…"

BANG!

"Report! President Jiang, General Yao Mei… Was an A-Rank Fox Spirit in disguise!!" Her aide slammed open the door and shouted.

President Jiang's heart sank to the pits.

"Report!! Beast Wave sighted from the South originating from Emerald Pine Basin!"

"Report! Beast Wave sighted from the North originating from the Mongolian Desert!"

"Report! Beast Wave sighted from the Eastern coast originating from the sea!"