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

By the second night, the command center was a mess of torn uniforms, half-drained mana batteries, and exhausted field medics stabilizing their own staff.

One aide passed out mid-report, another threw up into a bin and kept typing.

No one left the room and no one slept.

"We've neutralized seventy-two percent of beast activity in Central Command sectors," reported a grim-faced strategist at hour thirty. "But reinforcements are depleted. We're losing mechs faster than we can cycle replacements."

"How many S-Rankers are alive?" asked General Riki, voice low, shoulders singed.

"Forty-three reporting in. Of them, fewer than half are combat-capable. We have nineteen viable for redeployment."

President Jiang turned to him. "How long until we suppress the core beast threat?"

"If we can hold the eastern perimeter for another five hours, we can sweep the central corridor and reroute surviving units to stabilize the west."

"Do it."

There was no celebration when the final hive of Razor Lions in Shaanxi was destroyed.

There was no cheering when the air over Hebei cleared of flying beasts.

Only the dull thrum of command posts shifting their focus… westward.

At hour thirty-five, General Maru stumbled back into the command center, skin blistered, clothes charred, a field med-kit strapped directly to his cracked ribcage.

He looked around. Saw the same red screen.

"We're ready."

At hour thirty-six, President Jiang stepped forward.

The screens were still red.

But no longer pulsing.

The beast waves inside the country had been contained.

What few remained were now prey, not hunters.

And now… There were hands free.

Now, there was breath to spare.

Now… there was nothing stopping them.

President Jiang didn't shout.

She didn't slam her hand down or give a rousing speech.

She simply spoke.

"Very well."

The command center quieted.

She turned to the board, still glowing with the shattered images of China's western provinces.

Then looked toward the assembled generals, some bloodied, some barely standing.

She said three words.

"Runic Protocol: Huanglong."

The war room didn't erupt.

It fell into a solemn, focused silence.

That silence was not peace.

It was permission.

"Let's show them what the dragon looks like when it wakes."

—

On the southern wall, Damien saw them before anyone said a word.

The strongest surviving warriors of China.

The S-Rankers had returned, wounded, battered, their armor blackened and broken, but alive. He knew their faces. Their legends. Their reputations had filled textbooks. Their scars had filled whispers.

Now, they moved like something other than human, more storm than soldier. Even from a distance, Damien could feel their pressure. Mana so dense it distorted the air around them.

Their presence didn't signal hope.

It signaled revenge.

This wasn't defense anymore, Damien thought, eyes narrowing. This is retaliation.

The southern wall had stabilized, at least for now. His undead held the front like a jagged dam, their numbers pulsing in rhythm with his will. The tide hadn't surged again. The beasts were regrouping.

That meant it was time to move.

He turned his head, casting one last glance behind him.

Jiang Xiao Yu sat just behind the broken line, slumped against a shattered pillar. She hadn't collapsed. She hadn't rested. Her mana trembled on the edge of burnout, but her hands still worked, weaving flickering shields of spatial distortion to reinforce the broken barrier.

He didn't know if she heard him, but he whispered anyway.

"I'll be back."

Then, with a burst of movement and a shimmer of space, Damien vanished from the wall.

The command center under Beijing was buzzing with coordination.

The crimson light had been replaced by tactical overlays. Red lines. Blue markers. Live signals.

And in the center, standing like a mountain of calm in the eye of a storm, was President Jiang.

She didn't look at Damien when he entered. Her eyes were locked on a small obsidian case beside her. Runes pulsed softly across its surface, whispering in languages long extinct.

The case clicked open.

Damien felt it before he saw it.

Power.

Not raw like the beasts, not corrupted like the undead. This was ancient. Purposeful. Burning like scripture written in steel and blood.

Inside, twelve weapons gleamed with buried wrath. Each was unlike the next.

A massive glaive that crackled with golden lightning and violet flame.

A silver warhammer etched with gravity runes.

A twin-blade set pulsing with wind and frost.

A chained staff wrapped in spectral chains of light.

Runic Weapons.

Relics of alien origin, nobody knew who forged them, only that they were found beneath Mount Tianshan.

These were not ordinary weapons. They were relics of fury, each one inscribed with layered mana-script older than the Republic itself.

President Jiang looked at the nineteen surviving S-Rankers.

"These are one of our country's trump cards." she said simply. "Kill them all."

She lifted the first weapon, a long obsidian blade lined with a red-gold sigil and handed it to General Riki.

"This is yours. Tianlong's Fang."

Riki took it. His aura flared as the weapon bonded instantly, wind energy glowing along his arms like lightning finding home.

One by one, she passed the weapons out.

To Hong Fei—a pair of crushing iron gauntlets that weighed more than tanks.

To Maru—a curved blade that howled with frozen fury.

To Lin Kexin—a scythe that shimmered with both air and shadow.

Each Chinese S-Ranker that took one in hand felt their body surge, their power increasing by at least 50%.

But more than that, they also awakened a second elemental path.

A pyromancer became a pyro-storm brawler, lightning crackling through the flames.

An ice mage found their hands bursting with molten steel.

Wind combined with frost. Fire, with thunder.

The A-Rankers behind them bowed their heads.

They would not wield the runic weapons. They would support the storm that followed and pick up the twelve runic weapons from the S rankers dead hands, if it came to that.

And then Damien stepped forward.

"I want in."

Every eye turned to him, a spark of curiosity surfacing amid the rage and the grief.

President Jiang studied him for a long moment. Her gaze was steady, unreadable.

"You're the hope of the country," she said. "You should sta—"

Damien cut her off, not with disrespect, but with clarity. His voice was low, even, razor-sharp.

"Hope means nothing if I don't fight for it."

Silence.

Then President Jiang exhaled slowly. Almost like relief.

She gave a single nod.

"Then go. Burn them."

Damien nodded slowly, his expression unreadable beneath the shifting glow of the command tent.

"You can group up with me," General Maru said, his voice quiet but steady as he placed a bloodied hand on Damien's shoulder. "We'll send them all to hell."

Their eyes returned to the flickering war map in front of them, where red and blue markers danced across digital terrain. The positions were clear.

Europe's forces had moved with alarming speed, faster than anticipated, faster than the generals had believed possible.

Their staging camps now stretched across the entire western frontier, laid out in disciplined grids, dug in and reinforced like they had already claimed the land for good. There was a dangerous confidence in how they moved, how they waited.

They were resting on a string of victories, sure of their momentum, certain the tide would not turn.

And yet, in that web of enemy lines, there were gaps.

Gaps where the Chinese could descend upon them like avenging gods.