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

The western frontier burned behind them.

Damien marched beside General Maru and General Riki, boots crunching over scorched earth and broken armor, the three of them leaving a trail of smoking craters and blood-slicked roads in their wake.

What was left of Europe's western campaign was no longer an army, it was a scattered, terrified mob. Columns of soldiers that had once stormed Chinese soil with polished steel and perfect formation were now running for their lives, abandoning tanks and mechas, hurling weapons aside in desperate bids to escape.

But there was no outrunning them.

A vast army could not outpace a small squad of murderous generals hellbent on wiping every last European soldier from the battlefield.

The western push was no longer a counteroffensive, it was a purge. Damien fought at the center of it, a silent reaper wrapped in black mana, his every step matched by thunder from the skies or rupturing earth beneath.

Wherever they passed, the expeditionary force dissolved.

And still, they pushed forward.

Europe's final hope gathered at Blackthorn City, a ruined urban fortress perched right on the edge of the border. The last stronghold before full expulsion. And waiting inside it were the last 27 S-Rankers of the European coalition. Their best. Their monsters.

The ones who had torn through broken defenses and massacred the already dying populations of entire cities.

Damien and the 19 remaining Chinese S-Rankers reached Blackthorn by nightfall. Their armor was scorched. Their bodies carried deep cuts, broken ribs, and bleeding knuckles. Their mana reserves were frayed from constant war. Many were fighting through sheer rage and muscle memory.

They stood in the ash-choked streets of Blackthorn, staring across the ruined plaza at 27 fresh, well-rested S-Rankers whose expressions ranged from amused to condescending.

In a normal fight, they would have easily trampled over the spent Chinese S rankers.

But this was no normal fight.

The Chinese S rankers were burning with murderous rage and were wielding weapons that were horrifyingly powerful.

Runic weapons of alien origins, glowing with pulsing inscriptions, hidden in secret vaults for this very moment.

And hatred. Burning, endless hatred. The kind that turned exhaustion into power. That turned pain into precision. That sharpened every strike into a killing blow.

Then two more figures approached from behind.

Damien heard the boots crunch across the gravel-strewn road. Heavy. Uneven. Worn. He turned.

General Bloodbane. His grandfather.

And beside him, the other General that held the Western Border against the Europeans. General Shadowbane.

Both men looked like they had marched through hell.

Blood soaked into the fabric of their uniforms, the armor at their shoulders dented and cracked, boots scorched and half-torn. Cuts crisscrossed their exposed skin, and dust clung to every inch of them. They moved like men who had fought for days without rest.

But Damien narrowed his eyes.

Their mana was too clean. Too fresh. More than that… He could not smell the scent of death on them.

There was no deathly aura that clung to those who had killed. There was no invisible energy residue left behind by combat, by slaughter, by the weight of lives taken.

Damien had grown used to it by now, every S-Ranker who had survived the western push carried some trace of it.

Except these two.

The other Chinese S Rankers didn't seem to notice.

General Riki nodded toward them in greeting. General Maru gave a grunt of acknowledgment. A few of the S-Rankers even stepped aside to make room for them in the loose formation.

They needed their strength. No one questioned it. Not with the final battle looming.

But Damien watched them closely.

His grandfather's movements were stiff. Too rigid. Not from pain, he had seen his grandfather fight through broken ribs and shattered arms without flinching.

No, this was something else. His posture was unnatural. Calculated. Like he was mimicking the way a tired man should move.

And his eyes… His eyes were wrong.

Damien remembered those eyes filled with fire and judgment. Even when he'd been cast out, stripped of his family name, they had burned with pride, with fury. But now they looked hollow. Like the man behind them was… gone.

General Shadowbane was no different. His hands trembled faintly at his sides, but not with exhaustion. His grip looked too loose, too empty.

Something was wrong.

These were legends of the Western Front. Men who had led armies, who had bled for the country long before Damien was born. They had been called madmen for how fiercely they loved their nation.

Damien didn't sense their fury nor hatred that should definitely be there.

What he sensed was absence.

A hollowing.

As if the fire that had once defined them had already gone out.

He shifted his stance slightly. Hands close to his blade. Instinct sharpened. No conclusions, not yet. But something inside him began to coil, ready to strike.

He didn't know what was coming.

But whatever it was, it wasn't going to be clean.

From the other side of the plaza, a tall European S-Ranker stepped forward, voice magically amplified.

"This is your last chance. Crawl back to Beijing with your lives. Or stay, and we'll bury you here."

No one answered.

There was no need to talk to dead men walking.

General Maru started forward. A slow, deliberate stride. Damien moved with him. And the others followed.

The Europeans sneered at them, and they started to walk forward as well, eyes gleaming with strange anticipation.

Damien's heart fell to the pits.

It happened ten steps in, just as the Europeans were charging towards them and the Chinese S rankers were about to explode forward to meet them in battle.

A sickening crunch. A spray of blood. A scream that cut off too quickly.

With one clean strike, General Bloodbane's crimson spear rammed through the back of Heavenly General Qin Hui—the God of Iron.

His iron armor split open like paper. The man who had held the northern pass for a horrifying 48 hours against the beast waves collapsed in stunned silence, his blood soaking through the stone.

At the same moment, General Shadowbane moved, blade flashing.