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

He barely had time to think before he heard the voice.

"Was that… you?"

Damien turned.

General Riki was staring at the undead, sweat dripping from his brow, pain etched deep into the lines of his face. His gaze was locked on General Qin Hui the God of Iron, his old buddy, who stood motionless now, his hammer still stained with fresh blood.

Qin Hui wasn't breathing. Not really. His chest didn't rise. His eyes didn't blink. But he stood.

The realization spread like fire.

One by one, the surviving Chinese S-Rankers looked around. At Zhou Mei. At Lin Guang. At Xu Yilong. All of them dead. All of them upright.

And all of them waiting.

"Yes." Damien replied softly.

"You… brought them back," General Maru whispered, staring at Damien like he wasn't entirely human.

Damien didn't answer right away. He didn't have the energy to explain.

He gave a slow nod, swallowing the dryness in his throat.

"I did."

The words came out rough, scraped raw from his chest.

The others didn't speak. No one cheered. No one congratulated him.

They just looked. Stared. As if seeing him for the first time.

Riki leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "How?"

Damien looked down at his hand, still trembling faintly from the strain.

But he didn't say a word.

Silence.

Even the wind seemed to stop.

Maru muttered something under his breath, too low to hear. One of the younger S-Rankers made the sign of a protective charm. Someone else cursed softly.

General Qin Hui and the others remained still, heads tilted as if waiting for a command.

Damien exhaled slowly. "They're not at full power. Their intelligence is… dulled. But they follow orders. And they still remember how to fight."

Riki's eyes swept over the undead, his gaze lingering on the motionless forms of fallen legends now standing upright in eerie silence. Something between life and unlife. Warriors reborn in shadow. His jaw tightened.

"Damn kid," he muttered, voice low. "You really are a monster."

Damien didn't flinch. He met Riki's gaze, the faint glow of dark mana still pulsing beneath his skin.

"Yeah," Damien said, eyes flat as his gaze drifted over the battlefield.

Around him, the undead stood in silent formation, weapons still slick with blood. A low wind stirred the ash at his feet, whispering through the ruins of Blackthorn as if the world itself was holding its breath.

"And the Europeans," Damien said quietly, "are about to learn what it means to fear."

But not yet.

Not while the wounded screamed. Not while the dying still clung to life.

Not while the dead waited to be named.

First, they needed to return to recover their strength, to help the dying.

And to bury the dead.

The flight back to Pearl was quiet. No cheering. No declarations of victory. Only the whine of medical transport engines and the steady beeping of mana monitors.

Dozens of stretchers lined the hold. Blood pooled under some. Others were already still.

When they landed, the courtyard was unrecognizable.

Pearl Institute had once stood tall, a symbol of China's pride, its stone towers polished, its pathways clean, its halls echoing with the laughter and arrogance of the young. Now it looked like a battlefield trying to remember it had once been a school.

The eastern courtyard, once blooming with elemental flowers and sculpted mana trees, was gone. In its place were rows of medical tents, triage lines, and piles of discarded armor. Craters pocked the stone. The walls were scorched black.

Pools of dried blood marked where battles had spilled over the gates.

Damien stepped down from the transport, his boots landing with a dull thud on cracked stone. His movements were slow, almost mechanical.

Every joint ached, and his mana hadn't returned since Blackthorn. But it didn't matter. There was no room for fatigue.

All around him, survivors moved in silence. Some limped. Others were carried. Medics, civilian and military alike, rushed between tents, casting healing spells or simply applying pressure with trembling hands.

There were screams, muted now, buried under layers of painkillers and exhaustion, but they never truly stopped.

He passed a stretcher where a boy no older than sixteen lay with his legs missing below the knee, whispering his sister's name over and over again.

Another held a professor Damien vaguely recognized, his entire left side wrapped in bandages charred black.

A small girl sat beside him, holding his hand and trying not to cry.

Volunteers worked shoulder to shoulder with instructors and soldiers. Even some of the elite mages, those still able to walk, were on their knees helping to bind wounds or conjure water for the thirsty.

And at the center of it all was President Jiang, Jiang Xiao Yu's mother.

She was kneeling beside a wounded soldier, sleeves rolled up, hands pressed against a shattered ribcage as golden healing light radiated from her palms.

Her face was streaked with soot. Blood stained the hem of her uniform. And yet her eyes were calm, focused, steady, radiating the kind of quiet authority that made people believe the world might still survive.

He watched her for a long moment, standing among the broken, and something in his chest pulled tight.

This wasn't over.

Not even close.

He turned away and continued through the field, stepping carefully over collapsed stretchers and fallen gear, past lines of the wounded and the shell-shocked. Every breath was heavy with the scent of burnt mana and drying blood. Every step felt like it carried the weight of a hundred lives.

Inside the old mess hall, someone had dragged chairs into a loose circle. A fire crackled in a makeshift brazier, scrap wood and broken training spears feeding the flames. The warmth was thin, but it helped.

Damien stepped into the light. The others were already waiting.

Fatty was the first to speak.

"The dragons want nothing to do with the war," he said softly, staring into the flames, his expression more serious than Damien had ever seen it. "They've sealed their mountain ranges. No reinforcements. No weapons. Not even healers."