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

His usual bluster was gone. His robes were torn, stained with dried blood and dirt. There were deep claw marks across one sleeve. His eyes were bloodshot, the golden hue of his draconic bloodline dimmed and dull.

Damien sat across from him, hands resting on his knees. He didn't respond right away. He didn't need to. He already understood.

The dragon clans had always stayed neutral in the great wars. They didn't consider themselves part of human civilization, even if they walked in human skins. They saw themselves as the watchers, ancient, proud, and far too patient.

Their history with the awakened beasts was complicated. At times, they had been enemies. But also kin. Some beasts were descended from corrupted dragon blood. Others still held secret pacts from before the rise of mankind's awakened.

They wouldn't choose a side. Not unless the world burned.

Damien nodded grimly.

"I didn't expect more from them."

Fatty looked down. "They said they've already done enough by keeping their own from joining the beasts."

That, at least, was true. A group of dragons joining the beast tide would have been a catastrophe. Damien said nothing. He didn't want to voice how close to the edge things already felt.

Elly sat nearby, cross-legged on a broken stool, her coat half-torn and her long white scarf draped around her like bandages.

She was covered in dried mud and black blood, the side of her face scratched raw from some kind of blast. Her eyes, usually bright and full of questions, were distant.

"I only managed to divert two beast waves in the end," she said quietly, not looking at either of them. "Turned them against each other. They were enemies once. I just… reminded them."

Damien glanced at her, eyebrows raised.

"You instigated infighting between two beast hordes?"

She gave a tired smile and shrugged. "Made up a few insults. Twisted a few signals. Dropped a cursed relic in the wrong camp. One thing led to another, and suddenly two thousand beasts were tearing each other apart."

Damien stared at her for a moment, then let out a soft breath.

"That saved millions of lives."

Elly didn't smile. She just stared at the ground.

Jiang Xiao Yu sat at the far corner of the room, wrapped in a pale blue cloak. She was always quiet, but now there was a stillness about her that went deeper. Her skin had taken on a ghostly pallor, almost translucent in the firelight.

Her mana signature, which Damien had always felt like a calm, glacial river, was leaking around her now in jagged pulses.

Something was wrong.

Terribly wrong.

Damien focused his senses on her. And there it was. A fracture in her core. A deep, vertical crack that ran through the center of her mana vessel.

It wasn't just damage. It was fatal.

The mana core, the heart of a mage's power, was a living structure. Once cracked, it became unstable. Mana leaked out constantly, unable to circulate properly. Every spell cast widened the damage.

And over time, the pressure imbalance would reach a critical point.

Her body would seize. Her internal organs would rupture. And her mind would fracture long before that.

She had, at most, a week.

She looked up suddenly, eyes meeting Damien's. Pale. Hollow.

He didn't speak. Neither did she.

They didn't need to.

In that look, everything passed between them, respect, regret, and the quiet understanding of those who had seen too much and survived just a little too long.

The fire cracked. Somewhere outside, someone shouted. A siren wailed in the distance, then faded again into the hum of generators and cold wind.

The silence in the room stretched long, broken only by the soft crackle of the brazier fire.

Elly glanced toward the corner where Jiang Xiao Yu sat hunched in her cloak, her eyes unreadable.

"…How do you feel?" she asked gently, as if afraid the question itself might break something.

There was no answer at first. Jiang Xiao Yu stayed still, her gaze fixed on the shadows dancing against the floor. Her lips parted as if to speak, but instead of words, a thick cough ripped from her chest.

Blood burst from her mouth in a dark, splattering arc.

"Xiao Yu!" Damien moved instantly, catching her just as her body gave out.

She crumpled into his arms, light as air and colder than she should've been. He lowered her gently to the ground, pressing a hand to her back to steady her, only to feel the truth.

Her mana core wasn't just fractured anymore.

It was crumbling.

The leak had become a rupture. Her energy was collapsing in on itself, violently. The flow was unstable, buckling from within, and with every second, more of her life force was bleeding into the air. It wasn't just death approaching, it was consuming her from the inside.

"No," Damien breathed, pressing his other hand to her chest, trying to stabilize the mana flow, trying anything…

But he couldn't fix what wasn't whole.

A rustle of fabric broke the moment.

President Jiang turned.

She had been halfway across the hall, speaking with a wounded general. But a mother's instincts moved faster than logic. Her eyes locked onto her daughter and in that instant, she knew.

She dropped what she was holding and ran. Not with the stride of a leader, not with the grace of a president but with the raw, stumbling panic of a mother who saw her child slipping away.

"No, no, Xiao Yu, no!" she fell to her knees beside Damien, reaching out with trembling hands. "You're fine, you're still breathing, just hold on—"

Jiang Xiao Yu stirred faintly, her head resting against Damien's shoulder. Blood streaked her lips, and her breath came in shallow gasps.

But somehow, she smiled.

A soft, beautiful smile, tinged with pain, but full of peace.

"Mother," she whispered, her voice cracked and fragile, "I'm going first… to join Father."

Her gaze fluttered toward the firelight.

"Don't be sad…"

President Jiang's face broke.

All the walls that had stood through beast tides, foreign threats, and betrayal shattered in a single moment. The strength that had held a nation together dissolved, leaving behind only a grieving mother who clutched her dying daughter with shaking arms.

"No… please… please, not you… not you too…"

She wept openly, the sound raw and quiet, too soft for someone who had stood so tall. She pulled Xiao Yu close, pressing her face into her daughter's bloodied hair, as if the warmth of her body could stop the cold from creeping in.

Fatty looked away, swallowing hard, his jaw clenched.

Elly's hands were balled into fists, her nails digging into her palms, but she didn't speak.

Damien knelt motionless, Xiao Yu still in his arms, feeling the last flickers of her mana flicker and fade. Her heartbeat was a whisper. Her eyes were half-lidded now, but there was no fear in them.

Only peace. And love.

For her mother.

For her friends.

For the life she had lived.

And in her final breath, she mouthed a single word—

"Thank you."

Then she was still.

President Jiang didn't let go. She cradled her daughter tightly, tears running down her face unchecked, soaking into the cloak she had wrapped around her child.

The room had gone silent.

Even the fire seemed to burn a little lower.

No one dared speak.

Not when something so strong had finally broken.