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

Damien's eyes stung. His vision shimmered and bent under the assault of the light's aftershock. He stumbled, his boot scraping across the battered cloudstone, his spear trembling in his hand.

The air itself had grown hostile. Every breath scraped his lungs raw. The light didn't just shine, it sought, threading into the marrow of his bones and testing the limits of his elemental fusion.

His mind raced, even as his body began to collapse inward.

This wasn't just a powerful opponent.

Wu Jinhai was a revelation.

No cultivator Damien had ever fought, no beast, no general, no monster, no chosen child of fate, had ever made him feel like this. Not even the undying mecha tyrants or the awakened abyssal fiends of the battlefield. Those had been storms, threats, disasters.

Wu Jinhai was a truth.

And that truth was terrifyingly simple.

Damien was not yet ready.

Not for this level.

He had forged a necromantic core of staggering complexity. He had walked through fire, through time, through elemental fusion and divine tribulation. His death energy could devour fate. His lightning could erase movement. His space could distort attacks, and his temporal strikes could delay or deny retaliation.

But against light, against this light, it was all like paper against a flood.

Light was not merely an element.

It was the counterbalance to everything Damien had built.

His homecoming death intent? Purged.

His shadows? Scattered.

His time manipulation? Flickered like smoke and was blown out by the radiance.

He had no resistance to light. No affinity. No defensive blueprint.

Not yet.

Every calculation his mind could summon in those frantic seconds ended the same way, with his death. Not from a misstep. Not from a mistake.

Just from exposure.

He stared up at Wu Jinhai, still floating above like a wrathful godling, his flesh pulsing with radiant veins, his expression twisted in self-righteous fury. And Damien's mind, though choked with pain and adrenaline, moved as it always had, cold, relentless, analytical.

"His strength is original fire. But upon crushing that golden sphere, he gains the ability to wield extremely powerful light energy. It simply means that it is not his own power."

Damien's fingers curled tighter around his spear.

"It burns hotter the angrier he gets. It devours everything without discrimination. Its strength is absolute… But only while the energy lasts."

Damien inhaled.

His core flickered weakly.

"I just need to outlast him. And for that… I will need to dodge. Analyze his light energy and its usage. I've seen how it radiates. It's omnidirectional. Broad spectrum. But unfocused. He's a beacon. Not a blade."

He coughed blood, smiled through broken ribs.

"I can't overpower him, but if I can make him waste his light, burn it against something that won't die… He will dim. And when he dims… I will strike."

That was it.

That was the plan.

"So that leaves my final trump card… Descent."

And then, as if summoned by that desperate, calculating hope…

Fluffy arrived.

"HEY! WHO THE HELL IS BULLYING MY BOSS?!"

A blur of bone and steel dropped from the heavens like divine judgment, claws extended, fangs bared, tail swishing with violent delight. Fluffy slammed into the battlefield with a thundering impact that shook the platform, cracking several runes beneath his paws.

His ears were twitching, his bone wings crackling with static, and his crimson eyes were wide with both exhaustion and outrage.

Wu Jinhai's eyes narrowed to slits as he hovered above, bathed in celestial radiance, his robes billowing with divine authority. The battlefield was scorched, littered with the remains of the elite, and he stood at its apex like a sun that refused to be looked at directly.

But now, now a strange creature of grotesque proportions and shape, of all things, had dared to deflect his beam.

A creature with bone armor, bone wings and an electric aura.

A beast.

Wu Jinhai stared in disbelief.

"What… what is that?" he demanded, his voice rising an octave. "What manner of absurd, mutated, spirit-infested mongrel dares to defy my divine light?!"

Fluffy yawned.

Literally yawned, his jaw opening wide, fangs glinting as his lightning-charged breath scattered arcs across the battlefield.

"Spirit-infested? Mutated?" he muttered, scratching behind his ear with one paw, completely unconcerned with the heavenly aura wafting down from above. "Wow, you sound just like that old turtle I stepped on last month. Are all you shiny people this dramatic, or did your mom feed you molten soap as a baby?"

Wu Jinhai visibly flinched.

Wu Jinhai's face twisted with righteous fury, eyes seething with divine light that crackled at the edges of his irises. His aura swelled to unnatural proportions, and the sky above trembled, as though the heavens themselves dared not witness the heresy being committed before them.

"I am Wu Jinhai," he roared, voice like molten thunder rolling across the broken battlefield. "Heir to the Celestial Blaze Sect, bearer of the Sun Lotus Core, chosen flame of the Heavenly Calamity Dao, and future Sovereign of the Nine Radiant Thrones!** You stand in the presence of transcendent purity incarnate, divine judgment clothed in mortal flame, and you filthy mongrel dare… you dare mock me?!"

His divine fire flared, and the light turned golden-white, bright enough to blind. For a moment, the world blurred. Reality buckled. The platform beneath his feet groaned, melting around the edges as sigils etched in ancient runes burned themselves into the air.

"I will scour your bones from time!" Wu Jinhai spat, face contorted into a vision of noble rage. "I will chain your soul to the sun and let you scream for a thousand lifetimes! I will drag your beast down and burn its heart until it howls for forgiveness in every tongue of the heavenly script—and then I will erase its name from the River of Reincarnation!"

He paused, breathing hard, light whirling around him like a nuclear storm.

Fluffy blinked once.

"Wow," he muttered. "That's a lot of drama."

He gave an exaggerated yawn, showing every inch of his razor-lined jaw. "I mean, really. Screaming about your name, your lineage, your fancy Dao like we're at some kind of celestial auction. You're the heir of something, yeah, we get it. But lemme guess, what you're really saying is, you've never been punched in the face by a a handsome beast like me before."

Damien, still recovering, chuckled despite the blood in his mouth.

Wu Jinhai choked.

"You… You insolent mongrel! You dare profane my name?! My ancestors?! I will shatter your cultivation with one glare and send your entrails back to your beast horde in a gilded box!"

Fluffy took a step forward, lightning coiling around his armored limbs, his skeletal wings spreading wide. His tail slammed against the ground, cracking the platform. Sparks burst from his fur, and his crimson eyes narrowed with anticipation.

"You talk too much," he said, his grin wide and filled with teeth. "Try hitting harder. You might actually impress me."

Wu Jinhai shrieked something unintelligible as divine light flared across his arms, forming sigils that burned the very air.

But Damien's voice cut through the rising storm.

Low.

Final.

"Descend."