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

Inside their state-of-the-art simulation pods, five mecha pilots from China's Northern Military Corps finalized their loadouts, their helmets locked in place as the system calibrated.

Sergeant Liu Feng, the squad leader, sat in the center of the virtual hangar. His hands rested calmly on the controls of his customized assault mecha.

His black hair was cropped short, his uniform was immaculate, and his focus was razor-sharp.

"Stay sharp," he said, his voice even. "We execute the mission as trained."

To his left, Sergeant Zhao Wei, the sniper specialist, finished calibrating his railgun.

"Pfft, I can drop three of them before they even realize where I am," he scoffed.

"Big words for someone who missed half his shots in the last test," Sergeant Chen Kai, the team's fastest pilot, teased as he rolled his shoulders. His fingers flexed lightly over the thruster controls of his ultra-light skirmisher mecha.

Zhao Wei scoffed. "That was lag, idiot. My shots were perfect."

"You always blame lag," Sergeant Xu Jian, their demolition expert, snickered. His heavily armored artillery mech loomed in the hangar, a walking fortress packed with missile pods and heavy cannons.

Beside him, Sergeant Fang Rui, the brawler-class pilot, cracked his knuckles as he inspected the vibro-axes mounted on his unit's arms.

"Forget the excuses. Let's just win. Five kills for me."

"Dream on," Liu Feng said, shaking his head.

"Five kills?" Xu Jian laughed. "That means you're calling dibs on all of them. What do the rest of us get, then?"

"You get to watch me work," Fang Rui shot back.

"You work as slowly as a malfunctioning drone," Zhao Wei muttered.

The banter continued, but it all came to an abrupt halt when a sharp voice cut through their helmets.

"Enough."

Their backs straightened instinctively.

Lieutenant Ye Bai, their superior officer, stood behind them with her arms crossed over her very generous chest.

Her piercing gray eyes were locked on their screens, completely disinterested in their jokes or bravado.

Her long, silken black hair was tied into a tight ponytail, accentuating the sharp angles of her flawless, porcelain-like face.

Her uniform hugged her body perfectly, the high-grade military fabric outlining her toned figure, emphasizing the curves of her chest, waist and the firm, disciplined posture of her stance.

Despite the strict professionalism she radiated, there was an undeniable allure to her presence.

The room felt a degree hotter.

All five of them swallowed hard and tried their best to channel the heat of their desire into battle fury.

Because beneath her stunning beauty, Ye Bai's presence was cold and untouchable.

She wasn't here for camaraderie.

She wasn't here to be impressed.

She was here to grade them.

"Your mission is simple," she said, her voice precise. "Five targets. No excuses. Execute cleanly or you will fail."

A faint chill ran through them.

Nobody wanted to fail. Their career promotions were on the line!

"Understood, Lieutenant!" Came the passionate shouts of five young hotshots.

The countdown began.

3… 2… 1…

The battlefield loaded in, revealing a vast, ruined cityscape.

Towering skyscrapers leaned at odd angles, half-collapsed buildings lined the horizon, and a thick layer of dust and debris covered the streets. Smoke from distant fires curled into the sky, giving the whole battlefield a sense of war-torn desolation.

Inside their cockpits, the five sergeants of China's Northern Military locked onto their targets.

Their HUDs flashed with combat data, their hands steady on their controls as their mechas began to move as one unit.

The five military pilots launched forward, their formation crisp and disciplined.

Liu Feng led the charge, his medium-class mecha advancing smoothly.

His expertise was evident as he used controlled bursts of thruster power to maintain optimal speed.

Zhao Wei immediately entered stealth mode and quickly found an excellent vantage point on a ruined skyscraper. Within seconds, his railgun was already scanning for targets.

Xu Jian locked onto Maru's artillery mech, his heat-seeking missiles already primed.

Chen Kai vanished from radar, weaving through the wreckage of a collapsed structure.

Fang Rui roared forward, his brawler-class mech dashing ahead to engage in melee combat.

They executed with precision.

No wasted movement.

No hesitation.

But as it were, it was complete overkill.

"What the hell? Why are they moving around in the starting area randomly like idiots?" Zhao Wei muttered in confusion. But his movements did not slow.

Zhao Wei's railgun hummed.

Boom.

Xian Fei's sniper mecha exploded before he even had a chance to fire.

First kill.

"Lieutenant Ye, are you sure these are Gold Ranked Players?" Xu Jian couldn't help but ask.

"They are Gold Ranked," Lieutenant Ye Bai responded, her voice cold and clipped, completely uninterested in their victory. "You are wasting time. Finish the fight."

Her gray eyes remained fixed on the screen, showing no emotion as Xian Fei's mecha detonated into scrap metal.

Xu Jian shrugged. "If this is Gold Rank, I don't know whether to be insulted or embarrassed for them."

"Just focus on the mission," Liu Feng said, eyes scanning the field.

Maru's artillery mech was still calibrating.

Too slow.

Xu Jian's fingers tapped his controls, locking onto the target with practiced ease.

"Firing."

A barrage of heat-seeking missiles shrieked through the air, leaving behind twisting white smoke trails.

Xu Jian's missiles rained down on Maru's artillery mech.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.

Second kill.

"The fat one is rushing over. I'll take him down."

Fang Rui dashed forward and with a simple move, his massive fists crushed Hong Fei's mecha into scrap.

Third kill.

Riki tried to outrun the chaos, but in his panic, he lost control of his mecha and crashed heavily into a tree.

"Holy shit… Did that light mecha just commit suicide?" Zhao Wei was stunned.

In under sixty seconds, the enemy team was reduced to one.

Only one mecha remained.

In their simulation pods, the old men were cursing, yelling, and shouting all at once.

"The hell was that?! I died before I even moved!" Xian Fei roared.

"They have a sniper! How did they get into position so quickly?!" Maru yelled.

"WHO LOCKED ONTO ME?! MISSILES ARE ILLEGAL!"

"They are not illegal, old fool! You just suck!"

"Who was supposed to cover me?!"

"Your damn self!"

The elders watching from the door were howling with laughter.

"I have never seen a group of people get destroyed so fast," one wheezed.

"They are like toddlers piloting military tanks!" another gasped.

Then came the worst part.

Riki, in full panic, accidentally boosted the wrong way.

His light mech sprinted straight into a tree.

CRASH!

The simulation registered a self-inflicted crash death.

The old men went silent.

Then—

"WHAT THE HELL, RIKI?!"

The old men had all died in under sixty seconds.