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

Her blows carried explosive force and numbing cold, each clash chipping away at his body while his own attacks barely scratched hers.

He was holding back. He had to.

There were strikes he couldn't use against his schoolmates. The bone-shattering, tendon-tearing, spine-cracking ones meant to maim or kill.

Moves aimed at crushing windpipes, shattering knees, rupturing organs.

The kind of strikes that turned enemies into corpses.

But she wasn't his enemy, so he restrained himself. And it was costing him.

She danced around him like a goddess of destruction, perfectly balanced between burning heat and chilling silence.

"You're strong," she said lightly, barely winded, "but you're dreaming if you think you can win me while holding back."

"Then maybe I won't." Damien smiled at her coldly.

He couldn't kill her. But he sure as hell was allowed to beat her senseless.

Death energy flooded into his limbs.

Black veins shimmered across his forearms, glowing faintly with forbidden power. His fists pulsed with mana-corroding darkness, the very air around them beginning to wither.

He struck again.

This time, when their arms met, her skin hissed from the contact.

A thin sheen of black rot crawled across her wrist for a heartbeat before she forcefully burned it off with a pulse of inner fire.

Her eyes widened.

And then—she smiled.

Not out of amusement, but out of excitement.

"Oh," she breathed. "You're interesting after all."

She flexed her fingers.

The temperature dropped and spiked at once as she coated her arms in pure Icefire energy.

Blue and red flames spiraled up from her elbows to her knuckles, interwoven with ghostly frost.

Her aura flared like a dying star, blazing heat wrapped in soul-freezing cold. Her very presence distorted the air, crackling with chaotic elemental violence.

She launched forward.

Her first strike collided with Damien's death-coated arm.

BOOM.

The ground exploded beneath them. A crater tore into the earth as fire and death energy clashed.

Damien stood firm against her incredible strength, his death energy more than enough to completely block the deadly effects of her Icefire.

But she didn't stop.

A ruthless backhand caught him in the ribs, launching him at a massive tree.

The impact cracked the trunk and almost split the tree in half.

Damien rolled, coughed once, then stood again.

Still breathing.

Still smiling.

The Queen stood at the center of the field, hair flowing with elemental steam, eyes glowing with dual madness.

Damien's voice was calm.

"Good."

He raised both hands, death energy rising like smoke from his knuckles.

"Now it's a fight."

They clashed again, death against Icefire, the air between them roaring with elemental madness.

The Queen struck in bursts, limbs a blur of searing fire and freezing vapor, every blow meant to break bones and shatter balance. Her footwork was perfect, her technique refined by years of ruthless combat drills and actual survival trials. She whirled like a tempest of dual elements, each movement unpredictable, violent, beautiful.

But Damien didn't waver.

He met her head-on, blow for blow, the withering force of death magic pouring into every counterstrike. Her searing fists hissed against his arms, but his corrupted mana leeched away her momentum. Every punch he threw chipped away at her rhythm, and every block he made came closer to catching her outright.

She aimed a spinning Icefire kick at his neck, he ducked under it, let her momentum carry her forward, then drove his knee into her hip.

Her body twisted with the impact. She skidded back, boots carving a trench into the dirt.

She snarled and threw a searing lance of compressed Icefire straight at his heart.

Damien didn't dodge.

He stepped into it.

The blast struck him head on, but the death energy around his body absorbed the impact.

Black veins seized the destructive forces of Ice and Fire, and twisting them into rot and decay. The flames dispersed in a burst of crimson frost.

He was already moving.

Crack!

A straight jab slammed into her shoulder.

Thud!

A follow-up elbow smashed into her sternum.

She gasped then retaliated with a vicious roundhouse, Icefire flaring from her heel.

Damien caught her leg with one hand.

And before she could twist free…

WHAM!

He twisted his hips and drove a brutal hook straight into her cheek.

It connected with a sickening snap.

Time slowed for a split second as her head whipped sideways, blood and spittle arcing into the air.

Then her body spun, fully airborne.

She hit the ground thirty feet away and slid across the broken terrain like a broken marionette.

The entire battlefield fell silent.

A second passed. Then another.

And then…

"ENOUGH!"

The professors descended from the sky like thunder.

Professor Bai Lian hit the ground in a blur, sliding to the Queen's side with a flurry of healing magic already lighting up the air.

Professor Wu's teacup shattered as he finally dropped it.

Professor Huang pointed his trembling finger at Damien. "You actually hit her in the face?! Her face! Be more gentle to girls, damn it!"

Damien could only blink at the old Professor Huang helplessly.

What, was he supposed to let her defeat him just because she was a girl?

What a joke! Are you a professor or a female rights activist?

"She's alive," Professor Kong Hu muttered, floating down with a tense frown. "She's lucky that's all it was."

Professor Orange knelt beside the Queen's motionless form, checking her vitals with glowing hands.

"She'll recover," she said quietly. "But that… was a real loss."

All eyes slowly turned to Damien.

He stood there, arms lowered, breath steady. His death energy flickered gently before dissipating entirely, vanishing like black mist in the wind.

"You did well." Professor Kong Hu nodded at him and spoke quietly.

"Thank you, sir." And then he turned and jogged toward Athena, who lay among the scattered rocks not far from where the Queen had struck her down.

She was barely awake. One eye was half-open, and the other completely shut. Blood was trickling down from the side of her head.

She looked terrible.

But her lips curved up into a radiant smile.

"Hey big bro," she whispered, voice cracked and soft. "You came to me first this time…"

Then she promptly fainted.

Damien sighed.

He reached down, gently adjusting her head so she lay comfortably.

Then he walked over to Jiang Xiao Yu, whose body lay still beneath the moss-draped cliffside.

She was unconscious. But breathing steadily.

Her hand twitched once.

Damien knelt beside her and rested two fingers on her wrist, checking her pulse.

Still strong.

He exhaled quietly.

The fight was over.

For now.