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

The countdown began.

3... 2... 1…

BOOM.

Titanfall surged forward like a mountain with fury in its veins and rocket boosters on its heels. The arena shook under each thunderous step, its seismic stabilizers letting it move faster than any machine that size had any right to. Dust kicked up in massive clouds behind it, and the mana barrier hissed as it strained to contain the forward momentum.

Inside the behemoth, Tang Shuang grinned.

"Come on, 'Hungry Monster' or whatever they call you. Let's see you run now."

But Damien didn't vanish.

He walked.

Calmly. Directly into the path of the oncoming war machine, as though taking a stroll through the park instead of facing down a high-speed multi-ton engine of destruction.

Grumpy Bear practically screamed into his mic. "NO. NO! WHAT IS HE DOING?! DODGE! EVADE! THINK OF YOUR SPINE AND DENTAL PLAN!"

Sleepy Smile stirred his tea with one finger. "It's fine. He's gonna embarrass him."

Inside the Titanfall cockpit, Tang Shuang grinned viciously. "You really think your toy blade can dent this? I've eaten cannon rounds stronger than your swing."

The blade came down like judgment.

Damien sidestepped at the last second. The blade missed by inches, carving a crater through the reinforced arena floor. Stone split like glass, and mana surged in rippling shockwaves.

Before the sparks even finished flying, Damien moved.

One clean horizontal cut swept across the mecha's knee joint, carving through the joint housing like paper and sending Titanfall lurching to the side with a mechanical screech.

"First strike" Damien said, low and calm.

Tang Shuang growled from the cockpit, slamming both fists into the control panel. "You think one trick makes you better? I'll crush you into paste!"

The Titanfall Mk.VII pivoted, steam hissing from its vents. Its left arm lashed out in a sweeping blow designed to pulverize everything in its arc.

But Damien stepped in again, barely shifting his stance.

The massive arm missed.

And in that breath of silence, he struck once more.

His blade slipped cleanly beneath the left armpit joint, punctured the coolant line, and ripped upward.

The reactor screamed.

Titanfall froze.

Then the lights inside flickered.

One second passed. Then two.

And the entire machine shut down with a heavy, smoking exhale.

Damien turned, sheathed his blade without looking back, and walked away.

"I thought this one would last longer," he muttered, his voice broadcast across the arena.

The crowd erupted with a collective gasp.

Grumpy Bear was gripping the commentary desk like it had personally betrayed him. "No, no, no. That is NOT how a mecha fight is supposed to go! Where was the struggle? The tension? The drama? He just walked up and neutered a million-credit war machine like it owed him lunch!"

Sleepy Smile, for once, was grinning from ear to ear, eyes gleaming with delight. "Oh, it was beautiful. Cold. Clean. Surgical. Like watching a master chef dice an onion with a whisper of regret."

Grumpy Bear threw his headset down onto the desk. "This is a combat tournament, not a damn poetry reading!"

Sleepy Smile just sipped from his mug, smiling dreamily. "I could write sonnets about that kill…"

Above in the VIP box, the generals were hooting like drunken wolves at a karaoke bar on payday.

General Hong Fei had his shirt halfway off and was waving it over his head like a battle flag. "That's my boy! That's my goddamn boy!"

General Maru was pounding the railing so hard it was starting to bend. "Did you see that pivot?! That dodge?! That wasn't just instinct, that was divine footwork! I'm crying. I think I'm actually crying."

General Riki had whipped out a mana-stabilized camera orb, recording the replay while yelling, "Send this to the Grand Marshal! Send it to the Emperor! Send it to the Vatican! They need to witness this!"

"Textbook murder!" General Maru shouted again, voice cracking.

General Hong Fei jabbed a finger at the arena. "The bastard didn't even flinch. Didn't even blink. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a heartbeat."

General Riki raised a steaming mug of suspiciously potent mana tea and bellowed with all the seriousness of a national anthem, "He is the pride of all mana-awakened! Our chosen caffeine-fueled messiah!"

General Maru sniffled and whispered, "I love that boy."

But as the rest of the top 32 bracket matches began, the generals gradually sobered up—at least in posture, if not in volume.

One after another, the remaining matches rolled in. Some were brutal slugfests between heavily armored siege units. Others were fast-paced duels between hyper-agile scouts, full of blinking lights and dizzying evasive maneuvers.

General Hong Fei commented on nearly every match like a seasoned gambler. "That one's got good lateral control, but his reactor's too slow for consecutive bursts."

General Maru kept a personal notebook, scribbling down names of promising pilots and their mecha specs with intense, unnecessary detail. "That's the third time that variant of Falcon-class burned out its boosters in under thirty seconds. Design flaw. Worth exploiting."

General Riki nodded at everything like a wise old man rediscovering his youth. "We need one of those with cannon arrays for Pearl. Or five. Preferably five."

Damien, meanwhile, sat back in the prep room watching the feeds without comment. He sipped a second mocha and leaned against the wall, eyes following each frame carefully.

It was not for entertainment, of course, but for study.

The tournament might be for sport, but the technology wasn't. Most of these mechas were next-generation prototypes or commercial testbeds for active military service. Observing them now gave him valuable insight into their loadouts, movement patterns, and design weaknesses.

Knowledge that would be indispensable should the war against the European Empire escalate.

Soon, the announcers called for the start of Round 3. Top 16.

Damien stood and cracked his neck once.

The screen flashed:

ROUND 3 – TOP 16 MATCH

Hungry Monster VS TooFast4U

Sleepy Smile raised an eyebrow as the cameras swept the crowd. "Well. That name's been whispered in a few darker corners of the arena."

Grumpy Bear practically leapt from his seat. "Oh, this is gonna be beautiful! Damien Bloodbane has had a cakewalk so far. But now? Now he's facing Zhao Xuan! The first-year crown jewel of War God College!"

A blast of silver-blue light surged across the screen as Zhao Xuan's mecha appeared on the field.

The crowd roared.