'Wait, I'm Supposed to Become a Goddess?! But I'm a Guy!'

Her hand lifted, fingers spreading with silent noise, a whistling echo.

The same five orbs of compressed light blinked into existence, floating effortlessly at her side.

But this time, something felt… different.

Mize’s focus deepened.

Her thoughts shifted, pressed, and shaped, treating each orb like a spring being wound tighter and tighter.

Tang!

Tang!

Tang!

A huge metallic noises thundered, like a spring being coiled in the heaven.

The imagined coils compressed under mental force, pressure building within the glowing spheres until the air around them began to warp.

Her chin tilted up.

Cold eyes narrowed.

“Die,” she said, flat and final.

Swoosh.

The orbs vanished from her hand, streaking through the air at a velocity that shattered sound.

They weren’t just fast, they tore through the battlefield like bullets from a divine rifle.

Liam reacted on instinct.

"Shit!"

A portal flared open beneath him, swallowing him up, almost.

Halfway through, the light caught up.

His eyes widened in this scene.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

The impact cracked across the field, ripping the air open.

Far away, another portal split the space, and from it, Liam emerged.

He stepped out slowly, half of his form still flickering with the darkness that had shielded him.

The portion that took the brunt of the blast pulsed, shadows crawling across his skin as they stitched his wounds shut in eerie silence.

His eyes rose to meet hers, calm despite the burning pain still lingering beneath his expression.

“So it’s confirmed…” he muttered, voice low.

“The path of a goddess really is obscene. If I’m going to bring her down, I’ll need to throw out everything I’ve got.”

"A walking god among the awakeners, I doubted even those legendary proffesion could do much against her"

He laughed.

He fell quiet, gaze sharpening as Mize’s figure hovered above.

She didn’t speak.

Her right hand raised again, elegant, deliberate, fingers outstretched like some celestial judge about to deliver sentence.

For a breath, she looked almost regal.

Unreachable. The light curled around her like a warning.

The space trembled.

The arcs flickered again.

The orbs appeared.

Straining backward under the force she’d imagined into them, they held in place, compressed and coiled like spring-loaded devastation.

Liam saw the setup.

His gaze shifted briefly, sweeping the field, taking in the invisible formation still anchoring the entire space together.

The diagram showed signs of breaking apart, cracks began to emerge on the corners.

A single misstep could tear the place apart.

And she had no intention of letting up.

He let out a slow breath. The dark mist that healed him flowed faster, tightening around his frame like a second skin.

He took a single step forward.

“Well…” He shook his head. “Let’s just do it then.”

In the same beat, he vanished, gone without a sound.

Mize’s eyes darted sharply to the side. She caught the faint, smoky blur racing toward her, and didn’t hesitate.

Swoosh!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Each orb struck down like a divine judgment, hammering the earth.

Explosions bloomed one after the other, mushroom clouds rising to meet the sky like grim monuments to destruction.

Wind howled past her, pulling at her hair, making it whip and sway behind her like banners caught in a storm.

She didn’t stop.

One after another, orbs formed at her fingertips, each launch as fluid as a breath.

She kept firing, kept pressing, until the world below vanished beneath a rising tide of smoke and fire.

The ground couldn’t be seen anymore, only the thick grey swirl of devastation remained, the entire field buried in clouds that stretched as far as the eye could see.

Then… silence.

She lowered her arm to her side, eyes sweeping the horizon.

The sky above was a deep red, not from dusk, but from the sheer heat lingering in the air.

The space around her was filled from residual energy, and beneath her, the battlefield had turned into something unrecognizable.

Mushroom clouds were scattered across the land like scattered pillars, the earth beneath them scorched, cratered, and fractured.

The wind screamed past in broken gusts.

Even the farthest edges of the domain trembled from the onslaught.

For a long moment, Mize hovered there in stillness.

Her ruby eyes blinked slowly as she looked out over the apocalyptic scene, her voice soft and amused.

“Dead?” she murmured, pressing two fingers to her lips, tapping them thoughtfully.

A rare smile tugged at her mouth.

“Mortals with no sense of proportion,” she added, voice like silk brushing across glass.

“How pathetic it must be… to challenge the sky and believe you even stood a chance.”

She chuckled under her breath.

Her hair, dancing in the heat-laced wind, glistening with each movement.

Her dress billowed lightly around her, catching the light from the glowing ruins below, drifting like luminous embers in the dark.

A goddess amidst ruin.

But then, something shifted.

From deep within the smoke, a trail spiraled up like a pulled thread.

And in a flash, a human form surged out, Liam, cutting through the haze like a bullet.

Puff!

Mize didn’t flinch.

Her hand lifted on reflex, fingers already aligned as if rehearsed.

The orbs sparked to life, flickering in place, but just as she was about to release them, her gaze froze.

There, beneath the rising plumes and shadows still clinging to his figure, Liam was smiling.

Her brow twitched.

“He’s… smiling?” she muttered, the words slipping out involuntarily.

The movement faltered.

And in that exact moment, a strange realization pressed at the edge of her mind, something she hadn’t considered once throughout this entire fight.

From the very beginning… when she’d lashed out again and again, pouring everything into each attack, Liam had barely countered.

He hadn't harmed her.

Not really.

That couldn’t have been intentional… right?

Or could it?

'why does everything suddenly feels strange?'

Her thoughts spun.

She turned her head sharply to the side, and froze again.

Liam was already there.

Standing quietly just a few steps away, hands tucked into his pockets like this was a casual stroll, not a battlefield.

The darkness that had cloaked him before had dissolved, and his expression? Calm. Casual. Like the last ten minutes hadn’t happened.

“Alright,” he said, his tone almost too light. “Let’s end the little trance, shall we... Aizen?”

Crack.

Crack.

Shhkk.

The world fractured.

Like glass under pressure, thin cracks raced through the space around them, splintering the sky, the ground, everything. It all froze mid-motion, then shattered, instantaneously.

And just like that, everything made sense. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Mize staggered, her body trembling as the illusion collapsed.

Her knees nearly buckled, but Liam was already there.

He reached out smoothly, slipping an arm around her waist and pulling her toward him before she could fall.

His other hand lit with a soft green glow, spreading a gentle pulse of healing energy through her limbs.

She blinked, lips parted slightly.

“W-what…?”

Her voice cracked as her head turned toward the scene around them, her expression muddled, lost.

Something felt completely off.

Titrus and Aizen still stood silently at the edge of the field, in exactly the same place they had been.

They hadn't moved, hadn't flinched.

The terrain, the same battlefield she’d nearly torn apart, remained untouched, pristine.

It hadn’t changed since the moment she’d “fixed” it.

Mize’s gaze moved slowly, dragging across the strange, familiar scene until it finally rested on Liam’s face.

He hadn’t stopped smiling.

Seeing the bewilderment in her eyes, he lifted one hand and gently cupped her cheek, thumb brushing over her skin before moving up to ruffle the top of her head.

“Still trying to catch up?” he asked softly.

His voice was calm.

No mockery, just a quiet steadiness that only made her chest feel tighter.

Mize could only nod. Her lips moved, but no words came.

Not because she didn’t want to, but because her mind hadn’t yet caught up to the reality she was now standing in.

“It was an illusive realm, Aizen's ability” Liam said, chuckling lightly. “From the very beginning… everything was false, a test to see your full potential"

"And you without a doubt, exceeded my expectations"

Her eyes widened slightly.

Illusion?

'Does that means I lose?'

That couldn’t be right. The whole fight had tilted in her favor, hadn’t it?

She’d been the one pressing forward, dictating the pace, overwhelming him.

Hadn’t she?

Then why.

Her eyes lost focus. She stared through him as pieces began snapping into place behind her confusion.

Why had she been so aggressive?

That wasn’t like her.

Not entirely. There had been no madness, no split, she remembered everything clearly.

She hadn’t felt controlled. It had all felt… natural.

But it hadn’t been her.

She swallowed, throat dry.

“Why… was I so cold to you?” she whispered, voice cracking slightly at the edge.

“What happened?” she asked again, softer this time.

Her words hung in the air, heavy with confusion and something else she couldn’t quite name.

And Liam, still holding her steady, waited without rushing, as if giving her time to find the pieces on her own.

"It was deliberate"