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

The searing heat rolled out in waves, pulsing through the air in warped and distorted ripples.

Each wave burst out from beneath the lion’s massive paws like an expanding shockwave, igniting flames and scattering debris in every direction.

It took only seconds for the two figures on the ground to gather themselves, their bodies instinctively pulling closer, though fortunately, neither of them seemed to be on the lion’s immediate prey list.

The beast had locked onto something else.

With a low rumble, the lion ascended, stepping into the sky as though it were scaling an invisible staircase.

Its colossal body rose with solemn majesty, like a war god awakened from slumber.

Again, the blistering heat rippled outward beneath each of its steps.

The sky itself trembled. Wind howled. Trees curled into ash.

The air damped as if the world was being boiled, blistering with each pulse until it seemed ready to combust into an explosion.

“Old man?” Klein’s voice cracked, his face drained of color.

His eyes shot upward, dread bleeding into every word.

When he got no reply, he fumbled through his pouch with trembling hands, pulled out a pill, and shoved it into his mouth.

A rush of emerald energy surged through his body, and the fresh burns seared across his skin vanished almost instantly.

Straightening with urgency, Klein called again, his tone more frantic this time. “Old man! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, brat.” The old man’s translucent figure shifted slightly, his gaze casting backward with a flicker of reassurance.

He retracted the glowing shield he had summoned and narrowed his eyes toward the distant sky. “But I’m afraid we’ll have to stay right here for a while.”

“Huh?” Klein blinked, his brows furrowing.

“Why? We’re kilometers away. Shouldn’t we take the chance to get out of here?”

“You’re wrong.” The old man shook his head.

He had already wrapped a cocoon of divine sense around them, an invisible shell meant to evade detection.

But the cost? They couldn’t move an inch.

“That lion is scanning the entire area with its divine sense. The coverage is absurdly wide"

"Fortunately, it hasn’t focused in our direction. If it did... we’d already be dead"

"Moving now would be a direct exposure to it"

Klein gulped sharply. The hiss of fear was audible as it left his teeth.

Before he could respond, the old man added with a grim undertone, “We stay put. I’ve concealed us with my divine sense, but one wrong move, even a shuffle, and that thing will lock onto us.”

“Y-Yeah,” Klein muttered, the tension making his muscles lock up.

He stood frozen behind the old man, eyes glued to the sky where the lion floated, bathed in a fiery, distorted aura. “So strong...”

"Is this the realm that stood above those tier 6 ancestors?"

His pupils shrank.

He could feel it, the vast, ocean-deep pressure swirling above them like a living abyss.

It was hard to breathe, like drowning in invisible waters.

Without the divine sense shielding him, he knew his body would've already been crushed under the sheer weight of that presence.

“Of course it’s strong,” the old man muttered. “That thing’s a Tier 7 True Lord. The existence that looks down on the world beneath its feet, an existence that could wipe us out in seconds"

“What? A True Lord-class monster?!” Klein’s voice cracked.

“Are you serious!? Damn it, this dungeon is insane! We never should’ve come! This place is a deathtrap!”

"It's a huge scam! That treasure or opportunity you sensed must have been a scam!"

He cursed under his breath, pacing with frustration, though there was nowhere to go.

They were trapped here now, and they both knew it.

“Calm down. It hasn’t noticed us yet,” the old man said flatly.

“Its attention seems elsewhere. I can sense another aura... equally powerful, coming from afar.”

“What, another monster’s coming?” Klein blinked, his expression darkening. “We’re about to be caught in the middle of a turf war now?”

“Pretty much,” the old man said dryly, giving him a look. “Let’s hope we live through it, eh, brat?”

"It would be bad If I die again, hahaha"

"Old bastard, I don't want to die!"

Klein offered a nervous chuckle, but his face remained tense.

Then, without warning, a piercing trail of azure light carved through the sky.

The red-stained heavens split apart like torn silk, and a wave of freezing cold crashed over the land.

The scorching battlefield suddenly found itself smothered by a storm of frost.

The flames on the ground hissed, subdued by the sudden drop in temperature.

Boom.

An overwhelming presence followed in the wake of the chill.

From within the glowing streak of blue, a figure emerged, wrapped in icy radiance, the very air crystallizing in her wake.

The lion’s head swiveled sharply. Its molten-gold eyes narrowed.

“A human? How did you get here?", Its deep voice rumbled like rolling thunder, tinted with mocking scorn.

“You dare show up here and brazenly slaughter my kind?? Have you grown tired of living?”

The figure stepped forward from the swirling frostlight.

As she walked, the radiance peeled away like melting ice, revealing a breathtaking sight: a woman clad in an elegant robe of glacial blue, her long hair drifting like silk threads in the wind.

Her eyes mirrored the deepest parts of the ocean, serene yet dangerously cold, with pupils that radiated chilling might.

A frigid beauty, no less ethereal than the angel Klein had seen once before.

“Woah...” Klein’s jaw dropped.

The sudden freeze spread like vines across the scorched ground, encasing trees and molten rock in crystal ice.

Yet his eyes remained fixed on her silhouette. “She’s...”

“Yeah, yeah, brat. Falling in love again already?” the old man sighed, his illusionary form giving a slow eye roll.

“Careful with that heart of yours, she’s a True Lord. You’re not even a blip on her radar.”

“I know, I know,” Klein muttered, waving him off with a flustered scoff. “No need to rub it in with a damn ladle.”

And then the fight exploded.

The lion’s mocking words hadn’t even finished echoing before the woman acted.

Her arm swept outward, graceful, unhesitating, and in its wake, a tsunami of frost surged through the sky.

In a breath, a massive palace of ice spiraled down from the heavens, its towering spires descending with cataclysmic force.

The air bent. The earth screamed. Winds lashed across the forest like invisible blades.

The lion reeled, momentarily stunned by the sheer audacity.

"Bold!"

But he roared in reply, his mouth aglow with seething flame.

A sphere of burning energy crackled before him, and with a jerk of his head, it hurled forward.

Boom!

Their clash detonated through the atmosphere, sending shockwaves screaming through the sky. The air turned into an orchestra of violence.

Boom!

The attacks collided again, and this time the land responded.

Forests disintegrated. The ground shattered into chunks. A nearby mountain was bisected and crumbled like wet sand.

Seeing her initial assault fail, the woman stepped forward.

An enormous ice-forged sword materialized above her, glinting with killing intent.

Then, she flicked her finger.

The sword descended.

Boom!

The lion met it with his claws, and the impact rippled through the world like a thunderclap.

With a furious beat of his wings, he vanished, then reappeared beside her in a blink, his claws slashing down like a typhoon.

She turned just in time, bringing her sword back in a flicker of silver-blue light, intercepting the blow like a comet hitting a mountain.

Boom!

They clashed again. And again. Hundreds of times, mid-air, their silhouettes tangled in a blur of strikes and counters.

Each collision birthed another shockwave.

Each exchange tore another piece from the landscape.

The very earth groaned beneath them.

Ravines cracked open. Trees toppled like matchsticks. Hills were ground into dust.

This was Tier 7.

It wasn’t just another realm, it was transcendence.

Those who entered Tier 7 were no longer bound to the limits of flesh.

Their strength could draw upon heaven and earth itself.

Every move could reshape the battlefield. Their bodies radiated like furnaces. Their minds roared like oceans. Their power felt endless.

They were called True Lords for a reason, and that was "beyond.

But few ever reached such a height.

The gap between Tier 6 and Tier 7 was a chasm as vast as the one between a mortal and an awakened.

From Klein and the old man’s vantage point, the two seemed evenly matched.

Each exchange erupted like a nuclear blast, though the divine sense shield held strong, for now.

Boom!

A stray blast slammed into the terrain not far from their position, kicking up dust and rubble.

Klein flinched, sweat beading on his forehead as he clenched his fists hard enough that his knuckles turned white.

“What the hell... Their casual attacks can level mountains,” he muttered, his voice dry with disbelief.

“Don’t be surprised, brat,” the old man said, still unnervingly calm. “True Lords are disasters made flesh. They’re the walking embodiment of the elements. Even in the inner region, you could count Tier 7s on two hands. They are humanity’s apex force that stabilized the whole region"

Boom!

Another stray strike landed nearby, gouging out a massive crater and splitting the fractured earth wider, the air itself howling with the aftermath.

And still, the battle raged on.

The battle roared on, gradually shifting farther from where Klein and the old man were watching.

Each clash between the titans sent violent shockwaves through the air, sharp, thunderous blasts that rattled the bones and felt like they could shatter a mortal’s eardrums on the spot.

Boom!

This time, the massive lion was hurled backward by a colossal icy palm.

Its body slammed into a distant mountain ridge, triggering a cloud of ash and rubble that burst into the sky and rained down like a gray storm.

“What!?” Klein choked out, eyes wide with disbelief.

“Not bad,” the old man murmured, arms crossed, voice calm but edged with compliments.

A brief opening.

That was all it took.

The lion struggled to right himself, claws gouging into stone, muscles trembling as it tried to stand.

But before it could fully rise.

An enormous sword, easily a hundred meters long and forged entirely from glistening ice, dropped from above like a guillotine.

Roar!!

“Bastard!”

Boom!

The lion twisted its body at the last second, narrowly dodging a fatal strike.

But the price was steep, its right hind leg was severed in the process, the chunk of flesh and bone sent flying with a sickening arc.

Blood hissed against the frozen ground as the beast snarled in pain.

Then, with barely a pause, the lion blinked from sight.

In the next moment, it reappeared high in the air, directly across from the icy woman.

Its aura flared like a furnace, thick with hostility.

With a single swipe of its claw, it summoned a towering blood-colored energy, shaped like a spectral claw, plummeting from above.

The woman didn’t flinch.

Her eyes narrowed, cold and focused, gleaming like twin blades drawn from a sheath.

Her fingers moved, light and precise, no wasted motion.

The sword responded immediately, sweeping upward in a blur of frozen steel.

Boom!

The sky dimmed for an instant as the two forces collided.

She managed to block it, but barely.

The impact forced her back a step, robes fluttering from the residual force.

And then the air changed.

“Damn human race! Dare to come here and cause trouble!”

Szzzt—! Szzzt—!

A series of sharp, electric hisses cut through the battlefield.

“Not good,” the old man muttered, eyes narrowing. Klein turned to him, confused, until he saw it.

The woman’s expression shifted.

Her eyes widened.

A thunder arrow, thick as a tree trunk and crackling with volatile power, shot in from the far side of the battlefield.

Boom!

It struck hard. She barely managed to shield herself, ice splintering around her form as the impact kicked up a new storm of ash.

From within that cloud, something stirred.

An immense figure rose, ancient, glacial, and draped in jagged ice like armor.

A behemoth, easily a hundred meters tall, stepped forward with weighty, earth-shaking strides.

Above, the lion floated once again, its severed leg fully restored, muscle and bone intact.

And beside him, wings spread wide, was a monstrous eagle, its feathers flickering with sparks, eyes sharp and glinting with arc of thunder.

Side by side, the two beasts hovered in the sky, their combined aura crashing down on the battlefield like a rising tide.

Both of them had locked onto the same target.

“Old man,” Klein muttered, voice barely above a whisper, “this is bad… there’s two of them now.”

His words weren’t exaggerated.

If the woman fell here, if she lost, there was little hope either of them would make it out alive.

The old man’s gaze stayed locked on the scene, jaw tight, breath shallow.

“Yeah,” he said, quietly. “The situation’s turned against us.”

"It wasn't a suprise anyway, we underestimated just how many monsters might be living here"

He exhaled slowly, the weariness in his voice unmistakable.

“Sigh… coming to this territory brought more trouble than it was worth.”

But there was nothing they could do now. No tricks.

No interventions. Just the hope, however fragile, that the icy woman still had more cards to play.

That somehow, she could stand against not one, but two True Lords.

If not, it would be the end for them.

But of course, everything must follow Mize's script.