By all logic, it shouldn't have known about these things. Has dragonkind's hatred toward the old divine already seeped so deeply into their bloodlines? "Roar." Only after confirming that the statue had been completely shattered did Gray lift its head smugly and trot back to Aiden's side. "Back." Although the white statue's health being so low had far exceeded Aiden's expectations, he wasn't naive enough to believe that with Gray's current level-40 attributes, it could roam freely through a temple like this. Calling it back into the beast space was the safer option. Gray didn't resist. The thing it hated was already dealt with anyway. With a light hop, it returned to the beast space. Boom! Almost at the same moment, the entire hall began to shake violently. The already-ruined temple collapsed with a thunderous crash, crumbling completely into rubble. "Despicable human—how dare you defy my will! Do you have any idea what you have done? Your blunder may allow the demon imprisoned here to break free of its chains! You will pay for your arrogance. I will nail you to hell itself and strip you of your divinity, wretched intruder!" A voice echoed out, as though it had crossed time and space from an unfathomable distance. Its weight was suffocating, its pressure so immense that it felt as if the entire world were trembling. 'Ding! You are under attack by an unknowable force! Leave immediately! Leave immediately!' Just like the first time he had encountered the aberrant monarch boss, the system's shrill alarms blared nonstop, the warning nearly rupturing Aiden's eardrums. '-10,000' '-10,000' "This is… Hephaestus?" Aiden narrowed his eyes. Looks like destroying the statute provoked the old divine's wrath. Hephaestus is still alive! Just a roar from an unknown distance was enough to send his health plummeting. In only a few seconds, Aiden's shield points dropped by hundreds of thousands. I'm burning through marks at an absurd rate. The power of the old divine is beyond comprehension! "Should I deactivate Rich Man's Defense and die my way out… or is there another option?" Even so, Aiden remained calm, his mind rapidly running through possible options. With his current level-40 attributes, facing an old divine head-on was nothing but a fantasy. "D*mn you, Hephaestus!" However, before Aiden could make a decision, another voice rang out—equally heavy, equally oppressive. And this one came from beneath the endless sea of magma. Boom! Boom! The ground shook even more violently, as if an unprecedented earthquake had struck. A massive chasm tore open without warning, the earth ripped apart by some unknown force. The ruined temple was swallowed whole by the fissure, collapsing into its depths—and Aiden, caught within it, fell as well. As he plummeted, he saw magma erupt hundreds of yards into the air, painting the sky in blazing crimson. The entire world looked as though it had been set alight, as if the apocalypse had arrived. Bang! '-500,000' … Sometime later, Aiden slammed heavily into the ground. The sheer impact instantly wiped out 500 thousand shield points. Combined with the damage from Hephaestus' roar earlier, the total damage had already exceeded a million. In barely two minutes, he had lost a staggering 100 million marks. A temple tied to the old divine truly wasn't a place ordinary people could survive. If Aiden hadn't possessed the absurd skill of the Rich Man's Defense, he could never have lasted this long. Just as he was considering whether to deactivate Rich Man's Defense, a blazing red glow suddenly filled his vision. It seemed to belong to an enormous creature. 'Undying Phoenix—tier: unknown; level: unknown; attributes: unknown.'Another entity whose attributes I can't read. So… this must be the terrifying being Thor mentioned—the "demon" Hephaestus sealed here? A deep voice rumbled through the air. "Human. Was it you who shattered Hephaestus' statue?" Only then did Aiden see it clearly. Amid the blazing firelight stood a phoenix, its entire body wreathed in scarlet flames. Eight pitch-black chains bound its body, faint light flowing along their surfaces—an abyssal color, like a living black hole that seemed capable of dragging one's soul inside with a single glance. Even forced to kneel beneath those eight chains, the Undying Phoenix still held its noble head high, its oppressive aura rolling outward like waves. And yet, Aiden remained composed. For an old divine to go to such lengths to seal it here clearly meant that the Undying Phoenix's strength was beyond doubt—but Aiden wasn't worried.