Phenomenon? Concept? Will? He is too great to comprehend

Loki's remark that he was "not even a 'god'..." hit the room like a ladle of cold water dropped into a vat of boiling oil, causing an instant explosion of chaos.

"Not a god?!"

Everyone was completely stunned, their minds reeling with a dull roar.

If he wasn't a god, then what could he be?

A monster beyond their comprehension? An anomaly that defied understanding?

Countless chaotic thoughts churned in their minds, yet none could grasp a clear answer.

Finn habitually licked his thumb again, his signature gesture when deep in thought.

The confusion in his eyes only deepened as he was the first to press for an answer: "Loki, what exactly do you mean by that?"

He stared intently at their goddess, his voice low and grave. "Could it be... that he is some kind of unknown, higher-order monster that crawled out from the core of the Dungeon?"

This was the closest and most terrifying explanation he could conceive.

No one dared to assert what truly existed in the deepest reaches of the Dungeon.

"No!"

Loki's reply was categorical, without a hint of hesitation, her volume even rising involuntarily.

She shook her head vigorously, her face showing a near-offended sense of trepidation, as if Finn had just blasphemed against some supreme existence.

"He is absolutely not the same kind of existence as a Dungeon monster!" Loki emphasized, her gaze sweeping across the group. "In fact, to even compare his kind of existence to those things in the Dungeon..."

She paused, seemingly searching for words strong enough, before finally saying with a trace of awe and helplessness:

"...That in itself is the greatest insult!"

Not a Dungeon monster? And not a god?

Finn felt as if he had been backed into a dead end, with heavy fog blocking the path ahead.

He furrowed his brows and pressed again: "So, Loki, what is the answer? What exactly is he?"

This was intelligence he, as captain, had to possess; it was vital for the Familia and for Orario.

Loki's expression turned somewhat subtle, appearing a bit embarrassed, yet carrying a sense of calm in the face of the vast unknown.

She pondered for a moment, ultimately choosing to answer honestly, her voice strangely calm:

"I... don't know!"

"Huh?!"

"What?!"

"You don't know?!"

The unexpected answer left everyone pale with shock.

Not a god, not a monster, and their goddess actually said she "didn't know"?

What kind of answer was that?

A sense of immense absurdity and deeper unease instantly gripped everyone's hearts.

Riveria, Gareth, Ais... the eyes of all the core members were pinned firmly on Loki.

Their expressions were filled with disbelief and intense dissatisfaction.

Watching the mix of shock, discontent, and profound confusion on the faces of her Familia children, Loki seemed to shed a burden instead.

She suddenly burst into laughter.

That irreverent smile returned to her face, her squinted eyes curving into two slits.

The previous gravity and awe were instantly replaced by her familiar cunning.

"Ha! It means exactly what I said!" Loki slapped the table, returning to her usual flighty demeanor, and said with a grin: "I really don't know what he is! Because the gap is just—too massive!"

She gestured exaggeratedly with her arms, as if describing some immeasurable, colossal entity.

"So big that... I can't even begin to comprehend it! Get it now, my little ones?"

Loki tried to use a lighthearted tone and playful gestures to dissolve the heaviness, but the effect was the opposite.

Her answer, far from resolving any doubts, only stirred up even more turbulent and profound waves of shock in everyone's hearts.

Unable to comprehend? Even Loki, a god, admitted she couldn't comprehend it?

At this moment, Vice-Captain Riveria stepped forward.

This noble elven royalty, whose inner obsession with order would not allow her to accept such a vague answer, pressed further: "Lord Loki, please answer seriously. This 'inability to comprehend' and 'too massive a gap'... what exactly do they mean?"

She needed a clearer explanation, even if that explanation itself might be even more horrifying.

She would not allow her goddess to brush this off easily with a simple "I don't know."

Loki scratched her head in frustration, her movements appearing somewhat agitated, as if she were rummaging through her mind for a suitable metaphor so that these stubborn children might understand just a little.

She pondered, arms crossed over her chest, fingers tapping rhythmically against her arms in an unconscious habit.

After a while, she raised a hand to scratch her head, her gaze unfocused as she stared at the stained ceiling of the tavern, as if the answer were hidden within the cracks of the wooden beams.

Then, as if to bolster her courage or find the right words, she snatched up the mug of ice-cold beer in front of her and downed a large gulp with a loud "glug, glug."

When she set the mug down, her face was etched with an indescribable sense of difficulty, as if trying to cram the mysteries of the universe into the framework of human language was a task far too taxing for her.

Time slipped away in the silent tavern.

After a long, long while, Loki seemed to give up on organizing her complex thoughts. She looked at the group and tossed out a blunt, seemingly nonsensical question: "In your eyes, what is the Dungeon?"

Everyone was stunned.

Their deity had been holding back for so long, pondering for ages, just to ask this?

What did this have to do with that mysterious Thor?

Though confused, Riveria answered earnestly out of respect: "Mysterious, dangerous, and full of opportunity—it is like a colossal, incomprehensible natural phenomenon."

Her answer represented the consensus of most adventurers.

"Snap!"

Loki suddenly slapped her thigh hard.

A look of relief washed over her face: "Exactly! That's it! That is what I wanted to say!"

The group became even more bewildered. How did this answer relate to Thor's identity?

Loki looked at the confused faces of her children and took a deep breath, trying to make her explanation as accurate as possible.

"Just as you cannot understand how the Dungeon appeared, nor where the sun in the sky came from, nor can you imagine what lies beyond the universe, I,"

She pointed to herself, "Likewise cannot understand his existence. He... he doesn't seem like a concrete 'person' or 'god,' but more like... some kind of phenomenon? Or even... some kind of concept?"

She struggled to find words that could come close, her hands involuntarily rising to her cheeks, ten fingers twisting together like restless loaches.

Those with sharp eyesight among the members could even see a fine layer of goosebumps instantly break out on Loki's exposed arms.

Loki's gaze seemed to pierce through the tavern walls, casting toward a distant, profound abyss.

"That day, I was truly curious. To see clearly what he was, I went all out... I unleashed my full divine power!"

Her tone carried a lingering tremor of fear, "And the result? What I saw wasn't a human shape at all... It was a... a 'grandeur' so vast that I felt smaller than a speck of dust! It was too... too great, so immense that it was beyond my ability to comprehend."

"That feeling... it was like the direct manifestation of some... massive will, or perhaps its concrete form..."

In the end, she could not find a more fitting term.

Loki's answer, far from solving the mystery, only made the existence known as Thor seem even more terrifying and indescribable.

A "phenomenon," a "concept," or even an "embodiment of will" that even a god admitted was "incomprehensible"?

Just hearing these descriptions, Finn, Riveria, and the others felt an invisible pressure grip their throats, making it difficult to breathe.

It was an instinctive fear in the face of the absolute unknown and the absolutely vast.

Soon, some of the core members of the Loki Familia wisely chose to stop digging deeper; it was too distant, too unknowable, and forcing an understanding would only bring despair.

The Amazonian twin sisters, Tione and Tiona.

Their personalities had always been straightforward and carefree, and by now, they had already recovered from the initial shock.

The sisters exchanged a glance, their faces wearing mischievous grins as they tacitly picked up the heavy wooden beer mugs at their sides.

"Thump, thump, thump!"

"Thump, thump, thump!"

They unceremoniously tapped the bottoms of their mugs against the bound Bete's head, each strike producing a dull sound, as if they were knocking on a hollow wooden fish.

Tiona, grinning with schadenfreude, said:

"Oh my, look at this! Because of that big mouth of yours, Bete, you went and offended an 'incomprehensible phenomenon' with your loose talk. Who knows, maybe because of the few things you cursed tonight, even the divine realm in the sky is going to be finished~"

Her words were filled with exaggerated glee.

"Mmph, mmph—!!! (Let me go! You bastards!)"

Bete, gagged, felt as if his lungs were about to explode. His face turned the color of liver, and veins bulged on his forehead and neck like twisted earthworms.

He struggled violently, emitting angry, muffled groans from his throat, his eyes glaring at the twin sisters as if he wanted to burn them to a crisp with his gaze alone.

Unfortunately, the dirty sock stuffed in his mouth turned all his curses into meaningless grunts.

Tiona's teasing of Bete, though playful, unexpectedly eased the heavy atmosphere hanging over the table.

Faint traces of smiles returned to the faces of the Loki Familia members.

Indeed, such an existence beyond the scope of understanding was like the movement of the stars or the mysteries of the deep Dungeon—it was simply not a level that their current strength needed to worry about or resolve.

If they really encountered some major trouble they couldn't handle, there were plenty of gods to stand in the way; it wasn't their place as mortals to fret over it.

Finn, as the captain, also knew that the most important thing right now was the stability and growth of his Familia.

He shook his head, temporarily suppressing the terrifying vision of the Starry Sky Dragon in his mind, and turned to his patron deity, asking out of pure curiosity.

"Loki, since we all saw different things, how do the other gods... how do they view Lord Thor?"

Loki resumed her lazy posture, leaning back in her chair, and squinted her eyes at the question: "The gods, you say..."

She drew out the tone.

"Those with weaker divine power at most just think he's a bit strange. Even if they strained their eyes to the point of exhaustion, they couldn't possibly see those... well, 'magnificent sights' that we saw. As it stands, the attitudes among the gods toward him are roughly divided into three camps."

She counted off on her fingers: "The first camp consists of the cowards or the quick-witted ones; just being brushed by that aura was enough to terrify them, and now they're busy plotting how to run away."

"The second camp is like us—just crossing our arms and watching from the sidelines. We don't go out of our way to provoke him, but we certainly don't grovel for his favor either. It's a policy of 'peaceful coexistence and mutual non-interference.' And then there's the last camp..."

Loki paused, curling her lip with undisguised contempt.

"That would be the small group led by idiots like Apollo. These guys are either arrogant fools or evil gods who crave destruction; they're actually harboring thoughts of capturing him to study him, to see what kind of 'thing' he really is."

"But these people are pitifully few in number and can't stir up much trouble. Besides, Uranus, that old geezer, is in charge of managing the Dungeon; he won't let Apollo and his lot run wild."

The Uranus she spoke of was a [Great God] with immense divine power, currently the administrator of the order within the Orario Dungeon.

After saying this, Loki suddenly sat up straight, shedding her playful demeanor. Her gaze swept over her core children, her tone turning grave.

"So, children, take my advice: stay away from that Thor." She emphasized, "Absolutely! Do not, under any circumstances, make an enemy of him! Otherwise... you will truly face divine retribution!"

The words "divine retribution," coming from the mouth of a god, carried a heavy, crushing weight.

Having listened to such a solemn warning and description from their patron deity tonight, the core members of the Loki Familia present, regardless of how much shock or confusion remained in their hearts, shared one crystal-clear consensus.

Who would be blind enough to provoke an existence that even the gods spoke of with such deep-seated dread?

Amidst a silence where everyone harbored different thoughts but chose to accept reality, only Ais's mind drifted away.

Her gaze involuntarily returned to the door through which Thor and Bell had departed, a ripple of confusion passing through the depths of her eyes.

So... the teleportation she saw today wasn't an illusion?

Then... what kind of ability was that?

Meanwhile, in the tunnels of the Dungeon, faint light filtered through cracks in the stone walls, and the air was thick with the stench of dust and monsters.

Thor, who had just been described as the very embodiment of magnificence, was currently holding a chicken leg, leisurely gnawing on it as he followed behind Bell.

Bell was struggling in battle against the Dungeon monsters, venting the anger that had built up inside him after being mocked by Bete.

He moved as swift as the wind, weaving through the group of Goblin like a bolt of white lightning.

Suddenly, he raised his right hand and roared, "Star Burst!"

Several shining stars condensed out of thin air and exploded instantly, blasting the last batch of Goblin into Magic Stone that scattered across the ground.

The moment his magic power was exhausted, Bell dropped to one knee, gasping for air, his white hair soaked with sweat.

Thor walked up, handed him a cool drink, and said calmly, "Drink some water first."

Bell took the cup and took a large gulp, his heart filled with extreme loathing for his own weakness.

I must become stronger!

He suddenly flopped to his knees before Thor, his head hitting the ground with a heavy thud, and pleaded with a trembling voice: "Lord God! I want to become stronger!"

"Oh?" A hint of satisfaction and gratification appeared in Thor's eyes.

If Bell had been crushed by tonight's blow and given up on himself, Thor would have been deeply disappointed.

The fact that Bell thought to ask him for help was already enough to satisfy Thor.

He finished his chicken leg in a measured, unhurried manner and said slowly: "I am very gratified that you have this resolve. In that case, I shall teach you some [Hero Skill]."

"[Hero Skill]?"