Class, class.

Tiran pulled a pair of glasses from her clothes and perched them on her nose. She tapped the small blackboard beside her with the pointer in her hand, then wrote several large words across it:

**Strategy Meeting: How to Deal with an Angel**

“Hmm, all right. The strategy meeting starts now. Does anyone here have any brilliant ideas?”

“There are only two of us here, you know!” Aya’s mouth twitched. “And where did you even get all that random stuff? Stop putting things on my back!”

“Well... I thought it would help liven up the atmosphere...” Tiran stuck out her tongue innocently. “Okay, okay. No more joking around. Everyone, take this seriously.”

“Who’s the one not taking it seriously...?”

“Ahem. Order, order!” Tiran struck the blackboard hard. “Anyway, our top priority is coming up with a way to deal with that Angel. Otherwise, she’ll keep chasing us for the rest of our lives.”

Then the human and the dragon fell into a long silence at the same time.

When people were being hunted, there were generally only two ways to deal with it: fight or run.

They’d already fought once in the royal capital, and they’d been completely outmatched. As for running... Tiran carried a sacred mark. No matter where they went, that woman could still track them down.

Damn it. What kind of joke was this? Was this some kind of endless racing game with no finish line?

“Can that sacred mark be removed?” Aya asked.

“Not right now.” Tiran shook her head. “It was left behind by the laws of the Holy Rank. To remove it, I’d have to understand those laws more deeply than the Angel does, or surpass her in Holy Rank power.”

“You’ve been muttering about that for a while. What exactly is the Holy Rank? Aren’t the strongest humans supposed to be Legendary?”

“The Holy Rank and the Legendary Rank are two different concepts. Legendary heroes are usually people whose achievements are worthy of being recorded in history, such as the heroes who defeated Demon Kings.”

“As for the Holy Rank, it’s purely a judgment of strength. Once someone comprehends the laws of the world to a certain degree, they can use those laws through their own power. They may even alter them.”

“Someone at the Holy Rank isn’t necessarily Legendary. And someone Legendary isn’t necessarily at the Holy Rank.”

“What about you?” Aya recalled the power Tiran had used to block Angel’s Arsenal during their battle in the royal capital. “You should be able to alter the laws of the Holy Rank too, right?”

“I can, technically. But to fully comprehend the laws of the Holy Rank, I’ll need at least a few more years...” Tiran snorted unhappily. “Did you really think becoming a Holy Rank powerhouse was easy?”

“So that means we’ll have to be hunted for several years before we can remove this mark?”

Aya’s face turned green—assuming a dragon’s face could turn green beneath all those scales.

“Yeah. And if I became a true Holy Rank powerhouse, why would I need to run?” Tiran curled her lip disdainfully. “I’d just turn around and beat that Angel senseless.”

“She’s only able to suppress me because she relies on the laws of the Holy Rank. If you set that aside and looked at pure strength alone, she’s pathetically weak.”

“Your words reek of a sore loser.”

“Shut up. Why do you have so much to say?”

Tiran slammed her fist against the scales on Aya’s neck. Aya trembled from the pain.

Well, at least that punch still packed plenty of force.

“Is there really no other way?” Aya groaned. “I don’t want to keep flying around for years! Can’t the two of us beat her if we work together?”

By the time Aya had traded blows with the Angel, Tiran had already been too exhausted to fight. They’d never truly tried fighting side by side.

“It’s not impossible to try.” Tiran began thinking seriously. “If I remember correctly, that roar you used to trap the Angel twisted part of the laws of space and created a cage, right?”

“That was already on the level of the Holy Rank. If you could use it again, and I launched a killing strike the instant she was trapped... Hmm. It’s worth trying.”

“...No chance. The Golden Dragon’s Roar is a blessing granted to the Golden Dragon clan by the Dragon God. It can only be used once every hundred years. I can’t use it again right now.”

Aya wanted to cover her face with her claws.

“What the hell? Golden Dragons have a skill like that? A blessing from the Dragon God?” Tiran stared blankly. “No wonder. I kept wondering how you could alter the laws of the world when you were clearly only at Rank Nine.”

To invoke the laws of the Holy Rank with ordinary power, then use them to trap a true Holy Rank Angel—under normal circumstances, that was nearly impossible.

As expected of a race favored by the gods.

But now, after going around in circles, they had returned to the starting point. They still hadn’t come up with a workable plan.

“Can’t we beat her without the Golden Dragon’s Roar?” Aya asked, unwilling to give up.

“Forget it. There’s absolutely no chance.” Tiran spread her hands. “Someone who has mastered the laws of the Holy Rank completely overwhelms anyone beneath that rank. This has nothing to do with the difference in power. It’s a gap in realms.”

“It’s like someone inside a drawing making an unbreakable circle on a sheet of paper. The person outside the paper only needs to take one step to walk right out of it. That’s roughly how it works.”

“Tch. Those high-and-mighty people are seriously disgusting. Can’t we just drag her down from there?”

Aya let out the sigh of a lifelong loser, looking thoroughly miserable.

“You called me a loser earlier. Who looks more like one now?” Tiran grumbled. Then her expression changed. “If we could drag her down... Wait.”

“What is it?” Aya turned around and looked at Tiran in confusion. Tiran had suddenly gone silent.

“Aya, you’re a genius!”

Tiran abruptly leaped up from Aya’s back, wrapped her arms around the giant dragon’s thick neck, and planted a hard kiss on her scales.

“Huh? Whaaat?”

The stupid dragon looked utterly bewildered.

“If we can’t raise our own realms, then we’ll just drag her down from the Holy Rank.” Tiran’s smile turned sinister. “This world is huge. There have to be secret realms or ancient ruins where the laws of the Holy Rank can’t be used, right?”

As Tiran had said, the world was vast, and its history was incredibly ancient.

Even now, there were still many regions that not even Holy Rank powerhouses had fully explored. Secret realms left behind from the Mythic Age could be found everywhere. There were even plenty of passages leading to other dimensions.

“If I remember correctly, your Dragon clan may be scattered across the continent, but after your bodies die, your dragon souls eventually return to the Dragon Tomb established by the Dragon God, right?”

“Since it was created by a god, there should be a Realm inside that suppresses the laws of the Holy Rank...”

“Not only is there no door, there isn’t even a window!” Aya let out an unhappy growl and angrily retorted through their contract communication.

What kind of joke was this? The Dragon Tomb was the sacred land of the Dragon clan. Countless ancestral spirits slept there. How could they possibly use such a place for a fight?

“Don’t be so rigid.” Tiran raised a finger. “First, we’re being hunted. If we don’t deal with the Angel behind us quickly, we might accidentally end up dead.”

“Second—” The smile on Tiran’s face suddenly darkened. “This little maid has gotten rather bold lately. You actually dare to oppose what this young lady says?”

“Looks like I haven’t trained you enough.”

“I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

The first point wasn’t important. It was the second one that mattered.

Aya immediately and shamelessly cowered.

“Hmm. Then we’ll go to the Dragon Tomb.” Tiran made her final decision.

“I don’t object, but there’s one problem...” Aya asked weakly, “Do you know how to get there?”

Silence.

Silence.

More silence.

“You’re not about to tell me that, as a proud member of the Golden Dragon clan, you don’t even know how to reach your own burial ground, are you?”

“Who would waste time figuring out where they’ll be buried after they die?” Aya looked completely speechless. “Only when a dragon’s life reaches its end does the mark in their soul activate. That mark was left by the Dragon God and records the coordinates of the Dragon Tomb.”

“At least for now, I have no idea where it is.”

“Your Dragon God is seriously messed up.”

Tiran hugged her head and thought for a while. Then she began eyeing Aya with ill intent.

“Why are you staring at me?” Aya asked, shrinking her neck beneath that chilly gaze. Her scalp was starting to prickle.

“Emmm... Since you’re a dragon, and there’s one right here...” Tiran sized her up. “If I beat you half to death, do you think you’ll learn the coordinates of the Dragon Tomb?”

“Holy crap, don’t do anything stupid! Even if you really killed me, I’d never tell you the coordinates!”

“Now, now, don’t worry. I’ll be very gentle. It~won’t~hurt~at~all~”

“Only a ghost would believe you!”

“All right, all right. I’m done joking.” Tiran smoothed back her silver hair, which had been tousled by the wind, then sat up straight on Aya’s back. “Be serious. If we can’t go to the Dragon Tomb, do you know anywhere else with a similar effect?”

“It has to be a secret realm established by a god.”

“There should be other places too. Let me think... The Orcs have the Deathtooth Arena. The Elves have the World Tree. The Dwarves have the Heart of the Earth labyrinth.”

“If we go farther, the Devildom has quite a few similar places as well.”

“Wait. What did you say the Elves had?” Tiran patted the scales on Aya’s neck.

“The World Tree,” Aya said. “According to Elven legend, it’s the tree that formed the world.”

“In reality, it’s a place of inheritance and trials created for the Elves by Artemis, the god of forests and moonlight, whom the Elves worship.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Hey, hey. Did you forget?” Tiran extended one finger and traced it over a dragon scale. “We know someone from the Elves, don’t we?”

...

“Achoo!”

Coco suddenly sneezed. She stood up from her chair in confusion and looked around.

Why had she suddenly sneezed? She was an Elf. There was no reason for her to be allergic to pollen...

“Lady Coco? Are you all right?”

The vine curtain at the doorway was lifted, and an Elf wearing elegant, lightweight armor walked in with one hand resting on the sword at his waist.

“N-No problem. It was only a sneeze.”

Coco reflexively grabbed a thick book from the table and placed it over the thin booklet she had been reading. She smiled at the guard guiltily, while her fingertips nervously scratched several marks across the similarly vine-woven tabletop.

“Is that so?” The guard didn’t seem suspicious of Coco’s reaction. He only asked with concern, “Should I call an elder to examine you?”

“The Festival of the Moon Goddess is almost here. You absolutely mustn’t let anything happen to your health...”

“I’m fine! Really! Hurry up and go. I can take care of myself!”

The expression on Coco’s face was about to crack. She walked to the doorway and forcefully pushed the guard outside.

“All right, then. Please take good care of yourself. If anything happens, be sure to tell me...”

The guard still tried to say more, but Coco had already shoved him out before he could finish.

Phew. She hadn’t been found out.

Coco cautiously glanced toward the doorway. After confirming that it was safe, she ran back to the table and pulled the full-color book from beneath the thick volume.

She hugged it to her chest and let out a long breath.

Next time, she really had to be more careful. If those guards and elders discovered that she’d secretly gone to the human kingdom just to buy adult books, she had no idea what their faces would look like...