The hour had ended. The repaired arena floor gleamed under fresh enchantments—every crack sealed, every scar smoothed, the mountain itself humming with reinforced stability as Zairis's planetary dome shimmered silently overhead. The crowd's anticipation had only grown during the break, a living wave of murmurs and rewound crystal recordings.
Gabil's voice exploded across the mountain once more, magically amplified to rattle every bone in the stands.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! CITIZENS OF TEMPEST AND HONORED GUESTS FROM ACROSS THE WORLD! I HOPE YOU'VE HAD TIME TO CATCH YOUR BREATH… BECAUSE THE TOURNAMENT… IS NOT QUITE FINISHED YET!"
The barriers surrounding the central fighting stage shimmered and transformed into towering holographic screens, swirling with dramatic visuals: pink-gold dragonfire, cataclysmic explosions, collapsing stars, and endless pink lightning storms.
Gabil's tone climbed into pure theatrical frenzy.
"FROM THE NATION OF TEMPEST… OUR VERY OWN PRIDE AND JOY… THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS AND THE HEART OF CHAOS ITSELF… THE YOUNGEST TRUE DRAGON, A DRAGONOID HYBRID WHOSE POWER ERUPTS LIKE AN EVER-ERUPTING VOLCANO… MILIIIIIIIM NAAAAVA!"
The screens flared to life with rapid-fire imagery: a tiny pink-haired girl casually leveling mountains with a single punch, twin tails whipping as she laughed through apocalyptic battles, blue eyes glowing with pure, unfiltered joy while entire armies fled in terror. Clips of her "Star of Destruction" technique lighting up the night sky, her playful pout turning into world-ending delight, and finally a silhouette of her standing atop a ruined battlefield, grinning like it was the best day ever.
"Born from the union of dragon and demon blood, she is the living embodiment of 'why hold back when you can have fun instead'! Feared by Demon Lords, adored by her people, and literally nicknamed 'the Destroyer' long before any God of Destruction ever set foot in our world! She once turned a battlefield into a playground and still had energy left to eat three entire feasts afterward! WILL SHE SHOW US THE FULL EXTENT OF A TRUE DRAGON'S WRATH TODAY?! YOU ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER—SHE'S NOT HERE TO HOLD BACK!"
The crowd detonated into thunderous cheers, banners with Milim's face waving wildly.
In the VIP box, Whis turned to Beerus with his usual serene smile, staff resting lightly against his shoulder. "Lord Beerus… please remember what restraint means."
Beerus groaned loudly, rolling his golden eyes. "Tch. Here we go again."
Milim, still hovering beside Rimuru, spun mid-air with an indignant huff. "Hey! I don't want him to hold back!"
Beerus tilted his head at Whis, a sharp predatory grin spreading across his face. "Well, I don't want to dull her experience of fighting a Vice Destroyer God."
The moment Beerus finished his sentence, Milim let out an excited whoop and jumped straight down from the VIP box, plummeting toward the arena floor like a pink comet before landing lightly in the center of the fully repaired stage. She planted her feet, twin tails swishing, and punched one fist into her open palm with a grin that could light up the sky.
The group in the VIP box exchanged surprised glances. Dagruel leaned forward, his massive frame creaking the reinforced seat. "Hmph. I would have thought Milim was the one who should be holding back…"
Guy Crimson, for the first time since the break began, actually leaned forward in his seat, crimson eyes narrowing with genuine intrigue. "I don't know… Unlike Milim, who is constantly leaking huge resources of power, Beerus seems to feel like he doesn't have any power—which we all know is not true. Something tells me the pressure I feel from him is being held back by incredible discipline."
Rimuru nodded, looking mildly exasperated as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah… Beerus may be below my level in some respects and far above me in others. I may have more unique abilities, but Beerus feels like he just has untold eons of pure destruction force behind him."
Whis nodded smoothly in agreement, his voice carrying that calm, angelic certainty. "To me, this is a battle between a senior and a toddler—one who has many years of training to undergo to become a true threat to Lord Beerus. But by then, Lord Beerus will have become even greater than what he is now… unless he doesn't die to a certain Sovereign before then."
Wanda, seated quietly beside him, simply nodded once, her expression unreadable. "Don't we all wish we had a couple more eons to prepare to face that monstrosity."
The Octagram members—Guy, Velzard, Dagruel, and the others—froze, stunned into silence. Their eyes flicked between the Destroyer God Wanda and the Angel Whis, the weight of the casual confession hanging in the air. A Sovereign? What the hell was that?
Rimuru waved a hand lightly, keeping his tone casual. "It's a long story… but it's why these two Destroyer Gods are in our reality. They were being hunted by an ancient conceptual consumer that requires an unimaginable amount of power to combat."
Before anyone could press further, Gabil's voice cut back in like a thunderclap, snapping everyone's attention back to the arena.
The screens shifted dramatically—now displaying a massive, glowing UFC-style versus graphic. On the left: MILIM NAVA, pink hair flowing, blue eyes blazing with excitement, fists on her hips in a classic power pose. On the right: BEERUS, arms crossed, golden eyes half-lidded in lazy menace, tail flicking once. Between them, bold glowing text screamed:
MILIM NAVA — THE DESTROYERVSBEERUS — VICE GOD OF DESTRUCTION
Gabil's voice reached its absolute peak.
"AND HER OPPONENT… A BEING WHOSE VERY TITLE MAKES GODS TREMBLE… ONE OF THE MOST ANCIENT AND POWERFUL ENTITIES IN ALL OF EXISTENCE… THE CAT-LIKE DEITY WHO DECIDES THE FATE OF WORLDS WITH A MERE HUFF… THE THIRD-IN-COMMAND AMONG THE GODS OF DESTRUCTION… LOOOOORD BEEEEERUS!"
The screens exploded with new imagery: a purple feline silhouette floating in the void of space, planets crumbling to dust at a lazy flick of his paw, a single Hakai energy sphere erasing entire galaxies in silent brilliance, and finally Whis floating beside him in respectful silence.
"Hailing from Universe 7 and beyond, he has slumbered for eons, awakening only when the whim strikes him! A Destroyer God who ranks among the elite of his kind, whose casual displeasure can unmake realities, yet who still finds joy in simple things like good food and a decent nap! WILL HE SHOW US THE TRUE WEIGHT OF A VICE DESTROYER GOD'S POWER?! OR WILL OUR OWN DESTROYER SURPRISE EVEN HIM?!"
The crowd's roar became a physical force, shaking the mountain.
Beerus snorted, pushed himself up from his seat with exaggerated laziness, and drifted down after her in a casual float, landing opposite Milim with his arms still crossed.
Both fighters now stood in the arena, the massive VS screen pulsing between them on the barriers.
Gabil's voice rang out one final time, magically amplified to reach every corner of the mountain, every home, every soul watching.
"THE COMBATANTS ARE IN POSITION! THE BARRIERS ARE SET! THE DESTROYER OF TEMPEST VERSUS THE VICE GOD OF DESTRUCTION!"
A single breath held by thousands.
The barriers shifted a final time, humming with a pitch so high it faded into silence. The roaring crowd became a muted painting of sound, pressing against the magic like ocean waves against a glass wall. Inside the ring, there was only the soft whisper of Zairis's artificial wind and the faint, rhythmic tap of Milim's heel on the repaired stone.
Beerus remained motionless, arms crossed, chin tilted slightly down. His golden eyes, half-lidded and lazy, scanned Milim from her twin tails to her feet with the slow, deliberate gaze of a master chef inspecting a fresh, unidentifiable ingredient. But then his gaze stopped—not on her face, but just above her left shoulder, where the ambient light bent slightly wrong, where the Stardust that perpetually bled from her existence gathered in invisible, shimmering threads that stretched upward into nothing.
Milim, for her part, vibrated. She bounced from foot to foot, her pink-gold aura flaring in excited little hiccups. "Oi, oi, cat-god!" she chirped, her voice echoing cleanly in the silent dome of the barrier. "You're not gonna fall asleep standing up, are you? That'd be boring!"
Beerus's tail gave a single, sharp flick. A crack of displaced air—like a whip snapping—cut through the silence. It was the first sound he had made since landing.
"Sleep?" Beerus's voice was low, a gravelly rumble that didn't carry to the stands but vibrated directly in Milim's sternum. He finally uncrossed his arms, letting them hang loose at his sides. "I was just looking at your string."
Milim's bouncing stopped. Her feet planted firmly. Her blue eyes narrowed with genuine confusion. "Eh? String? What string?"
Beerus took a single step forward. It was just one step. Not fast. Not heavy. But the feeling of it was immense—not an explosion of power, but a compression of something ancient and dense settling into place. The air around him seemed to still further, as if it had decided that moving near him was simply not worth the effort.
"Strong string," Beerus murmured, tilting his head. His gaze drifted back to that empty space above her shoulder. "Beautiful craftsmanship. Very... paternal. Ties you right to the man who wrote the rules for this whole place."
Milim's grin flickered—just a half-breath of uncertainty before it locked back into place. "It's not a string! It's my power! My Stardust!"
"No," Beerus agreed, his voice utterly calm. A lazy, predatory grin finally split his lips—not cruel, but curious. "It's a gift. A very generous one. And you've played with it beautifully, little dragon. Truly. Leveled mountains. Scared armies. Had fun."
He yawned, a slow, bone-cracking sound that felt less like biology and more like a tectonic plate deciding it was done holding up a continent.
"I'm just wondering... how much of the noise is you? And how much is the string vibrating?"
In the VIP box, Rimuru's hand tightened on the armrest. His slime-body went cold. He had known Milim for years. He had seen her angry, seen her joyful, seen her bored. He had never—never—seen the expression that flickered across her face in that moment. It was not anger. It was not fear. It was a child realizing, for the first time, that the walls of her nursery were not the edges of the world.
"Uh oh," he whispered.
Down in the ring, Milim's grin returned. Slower this time. Sharper. The air around her began to shimmer with the heat of a collapsing star—but beneath the familiar crackle of Stardust, there was something new. A stillness at the center. A question she had never asked herself before.
She didn't know the answer.
And that, more than any threat or insult, lit a fire behind her blue eyes.
"Fine," she said, her voice dropping into something almost dangerous, something hungry. "Let's find out." Her eyes were covered.
The static charge in the air became unbearable. It was the moment before lightning strikes—the contraction of a universe before the Big Bang.
Gabil, sensing the exact millisecond of peak tension, his own feathers standing on end from the energy, screamed:
"LET THE MATCH… BEGIN!"
Milim's blue eyes sparkled with pure, unfiltered excitement. She dropped into a low stance, twin tails lashing behind her like excited whips, and immediately began ramping up her power. Pink-gold energy erupted around her in crackling waves, growing thicker and brighter with every heartbeat. The air warped and shimmered as if reality itself was struggling to contain her.
"Here I come, cat-man!" she shouted gleefully.
She exploded forward in a blur, closing the distance in less than a blink. Her first punch was already backed by mountain-shattering force, aimed straight at Beerus's chest. The God of Destruction didn't move his feet. He simply raised one paw, palm open, and caught the blow dead center.
BOOM.
The shockwave rippled outward, slamming into the barrier and making it flare white for a split second. Milim's grin only widened.
"Good! It would've been super embarrassing if you talked that big and got knocked out by one punch!"
She didn't stop. She pulled back and unleashed a furious barrage—left hook, right straight, spinning backfist, low kick followed by an uppercut. Each strike carried noticeably more power than the last. Her aura flared brighter, the pink-gold energy condensing and sharpening as she poured on more and more of her leaking Stardust reserves. The ground beneath her feet cracked in spiderweb patterns with every step she took.
Beerus's expression barely changed. His half-lidded golden eyes watched her with mild disinterest. He blocked every punch with casual flicks of his paws—sometimes one-handed, sometimes not even looking directly at her. A lazy sidestep here, a slight tilt of his torso there. Milim's fist whistled past his ear by millimeters on one swing, yet he never seemed hurried. His tail flicked once in mild annoyance when a particularly heavy kick came close to grazing his side.
Milim laughed wildly and added even more power. Her next combination came faster—three punches in the space of one heartbeat, each one heavy enough to pulverize an entire city. She feinted high, dropped low, and tried to sweep his legs while simultaneously firing a point-blank pink energy blast from her free hand.
Beerus simply hopped lightly over the sweep, batted the energy blast aside with the back of his paw as if swatting a fly, and yawned openly mid-motion. The redirected blast slammed into the barrier behind him, exploding harmlessly against Whis and Zairis's reinforced enchantments.
"Not bad for a warm-up," he muttered, sounding almost bored. "But you're still telegraphing everything."
Thrilled, Milim poured on even more power. Her aura surged violently, the pink-gold light now tinged with deeper crimson at the edges. She vanished in a burst of speed, reappearing behind Beerus with both fists cocked back for a double hammer blow aimed at the back of his head. The force behind it made the stone floor buckle before she even struck.
Beerus didn't turn around. He simply leaned his upper body forward at the exact right angle, letting her fists sail harmlessly over his head. As Milim overextended, he flicked two fingers lightly against her exposed side.
The casual tap sent her tumbling across the arena like a ragdoll. She crashed into the far wall of the barrier, leaving a small crater, but bounced back to her feet instantly, laughing even harder. Dust and stone fragments rained off her outfit.
"Not bad! But I didn't feel that, impressive pushing force though," she cheered, eyes shining. She immediately charged again, this time layering rapid energy spheres around her fists—miniature "Star of Destruction" orbs that detonated on impact. She unleashed a storm of them while closing in, trying to overwhelm him with sheer volume and explosive force.
Beerus strolled forward at a leisurely pace, weaving through the exploding spheres with minimal movement. One orb came straight at his face; he tilted his head just enough for it to pass by his cheek. Another detonated at his feet—he simply stepped upward as if walking on invisible stairs, letting the blast bloom harmlessly beneath him. When Milim finally got close enough to throw a glowing haymaker, he raised one paw again and stopped her fist cold, the explosion of their clashing energies washing over him without so much as ruffling his fur.
Milim twisted mid-air, trying to catch him with a spinning kick to the ribs while simultaneously firing another barrage from her free hand. Beerus blocked the kick with his forearm, then casually swatted the energy barrage out of the sky like annoying insects. The entire sequence looked effortless—like an adult playing with an enthusiastic but overeager child.
She kept adding more and more power with every exchange. Her aura kept swelling, the pressure inside the barrier growing heavier and heavier. Each missed punch or blocked strike only made her laugh louder and push harder. She tried feints, afterimages, raw overwhelming barrages—everything she could think of to catch the purple cat off guard.
Nothing worked.
Beerus continued to block, deflect, and dodge with the same lazy, almost sleepy demeanor. He hadn't thrown a single offensive attack besides the flicks. He hadn't even uncrossed his arms for more than a few seconds at a time. His breathing remained perfectly even. The only sign he was participating at all was the occasional yawn or the bored flick of his tail.
In the VIP box, the Octagram members could no longer sit still. One by one they rose and moved to the edge of the viewing platform, leaning forward for a better look at the spectacle unfolding below. Guy Crimson stood with his arms crossed, eyes narrowed. Dagruel's massive frame loomed at the railing, his usual stoic expression replaced by open astonishment. Velzard watched with calm, ice-blue eyes, while Veldora gripped the edge tightly, his platinum hair still disheveled from his earlier fight.
Goku, now standing beside Vegeta, stared down with wide eyes, his usual easygoing grin replaced by genuine surprise.
"Wow… she's already almost beyond my Perfected Super Saiyan Blue speed," he said quietly, voice carrying just enough for those nearby to hear. "She's threading the edges of my Ultra Instinct level, and she isn't even really trying yet. She's clearly testing whether Beerus can actually keep up with her."
Vegeta clicked his tongue, arms tightly crossed, but didn't argue.
Guy Crimson followed their movements, though his crimson eyes showed a flicker of genuine stun. "As expected… but still impressive."
Dagruel, however, looked utterly floored. The giant warrior's mouth hung slightly open as he watched Milim's relentless, ever-escalating assault. "Never… never would I have thought I would see Milim Nava actually cut loose like this… and her opponent looks so utterly bored. It's like watching a force of nature try to hit the very ground it blows over."
Velzard nodded once, her voice cool and measured. "Even though she is nowhere near her full output yet, this level is already something I would find difficult to handle without taking her at least somewhat seriously."
Veldora let out a stunned laugh, shaking his head. "I'm glad I never fought her directly if she's still ramping up like this… But it's clear why Beerus is a God of Destruction. It really is like a senior playing with a toddler. Every dodge and movement seems very close to Goku's Ultra Instinct… but nowhere near as refined."
Whis chuckled softly from his spot, staff resting lightly against his shoulder. "Yes, Lord Beerus has some idea of the Angelic Technique, but he has always struggled with it. So, instead he focused on pure power and force. If he were to achieve even a rudimentary understanding of the technique, he would actually give me a decent battle… though he would probably still lose. Should he master it, however, he would finally be above me. If just a little."
The confession landed like a stone in still water. The entire VIP box went silent for a beat. Rimuru's eyes widened. Guy's eyebrows rose. Even Beerus's lazy movements down below seemed to pause for half a second as if he had somehow heard it.
Whis simply smiled serenely and added with light amusement, "he is quite the amateur in that regard," before letting out a soft laugh at Beerus's expense.
Everyone stared at the angel. The weight of the casual revelation hit hard—Beerus's monstrous level of power was already staggering, yet Whis spoke of surpassing him as if it were only a matter of training and time. It painted a clear picture: the Angels were currently the strongest beings in the cosmos… depending, of course, on how Beerus handled Milim's actual, continuously growing full power. She was the embodiment of infinite power in their world—probably only weaker than Rimuru himself.
After several more minutes of Milim's increasingly frantic and power-amplified assault, Beerus finally let out a long, theatrical sigh. He caught her latest punch—now backed by enough force to level a small continent—in his open palm once again, holding her there effortlessly while her feet dangled off the ground.
Milim strained, pouring even more power into her arm, her face flushed with excitement and effort. The barrier around them flared brighter as the shockwaves continued to hammer against it.
Beerus looked at her with half-lidded eyes, his voice carrying a distinct note of boredom.
"…When are you finally going to take this battle seriously? Because I'm getting very bored."
He released her fist with a light shove that sent her skidding back several meters across the stone. Milim caught herself, breathing somewhat labored but still grinning from ear to ear, her aura still climbing as she prepared to unleash even more.
The crowd was stunned, the silence was deafening.