7, 16, 8, 27, 9

Question

What is the next number in the sequence?

Answer 1

I can make an argument for 16 if there are actually 2 sequences involved.

For example the 1st, 3rd and 5th numbers suggest that the 7th number will be 10,

The 2nd number is 4², the 4th is 3³ which suggests that maybe the 6th term will be 2⁴.

There may be other solutions but the one I have suggested is also reasonable, given the limited data to work with.