The third and fourth tiers of the Yamanaka clan's secret mind arts were suited to dealing with divine beings native to their own worlds — entities like Shinigami and King Yama.
The fifth and sixth tiers were meant for cosmic deities — beings on the level of the Demon Realm Supreme Kai.
As Ino wove her seals back in the Time Nest, countless gossamer threads of mental energy used the Yin-Yang Harmony Powder as a homing beacon, crossing an immeasurable span of space to coil around the Demon Realm Supreme Kai's spiritual world.
First, make the fat sheep's own footing go «chaotic» — and only then do you «transfer»: drag the fat sheep's valuables right into your own hands. In plain terms: rob him blind. That was the true essence of the Yamanaka clan's secret arts.
Deep inside the Demon Realm, the Demon Realm Supreme Kai felt it as a garrote closing around his neck — a rope wrenching upward with tremendous force — while invisible chains wound around his limbs, his organs, even his soul, tearing in every direction at once.
As the chains bit into his mind, the Demon Realm Supreme Kai grew irritable and incensed. The longer he looked at Frieza's face, the more revolting he found it. A piece of work like you wants to be my son? The Demon Realm's ambient aura of madness bled into him as well, as though someone were pressed against his ear, whispering over and over: Kill him. Kill him.
Frieza had no idea why his newly acquired adoptive father had suddenly spiked in power. The attacks came too fast to leave room for thought. Ignoring the rapid drain on his own stamina, he dug deep and exploded with even greater force to meet him head-on.
Super Saiyan transformations built up gradually — 100 times the base power, then 200, 400, 1000 — climbing step by step. The drain on their stamina was severe, yes, but at least there was a ramp-up, a chance to adapt.
Mechikabura had none of that buffer. He went straight from his base combat power to 1,000 times — even 2,000, 3,000 times the amplification, with nothing in between.
The higher the power spike, the greater the physical toll — and no amount of four months' worth of push-ups could patch that gap.
At the same combat power level, his stamina burned down far faster than a Super Saiyan's would. He'd be able to compensate for that weakness eventually — but not now. His discount adoptive father was trying to kill him, and all he could do was grit his teeth and hold the line.
Meanwhile, Ino was working the Mind Transfer Rope Technique at full throttle, furiously siphoning the Time Power from the Demon Realm Supreme Kai's body. Her normally seven-year-old frame began, slowly, to grow.
Seven years and one month. Seven years and two months. Seven and a half. Eight years old!
She was no longer a child of six or seven. She was eight.
The Time Power Mechikabura had spent 75 million years accumulating — more than half of it was gone, swallowed whole by her.
Ino had burned through quite a few hidden cards in this operation. She'd thrown away assets as significant as Frieza and Towa — the losses weren't small. But the glaring weakness of her shallow reserves had finally been patched.
True to her habit of pulling the trigger and leaving someone else to clean up, she simply severed the connection to Frieza's side and killed every last nanobug. I'm going home to sleep. You two can sort the rest out yourselves. Whatever happens next has nothing to do with me.
...
Mechikabura's plan to strike the Time Nest had died in the cradle. His power had taken a sizeable chunk of damage, while Ino had enjoyed a modest upgrade on her end. A loss on one side, a gain on the other — he could no longer be certain he could defeat her. His original plan was useless now, and he had to start drafting a new one from scratch.
By the time he was ready to move again, it would already be too late.
Zamasu seemed to know no such thing as exhaustion. His unrelenting conviction — that good and evil could never coexist — was a zeal that left even Ino feeling a touch of grudging respect. Through his painstaking efforts, the joint forces of the Second, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, and Tenth Universes finished mustering.
Zamasu led the vast army forward, and the curtain rose on the war to subjugate the Demon Realm.
"Hahahaha! You little Demon Realm bastards — let Uncle Murishi Shichiki show you some real love!" A powerfully built man standing three meters tall, every inch of him knotted with muscle, let out a thunderous roar and hurled himself forward like a living mountain. Dozens of Demon Clan warriors were smashed into paste on impact.
The Tenth Universe's fighters had died off in waves; what remained now were entirely the tanky, high-endurance types — the agile fighters and assassin-types had all been wiped out in earlier engagements.
Murishi Shichiki was the Tenth Universe's strongest warrior at this moment. His muscles were an armor unto themselves, harder than the sturdiest steel. When Demon Clan soldiers hacked at him with swords or landed spells, all they left were shallow or deep dents — they couldn't even break the skin.
Murishi Shichiki took point and led the main force into the battlefield. He looked like he was charging recklessly, shouting with every exchange — but in reality he kept a careful check on his speed the whole time, terrified of being surrounded and cut off. Before him, the Tenth Universe had fielded many warriors stronger and more talented than him. They were all dead now, and every one of them had died for the same reason: they charged in too hard and too fast.
Zamasu had indeed given him and his disciples and grand-disciples enough cultivation resources to last three lifetimes, but external gifts were never worth more than your own life. He fought conservatively.
Advancing alongside him was a fighter by the name of Napapa — another textbook example of sky-high defense and a deep health bar.
Like a sumo wrestler, Napapa bellowed and charged straight into the enemy formation, crushing opponents beneath his sheer bulk.
The coalition army Zamasu had organized pushed forward in steady, disciplined waves.
The Demon Clan naturally mobilized their own troops in response. Both sides clashed in engagements numbering tens of thousands — sometimes hundreds of thousands — of soldiers every single day. But the top commanders on both sides had yet to show their faces.
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