The smoke and debris from Cell's massive self-destruction slowly cleared, revealing a crater that stretched for hundreds of meters in every direction. Where Karnel and Cell had been standing moments before, there was nothing but empty air and settling dust.
"No way..." Gohan whispered from his position in the sky, his voice hollow with disbelief. "Did Karnel and that monster really die together?"
Trunks floated nearby, his arm protectively around Mai as she clung to his sleeve. His young face was twisted with grief and shock. " Karnel taught us for an entire year. He was the strongest person I'd ever seen. How could he just... die like that?"
"No!" Gohan shook his head violently, refusing to accept what his eyes were telling him. "Karnel isn't dead! He was so strong that he didn't even need to transform to completely dominate that creature. Someone with that kind of power doesn't die from a simple explosion!"
Mai suddenly pointed toward the center of the massive crater, her voice trembling with a mixture of fear and fascination. "Trunks, look! There's something glowing down there!"
All three pairs of eyes focused on the epicenter of the blast. A small, pulsing green light was growing brighter by the second, expanding and taking on a familiar shape.
"That's..." Gohan's eyes widened in horror as recognition dawned. "The monster! He survived his own explosion! Those are Piccolo's cells at work, his regenerative core must have been protected!"
Indeed, Cell's form was rapidly reconstructing itself from what appeared to be a single surviving cell cluster. His perfect body materialized piece by piece, flesh and bone weaving together like some nightmarish rebirth.
"HAHAHA!" Cell's laughter echoed across the wasteland as his regeneration completed. He spread his arms wide, reveling in his apparent victory. "Arrogant Saiyan! I told you that your overconfidence would be your downfall! If you hadn't gotten so close, you might have survived this encounter. But now you're nothing but scattered atoms!"
His compound eyes scanned the empty crater with savage satisfaction. The terrifying warrior who had made him feel so helpless was nowhere to be seen, surely obliterated in the nuclear fire of his self-destruction.
Gohan's heart sank as the seconds ticked by with no sign of Karnel. Has Karnel really...?
"Trunks," he said grimly, powering up as golden energy began crackling around his form, "prepare yourself. Even if we can't win, we have to try. We're the only ones left who can protect the Earth."
Trunks nodded, his own aura flaring as he prepared for what seemed like a hopeless battle. "Mai, I need to get you somewhere safe. This monster is beyond anything we've faced before."
But Mai was staring upward, her eyes wide with wonder rather than fear. "Trunks, look up there! There's a light coming through the clouds!"
"Light? What are you—" Trunks began, but his words died in his throat as he followed her gaze.
A figure was descending through the cloud cover, surrounded by a gentle crimson radiance that seemed to push away the darkness. As the form drew closer, its features became unmistakable.
Cell, who had been basking in his apparent triumph, noticed the others looking skyward. "What are you staring at?" he demanded irritably. "Don't tell me you're hoping for some divine intervention—"
He turned to look up and froze.
Karnel floated in the air above them, completely unharmed. His clothes weren't even singed, and his expression carried the same casual indifference it had throughout their entire battle. If anything, he looked mildly bored.
"Impossible!" Cell screamed, his voice cracking with hysteria. "You were right next to me when I detonated! My self-destruction had enough power to obliterate a solar system! How are you completely uninjured?!"
Karnel descended slowly, his feet touching the ground with the grace of a divine being returning to earth. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of absolute authority.
"Foolish little insect," he said, his tone suggesting he was explaining something to a particularly slow child. "Don't try to measure my power with your limited understanding. I exist on a level that your primitive mind cannot even begin to comprehend."
The divine aura surrounding Karnel pulsed once, and Cell instinctively took a step backward. This wasn't just power, this was something beyond the physical realm entirely.
"Your regeneration is impressive," Karnel continued conversationally, as if discussing the weather. "But ultimately pointless. Allow me to demonstrate the difference between a perfect being and a divine one."
Red energy began gathering around Karnel's right hand, but this wasn't the wild, destructive force he'd used before. This energy was controlled, precise, and carried an otherworldly quality that made the air itself seem to hum with reverence.
"Goodbye, Cell," Karnel said simply.
He moved with speed that transcended physical limitations, not fast enough to be impressive, but so perfectly controlled that reality itself seemed to bend around his motion. His fist connected with the top of Cell's head and drove downward through his entire body in a single, fluid motion.
SPLIT!
Cell's perfect form was bisected from crown to groin, his two halves separating and falling to the ground with wet thuds. Dark blood sprayed across the scarred earth as his internal organs spilled into the dirt.
But even as his bisected form hit the ground, Cell's Namekian cells were already working. The two halves began sliding toward each other, flesh reaching out like grotesque fingers trying to reconnect.
"Damn you!" Cell gasped, his voice emerging from both halves simultaneously. "I am the ultimate life form! I cannot be destroyed by a mere—"
"I've been waiting for this moment," Karnel interrupted, that same red energy now condensing into a focused beam in his palm. "Time to ensure you truly die, Cell."
The energy blast that erupted from his hand wasn't large or flashy. In fact, it was remarkably contained, a concentrated beam of divine power that struck Cell's reuniting form with surgical precision.
This wasn't mere destruction. This was erasure on a fundamental level.
"No! Wait! I can still—!" Cell's final scream was cut short as the divine energy consumed him completely. Not just his body, but every cell, every molecule, every trace of his existence was methodically annihilated.
The beam's range was limited to exactly two meters around Cell's position, nothing beyond that radius was even disturbed. But within that space, the bio-android ceased to exist in any form whatsoever.
Silence fell over the battlefield.
Karnel dusted off his hands with the casual air of someone who had just finished a minor chore. "Well, that's taken care of," he said pleasantly, turning to address the three stunned observers. "Come on down, Gohan, Trunks, and Mai. No need to keep hovering up there."
The three descended slowly, their faces reflecting varying degrees of awe, relief, and lingering shock.
"Karnel," Trunks managed to say, his voice filled with wonder, "you defeated that monster without even transforming into a Super Saiyan. How is that possible?"
Karnel smiled at the question, a hint of melancholy in his expression. "The Super Saiyan transformation isn't particularly useful to me anymore," he explained. "When you ascend to the divine status, the increase in power from such transformations becomes... negligible. There's not much difference between transforming and remaining in my base state, so I simply don't bother."
As he spoke, Karnel's gaze drifted toward the horizon, his expression growing thoughtful. Cell was dead, but the mysterious figure who had been observing from the shadows still hadn't revealed himself. Whatever game was being played here, eliminating Cell had been only the opening move.
But for now, this timeline was safe, and that was what mattered most.