"Beerus..."
Champa's expression turned complicated. The nine Gods of Destruction beside him wore the same mixture of shock and fury on their faces.
They could clearly sense the lingering divine aura still clinging to that pelt.
"That bastard... he skinned Beerus and turned him into..."
Quitela could not finish the sentence.
A mere mortal had flayed a God of Destruction, made his hide into a cloak, and draped it over his shoulders in broad daylight.
This was no longer just provocation.
It was the most direct declaration of war possible against all gods.
"You bastard!"
The Gods of Destruction felt as though they had been stripped naked and humiliated.
More importantly, the Grand Zeno was present. They had to show where they stood.
Quitela was the first to lose his patience.
"You dare blaspheme the gods?!"
Heles drew her bow, killing intent undisguised in her eyes.
"Unforgivable."
Belmod's face darkened.
And among all the Gods of Destruction, Champa was undoubtedly the angriest.
Even though he and Beerus bickered constantly and he had never liked his brother's attitude, the truth was that their brotherly bond ran extremely deep.
Ten surges of Destruction Energy erupted at once. The entire viewing platform trembled violently, and space itself let out an overloaded groan.
The air turned viscous. Even light became distorted.
Yet facing a pressure that should have made any mortal tremble, that Vegeta merely lifted his eyelids lazily.
Behind him, Kakarot, Broly, and the others leapt forward, intercepting the ten enraged Gods of Destruction.
"They are only a few worthless Gods of Destruction. Good. That saves me the trouble of hunting you down one by one. Let my subordinates warm up first."
Vegeta's voice was not loud, but it carried clearly into everyone's ears.
There was such undeniable imperial authority in his tone that no one felt he was being arrogant.
Of course, more than half of that effect came from the purple fur cloak draped over his shoulders.
"Oh, right. I almost forgot to explain why I came here."
"I have been entrusted with a mission."
"I have come to invade this timeline."
"Invasion?"
Goku had been about to step forward and greet Vegeta, but the moment he heard that, he stopped cold.
"Hey! Vegeta, are you a bad guy in your universe too?"
Vegeta sneered disdainfully.
"If by 'bad guy' you mean that I conquered all twelve universes by force and slaughtered everyone who resisted, then yes, Kakarot."
"Because you are Kakarot, I will grant you a trial. Join me. Survive it, and you may earn the right to become one of my guards."
Goku's expression hardened at once.
"I'm not interested in becoming your guard. But if you plan to ruin this tournament, I won't let you!"
Vegeta swept his gaze across the arena, passing over all ten Gods of Destruction one by one before finally letting it settle on the floating screen packed with contestants' names and portraits.
The corner of his mouth curled into a mocking arc.
"I have no interest in wasting time on this childish game. Since all the strongest people of this timeline are gathered here anyway, then come at me together."
At that moment, the Gods of Destruction and Vegeta's four retainers had already clashed.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Shockwaves exploded without warning. Ten streams of divine power slammed head-on into four savage, overbearing auras.
The viewing platform wailed. Its supposedly indestructible metallic surface split instantly into a spiderweb of cracks.
Space tore. Light warped. The pressure became so dense that, aside from the very top fighters, nearly every spectator struggled to breathe.
This melee had been a life-and-death fight from the very start.
Each of the Saiyans transformed into his own signature form, and their terrifying auras swept across the arena.
Quite a few weaker warriors had to force their ki to surge or transform into their strongest states just to endure the pressure.
Champa wreathed himself in Destruction Energy and charged straight at the mustached Broly.
That Broly had already transformed into Super Saiyan 4, his hair a rosy red, his fighting style just as brutally direct as ever, relying on explosive power to overwhelm everything head-on.
The two catastrophic forces collided at once, and the resulting blast pulverized everything nearby.
Yet before the aftermath could spread any farther, Metal Cooler Max casually raised a hand. A barrier descended and cut off all overflow, then immediately absorbed the battle energy leaking out.
Inside the barrier, Champa's heart trembled.
That power. That fighting style. It was far too familiar.
Pink-haired Broly would probably stand no chance against the Super Saiyan 4 Broly before him.
"You!"
Elsewhere, Heles drew the bow of beauty to its fullest. Her arrow, infused with divine energy, became a pink streak of light as it shot toward the man with Goku's face in that violet-haired form.
He only grinned, his smile cold and wicked, then twisted his body at an impossible angle and barely evaded the arrow.
The next instant he vanished.
When he reappeared, his fist had already slammed into Heles's face.
Bang!
Half of her beautiful face caved in under the punch.
"Ultra Ego?!"
Only a godly technique could have inflicted such a mortal threat upon her.
Heles retreated in panic, but her opponent pursued relentlessly.
Belmod hurried in to stop the chase.
At that very moment, gray-haired, red-eyed Trunks slashed out with his sword. The aura wrapped around the blade was so sharp that Belmod's skin stung just from being near it.
Belmod's heart shook, and he was forced to pull back.
But another gray-haired, red-eyed fighter had already appeared in his retreat path.
A blade of ki slashed across his chest.
Blood sprayed. A massive wound split Belmod's torso open, so deep that bone could be seen.
The other Gods of Destruction felt their hearts turn cold.
Any trace of contempt vanished.
They attacked all at once. Energy beams, physical strikes, and divine secret arts wove together into a heavenly net, seeking to drown all four retainers at once.
Yet the four Saiyan guards fought with perfect coordination, back to back, blocking every single attack.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Each blast of colliding energy made the entire planet quake.
"How is this possible..."
"Their power... can actually rival ten Gods of Destruction?!"
The spectators were completely stunned.
These four unknown Saiyans were actually holding their own against ten Gods of Destruction at once.
Time Patrol Vegito's expression turned grave.
"Each of them possesses power on the same level as a God of Destruction."
Goku clenched his fists so hard they cracked. His whole body trembled with excitement.
"So strong... they're all so strong! That me, and that Broly too..."
Just as everyone was wavering in shock, a rough voice broke the tension and pulled everyone's attention back from the battlefield.
"I've seen them before."
It was Bardock.
His eyes were fixed on the figure reclining in shadow on that throne within the ship.
"Why are they so strong?" Piccolo asked.
"When I was under Towa's command, I used one of her time devices to glimpse fragments of that timeline."
His gaze shifted toward the cold, murderous Kakarot in the battle.
"In that timeline, Vegeta personally took revenge on Frieza. From that moment on, the Saiyan race entered a true age of conquest."
"Kakarot was never sent to Earth, so of course he never hit his head. From the time he was a child, he displayed astonishing combat talent. He grew up cruel and bloodthirsty, following Vegeta from one battlefield to another, and became the most capable subordinate under his command."
Everyone looked toward the man with Goku's face, but whose expression was filled with evil. A chill ran through them all.
Bardock then shifted his gaze toward the fighter who looked exactly like Gohan.
"The one with Gohan's face had his Earthling name long forgotten. Everyone just calls him Wild Beast, because of his monstrous talent and because he can transform into that silver-gray-haired, crimson-eyed form."
"He can use Beast too?!" Gohan exclaimed.
Looking at the man who wore his face yet radiated only madness and destruction, Gohan felt something indescribable rise in his chest.
Bardock continued.
"His birth came from the Saiyan occupation of Earth. In order to expand the Saiyan population as quickly as possible, Vegeta personally led the surviving Saiyans to conquer Earth. He not only took control of the planet, he fathered and produced a vast number of mixed-blood descendants there..."
"As for the swordsman, he is Vegeta's child. His real name is also Vegeta, but to distinguish him from his father, everyone calls him Crown Prince. Once he ascends the throne, he will become Vegeta V."
The Trunks of this timeline shuddered violently.
Looking at the young man with his own face, battling the Gods of Destruction in the bloodiest and cruelest way possible, his feelings became indescribably complex.
"And the Vegeta of that timeline," Bardock said in a low voice, "is a true combat genius, and a tyrant through and through."
"Frieza, King Cold, Cooler, Cell, Majin Buu... every enemy who stood in the way of his conquest was personally slain by him, and he kept their skulls as trophies."
Bardock paused for a moment.
"And now his power has clearly risen again. He even skinned Beerus and made a cloak out of him..."
Everyone's gaze slowly drifted toward the wrinkled purple fur cloak hanging from Vegeta's shoulders.
Beerus was the strongest among the Gods of Destruction, the one whose power came closest to that of an angel.
Frieza and Cooler both looked utterly awful.
Killed by Saiyan monkeys, and then turned into a throne ornament?
That was the ultimate humiliation for their race.
At that very moment, when the tension had reached the breaking point, a calm voice devoid of all emotion rang out.
"That's enough."
It was not loud, but it carried an unquestionable absolute authority.
No one had noticed when Metal Cooler Max had moved to stand between the two camps.
He released no energy at all. Merely by standing there, he cast an invisible pressure over the entire battlefield.
Whether they were furious Gods of Destruction or cold-blooded Saiyan guards, they all felt their bodies lock for a moment. Their movements stopped involuntarily.
"Any conflict can be resolved through this game."
He slowly raised a hand and swept it through the air.
An irresistible force pushed both sides apart, drawing a clean and absolute line between them.
"If the game cannot resolve it," he said, glancing at Vegeta's ship and then at the gods, "then once the tournament is over, you may settle it yourselves."
"Who do you think you are, telling me what to do?!" Quitela snarled.
Crack.
Without warning, a hand pierced straight through Quitela's chest.
When everyone focused, they saw that Metal Cooler Max was holding a heart in his hand as casually as if he had plucked a flower.
"As the organizer and referee, I am the absolute will here."
His tone was calm, but no one dared challenge him.
The figure on Vegeta's throne shifted slightly.
The Gods of Destruction also quietly withdrew their divine energy.
Only Quitela stood there, terrified and trembling, certain that the next instant this monster might crush his heart.
"Y-you can't kill me... I... I'm already a contestant..."
"Then perform well in the tournament."
Metal Cooler Max released his fingers and, in the next instant, appeared at the center of the viewing platform.
Both sides suddenly realized that this being, who had seemed merely to be the host of a game, possessed power far beyond them.
Sneaking up on Quitela meant little in itself.
The real issue was this:
A moment ago, the battle between them had produced enough aftershock to destroy the entire Supreme Kai Realm.
And yet each time, this being had casually raised a hand, released a barrier, and blocked and absorbed it all.
Such a method was not something an ordinary being could possibly achieve.
This tournament... was clearly no simple game.
Every God of Destruction arrived at the same conclusion.
The way they looked at Metal Cooler Max changed as well, becoming incomparably serious.
Champa hurried over to Levos and immediately began complaining.
"Hey, Levos! You really are a menace. How could the universe produce some monster that looks exactly like your Cell Max?"
Levos wore an innocent face.
"Don't ask me. I have no idea why he stole Cell Max's appearance."
Still, in order to reassure his allies, he revealed one piece of information they had not known.
"That thing is only imitating Cell Max's appearance and a portion of its abilities. Its core, in the end, is not Cell Max."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you remember Zamasu and Moro?" Levos said. "That thing is the fusion of Fused Zamasu, who possesses an immortal body, Moro, who has infinite magic power and the ability to copy abilities, plus elements from Cooler, the Supreme Kai Planet, the Prison Planet, and Big Gete Star."
Champa's eyes widened instantly.
Each of those names, taken alone, was already terrifying enough.
And now they had been merged into one?
This was even more monstrous than before.
At that moment, a voice came from inside the grotesque ship, as Vegeta answered Metal Cooler Max.
"Interesting. Out of respect for the strong, I accept your rules."
"Kakarot, Broly, Wild Beast, Crown Prince," his voice rang with imperial authority, "the four of you will take part in this game. Do not disappoint me."
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
The four answered in unison, then reverted to their normal forms.
Vegeta reclined lazily on his throne, resting his cheek against one hand while the other idly played with a skull embedded into the armrest.
"Let me see what kind of entertainment you can offer me."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, you like the story? Wow, who knew. Go ahead, drop a review and throw some power stones maybe I'll be motivated to keep going.
"Want to stay ahead of the game? Advanced chapters are up on my Patron. If you're enjoying the ride, swing by and check them out."
[email protected]/_theon
Change @ to "a"