Residence of the Time King
For the first time, Gohan felt the Primordial Qi inside him come unmoored whipped into a frenzy by the Eldritch Qi. It spun faster and faster, hauling his own ki along with it. In a single second it completed a full inner circuit.
"How curious," the Time King murmured, leaning in despite himself. "Why didn't I ever see it behave like this?"
Gohan's base power skyrocketed. In the past, his training had strengthened him from the outside in muscle first, then organs. Now the flow reversed: the Primordial Qi's mad dash tempered his viscera, tendons, and bones from the inside out. His heart hammered like a forge bellows. His skeleton rang like tempered steel. His five organs grew both tougher and more elastic, their recovery rate leaping and below the waist a surge of vitality stirred of its own accord.
"So strong…" In mere moments, his battle power swelled by nearly a hundred million. To the Time King that was a trifle; to Gohan whose base had only just touched that realm it was as much as months of sweat and blood.
"Your Majesty do it," Gohan said through clenched teeth. If this was the gain before the Eldritch Qi entered, what would it be after?
"Brace yourself, little one."
The Time King guided the inky wisp toward him.
" Gaaah!"
The instant it entered him, Gohan screamed. Veins bulged; pain like ten thousand ants chewing bone tunneled through him. The Eldritch Qi reversed the Primordial circuit, spinning against it. Two tides one clockwise, one counter collided, and blood spilled from every orifice.
Even Bulma's thousand-gravity chamber had never hurt like this.
"It hurts !" Gohan's roar went beastlike. His aura blew out of control Super Saiyan, Super Saiyan Two, then the silver-white blaze of the Mystic Form all flared and tangled.
Ten billion… fifty… a hundred… then crashing down five billion ten million spiking again
"Settle!" He forced his ki to bear down on the Eldritch strand
and was immediately devoured. Anything that touched it was swallowed, stained.
The Primordial Qi refused to yield. It rallied what ki remained and sprinted harder. One circuit per second. Two. Ten until it hit ten cycles a second.
Gohan's body couldn't stand it. Capillaries burst; blood sheeted from his skin until he was painted red.
Another breath and he would rupture.
As if sensing that, the two strange forces slowed. The Eldritch Qi, dragging tainted ki behind it, sank toward Gohan's tail toward the deep gene-code of savagery and wildness etched there. The Primordial Qi gathered the rest and pooled at the dantian below his navel, cozying up to a second, calmer bloodline.
Each found its home.
Gohan's body began to knit.
The Time King watched, expression unreadable. Only once both strands stilled did he flick his hand and knit Gohan's wounds closed.
"Little one… we may have overdone it," he said, almost sheepish.
Gohan's eyes fluttered open. "What do you mean, Your Majesty?"
"They didn't do what I expected," the Time King admitted. "No fusion. No mutual cancellation. They claimed territory one in your tail, the other in your core and settled in."
"What does that do to me?"
"I don't know."
"…You don't know?"
He shrugged. "You'll have to discover it yourself. I've never tried it."
"Stay calm. Stay calm. I can't beat him now," Gohan told himself aloud, breathing deep, "but one day I'm going to plant him face-first into the floor."
"You're a long way off from that," the Time King chuckled. "And yes, I can hear you. Mind reading is trivial when the world itself is my handiwork."
"Then maybe offer a hint?" Gohan sighed.
"Mm… I see two bloodlines in you. The Eldritch strand dove straight for your tail your Saiyan genome's buried vein of ferocity. The other bloodline's mild and orderly; it curled right up around the Primordial Qi. That duality is probably why the two can coexist. Now transform. All of them. I'll watch."
"Right." Gohan inhaled. "Haa!"
Super Saiyan came first.
The aura that rolled off him was brutal, predatory utterly unlike his prior ascents. The protective blaze around him wasn't pure gold anymore but a dark gold; his hair followed suit. His expression turned preternaturally calm and cold. A hunter's eyes.
"How do you feel?" the Time King asked.
"…Strange. My mind seethes with violence, but I can leash it hold the cold clear center." His voice had no warmth, but his judgment stayed razor-true.
"And?"
Gohan shut his eyes and probed deeper. "My multiplier… doubled. Full-power Super Saiyan used to be eightyfold. Now it hits one hundred sixty. And my ki its bite changed. It feels like it can erase things."
He shaped a dark-gold ki orb and lobbed it to the Time King.
The sovereign caught it lightly, attention sharpening. "A Law," he murmured. "Your energy carries a trace of rule-power. Fascinating."
"A law? Like the Omni-King's erasure, or a God of Destruction's Hakai?" Even in this iron calm, Gohan's heart kicked.
"Annihilation." The Time King conjured a mote of pitch energy in his other palm. "The Omni-King's erasure and a Destroyer's Hakai descend from my time-space rules attacking existence via time and space. What's in you is different a law I never passed down."
The dark mote hissed and nearby space rotted. Edges vanished. The Time King snuffed it with a flick and mended the gouge with a ripple of time-space.
"Too dangerous," he said mildly. "It eats anything matter, energy, even space. This dimension just lost a sliver."
"So strong? Stronger than erasure or Hakai?" Gohan couldn't help the flash of joy.
"In rank, yes at equal power. But power is the hinge. A trace of Annihilation won't let you unmake beings vastly stronger than you Destroyers, Angels. Not yet."
"That's fine. It's a path," Gohan said, breath steady but eyes bright. "A way to stand up to them someday."
"That, I'll grant." The Time King gestured. "Continue. That wasn't the only change."
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