Sacred World of the Kai.
Once Gohan started counterattacking, he took the upper hand again.
Even though he still couldn't turn his ki into a full armor like Tien, he could already completely ignore the protection Tien's armor provided.
At this point, Tien's battle armor was basically only giving him a boost in combat power.
Tien went all out, his aura surging like mountains collapsing and seas overturning, sweeping across heaven and earth.
Gohan answered with an equally terrifying pressure, dark-gold ki flames roaring skyward to meet Tien's.
The final clash began.
"Four Witches Technique! Haaah!"
Tien was blasted back a hundred meters, but he roared midair.
Two more arms grew from his shoulders.
Whoosh!
He shot toward Gohan at extreme speed, four fists raining down like a storm.
Tien was the original creator of the Four Witches Technique. Compared to Cell, Tien could draw out its full potential.
Bang bang bang!
Gohan got careless for a moment. His two arms were seized by the extra pair that had sprouted from Tien's back, while Tien's original two arms blurred into a flurry, countless fist shadows hammering his abdomen and chest.
Bang bang bang bang!
"Break!" Gohan shouted.
A violent blast of aura exploded from his body and forcefully blasted Tien away.
"Gohan, my body might not be as tough as yours, but these extra arms bring qualitative change through quantity," Tien said proudly.
"Hehe, it is really strong, but… tch."
Gohan's right hand flattened into a blade.
With a sharp swing, a three-meter-long golden greatsword of ki formed in his hand.
Turning ki into a blade.
"If I chop off your arms, how are you going to fight?" Gohan smiled, eyes full of mischief as he stared at Tien.
Tien's mouth twitched.
He could clearly feel the terrifying sharpness of the ki-blade in Gohan's right hand.
"This kind of ki control… you think you're the only one who can do it? Come on then!"
Tien swept both hands out. Four blades formed in his four palms.
"Hehe. It's not that simple."
Gohan moved at high speed and slashed.
Clang! Rip!
Two of Tien's four ki-blades were instantly cut in half by the solid, three-meter-long golden greatsword.
"Tien, I might only have one, but mine is hard enough," Gohan said, swinging again and again.
Tien could only dodge, helpless.
His whole body was filled with a chill. His instinct screamed that if he tried to block head-on, he would be chopped clean in two.
Gohan chased relentlessly, his greatsword always angling toward those two extra arms. He completely ignored Tien's counterattacks, willing to trade blows if he had to, as long as he could slice off the additional limbs.
Because of that, Tien simply couldn't launch an effective counterattack.
You had to admit, Gohan's approach here really was a bit "unethical" by martial artist standards.
But he had no choice. Martial arts were martial arts, but Tien had used a skill that literally grew extra limbs.
Since Gohan couldn't grow his own, he could only chop off whatever the other guy grew.
Yeah. Very Gohan.
If I don't have it, no one else is allowed to either.
Driven into a corner, Tien had no choice but to dismiss his extra arms.
Swoosh.
The two additional arms shrank back into his shoulders and disappeared.
Gohan nodded in satisfaction and dispelled his greatsword.
"You really are a shameless guy. That's my original technique, and you won't even let me use it," Tien complained.
After all, this was a spar. Sparring was meant to use actual combat to expose shortcomings and improve yourself.
It wasn't a life-or-death grudge match where you used any means necessary.
But Gohan did not care about that at all.
If you made him feel uncomfortable, he would definitely make you feel even worse.
"I can't help it. I don't know how to do that. I can't grow extra arms," Gohan said with a bad-boy grin.
"Gohan, I think we're about at my limit. I still have one last move, but I can't fully control it yet. You need to be careful," Tien said, suddenly flying up into the sky.
"Another boring beam clash?"
Gohan also flew up, looking at him.
"No. This move is the strongest technique of this eye. It's not just some simple energy wave," Tien said as his original two eyes closed.
He brought his hands up, fingers pressed to his temples.
A wave very similar to godly ki began to spread from his body.
It poured into the eye at his forehead. Under the catalysis of the third eye, that energy began to transform. A pressure no mortal should be able to feel started to churn and swell.
"Damn… this is… law? No, not quite," Gohan's expression changed drastically.
He could sense a familiar power within that overwhelming pressure.
But the force he felt was stronger than godly ki, yet weaker than true laws.
On the distant satellite, the Old Kai spat out his tea.
"That's… an Esoteric Truth! The ancient cultivation system!"
"Ancestor, what are Esoteric Truths?" Shin, the Supreme Kai, asked, confused.
"Esoteric Truths surpass godly ki, yet are weaker than laws. They're a transitional product in between. Even so, they're already terrifying. Ordinary mortals can't even refine godly ki, let alone Esoteric Truths," the Old Kai explained in shock.
Sacred World of the Kai.
"Eye of the Void!"
Tien shouted. All three of his eyes fired an invisible shock wave.
Space rippled, blurred, then shattered.
"Piercing Star Shot!"
Gohan pointed two fingers, firing instantly.
He even infused a wisp of Destruction Law into the attack.
Tssss!
The two high-dimensional energies collided in an instant.
Space at the point of impact shattered outright, forming a perfectly circular black hole.
"Oh no… a spatial singularity!" Gohan's face changed.
"Haaaah!"
He launched a blast of ki, blowing Tien away from the pull of the black hole.
But he himself was seized by a tremendous gravitational force.
"Gohan!" Goku shouted in panic, transforming into full-power Super Saiyan 2 to rush in after him.
"Dad! I'm fine! Wait for me to come back!"
Gohan blasted out another ki wave, knocking Goku away.
Then he stepped into the black hole of his own will.
Because the moment the spatial singularity formed, the primordial qi and eerie qi in his body had started to riot again, as if they were urging him to enter.
The moment he stepped in, the black hole closed and space returned to normal.
"Gohan… it's my fault. It's all my fault…" Tien's eyes filled with regret.
"Tien, don't be like that. I can feel that Gohan isn't dead. And from the way he acted just now, he clearly had some idea what he was doing," Goku said, moving up to comfort him.
"Goku, is he really all right?" Tien's expression twisted with pain.
In his mind, scenes flashed by of Gohan standing up for him on the Three-Eyed Star.
That one casual "I'll point you a path" had given Tien a warmth he had never felt before.
He didn't even dare imagine what he would do if anything happened to Gohan because of him…
"Relax. That little brat is not that simple."
A voice cut in. Shin, the Supreme Kai, returned with the Old Kai at his side.
"Lord Supreme Kai, do you know where he went? Or rather, do you know where that black hole led to?" Piccolo immediately grabbed onto the key point.
"That wasn't just an ordinary spatial black hole. With your power, normal singularities wouldn't affect you at all. That was a tear in the dimensional wall. Right now, Gohan should be in some unknown time-space completely separate from our universe. But with his strength and his brains, he'll be fine wherever he ends up," the Old Kai said slowly.
"A parallel timeline?" Vegeta frowned.
"No. Time-spaces bound by the Grand Zeno's rules are called parallel timelines. No matter how many parallel worlds are born in the universe, they're all under the rules of Zeno. But that space just now… I didn't sense any trace of Zeno's power. It should be a foreign time-space," the Old Kai said.
"Can he come back?" Tien didn't care about any of that.
"He should be able to. Even without innate time-travel abilities, once your power reaches a certain level you can forcibly break the dimensional wall, just like the qualitative change you two triggered just now. Besides, he's someone who already holds a power higher than Esoteric Truths the power of laws," the Old Kai said, consoling them.
"That's good… then I've decided. I'm staying here and waiting for Gohan to return," Tien said.
He flew to the top of a nearby mountain, folded his legs, and sat down, closing his eyes.
"You lot can go back. Don't all crowd around my place. I don't have enough food here to keep feeding you Saiyans," the Old Kai said quickly when he saw Goku and the others showing the same stubbornness as Tien.
"Uh… all right. Lord Old Kai, when Gohan comes back, please let us know right away," Goku said, stunned for a moment before agreeing.
"Yeah, yeah, go on. You learned Instant Transmission on Planet Yardrat. You should be able to find Earth," the Old Kai said.
As mentioned before, to make it easier to travel between the Galactic Patrol and Earth, Gohan had taken Goku to Planet Yardrat to learn Instant Transmission.
"I think I can."
Goku closed his eyes, two fingers pressed to his forehead as he searched for the ki of humans on Earth.
Three minutes later
"Everyone, hold hands. I've found it!"
Whoosh!
In an instant, everyone disappeared from the Sacred World of the Kai.
Only Tien, Shin, and the Old Kai remained.
The Old Kai looked at Tien with an extremely strange expression…
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