"What's wrong?"
Mo Yuan's reaction made Lazuli a little uneasy.
Mo Yuan saw Cell suddenly stop, then pull a small box from who knew where.
Next, he took a Hoi-Poi Capsule out of the small box.
After a cloud of smoke, a strange-looking machine appeared on the ground.
It was the Time Machine that had fallen from Trunks.
Cell hadn't expected the Androids in this world to be so powerful.
He also felt a vague sense of unease. A voice deep inside him was telling him to get out of here, quickly.
This world had already become completely different from the history he remembered.
There was an extra Android—Android 16—and the Androids' power far exceeded what history had recorded.
Everything about this place spoke of how unusual this timeline was.
If Cell hadn't encountered Mo Yuan, or Lapis in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, he wouldn't have understood what cruelty meant.
Even so, Cell was deeply reluctant to leave.
After all, he hadn't yet become perfect.
But time was running out.
If he stayed in this timeline, he could lose his life at any moment.
He was better off leaving and looking for another possibility.
Besides, he had encountered the grown-up Trunks.
Cell was familiar with Trunks.
In Cell's own timeline, he had killed Trunks.
So the Trunks who had appeared in this timeline had to be from a third timeline.
Trunks was still in this timeline, which meant Androids 17 and 18 from the third timeline hadn't been eliminated yet.
And Cell had gotten the Time Machine from Trunks.
Cell had already made up his mind.
He would go to the third timeline first and absorb the two Androids.
Once he had become perfect, he would return to this timeline.
The Androids in this timeline were so powerful.
If he absorbed them, perhaps he could even surpass his perfect form.
He might become an existence even more powerful than his perfect form.
At the thought, Cell's mouth twisted into a crooked grin, and a sinister smile crept across his face.
"Gyeh heh heh heh heh!"
Then, steeling himself, he brought his hand down and cut his body in half at the waist. (He cut himself in half at the waist. Don't get any strange ideas—he didn't cut off his genitals.)
The Time Machine was too small to fit his whole body.
The last time he'd used the Time Machine to come to this timeline, he'd chosen to devolve into an egg.
Honestly, that had been an extremely foolish decision.
It had caused him to waste several years.
With the Namekian ability he possessed, he could simply shrink himself down physically, then return to normal after traveling through time.
Cell maneuvered his upper body into the Time Machine, then pressed a few buttons on the console.
At last, he took one long look at this world.
"I'll be back!"
The Time Machine vanished from the spot in an instant.
All that remained was Cell's lower half and a pool of purple blood on the ground.
"Damn it. I was still too late."
Mo Yuan arrived not long after Cell had left.
When he saw Cell take out the Time Machine, Mo Yuan hadn't even had time to explain things to Lazuli. He had rushed over at full speed.
Unfortunately, he was still too late.
Looking at the severed lower half on the ground, Mo Yuan felt rather helpless.
He never would have guessed Cell would get his hands on a Time Machine.
That hadn't happened in the original story.
It seemed his appearance had caused this timeline to change as well.
Other than the abandoned Time Machine Cell had used to come here, the only Time Machine on Earth was the one Trunks had brought with him.
Using his Mind's Eye, Mo Yuan saw that Trunks was at Bulma's house in West City.
Bulma was currently repairing the abandoned Time Machine.
Cell's Time Machine must have come from Trunks, then.
Mo Yuan casually fired a blast of ki and vaporized the remains on the ground, to keep them from contaminating the environment.
It was a shame Cell had escaped, but Mo Yuan wasn't too worried.
He was a perfect being too, wasn't he?
Mo Yuan had plenty of confidence in his own strength.
Counting a year of training in the Underground Laboratory and another year and a half in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, Mo Yuan had trained in martial arts for a full two and a half years.
With two and a half years of training under his belt, Mo Yuan feared no challenge.
Still, this incident had made him a little more cautious.
This world was real, and his presence could change it. Nothing would necessarily unfold the way it had in the original story.
Just like today: he'd thought Cell couldn't escape his grasp, so he hadn't gone after him right away and had let him flee.
He hadn't expected Cell to get a Time Machine and head straight for another timeline.
Mo Yuan would remember this lesson.
He couldn't make such a rookie mistake again.
Meanwhile, Trunks was extremely anxious in West City.
He couldn't sit still.
The loss of the Time Machine filled him with fear.
He was afraid Cell would go to the Future Timeline.
Without him there, the Earth in the Future Timeline was a soft target—anyone could come along and take a few swipes at it.
And his mother...
Trunks didn't dare think any further.
He was no longer in the mood to train with Vegeta.
All he could do was wait for Bulma to repair the Time Machine so he could return to the Future Timeline right away.
No matter what, he had to stop that monster.
Future Timeline.
A strange-looking machine appeared out of nowhere amid the ruins.
Its transparent hatch slowly opened.
A green monster with only half a body floated out.
If an ordinary person had seen this, they would have thought they were looking at a ghost.
The monster had only half a body, and purple fluid dripped from its severed waist.
Who wouldn't be terrified to see a half-bodied monster dripping blood and floating in midair?
Cell took a deep breath.
The smell of war, smoke, and death!
"Gyeh heh heh heh!"
Cell looked intoxicated as he licked his lips.
This scent was utterly intoxicating.
"Android 17, Android 18, I'll be coming for you soon. You must have been looking forward to it for a long time, too, right? Gyeh heh heh!"
Imagining himself absorbing Android 17 and Android 18 and becoming perfect, Cell couldn't help laughing out loud.
After a while,
Cell finally calmed down.
It was time to get down to business!
Cell stirred the ki inside him. Before long, his lower body began to emerge eerily from the severed stump.
Then he put the Time Machine away.
After all, he still needed the thing to return to that timeline.
But Cell also discovered a problem: the Time Machine had run out of energy.
The energy it had left had only been enough to bring him to this timeline. There wasn't enough for him to go back.
Fortunately, Cell knew someone who could solve that problem.
The energy issue was minor. The most important thing now was to absorb Androids 17 and 18.
Cell wasn't worried about the strength of the Androids in this timeline.
He'd already seen Trunks from this timeline, and Trunks had managed to survive against the Androids for all these years with only that much strength.
That meant the Androids in this timeline were probably about as strong as the ones in his own.
They couldn't be that much stronger.
Before you continue