Beerus?

"Ahhhhhhh!"

Lin Fan's agonized scream rang across all of West City.

Purple-red Destruction Energy clung to him like a curse, swallowing him whole in an instant. It followed no reason, held no warmth—only pure, absolute destruction that erased every rule in its path.

Lin Fan's vaunted fused body was like paper in the face of this power. His skin began to disintegrate inch by inch, dissolving into purple motes of light that scattered into the air.

"Damn it! What the hell is this? Vegeta! What did you do to me?!"

Lin Fan roared in terror, desperately channeling the ki inside him in an attempt to fight it off. But he soon realized, in despair, that his golden aura—powerful enough to destroy heaven and earth—was erased without a trace the moment it touched the purple light, like snow meeting molten lava.

Vegeta hovered in midair, panting heavily. Watching Lin Fan writhe in agony, he couldn't help bursting into wild laughter.

"Hahahaha! You piece of trash! You finally got what was coming to you!" Vegeta laughed so hard that the muscles in his face twitched.

Of course, he had no idea what the purple energy ball was. Son Gohan hadn't explained it when he gave it to him. But as long as it could kill Lin Fan, the bastard who had humiliated him so badly, who cared what it was?

Down in the ruins, Son Goku struggled to lift his head. Seeing Lin Fan consumed by the purple light above, a flash of satisfaction crossed his eyes. "Nice work, Vegeta!"

On top of a distant skyscraper,

Krillin jumped three feet into the air, so excited that tears nearly sprang from his eyes. "It worked! Vegeta hit him! That guy's done for!"

Piccolo, however, stared fixedly at the purple light, his brow furrowed and cold sweat running down his body.

"Something's wrong." Piccolo's voice trembled. "That purple ki isn't Vegeta's... That pure sense of destruction—it's almost like..."

Piccolo couldn't find the words. He only knew that his soul was instinctively quaking before the purple light.

Above the clouds,

Trunks clenched his fists and stared down. "Gohan, he's done for, right?"

Son Gohan remained calm, his eyes fixed on the raging Destruction Energy. "Don't rush. Let's wait and see."

Hakai Energy was an overbearing force that erased rules. The combat power Lin Fan had shown so far was clearly nowhere near enough to withstand it head-on. Son Gohan wanted to see what kind of trump card his fellow transmigrator had up his sleeve.

The screams within the purple light grew fainter and fainter. The left half of Lin Fan's body had already been completely erased. In another moment, the energy would vaporize his soul along with the rest of him.

Just as expected, at the last possible moment,

a dazzling golden light suddenly burst from Lin Fan's ruined body. It came out of nowhere, forcing open a tiny gap in the Destruction Energy surrounding him.

Bang!

A cloud of white smoke exploded out of thin air.

The purple-red Destruction Energy contracted instantly, erasing its target completely. But when the light faded, the only thing drifting down from the sky was a small pile of ashes.

And in the spot where those ashes had been, there was a charred piece of rotten wood!

"What?!" Vegeta's laughter cut off abruptly.

"Vegeta, watch out behind you!" Son Goku suddenly shouted hoarsely from the ruins below.

Vegeta whipped around.

Lin Fan had somehow appeared behind him. He looked utterly miserable. His left arm was gone, and the flesh on the left side of his face had been completely erased, exposing the bone beneath. Half his formerly wild, spiky hair had been burned away.

Yet the sight only made his twisted face look even more terrifying.

"Vegeta!!!"

Lin Fan roared. His remaining right hand blurred into motion, and he brought a vicious karate chop down on the back of Vegeta's neck.

Crack!

The sound of breaking bones rang out clearly. Vegeta didn't even have time to grunt. His eyes rolled back, and his golden Super Saiyan aura abruptly went out. He dropped like a rag doll, crashed heavily into the ground, and fell completely unconscious.

"Vegeta!" Son Goku roared, forcing his battered body into the air.

"You're in on this too!"

Lin Fan whipped around and fired a ki blast. The raging energy slammed Son Goku face-first into the ground, and a massive mushroom cloud erupted. Son Goku was charred from head to toe. He met Vegeta's fate, his life hanging in the balance.

Krillin and the others on the distant building were completely stunned.

"Wood? Why did he turn into a piece of wood?" Yamcha's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Was that magic?"

Piccolo gritted his teeth, his nails digging deep into his palm. "I couldn't see how he moved at all. There wasn't even a trace of his ki shifting! It was like he just switched places out of nowhere!"

Above the clouds,

Trunks was baffled too. "Gohan, what kind of move was that? How did he turn into a piece of wood and escape?"

Son Gohan raised an eyebrow slightly.

Wood? Substitution Jutsu?

Wasn't that a basic ninjutsu from Naruto? Did Lin Fan have a Naruto system?

In midair,

Lin Fan panted heavily, still shaken as he looked at his empty left shoulder. That had been too close. If he hadn't just exchanged for Substitution Jutsu in the System Shop, he and his system would have been completely vaporized from this world. There were still so many people he hadn't met and so many things he hadn't done!

The thought of the soft, wonderful future he'd almost lost—

His eyes turned cold and sinister. He took a Senzu Bean from his system space.

The green bean appeared in his palm out of nowhere.

Without hesitation, Lin Fan tossed it into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. His left arm and the left side of his face, erased by the Destruction Energy, instantly regenerated.

"He's using that strange trick again!" Piccolo watched from a distance, aghast.

They had seen Lin Fan do things like this many times, but they had never understood how it worked.

Even after returning to full strength, Lin Fan didn't immediately finish off Son Goku and Vegeta on the ground. Instead, he looked around like a startled beast, every muscle in his body tensed to the limit.

"Come out, Beerus!"

Lin Fan bellowed at the empty sky, his voice betraying a fear he couldn't conceal. "I know you're here! You're the mighty God of Destruction, and you're hiding in the shadows to attack me? What kind of skill is that?!"

Silence.

Aside from the wind and the lingering echoes of collapsing buildings, no one in the entire city answered him.

"Beerus?" Krillin scratched his bald head, utterly confused. "Who's Beerus? Is he Lin Fan's enemy?"

Piccolo shook his head, just as bewildered. But he could tell Lin Fan seemed very nervous about that name.

Yamcha and Tien Shinhan had never heard of it either.

Above the clouds,

Son Gohan watched Lin Fan trying to outwit thin air below, and almost burst out laughing.

It seemed his fellow transmigrator wasn't very bright.

He hadn't even figured out where the Destruction Energy came from before pinning the blame on Beerus. But then, it was no wonder. At this point in the original story, in Universe 7, who else in the world could wield Hakai Energy besides Beerus?

Son Gohan stroked his chin, rapidly piecing together what he knew about Lin Fan.

A life-saving substitution technique from another power system, a storage space that let him conjure Senzu Beans out of thin air, and a mechanism that seemed to anchor his strength so he could match anyone stronger than him.

The type of cheat he had was becoming obvious.

And then there was his habit of chasing women all over Earth, even going so far as to forcibly brainwash Bulma and the others.

It was probably some kind of "More Children, More Blessings" or "Random Draw" system, Son Gohan mused. The flaws in that sort of cheat were obvious: it took a long time to develop, and the rewards were unpredictable.

Below,

After getting no response for a long while, Lin Fan felt cold sweat pour down his forehead.

He really had sensed death just now.

Damn it! Why had Beerus woken up so many years early? The whole plot had gone off the rails! Lin Fan cursed wildly in his mind.

He knew exactly what he was working with. His current strength came entirely from his system's passive power anchoring, which let him overpower Son Goku and Vegeta. But that suppression was useless against beings on a divine level!

If Beerus had really set his sights on him, there was nothing he could do to resist with his current abilities. He could exchange points in the shop for a substitute charm like the one he'd just used, but his points were limited! If he got hit by Destruction Energy a few more times, he'd be dead for sure!

No, he had to come up with something!

Lin Fan gritted his teeth, his eyes darting back and forth. If he left and hid in another universe, he'd lose both Son Goku and Vegeta—his two cash cows of combat power—and the women who could help him sleep his way to the top of the world. He had the Snatch System. How could he develop if he left the plot behind?

That's it! Lin Fan's eyes flashed as he looked toward the villa where the women were.