The purplish-red Destruction Energy dissipated completely. There was nothing in the air—not even a speck of dust remained.
Trunks took a deep breath as his golden aura slowly faded. He looked at his trembling hands, a surge of indescribable satisfaction rising in his heart.
"It's over," Trunks said softly.
On a distant skyscraper, Krillin, Yamcha, Tien Shinhan, and the others looked at one another. "Thank goodness! That Lin Fan is finally dead!"
Piccolo's taut nerves relaxed as well.
Amid the ruins, Son Goku and Vegeta struggled to turn over. They looked up at Trunks, their eyes filled with shock and the satisfaction of having avenged their great enemy.
Just as everyone thought it was all over—
Hum.
A blinding white light suddenly erupted from the spot.
The light had no destructive force, but it carried an ancient, boundless pulse.
Son Gohan raised an eyebrow. He knew this feeling all too well. It was just like the reality-warping pulse that accompanied the appearance of Earth's Shenron, but a thousand times more powerful!
"Could it be the Original Dragon Balls?"
Within the white light, Lin Fan—who had been completely erased by the power of Hakai—began to "grow back" in a way that defied all reason. No, not grow back. Grow.
The system's disguise completely peeled away under the stimulus of the power of Hakai, revealing its most original form: an astonishingly potent Miracle Power. Freed from the system's outer shell, this power merged completely with the deepest and most extreme lust in Lin Fan's soul.
"Gurgh... gurgh..."
The horrifying sound of flesh writhing burst through the air. The white light swelled wildly, and in the blink of an eye, it transformed into a gigantic, deformed monster hundreds of meters tall.
The monster's shape was utterly revolting, like a giant geoduck enlarged countless times. Viscous pink miasma streamed from its body, and every inch of its greasy flesh was covered in densely packed eyeballs brimming with greed and obscenity.
The disgusting stench hit Trunks, forcing him to retreat hundreds of meters as his stomach churned.
"What the hell is that thing?!" Trunks roared.
The monster let out a piercing laugh. Its voice had lost every trace of humanity, becoming a shrill chorus of countless men and women. Pink miasma poured down like a waterfall. The instant it touched the ground, even solid rock and reinforced concrete began to twist and writhe, turning into pools of foul-smelling pink sludge.
The miasma quickly spread in every direction, forcibly assimilating everything in its path.
"We can't let that thing spread!" Trunks shouted.
He brought his hands together, and his golden aura flared once more. Raising his ki to its limit, he unleashed a massive golden energy blast straight at the monster's huge body.
Boom!
The blast hit the monster dead on. But the expected explosion never came. The white light covering the monster's surface flickered strangely, and Trunks's full-power blast vanished into it like a stone dropped into the sea, absorbed completely.
Worse, after absorbing the energy, the monster grew another size, and the eyeballs covering its body spun even more frantically.
"It didn't work?" Trunks gritted his teeth, preparing to attack again.
But the monster gave him no chance. Hundreds, even thousands, of thick pink tentacles burst from its underside, writhing wildly in every direction with a piercing whoosh.
Its targets weren't just Trunks, but West City below as well. It meant to pull every living creature in the city into its body and devour them all!
"Get out of the way!" Piccolo shouted from afar.
But the tentacles were too fast and their reach too wide. There was nowhere to escape.
At that critical moment—
A black figure appeared without warning in front of Trunks. Son Gohan lowered his black hood and stared at the sea of pink tentacles before him, his eyes cold as ice.
"Gohan!"
Son Gohan said nothing. He didn't even assume a fighting stance. He simply took a slow step forward.
Boom!
There was no dazzling golden flash. His hair rose and turned golden as naturally as could be, while his emerald eyes radiated unquestionable authority.
Super Saiyan 1.
He didn't need Super Saiyan 2, let alone Super Saiyan 4. Son Gohan's power had long since reached a level beyond anything this point in time could comprehend. Even in the most basic Super Saiyan form, his battle power was a full ten trillion. The entire Earth trembled before him.
A terrifying, bottomless aura centered on Son Gohan and became an invisible force that swept outward like a tsunami.
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
The pink tentacles about to strike West City's buildings and snatch Bulma and the others were shattered into a cloud of blood the instant they touched that invisible force. They had no chance to resist.
Not only that, the spreading pink miasma, which could even corrode rock, was forced back by the raging ki and held within a hundred-meter radius of the monster. It could not advance another inch.
Krillin stared from afar, his mouth hanging open.
"Th-that guy's a Super Saiyan too?!" Krillin felt like his brain could no longer process everything that had happened today.
Piccolo stared fixedly at Son Gohan's back, his body trembling uncontrollably.
He was too strong.
This strength was completely different from Lin Fan's strange suppression. It was pure, absolute power that obeyed no reason. Before it, Piccolo felt as tiny as a speck of dust.
Among the ruins, Son Goku stared at that golden silhouette, unprecedented fervor blazing in his eyes.
"That's incredible power! But why does this ki feel so familiar?"
Vegeta gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. Though he'd already guessed how strong this man was, the ki he was releasing still shocked him. It felt like the helplessness of standing against the entire universe.
Could he be the legendary Super Saiyan spoken of in Saiyan lore?
In midair—
The giant geoduck monster sensed the mortal threat. Every eyeball on its body immediately fixed on Son Gohan, and it let out a shrill scream. It frantically rallied the remaining Miracle Power, gathering white light above its head as it tried to erase him on the level of reality itself.
But Son Gohan gave it no chance.
His gaze pierced the layers of white light and pink miasma, locking directly onto the center of the monster's enormous head.
There, a pearl radiating an ancient pulse flickered in and out of view. Three red stars were clearly visible inside it.
The Three-Star Ball, an Original Dragon Ball.
Found it.
Whoosh.
Son Gohan vanished into thin air.
The monster's eyeballs spun wildly as it tried to track him.
But it was too late.
Like an instant transmission, Son Gohan appeared directly above the monster's head.
Terrified, the monster instinctively summoned all its newly grown tentacles, weaving a web of white light infused with Miracle Power in an attempt to form an absolute defense above its head.
But before Son Gohan's transcendent, absolute power, all so-called rules and defenses were meaningless.
"Die!" Son Gohan said coldly.
He didn't use an energy blast or any flashy technique. He simply dropped from the air, his right hand like an indestructible sword as he plunged it into the flesh on the monster's head, wrapped in white light.
Squish!
The monster's impossibly tough, mutated flesh was like a rag in Son Gohan's hand. The muscles in his right arm bulged as his golden aura blazed wildly. Then he drove his hand down with all his strength.
"Uwaaaaaagh!"
The monster let out Lin Fan's despairing, anguished scream.
With a horrifying tearing sound, Son Gohan split the gigantic monster, hundreds of meters tall, clean in half!
A downpour of pink blood fell from the sky, but before it could hit the ground, Son Gohan's blazing aura vaporized it completely.
At the center of the monster's split body, the huge Three-Star Ball Original Dragon Ball lay exposed, freed from its covering of flesh.
Son Gohan reached out and grabbed the Dragon Ball, forcibly pulling it from the monster's body.
Hum.
As the Original Dragon Ball was removed, the monster's enormous body froze. The white light that had given it the power of immortality vanished completely.
"No... my power! My harem..."
Lin Fan's faint, resentful obsession echoed through the air.
Son Gohan's eyes were cold as he raised a finger. A tightly concentrated golden energy blast struck the torn remains.
Boom!
Without the protection of Miracle Power, not a single cell of the mutated body remained after Son Gohan's blast. It was completely vaporized.
Lin Fan's consciousness was utterly annihilated in this timeline.
The sky turned blue again.
A breeze scattered the last trace of the stinging miasma.
Son Gohan held the Three-Star Ball Original Dragon Ball, which looked much like Earth's Dragon Balls, and slowly descended.
Trunks immediately approached him. His eyes filled with excitement as he looked at the orb in Son Gohan's hand. "Gohan, is this the Original Dragon Ball?"
Son Gohan nodded and tucked the Original Dragon Ball away.
He turned toward Son Goku and Vegeta in the ruins below, both looking relieved, and Piccolo and the others cheering in the distance.
The cancer that had thrown this timeline into chaos had been completely cut out.
Now it was time to handle the aftermath.
Son Gohan raised the golden Bracer on his wrist.
"Lord Popo," Son Gohan said to the Bracer, "I've got the Original Dragon Ball. What should we do to put this timeline back on track?"
The markings on the Bracer glowed faintly, and Popo's ethereal voice sounded in their ears.
"Well done," Popo said, his voice still flat. "You just need to use the Original Dragon Ball to make a wish and restore the world. Everything will return to normal, as though nothing ever happened."
"Make a wish?" Son Gohan asked in surprise. "But there's only one Original Dragon Ball..."
Before you continue