The moment the Chaos Spear dissipated, the suffocating pressure that had enveloped the entire planet suddenly lifted.
The Chaos Legion, charging and battling across the sky, came to a halt in unison. The boundless darkness of their killing intent and aura of annihilation seemed to be pressed down by an unseen hand, instantly reining itself in and lying dormant. The apocalyptic battle, on the verge of overwhelming them all, had abruptly paused in a way no one could have anticipated.
A terrifying silence settled over heaven and earth.
Across the land of shattered walls and ruins, fierce winds howled past, whipping up gravel. In the distance, the ruined sea churned with lifeless black waves. The whole planet was a wasteland, scarred everywhere by the ravages of Chaos Power. In just half an hour, the once-vibrant mountains, rivers, and lands had become barren and broken, like a desolate waste.
Lin Chen still hung in midair, his ancient golden aura flickering faintly as pain continued to spread through every muscle and bone. He did not relax in the slightest. His eyes were fixed on the enormous shadow of the Chaos King above, his guard raised to the utmost.
This wasn't mercy, and the Chaos King hadn't relented.
Lin Chen had seen the change in that instant clearly.
The Chaos King had already unleashed his ultimate attack. That Chaos Spear could have crushed the four of them, even in their remaining strength, and wiped out the last resistance in this universe. But just as the killing blow was about to land, a thread of will from the seven ancient, supreme Outer Realm presences deep within the dimensional barrier suddenly intervened.
Those were the hidden powerhouses of the Outer Realm. They had forcibly stopped the Chaos King from delivering his fatal blow.
The Chaos King might appear to wield the power to destroy worlds and command the cosmos, but before those true top-tier beings of the Heavens, he was still just a chess piece, one they could interfere with and manipulate at will.
"Why...?"
Kallen drew a slow breath. His purple battle aura gradually returned as he stared at the suddenly halted Chaos Army, suspicion and dread filling his eyes.
He could sense that the Chaos King's killing intent had not faded. The Chaos torrent pouring through the rift remained wild and surging, and the foundation of this apocalypse had not shifted. The only change was that the enemy had suddenly reined in his fatal assault, deliberately leaving them a sliver of life.
This sudden reprieve was more terrifying than an all-out killing blow.
Golden Full-Power Super Saiyan landed atop the ruined clouds. He raised a hand to wipe the golden blood from the corner of his mouth, his deep eyes fixed on the depths of the barrier between the two worlds. His expression was graver than ever.
He had lived through countless ages and witnessed innumerable contests of strategy and clashes between factions, yet he had never seen such an uncanny game spanning dimensions.
In the past, invasions by foreign races had either ended in a fight to the death that wiped out everything, or in retreat once their strength was spent, followed by a drawn-out stalemate. But today's Chaos calamity had been a game controlled from beginning to end by the upper echelons of the Heavens.
The Chaos King had wanted to end the battle quickly and seize the universe's origin, but beings of a higher order in the Outer Realm had forcibly stopped him.
They would not allow this universe to be destroyed just yet.
Nor would they allow the four of them to die just yet.
"It's not that the Chaos King doesn't want to kill us. Someone won't let him." Golden Super Saiyan spoke slowly, his voice low and hoarse, carrying through the silent void. "Our lives, the fate of this universe—they were never in Chaos's hands. They're in the hands of those beings in the Outer Realm."
His words laid bare the truth.
In midair, Frieza narrowed his crimson eyes slightly. His bone-white Emperor Energy flowed slowly around him as he reined in all his violent killing intent, replacing it with icy caution.
After dominating the galaxy for centuries, he was an expert at scheming and calculation. He had already seen through the trick.
The Chaos Race was the vanguard, the butcher's blade. They were responsible for breaking through the dimensional barrier, sweeping away this universe's resistance, and wearing down the defenses of its origin.
The seven hidden factions of the Heavens, meanwhile, were the true players behind the board.
They watched coldly as Chaos slaughtered. They watched the four of them fight desperately, suffer injury after injury, and exhaust their strength. They watched this universe edge closer and closer to ruin. What they wanted wasn't a swift destruction, but a complete, clean harvest with no lingering dangers.
If the Chaos King killed the four of them now, destroyed Earth quickly, and devoured the universe's origin, then the Chaos Clan would take this universe's foundations, hidden trump cards, and secrets of its origin for themselves.
Those lofty powerhouses of the Heavens would never allow that.
"How interesting."
Frieza gave a low, mocking laugh. His tone held the Emperor's trademark frigid scorn. "The killing was too quick, and the spoils wouldn't be divided fairly. So you leave us to cling to life while you slowly strip this universe of every last trump card. Is that it?"
His words instantly revealed the ultimate truth behind this game that had lasted ten thousand years.
The ten-thousand-year plan to break through the dimensional barrier had never been a solo invasion by the Chaos Clan. It was a joint game played by factions across the Heavens.
Chaos would break through and clear the board, while the powerful factions of the Heavens watched from the sidelines. Once this universe had been drained of all value and every last force of resistance exhausted, they would enter in turn to divide up the origin and foundation of this low-dimensional universe.
That was why they were keeping Earth, its people, and the four of them—the universe's last top-tier fighters—alive.
It wasn't mercy. They wanted to harvest them slowly and leave nothing behind.
Above them, the enormous shadow of the Chaos King shifted slightly. His hollow black eyes swept over the four below, betraying a hint of irritation at the interference, but he dared not disobey.
"You insignificant ants are fortunate to have survived."
His vast, icy voice rang through heaven and earth again. The killing intent behind it was no longer absolute, replaced by the detached indifference of someone toying with his prey.
"The Heavens have decreed that the game in this realm is not over, and its foundations are not yet exhausted. You are to be given a temporary reprieve."
"I will give you three days. For those three days, you may cling to life, mend your wounds, gather your remaining strength, and struggle as you please. Three days from now, the game will resume. Not a single living thing will remain in this universe."
As his words fell, the Chaos torrent that had churned across the sky stopped pouring down. The countless Chaos shadows drew back in unison and gathered beneath the rift high above, forming an impenetrable black barrier.
They neither attacked nor withdrew.
They had sealed off every route out of Earth.
The outer space passageways, spatial jump paths, and interstellar escape routes were all locked down by Chaos Power.
From that moment on, Earth had become a prison from which there was no escape.
They had been granted three days to catch their breath. It was also the final countdown the powerful factions of the Heavens had left this universe.
The black fog of Chaos slowly drew upward and stopped devouring the land. At last, the trembling as the earth continued to collapse gradually subsided. A faint trace of life returned to the silent world.
Deep in the forest, Bulma let out a long breath. Her body, tense to the limit, went limp in an instant. She staggered and braced herself against a nearby tree, her back already soaked through with cold sweat.
At that moment, she had been ready for everything to end. But this sudden pause brought her no relief; it only deepened the chill in her heart.
The enemy wasn't in a hurry.
They were like hunters watching prey trapped in a cage, about to starve to death. They had granted it a brief final reprieve, watching it struggle, huddle together, and cling to life before calmly harvesting it at last.
Little Goku looked up at the dark sky as it gradually settled. His small, tense body finally relaxed a little, but the wariness in his eyes did not lessen. He didn't understand games played by the Heavens or the division of spoils across dimensions, but he knew clearly that the danger hadn't passed. It had only paused for the moment.
Lin Chen slowly descended and set his feet on the cracked earth. At last, his heavy body had a brief moment of rest. He closed his eyes and focused on sensing the state of the world around him.
In that brief calamity, Earth had already lost more than thirty percent of its origin. Countless mountain ranges and spiritual ley lines had been extinguished, and the auras of countless living beings had vanished completely. If it endured a few more waves of Chaos, the heavenly origin of this universe would wither and collapse on its own, even without the enemy lifting a finger.
At the same time, he clearly sensed that beyond the dimensional barrier, the seven ancient presences of the Heavens were still quietly gathered, utterly motionless. Like silent mountains that had stood for countless ages, they watched everything in the cage with cold indifference.
They were watching.
Watching how the four of them struggled, how many trump cards this universe still had, and how far the Chaos Clan had progressed in its purge.
"Three days."
Lin Chen opened his eyes. His ancient golden pupils were clear as he spoke in a firm voice.
"This is our only chance—and the last chance for this universe."
Kallen landed on the ground and walked over to Lin Chen, his expression solemn. "We can forcibly suppress our injuries and briefly recover our strength, but all four of us have suffered damage to our origins. We have less than thirty percent of our peak strength left. Even if we recover, we still can't withstand the Chaos King's true form."
That was the cruelest reality.
The Four-Force Heaven-Suppressing Seal was broken, their origins gravely damaged, and the four of them together hadn't even been able to stop a single attack from the Chaos King's phantom. When the game resumed in three days, they would still be doomed.
Golden Full-Power Super Saiyan fell silent for a moment before speaking slowly. "Conventional strength and a contest of origins are completely useless now. Low-dimensional power can't break a high-dimensional game. If we want to turn the tide, our only hope is to look to this universe's foundations and the hidden trump cards left from ancient times."
This universe had endured for billions of years, surviving countless shifts in the eras and changes of the cosmos. There was no way this world had no hidden foundations.
The bloodline inheritance, broken techniques, and ancient memories his ancestors had left Lin Chen might be the only hope of turning the tide in this desperate situation.
Everyone's gaze instantly turned to Lin Chen.
Frieza folded his arms, his crimson eyes studying the Saiyan boy before him. He spoke coldly. "I don't believe in fate or in turning the tables when all hope is lost. But right now, you're the only one here carrying the ancient Saiyan origins and the oldest inheritance in this universe. If you have a trump card, you tell us."
The barriers between them had fallen, and their grudges were set aside. Even the proud and domineering Galactic Emperor had to admit that Lin Chen was their only chance to turn things around.
Lin Chen drew a deep breath, suppressing the churning blood and energy within him as he rapidly sifted through the fragmented memories he had inherited from the Ancestral Remnant Soul.
The ten-thousand-year seal, Chaos's schemes, the bloodline anchor, the barrier between the two worlds... Countless fragments of information came together in his mind, colliding with one another.
A moment later, a glimmer suddenly lit in his eyes.
"I have a trump card."
He lifted his gaze to the black sky, his voice utterly resolute.
"My ancestors' inheritance says that this universe wasn't naturally a low-dimensional wasteland. Billions of years ago, it stood in the middle and upper ranks of the myriad dimensions of the Heavens, with a complete heavenly order, laws of origin, and dominion over its realm."
"Then, during the ancient war among the Heavens, powerful enemies from beyond joined forces to shatter this universe's dimensional foundations, strip away its dominion over its realm, and force it down to a lower dimensional tier, turning it into the low-dimensional prison it is today. Our world isn't weak by nature. It was sealed and downgraded by others!"
This revelation completely stunned the other three.
Kallen's pupils contracted. As an inheritor of the ancient Saiyan Clan, he had never heard of this ancient history.
Golden Full-Power Super Saiyan's body shuddered. Within his memories of countless ages, several indistinct fragments from ancient times surfaced, confirming Lin Chen's words.
For the first time, genuine astonishment appeared on Frieza's icy face.
He had dominated the galaxy and studied countless ancient texts and civilizational secrets. He had always believed this universe had been low-dimensional and insignificant from the start, never imagining that it had once been an ancient powerhouse, forcibly cast down to a lower dimension!
"Our dimension was sealed, our dominion stolen, and our origin locked away. That's why our power has always been limited, and we've never been able to reach the laws of higher dimensions."
Lin Chen spoke faster and faster, his eyes blazing.
"The Chaos Race can invade across realms, and those powerful factions of the Heavens can spy on us from beyond the barrier because they control the dominion of higher dimensions. But if we can reactivate the ancient seal on this universe's realm and reclaim the dimensional dominion we lost, we can reverse the difference between high and low dimensions and use our own heavenly power to suppress every invader from beyond!"
This was their only path to survival, their only way to turn the tide.
They wouldn't resist the heavenly order with their own strength. They would awaken the heavenly order of their own world!
But as soon as the words left his mouth, an incomparably strange and icy piece of ancient, forbidden knowledge suddenly erupted deep in Lin Chen's mind.
A final secret, forcibly sealed away by his ancestor and forbidden to be touched, had been unlocked in this desperate moment.
Lin Chen's face turned from resolute to deathly pale.
He froze in place, his blood nearly turning to ice. A chill far worse than anything he had felt facing the Chaos King seeped into every limb.
The other three immediately noticed something was wrong.
"What is it?" Kallen asked urgently.
Lin Chen stared blankly into the deepest part of the dimensional barrier, at the seven silent shadows of the Heavens. His lips trembled slightly, and his voice came out dry and hoarse, trembling with disbelief.
"I know... why this universe was cast down to a lower dimension and stripped of its dominion."
"The ancient war among the Heavens wasn't started by foreign enemies who shattered our universe's dimension."
"It was—our own universe. In ancient times, we betrayed the order of the Heavens and tried to devour the origins of the Outer Realm's Heavens. We enraged the myriad races, who joined forces to invade our realm, cast us into the dust, and imprison us for all eternity!"
Before his words had even faded, the air throughout the world suddenly froze.
And an even more horrifying forbidden vision surged into Lin Chen's mind through his ancient bloodline—
Billions of years ago, the masterminds who had joined forces to shatter this universe, strip away its dimensional dominion, and create an eternal prison were none other than the Seven Supremes of the Outer Realm—those who were now spying across the barrier, feigning detachment.
The three days of respite they had been given were not a chance to survive.
The Seven Supremes were waiting for this universe to reactivate its ancient forbidden art and awaken its realm's origin, so they could use the four of them to completely eliminate the lingering danger of the ancient backlash.
This game had been laid out the moment this universe lost the ancient war, billions of years ago.
Every one of them had been nothing more than a sacrifice, there to settle the ancient game's final score!
Before you continue