After a long silence, Broly slowly raised his head, his teeth clenched. "I give up."
The moment those words left his mouth, he surrendered all his dignity and future.
He understood what they meant. It was simply that the pride in his bones wouldn't let him deny or dispute them.
As for serving Barros from now on? Though he still felt some reluctance, he wasn't ashamed.
After all, Barros was the Saiyan Emperor, an unparalleled powerhouse far beyond his own strength.
In this vast universe, where the strong preyed on the weak and strength ruled all, bowing to someone stronger had never been a disgrace. It was the clearest choice one could make.
By admitting defeat himself, Broly understood exactly what it meant.
Barros had no intention of going through the motions and immediately laid out the terms of submission.
Broly had expected this. He remained calm and didn't resist.
However, he had one request—
One that left Barros momentarily stunned before he had no choice but to agree:
He wanted to keep his senses and not let the increasingly violent, ever more uncontrollable rage gradually consume his reason.
In truth, Broly had noticed it long ago. As he grew older...
The power within him had surged, and at the same time, the frenzied energy was slowly eating away at his sanity.
At first, he'd had little urge to destroy anything.
But as soon as his power had exploded, he'd raised a hand and blasted a planet into a cloud of stardust!
No one wanted to become a bloodthirsty beast, and Broly was no exception.
But he had no one around him to confide in, nor any companions to stand by his side.
Only when he bowed to Barros and pledged his allegiance did he bring up the knot that had tormented him for years—begging Barros to sever the root of his loss of control!
It could hardly be called a "request."
Now that Broly had submitted, Barros would help him regardless.
After all, he wanted the legendary Super Saiyan, who possessed both reason and strength—not a mad beast that knew only how to vent its fury, devoid of all awareness!!
Of course, Barros knew that keeping Broly's mind from being consumed by his rage would be no easy task.
He could say with certainty that the Shenron on Earth lacked the power to steady Broly's mind.
And if Broly set foot on Earth, just seeing the still-young Goku would make him fly into a rage on the spot!
Kakarot, who had been a baby, lying beside him and whimpering until Broly's eyes had grown sore...
Broly remembered him all too well. He had never forgotten!!
After teleporting with Broly back to the Divine Martial Battle Star, Barros hadn't yet had time to gather the Saiyans and introduce their new member
when something suddenly occurred to him:
The Neural Tree Fruit was formed from the life essence and spiritual energy of an entire planet.
It might not be able to eradicate the violent energy within Broly, but it should at least be able to soothe and suppress it!
As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he tossed out a Universal Capsule. It hit the ground with a snap and unfolded, revealing a fruit patterned with blue and gold!
He handed the fruit to the wary Broly and said gravely, "Try a bite. See if it can suppress the agitation inside you!"
Broly studied the fruit in his hand. Even as a born Super Saiyan, he couldn't help swallowing at its crisp, sweet fragrance. Without a word, he stuffed it into his mouth.
Fshh—whoosh!
A pure-white aura abruptly surged up and enveloped him.
Then, under Barros's close watch, Broly's aura began to steadily rise.
The increase wasn't large, but it was a solid hundred thousand or more!
Barros rubbed his forehead and was left utterly speechless!
They were both Saiyans with over a million in battle power, and both had eaten a Neural Tree Fruit—
He'd gained only eighty thousand, while Broly had gained more than a hundred thousand even as the fruit merely calmed him down!!
After a moment of silence, Barros simply grabbed a dozen or so fruits, stuffed them into another Universal Capsule, and tossed it to Broly, whose eyes were shining. "Since they work, keep these with you. The moment your head starts to feel hot or your hands and feet start itching, chew one—or a few—right away!"
At the end, the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.
The Neural Tree Fruit, an energy source comparable to a planet, had somehow become Broly's "calming pill." What a waste!!
Unfortunately, there was no safer solution for now, so Barros could only rely on it to keep Broly stable...
He glanced sideways at Broly and put away the capsule, already thinking about how to handle this hot potato.
After weighing the options, he could see only two viable paths:
First, find Namek and ask Porunga to make a wish, to see if he could fundamentally temper Broly's violent energy;
Second, dig up the mysterious disc called "Primordial Dao-Nurturing" from the depths of his mind and see if it had a solution!!
There was no need to rush. For Barros, the priority was to get Broly settled!
Broly was dangerously unstable, while the Saiyans were all hot-tempered and spoiling for a fight.
Throwing Broly in among them would be like tossing a spark into a pile of kindling.
After weighing it again and again, Barros realized that there was nowhere else on the Divine Martial Battle Star safe enough for Broly besides keeping him under his watch.
In the end, he reluctantly made his decision: Broly would stay on the right side of the Imperial Hall!
The Divine Martial Emperor Barros lived in the center of the Imperial Hall, while the left wing belonged to the sisters Xuesaiya and Xuesaili.
The right wing had been vacant for a long time. Now, it would have to go to Broly.
Barros didn't know that as he turned away, Broly clutched the Universal Capsule in his hand and watched the exalted Divine Martial Emperor personally arrange everything for him. A trace of long-forgotten warmth quietly flickered in his eyes.
Half an hour later, Broly's residence was finally ready.
Barros called over a Saiyan and ordered him to prepare everything Broly would need—from standard-issue battle armor to a personal communicator. Only after everything had been provided did he leave.
A golden-scaled carp is no ordinary pond fish; with wind and clouds, it transforms into a dragon!
Earth's Dragon Balls had just granted a wish. It would be a year before they could be gathered again and return to their Dragon Ball form.
Expecting them to locate Namek anytime soon was clearly unrealistic.
Too many things could change in a year.
Besides, Barros wasn't sure whether Porunga on Namek could truly tame the constant torrent of violent energy surging out of Broly.
So he could only turn once more to the ancient disc in his sea of consciousness, the one called "Primordial Dao-Nurturing."
The moment the thought crossed his mind, the disc suddenly flared with power and pulled him straight into an unfamiliar world.
It was a time and place he knew all too well.
A world called "Fengyun."
Five divine beasts guarded the eight corners of the world: the Fire Qilin dwelled in Soaring Cloud Cave, the Phoenix roosted on Undying Mountain, the Flood Dragon lurked in the East Sea, the Black Tortoise slept in the Far North, and the White Tiger roared in the Far West.
The Azure Dragon in the east, the White Tiger in the west, the Vermilion Bird in the south, the Black Tortoise in the north, and the Qilin at the center guarding the Dragon Vein—together, they were known as the Five Spirits of Heaven and Earth!
The abundance of divine beasts in this world was in no way inferior to that of an ordinary low-tier immortal cultivation realm.
It was also filled with rare treasures and remarkable talents, with unpredictable opportunities and dangers lurking everywhere.
There was Mud Bodhisattva, whose fate-reading skills were said to defy heaven; Emperor Shitian, who had lived for over a thousand years; a half-immortal hiding in Fengxi Village; Nameless, a legend of the martial world; Wu Wudi, the foremost of the Ten Strongest Warriors; and even gods and demons...
Martial arts had reached the absolute peak in this world, and the path to immortality was no longer an empty fantasy.
By comparison, the Legend of the Condor Heroes World was like heaven and earth apart, a difference of tens of thousands of miles!
Looking down at the heads of the two Buddha statues beneath his feet, he saw a supreme battle unfolding there.
Barros had no need to ask anyone where he was, nor to waste time guessing.
He stood on empty air with his arms folded, his Sky Dance Art as steady as a rock. The life-and-death struggle between Xiong Ba and Nie Renwang was already reaching its final moments.
"Sweep away a thousand troops—slash!" Nie Renwang's eyes blazed with fury. The Snow Drinker Saber erupted with a silver-white blade aura dozens of yards long. One slash fell, cleaving the surging river before the Leshan Giant Buddha clean in two!
Barros's pupils contracted, and his heart jolted. One slash to cut a river, split mountains, and crack peaks!
Martial arts in this world had actually reached such heights?
Then the corners of his lips lifted, his smile deepening. The more flourishing the martial path, the greater the rewards he'd reap from this trip to Fengyun!
Below, Xiong Ba had dodged the blade and was now sweeping both palms through the air. In his hands, a perfectly round sphere of energy formed, gleaming like quicksilver and radiating life. "Three Parts Return to Origin Qi!"
Barros's gaze sharpened. Nie Renwang's defeat was all but certain. The Fire Qilin was about to appear!
Sure enough, the moment Nie Renwang was injured by the Three Parts Return to Origin Qi, scorching flames suddenly erupted from Soaring Cloud Cave. A searing wave of heat, carrying a terrifying aura, roared outward!
Before Nie Renwang could recover, the Fire Qilin sprang at him like lightning and clamped its jaws onto his shoulder. It didn't even spare Xiong Ba a glance. Turning, it raced into the depths of the cave.
"Feng'er, run! Don't avenge me!" Nie Renwang's hoarse, despairing cry echoed from inside the cave. Before his words had even faded, two small figures were blasted through the air and crashed heavily to the ground, unconscious.
Barros flashed forward and disappeared into Soaring Cloud Cave right before Xiong Ba's eyes.
He was so fast that Xiong Ba couldn't even catch sight of his afterimage before he was gone.
Once inside, Barros didn't rush after them. He simply followed the Fire Qilin from a distance as it carried Nie Renwang deeper into the cave.
The Fire Qilin in Soaring Cloud Cave had once been an auspicious spirit beast. But plagued by violent energy, it had become the "Fire Demon" everyone feared.
How many people knew that it was guarding the very foundation of the Dragon Vein beneath the Divine Land?
The violent baleful energy held down by the Dragon Vein gnawed at its mind day after day. If not for its pure bloodline and the nature of an ancient auspicious beast, it would have long since become a mad beast that knew only slaughter.
The terrain inside Soaring Cloud Cave was twisted and winding, its branching passages crisscrossing like a spiderweb.
If Barros hadn't kept the auras of the Fire Qilin and Nie Renwang locked in and followed close behind them,
finding the hidden Dragon Vein in this labyrinthine death trap would have meant tearing apart the entire mountainside and forcibly digging through it!
The winding path eventually came to an end. When Barros sensed the Fire Qilin stop, another aura quietly emerged—
Slightly weaker than the Fire Qilin's, but far stronger than Nie Renwang's, it carried a hint of steady experience.
Of course, in Barros's eyes, they were all no more than dust and ants.
The Fire Qilin opened its mouth and spat Nie Renwang onto the ground. Seeing him, Duan Shuai was clearly taken aback. "Brother Nie? How did it drag you in here?"
Nie Renwang had already been badly wounded by Xiong Ba. Then, all the way here, the flames around the Fire Qilin had scorched him until he was blackened and barely breathing.
But at the sound of that familiar voice, he still struggled to cough out a question. "Cough... Brother Duan? You... weren't you..."
Duan Shuai shook his head with a wry smile. "I'm not dead. I entered the cave years ago and learned its secret. I chose to stay and guard it, so the world believed that Duan Shuai, the Southern Qilin Sword Master, had perished."
Nie Renwang was astonished that Duan Shuai was still alive, but even more eager to ask, "A secret? What secret?"
Before he could finish, a chuckle rang out from the cave, followed by approaching footsteps. "Heh. The 'secret' Brother Duan mentioned is simply that this place holds the Dragon Vein of the Divine Land—the very heart of it!"
As the words fell, Barros's figure slowly appeared before the two men and the beast, his expression amused. "Am I right?"
Before you continue