Champa was trembling with rage, itching to destroy Frost on the spot, and regretting more than ever the rash promise he had made earlier.
After cautiously glancing toward the highest platform, Champa forced himself to calm down and asked through clenched teeth,
"What reward do you want?"
Frost clearly had this planned out. He answered without hesitation.
"I want to become Universe 6's candidate God of Destruction."
The moment those words left his mouth, not only Champa, but everyone else froze in shock at Frost's sheer audacity.
Levos was equally taken aback.
According to the original storyline, Frost never had ambitions this grand. All he wanted was Champa's sponsorship for his shady business ventures. His vision was narrow. Otherwise, he wouldn't have lost his head during the Tournament of Power, nor tried to attack Frieza from the stands after being eliminated.
So why did Frost suddenly demand the position of candidate God of Destruction?
What exactly was he plotting?
Champa took a deep breath, clearly suppressing his fury.
"Fine. From now on, you'll stay by my side. I'll train you personally."
After saying that, Champa collapsed into his seat, completely losing any desire to celebrate with ten bottles of soda.
Across the stands of the four participating universes, the mood was uniformly bleak.
Beerus was hopping mad.
"We should've won! This is all Frieza's fault for messing around!"
Frieza was still unconscious, his body covered in injuries, his right eye especially swollen and bruised.
Levos sighed and had Buu heal him.
When Frieza woke up, his gaze was unfocused.
Goku, with his usual clarity, explained everything that had happened.
"…Frieza, you were way too careless!"
Upon learning that he had lost due to Frost's poisoned needle ambush, Frieza clenched his fists, teeth grinding audibly.
When he heard that Frost had become a candidate God of Destruction, Frieza's anger deepened further.
Levos found Frieza's reaction strange.
Normally, wouldn't he immediately seek revenge? Or at least spit out some vicious threats?
The more Levos thought about it, the more certain he became.
I get it.
Becoming a candidate God of Destruction had clearly stimulated Frieza. He was planning to train like a madman in secret and settle the score later.
Case solved.
Damn it! Frieza, I'm begging you stop grinding!
With that thought, Levos immediately directed Cell Max in the extra space to "encourage" the recovering mini Cells.
"Squeak! Chitter! Whimper! Waaah !"
"If you don't want Uncle Frieza bullying you in the future, then train like your lives depend on it!" Levos barked viciously.
The mini Cells lined up, nodding like pecking chicks, then plunged into frenzied training.
"Please have the fighters for the second round step onto the arena."
After repairing the stage, the Grand Priest announced calmly.
"Piccolo, be careful. Hit isn't a simple opponent," Goku warned.
"Hmph." Piccolo smirked faintly and flew down from the stands.
"Go, Piccolo!"
The fighters for this round were Piccolo, Hit, Lavenda, and Murichim.
The most eye-catching among them was undoubtedly Hit, Universe 6's legendary assassin.
Not being matched against Hit was a small regret for Levos.
In the original story, Hit was Universe 6's strongest trump card by far, leagues above his teammates.
He possessed a unique ability: Time-Skip.
On his first appearance, he had easily defeated Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta before his Time-Skip even fully evolved.
And his true strength lay in assassination techniques, which he never had the chance to use in tournaments due to the rules.
In the anime-original Hit vs. Goku arc, when Hit finally used a killing technique, he "killed" a significantly stronger Super Saiyan Blue Goku with a single strike.
A terrifying opponent.
The outcome of this round was full of suspense.
As for Lavenda and Murichim, one was the second brother of Universe 9's Trio of Danger, the other a musclebound boxer.
Their strength wasn't even remotely comparable to Piccolo or Hit.
All fighters took their positions. The match began.
Hit stood with his hands in his pockets, unmoving, facing Piccolo.
The yellow-furred werewolf Lavenda spoke first,
"Hit, how about we team up and eliminate the Universe 7 fighter first?"
Hit replied coldly,
"He's my target. I don't need your help."
"You sure? I'm only weaker than my big brother," Lavenda said.
Hit sneered.
"You're not even worthy of being compared to him."
Veins bulged on Lavenda's forehead. He was clearly furious.
"Hmph! Arrogant bastard! Murichim, let's go!"
Lavenda lashed out immediately, flinging a cloud of poison mist at Hit.
Bang!
Two figures were hurled off the arena, crashing beyond the boundary.
"Lavenda eliminated! Murichim eliminated!"
Hit hadn't moved at all. His hands were still slanted casually in his coat pockets.
The two eliminated fighters looked utterly dazed. They hadn't seen what happened, nor did they know who knocked them out.
The entire sequence could only be described as abrupt.
Goku and Frieza exchanged looks midair.
"How did Hit attack?"
The audience buzzed with speculation.
"How was that possible?"
"There wasn't even a fluctuation in his aura!"
"What kind of technique is that?"
"That's Hit Universe 6's trump card!" Champa perked up slightly, then sighed. "Too bad he isn't fighting Levos…"
Piccolo frowned. The attack was completely beyond his expectations.
Was it pure speed?
No.
Every movement should leave traces unless…
Against such an opponent, the only choice was to go all out.
"Your technique is strange, but in the face of absolute power, you have no chance."
With those words, Piccolo unleashed his aura.
"HA !"
The antennae on his forehead stood upright. His pupils turned blood-red. His muscles swelled violently, his body taking on a deep orange hue.
The entire arena trembled under the berserk aura.
Piccolo flung off his cape and turban, revealing a body packed with explosive muscle.
Every pore radiated overwhelming power.
A raging gale swirled around Orange Piccolo.
The spectators were stunned once more.
"Another one?!"
"Does Universe 7 have god-level fighters everywhere now?"
"This aura is even stronger than Son Goku's!"
"What happened to Universe 7? How did it spawn so many monsters?"
"Can Hit still win?"
Lavenda and Murichim, already eliminated, felt a mix of relief and despair.
This was power they could never hope to contend with.
Toppo's expression darkened. So Goku hadn't been lying after all.
First Frieza, now Piccolo Universe 7 was unfathomably deep.
Yet Toppo still harbored doubts.
Goku had claimed he was the weakest among Universe 7's fighters, but Toppo couldn't see anything special about the chubby pink guy or the blue-haired girl.
Their physiques didn't resemble warriors at all.
Clenching his fist, Toppo murmured,
"Jiren… no wonder you train so relentlessly. You must've foreseen a world full of monsters like this."
On the arena, even Hit grew serious in the face of Piccolo's power.
"You're called Piccolo? Your strength exceeds my expectations," Hit said calmly. "But you still have no chance against me."
He took a single step.
Whoosh!
In the blink of an eye, Hit appeared in front of Piccolo.
"Here it comes!" Piccolo tensed, fully focused.
This time, he saw it Hit's hand had come out of his pocket.
Piccolo trusted his own speed.
"I can block this."
Thump!
A fist slammed into Piccolo's abdomen.
Piccolo was stunned. He had clearly guarded against it.
How did the punch break through?
He looked up at Hit.
"An illusion? A clone?"
"Wrong," Hit replied flatly.
Piccolo counterattacked immediately, but all his strikes missed.
"…What?"
His pupils shrank. Piccolo instantly pulled back, unwilling to engage in close combat before understanding the technique.
Hit sneered and punched the air.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The force of the punches crossed space and slammed into Piccolo's chest.
Piccolo's expression changed. He hadn't expected such an eerie ability.
"You're pretty durable," Hit said, mildly surprised. "Most would've already lost."
Piccolo stayed silent.
I'll have to force out his weakness.
They clashed again.
Hit's attacks were razor-sharp, his fists falling like rain, leaving bruises all over Piccolo's body.
Piccolo's counterattacks missed every time, as though all his moves were already predicted.
Yet he grew more patient with each exchange.
Once he found the flaw and cracked Hit's technique, victory would be his.
On Universe 7's stands, everyone looked grim.
Piccolo hadn't landed a single hit.
Levos was watching just as intently.
Time-Skip was an astonishing technique it could literally freeze time.
And the frozen time could be stored, allowing the user to move freely in a separate temporal space.
It was absurdly overpowered.
To counter Time-Skip, one had to accurately predict Hit's next action no easy task.
Another method, like Dyspo's in Universe 11, was to accelerate at the exact moment Time-Skip activated.
Piccolo lacked a speed advantage. Even knowing the mechanics, without real combat experience, defeating Hit would be extremely difficult.
This match depended entirely on Piccolo himself.
Meanwhile, Levos was already analyzing Time-Skip using Mecha Cell Max's immense computational power.
Even if it was a racial talent unique to Hit, it posed no real obstacle to Levos.
After all, among the dark humans absorbed by Cell Max were samples of this ability.
And with Levos's personal space already infused with Time Power by the Supreme Kai of Time, failing to learn Time-Skip here would be inexcusable.
The arena was ravaged by turbulence as the two fighters repositioned again and again, each clash sending shockwaves and fragments flying.
Hit held the advantage, but Piccolo was astonishingly tough.
"Even after separating from the mini Cells, Piccolo still surpasses Hit in raw power," Levos observed.
Others in Universe 7 were also analyzing Hit's strange combat style.
"Strange. No matter how fast you are, attacking should disturb space."
"But Hit's crucial movements and attacks leave no trace."
"Several position changes were like teleportation appearing and vanishing instantly."
Soon, both Goku and Frieza reached the same conclusion.
"Hit… controls time?!"
Piccolo realized it at the same moment.
"I get it now. Your attacks are impossible to track because you manipulate time, freely adjusting your position and angles during that interval."
Hit stopped and nodded calmly.
"Correct."
He then explained the effects of Time-Skip.
He could skip forward 0.1 seconds, moving and attacking freely during that frozen interval.
The technique was easy to use and consumed almost no stamina.
He could even store skipped time, creating a separate space where he could move at will.
"…Which is why you only ever hit the afterimages I leave in the real world. I approach you from another space and attack."
After hearing this, Piccolo frowned.
"If that's the case, aren't you worried I'll find a way to counter it and defeat you?"
"I look forward to you finding its flaw," Hit said coolly, hands back in his pockets. "But I should clarify one thing Time-Skip is not my true killing technique."
A chill ran through the audience.
Such an absurdly powerful skill and it wasn't even his trump card.
"Unbelievable. Universe 6 has monsters too!"
"Both Universe 6 and 7 have low mortal levels, yet so many experts."
"Maybe the more primitive a universe is, the more monsters it breeds?"
"Then what about Universe 9? Lowest development, yet their fighters were clearly inferior."
Hearing the discussion, Sidra, Universe 9's God of Destruction, could only sigh.
Their Supreme Kai, Roh, wished he could crawl into a hole and pretend he hadn't heard a thing.
For once, Champa straightened his back proudly.
"Hit! Finish off that Namekian already!"
"Oh? Not offering victory rewards this time, Lord Champa?" Vados teased with a smile.
Champa's good mood vanished instantly.
"You're so annoying, Vados!"
Understanding Time-Skip was only the first step. The real challenge was breaking it.
On the arena, Piccolo smiled with confidence. He already had a plan.
He flashed forward toward Hit.
This time, he didn't chase speed. Instead, he observed all spatial fluctuations across the entire arena.
As expected, he quickly spotted the anomaly.
Hit's true position was seven or eight body-lengths away from the afterimage he left behind.
With the enemy located, Piccolo moved to defend and counterattack simultaneously.
His right arm whipped forward, stretching like a massive serpent toward Hit's real position.
BOOM !
Piccolo's arm shook violently. When he reeled it back, a purple figure was bound tightly within it.
With his left fist, Piccolo swung straight for Hit's face.
Even with a 0.1-second time stop, there was no escaping this.
But in the next instant, Hit spoke calmly.
"Sorry. My technique has evolved."
Thud!
Piccolo's punch missed.
Hit's knife-hand struck precisely at the back of Piccolo's neck.
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