Ultra Divine Water, one of the sacred items in the Dragon Ball world for unlocking potential. A divine relic passed down on Earth since ancient times. Before Meruem arrived in the Dragon Ball world, countless masters and martial artists had tried it, but only Son Goku survived.
And had Meruem never come, Goku would still have been the only one to drink it and live. No matter how strong the enemies they later faced, no one would have thought to use Ultra Divine Water to unlock potential.
It is practically comparable to poison. There was even a claim that Goku's achievements in the Dragon Ball world were inseparable from his having drunk Ultra Divine Water.
Whether or not that is true, the Ultra Divine Water does have merits worthy of praise.
After all, Vegeta never drank it, Piccolo never drank it, and none of the remaining Dragon Ball fighters did either.
When Pitou wanted to drink Ultra Divine Water, Meruem tried to stop her, but her resolve was absolute. Helpless, Meruem stayed by her side. For three days and nights straight, Pitou suffered, and Meruem never left her side.
Just as Meruem was about to use the Dragon Balls to revive her if she failed, Pitou gritted through it.
Though the process was agonizing, the gains were immense. Pitou's ki and strength rose to an unbelievable level. It was downright unscientific, like flipping on a cheat. How much battle power?
Meruem couldn't tell, because the scouter by his eye, capped under one million, exploded during Pitou's power-up.
Pouf and Youpi didn't rise as absurdly as Pitou, but their battle power also increased dramatically.
What gave Meruem a headache was that pervert Pouf. After drinking the Ultra Divine Water, while unconscious, he kept calling Meruem's name.
What he dreamed in that coma, Meruem didn't know. He just got goosebumps all over.
Of course, the Twelve Stars of the Dark Division and Musashi also grew much stronger. Among those closest to Meruem, the only one who didn't drink Ultra Divine Water was Reiko.
She didn't have Pitou's tenacious grit, and Meruem didn't think she could endure it. So he strictly forbade Reiko from drinking it. He'd rather not have her power climb further. He didn't need her help in battle anyway. What if something happened?
And now, at last, it was Meruem's turn to drink this potential- and power-boosting Ultra Divine Water.
"King, I think you should reconsider. That stuff… is basically poison." As a close retainer, Youpi stepped forward first to stop him the moment he heard Meruem planned to drink it. He knew well the agony of hovering on the brink of drowning in an instant, even if the gains were enormous.
Butterfly pervert Pouf also tried to dissuade him. Both knelt on one knee before Meruem.
"You endured it—why wouldn't I? Or do you think you can do it but I cannot?" With his back to Pouf and Youpi, Meruem didn't punish them, but countered with a question.
This was Meruem's palace, on the former Bigao Star. At some point, a steel palace had risen at the very center of Bigao Star. It had been built by the Bigao Star to welcome its new master, Meruem, and now served as the Chimera Ant army's headquarters.
There were, of course, many Chimera Ants scattered across other planets, continually plundering everything.
"We wouldn't dare. You are the most perfect and the strongest; nothing in this world is beyond you. It's just that this thing is too dangerous. We fear…" Pouf and Youpi both insisted they didn't dare, yet still tried to dissuade Meruem.
"Pitou. Why aren't you trying to stop me like they are?" Meruem ignored the two and instead looked to Pitou, who was gazing silently at the sky.
"If it's what you want to do, I won't stop you. If you fail… I'll go with you." Pitou looked up at Meruem with her big eyes and spoke word by word, her eyes practically speaking for her.
Unlike the others, she pledged loyalty to Meruem the man; perhaps by now it had become love. And that was what Meruem liked most about Pitou. "Go with you"—those four words said it all. Failure meant death; if Meruem died, Pitou would not live on in this world.
By "together," she meant a funerary sacrifice.
"So for my sake, and yours—please don't fail."
"I promise." Ignoring the shamed pair to the side, he pulled Pitou into his arms, quietly savoring her body heat and greedily inhaling her scent.
If a woman could win such a man, what more could she ask?
So I must become stronger. I am still not strong enough. I want to protect everyone around me. I don't want to lose the people beside me ever again. If I endure the Ultra Divine Water, I will be reborn once more.
Whether gods or demons, I will wipe them all out.
"Aaahhh!" A heart-rending cry tore from the darkest depths of the cold mechanical palace. No outsider could ever imagine the pain that could wring such a despairing roar from someone.
"It's been seven whole days! Seven days! Why isn't it over? Tell me! Isn't it normally just three? Why has the King gone seven full days?" A red-skinned muscleman smashed a nearby pillar with one furious punch in the palace's outer halls.
"If I'd known, I would never have let the King drink that stuff!"
"What good is saying that now? Doesn't this prove he's no ordinary person? Seven days… one more hour and it'll be seven days and seven nights…" A winged butterfly-man murmured.
"Pouf, do you want to die?" Youpi glared at Pouf, eyes bloodshot, veins bulging on his brow, his body trembling—one poke and he'd explode.
"Try me, Youpi." Pouf's mental state was no better, his eyes bloodshot. Their words and demeanor were nothing like usual, and they could come to blows at any moment.
"Shut up. Both of you wait." A killing intent so strong it made them tremble, and a vast, overwhelming ki, crushed the two bristling men flat.
It was pure force that suppressed them. It was Pitou's ki. And her expression was more terrifying than theirs.
To be precise, her whole face was a patch of pitch black, only two abyssal, blood-red eyes showing. A primal, behemoth's murderous aura poured off her.
Simply put, when Meruem stood by their side, or was safe in their hearts, they were no different than normal people—just like in the original story, where Knuckle and Youpi even traded blows and grew to understand each other. But if Meruem's life was threatened, they would go dark.
No one knew what they would do if Meruem truly died. They might even drag the entire world into his funeral.
Pain. Bone-deep pain. As if his whole body were being ground into powder. As if his body were shattered and reassembled… But I can feel it. Power. Power is continuously rising.
But I feel like I'm about to lose all sense of myself.
"Aaaaaaah!" With another cry of agony, Meruem's voice had turned hoarse. If not for the undeniable sensation of his power continuously growing, he might have killed himself to end the pain.
The stronger you are, the greater the pain you bear—and the greater the power you gain. That is the Ultra Divine Water's might, especially since the bottle Meruem drank earlier was the finest of the Ultra Divine Waters, with a concentration ten times the usual. The pain, of course, multiplied.
He hadn't told them that before drinking it. He had to grow stronger. Whether Pitou or Reiko, or those loyal subordinates—he would protect them all.
In his previous life, he had nothing and didn't care to live; in this one, he had gained everything he wanted, so he would protect it at any cost.
That is Meruem's obsession—an obsession that is also a belief. And belief has limitless power.
"Come on, come on, come on… heh-heh-heh-heh. Let me see my limits." Frieza, Champa, whatever so-called gods who toy with others' fates—I'll make you all kneel beneath my feet.
Until his throat was so raw he could make no sound, until his body felt nothing at all, like a truly dead thing…
"The King's ki… it's fading!" The three outside the steel palace cried out in unison, and rushed straight toward Meruem's chamber.
They beheld a body so withered it seemed it would crumble to dust at a touch.
"King!!!!" Tears burst from the eyes of the three Royal Guards.
Pain. A pain beyond bearing. Pitou felt the sky crack and fall. The King was dead. There was nothing left in this world worth lingering for.
In a daze, Pitou raised her sharp claws and slowly drew them toward her chest.
"Hey—why are you three bawling over the husk I shed?"
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