Levos swept the field. Under Majin Buu's healing, everyone had returned to peak condition and stood ready to move.
He nodded, solemn and sure. "Relax. This time I know exactly what to do."
A faint smile touched Vados' lips as she flicked her staff.
The halo faded and time surged forward.
In the next heartbeat, everyone burst toward their targets.
Levos kept to his Mechanical Form and streaked ahead.
In a blink he was in front of Rose Vegito.
Shock flashed in his opponent's eyes as Levos' silver fist landed clean.
Boom.
The blast rolled out in a crushing wave. Stone shattered and fountained in all directions.
Rose Vegito's chest caved. His pupils went glassy. His waist-length rose hair snapped back to normal as his body crumpled.
That one punch carried enough force to pulp him outright. But in Mechanical Form, Levos could place every ounce of power with surgical precision.
He could end Rose Vegito's ability to fight without killing him.
So, unlike last time, he spared the man a sliver of life.
His tail flicked and drew in a nearby Fused Zamasu.
Hauling the unconscious Rose Vegito, Levos arrowed for the temple.
Inside the palace, the spectators were lost.
"What just happened? Where did everyone go?" Yajirobe rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
A moment later he started counting. "Trankon, Frieza, Piccolo, Gohan, Trunks, Bulma… they're all gone!"
"No, look. They just popped up over there. Are my old eyes playing tricks on me…" The Elder Kai frowned, baffled.
Supreme Kai Shin stared at his hands, shaken. "This is bad, Elder. My Potara earrings have vanished."
"I was holding them a second ago, about to take them to Piccolo and Frieza…"
"How could this happen?"
Cooler's mecha squad, Dabura, and the other fighters were thrown into confusion. Their partners had disappeared from their sides without warning. No one could make sense of it.
Across the field, all the Fused Zamasu—and Rose Gogeta and Rose Broly as well—were searching for opponents who had abruptly slipped from sight.
Order reasserted itself just as quickly.
Champa and Rose Gogeta crashed together again, shattering space by the dozen.
Vados lingered near Rose Broly, unhurried and serene, batting aside the planet-buster spheres he hurled at the Sacred World of the Kais.
Trankon, Truhan, Frieza, Majin Buu, and Piccolo rematerialized at the temple and plunged back into battle with the Fused Zamasu.
"Something's wrong. Very wrong. Why are Bulma, 18, Cooler, Gohan, and Trunks missing?"
"And who is that new guy…"
"Elder, do those earrings look like my Potara?" Shin pointed toward Truhan in the distance.
"They certainly do… Just who is he?" The Elder Kai peered for several seconds, more perplexed than ever.
Then a figure arrived at the temple with Rose Vegito dangling from one hand.
Relief broke across every face.
"Levos!"
"He has gotten stronger again…" The Elder Kai's brows knit as a thoughtful look crossed his face.
The Fused Zamasu clones took one look at Levos striding onto the terrace with Rose Vegito in his grip and their pupils pinpricked.
All of them spun and bolted.
A burst of green light tore across the sky.
Every Fused Zamasu near the temple screamed as the vortex of the Mafuba swallowed them up.
One after another they poured into Levos' tail.
In an instant, his reserves swelled full to bursting.
He sealed Rose Vegito into a vessel with the Mafuba, then took a stack of sealing talismans that Piccolo had inked by hand.
He pasted them on in layers, a matryoshka of charms.
When he finished, he passed the sealed vessel to Piccolo.
Understanding, Piccolo nodded. "If the seal loosens, I'll just keep nesting the seals and repeat the process."
Levos inclined his head.
Then he shot toward the duel between Rose Gogeta and Champa.
Gogeta was reputed to wield power beyond a God of Destruction. This Rose Gogeta did not carry the tempering and teamwork of his two halves, but the body itself was still theirs.
After prolonged, brutal fighting and several near-death surges, it was no surprise his power could eclipse a Destroyer's.
And Champa, among the Destroyers, stood near the bottom. He rarely trained. Worse, this was not his own universe; he could not fight with true abandon.
The result was a deadlock. Neither could put the other away.
Even so, their clash looked like the end of the world.
Levos arrived to find them still tearing at each other, space buckling and collapsing around them.
Seeing the interloper, Rose Gogeta's gaze tightened and hate flooded his face.
"Despicable mortal. Die." He dropped Champa at once and lunged for Levos, intending to remove the easier prey first.
His punch found nothing.
Levos' figure blurred to nothingness.
A rush of wind slammed into Rose Gogeta's back.
Pfft—
Blood leaped from his mouth. Agony knifed through his lower back. He tumbled out of the sky.
"How… how is this possible?" His eyes bulged. "Our power is worlds apart."
As he twisted to find his foe, something cinched around his neck.
A dull blow fell. The world went dark.
His last stunned thought before he blacked out was simple disbelief. He had not been able to read a single strike. The gap was absolute.
Levos did not linger. He flashed back to the temple and dumped Rose Gogeta onto the plaza stones.
"Mr. Buu, heal him."
Levos' tone was flat.
Shock rippled through the defenders.
Frieza's expression went sour. "Mr. Levos, that creature is trouble precisely because Saiyans grow stronger after crawling back from death. This is the worst kind of tactic…"
"Levos, that is too risky," Truhan said at once. "Rose Gogeta is already terrifying."
Piccolo frowned, thinking fast. "I do not understand your reason, but this is part of your plan, isn't it?"
"It is." Levos' voice was calm. "If I cannot kill Rose Broly in a single strike, we will simply replay what happened before."
He paused, then explained, "So I intend to raise Gogeta's power first, and then absorb him."
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