SSJ4 Black flashed in front of Gohan and clamped a hand around his throat. A playful smile tugged at his lips.
"Son Gohan… do you want to know what happened to your family in the end?"
Gohan gritted his teeth. "Dad… Mom…"
"I didn't just kill them," SSJ4 Black said lightly. "I killed your wife and your child too."
"Your daughter was so naïve. Even when I killed her with my own hands… she still believed she could wake me up."
"My… daughter?" Two streams of blood-red tears burst from Gohan's eyes. His pupils turned feral, like a beast forced to the edge of a cliff.
"She kept repeating, 'Grandpa, did you forget me?'" SSJ4 Black chuckled. "Humans really are stupid."
"So before I kill all of you, I'm going to make everyone understand what fear is. What despair is."
"Son Gohan… I'll make you watch your loved ones die one by one."
A streak of light shot from his fingertip and pierced Videl straight through.
"VIDEL!"
Mr. Satan screamed.
"In other timelines, this woman is your wife." SSJ4 Black's mouth curled into a twisted arc. "Heh… heh heh…"
Gohan's pained gaze suddenly went out of focus.
In that moment, SSJ4 Black's savage laughter echoed again and again inside his skull.
A roar blended with rage and despair tore from Gohan's chest.
"You bastard… I'll never forgive you!"
"I will never let you go!"
"AAAAAAAHHHH !"
Then, in an instant
Gohan changed.
A mountain-deep, abyss-heavy aura exploded from his body, forming a brilliant violet domain around him.
In his blood-tear eyes, fury ignited into madness. Silver-gray hair shot upward like steel needles, bristling toward the sky.
The violent pressure warped space around him. Lightning arced and cracked in every direction.
The entire Earth trembled.
The Earth warriors stared at Gohan's transformation, stunned beyond words.
"Red pupils… white brows… white hair?"
"This ki… it's so vast it's indescribable. You could probably feel it across the entire universe…"
"Don't tell me Gohan… broke past the limit of the Ultimate form… and even… surpassed Super Saiyan 4?!"
"Levos said Gohan had the greatest talent… he wasn't lying…"
"Gohan… can he win?"
SSJ4 Black instinctively loosened his grip. His expression turned grave.
"Y-you… what did you become?!"
Gohan lifted his eyes. Endless killing intent churned inside them.
"What did I become?" he said coldly. "I simply broke the limit I used to have."
He vanished from where he stood.
A single punch swung out.
Space around SSJ4 Black tore open into countless fractures
BOOM!
His divine halo shattered into flying shards.
SSJ4 Black didn't even have time to react before he was sent crashing into the ground, carving a deep ravine as he skidded.
He stared in horror.
"One punch… you shattered my halo?!"
Gohan crushed the pair of earrings in his palm into glittering dust, his voice low and flat.
"So you really did have that kind of move hidden…"
"When?!" SSJ4 Black clawed at his chest.
The Potara earrings he'd kept on him were gone.
Only after a long beat did he steady himself.
That move hadn't even been meant for Gohan. He'd only planned to fuse with Baby if he ran into Levos.
Besides, his two teammates were far from weak if anything, they'd been boosted beyond expectations.
Baby had already parasitized several people on the battlefield.
Omega Shenron had absorbed plenty of Dragon Ball negative energy.
SSJ4 Black shot back up into the air, sneering.
"You think you can stop us alone?!"
The instant those words fell
Omega Shenron, Super Baby, and the parasitized Bio-Broly and Salza's trio all stormed onto the battlefield at once.
SSJ4 Black vanished.
When he reappeared, he was behind Gohan, ki blade stabbing straight in
Bang!
Gohan dropped his elbow.
SSJ4 Black's arm snapped then his chest took a punch so hard he coughed blood and flew backward.
The other enemies' attacks struck Gohan all at once.
Gohan's body swayed.
Then he roared.
A horrifying burst of energy erupted like a volcanic explosion, sweeping the entire battlefield in an instant.
The sheer pressure forced Baby's true body out the gray sludge that had burrowed into him was expelled violently.
Gohan's gaze sharpened. He drew on the power flooding through him
And with full force, his violet-flamed fist blasted straight through Omega Shenron's body!
Super Baby took a kick that shattered his left arm. His ribs caved in with a crack as he spat blood and was hurled away.
Then Gohan dropped one punch after another, knocking the parasitized Bio-Broly and Salza's trio unconscious.
Yamcha's jaw hung open so long it felt like it might never close.
Tien's tears poured down in three hot streams.
"Gohan's strength… it's reached this level…"
The others stared, shaken by the sheer dominance he'd displayed. Their hope surged back to life.
But Gohan didn't chase.
Instead, he rushed Videl still barely clinging to a thread of life over to Kibito.
Then he moved, one by one, searching for his fallen, gravely wounded friends.
"Damn it…" SSJ4 Black wiped his face. His pupils constricted. "I'm… bleeding…"
Until now, he'd never imagined Gohan could be this strong.
Not even while half-dead.
"No matter what," SSJ4 Black hissed, "not pressing your advantage nor escaping when you had the chance was your biggest mistake!"
He set his broken bones back into place, laughing coldly.
"Pity for the weak… that's the tragedy of mortals!"
"Let me tell you something. My trump cards aren't limited to Potara!"
A deeply unsettling aura rose up pure evil, darkness, savagery distilled to its limit…
"This is my… demonized form!"
His eye sockets sank. Blood-red demonic markings spread along both sides of his eyes.
Those cold amber slit pupils swept over Gohan's back.
SSJ4 Black's mouth stretched into a vicious grin.
"It's over. I'll show you the terrifying power of the Dark Demon Realm. Anyone killed by me in this form… their soul will be erased completely."
Two more similar auras ignited.
Omega Shenron and Super Baby unleashed demon power as well.
The Earth fighters felt like they were riding a roller coaster one second they saw victory, the next they were staring into a fresh abyss.
"Souls erased… that means Dragon Balls can't revive the dead!"
"Gohan, don't worry about us! Earth can't be saved let Kibito heal you!"
"We can all die, but you can't!"
"Gohan, listen run! Fighting with one arm is too much of a handicap. Kibito should still have the strength to teleport you away!"
"If no one survives," Gohan said stubbornly, shaking his head, "then there's no point saving Earth."
Instead, he shared a portion of his ki with everyone.
"You…" Tien froze. Then he laughed softly.
Just like a kid Piccolo raised calm, rational… and steady.
Even now, he was quietly gathering energy for a single killing blow.
Omega Shenron and Super Baby regrouped beside SSJ4 Black.
All three were badly injured. They chose to recover first instead of rushing.
Time ticked by.
Gohan never turned around.
As SSJ4 Black's demonized face finished mending, it twisted further and further.
"A mere mortal… dares ignore me?! Then be destroyed!"
Countless crystalline energy bullets rained down like a storm.
"Your scheme… ends with me!"
Gohan whipped around. Two fingers pressed to his forehead, a dazzling light forming there so bright it felt like every light in the world was gathering into that single point.
"Special Beam…"
"LIGHT KILL CANNON !"
HUM !
The spiraling beam obliterated everything in its path and speared straight through SSJ4 Black's head.
The slurry that sprayed out vaporized in an instant.
SSJ4 Black's body dropped into the dust, disbelief frozen permanently on his face.
"How?! How can a worm unleash power this terrifying?!" Demonized Omega Shenron couldn't believe what he was seeing and dread erupted inside him.
"Then perish with this planet reduced to dust!"
He fired a full-power shockwave straight at Earth.
A figure stepped in front of it.
With his remaining hand, he finished gathering energy in an instant.
"Ka… me… ha… me… ha…"
"HAAA!"
"What?! That's impossible!!"
At the moment the shockwaves collided, Omega Shenron finally understood the overwhelming gap between them.
His blast didn't last even a heartbeat before it was swallowed whole by the Kamehameha.
Omega Shenron vanished into the light erased into the starry void.
Demonized Super Baby's eyelids twitched violently.
He saw the artificial moon hanging high above
And immediately absorbed Blutz Waves with everything he had.
"I won't lose… I still have my final method!"
Crack crack crack
Bones snapped and surged as his body expanded.
Great Ape Super Baby was born.
His blood-red eyes locked onto Gohan as he threw his full-strength punch.
"We Tuffles will rule the world at last!"
BOOM!
Gohan casually caught the giant fist with his one hand then kicked.
Great Ape Baby's fur stood on end.
A hole blasted clean through his thick chest as he howled.
Baby's eyes widened in horror. He turned and ran.
"Trying to run?!"
Gohan flashed in front of him, blocking his path. His right fist rose and slammed down.
CRACK!
Baby's skull caved in. His screams grew weaker and weaker as he crashed to the ground.
Gohan's gaze stayed cold. He punched again.
Baby's tail snapped, and the ape body shrank back down to normal.
Gohan didn't stop. He kept attacking.
Under repeated, crushing damage, Baby's true body finally abandoned the host and fled out.
Gohan lifted his right hand.
A ki blast had already formed in his palm.
"N-no !" Baby tried to block in panic.
A deep blue beam shoved him off Earth, blasted into space
And finally scattered into faint points of light.
The battlefield fell silent.
Looking at that towering, one-armed silhouette, the others couldn't speak for a long, long time.
Gohan lowered his arm and turned toward the mysterious masked Saiyan in the distance.
Then his vision blurred.
His body tipped backward.
"I've… got no strength left…"
At that exact moment, two broad hands caught him.
Piccolo's face was dark as storm clouds.
Even the usually carefree Goku was deadly serious.
An invisible pressure rose from them both.
Feeling that familiar, safe ki, Gohan smiled full of longing.
"Dad… did I do it?"
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