All Cumber wanted was a fight. No matter how strong his opponent was, he did not care.
Yet in the face of that punch, Full Metal Cell Max merely raised a single finger.
Bang!!!
Cumber's full-powered fist, heavy enough to shatter worlds, was stopped with effortless ease by that one finger.
A tremendous shockwave exploded outward from the two of them, crushing the entire metallic continent into a deep crater.
But just as the shockwave was about to turn into a raging storm and continue spreading, a barrier enveloped the entire space.
Electric arcs burst across its surface, then quickly faded.
Everything fell still again.
The battle energy had been completely absorbed within that sealed area.
"What?!"
Cumber's pupils shrank violently. He could not believe that his all-out blow had failed to leave even the slightest mark.
More terrifying still, a familiar yet strange force of suction was coming from the other party's palm, wildly plundering the energy inside his body.
"Your use of power is crude and inefficient."
Full Metal Cell Max delivered his evaluation. His other hand shifted into a blade and struck Cumber's neck with a speed the latter could not react to at all.
Bang!
Cumber collapsed, his life and death unknown.
A metallic hand reached down and lightly seized his neck.
Inside the blue crystal on Full Metal Cell Max's forehead, Cumber's figure flashed.
The next moment, a black-red evil aura erupted around him.
"An evil aura capable of influencing the minds of others. An interesting ability."
Just one exchange.
Cumber, one of the strongest fighters present, the ancient Evil Saiyan himself, had been defeated with absurd ease.
"Combat data acquired."
Full Metal Cell Max slowly withdrew his hand, then swept his gaze across everyone present. It lingered for a few seconds on Bardock and the "Monaka" at her side.
The entire area fell silent.
Everyone was completely shaken by what they had just witnessed.
Harts' face darkened. He knew Cumber's strength better than anyone. Among his team, Cumber was one of the top combatants, yet this suddenly born monster had defeated him so easily.
"Even Cumber was..."
Piccolo frowned, cold sweat beading on his forehead.
There was no solution.
That phrase rose in every mind.
Full Metal Cell Max simply stood there.
Yet an intangible pressure radiated from him, settling over every single person present.
In their eyes, he was the extension of this planet's will, the absolute ruler of this domain.
Cumber's fallen body was the clearest warning imaginable.
No one spoke.
Faced with something this terrifying, everyone felt a helplessness they had never known before.
And in that stifling silence, all eyes drifted, almost as if by instinct, toward the only person who had remained calm from beginning to end.
Levos.
He floated quietly in the air, looking at the mechanical construct calling itself Full Metal Cell Max without the slightest change in expression.
It was as if everything happening before him had nothing to do with him.
Or rather...
As if all of this had always been within his calculations.
And beneath that suffocating silence, deep within the planet's inner core, a war no one could see was raging with unmatched intensity.
Levos had long since immersed his mind in that battlefield.
The roots of the Universe Seed were battling Big Gete Star's core consciousness for control of the entire planet's energy core.
Big Gete Star was trying to use its terrifying analytical capacity to expel the foreign object embedded in it, the Universe Seed.
But the analysis that had never failed it before had fallen into a disadvantageous position in this contest.
At first, it analyzed the composition of those roots, intending to convert them into part of its own evolution.
But what the Universe Seed contained was the law of creation, the origin of life, a higher-dimensional principle beyond any computation.
At the same time, after fully fusing with the Supreme Kai Planet, it discovered that the world it had thought would carry it to the pinnacle of the universe had instead become its prison.
The sealing ability stemming from an Angel had nearly locked it here completely and forever.
And beyond that, two Supreme Kai of Time were watching from the outside, along with...
Zeno.
If not for the fact that someone had disguised Zeno's appearance, it would never have rushed to fuse with this planet so quickly.
Only after merging with the planet did it realize that.
Those beings all possessed the power to erase it entirely from the level of time and space.
What appeared to be two roads before it now had one path already cut off...
Levos could feel Big Gete Star's resistance weakening.
Part of that was likely because it had poured all of the power it could still use into forging Full Metal Cell Max.
But even more than that, it was because Big Gete Star itself had given up.
Through the Universe Seed, Levos had finally taken full control of the planet's core, gaining an inexhaustible energy source.
As for the birth of Full Metal Cell Max, that too had happened because Levos had allowed it.
At this moment, Levos was the only one present who could see the entire board. Everything was under control.
Still, he wanted to see what Full Metal Cell Max intended to do next.
On the planet's surface, Full Metal Cell Max was the one who finally broke the silence.
"An age of chaos should be brought to an end."
He turned toward Levos, the one secretly hiding the Seed of Life, the one competing with him for Big Gete Star.
"My core directive is evolution, and the most efficient evolution is built upon the most stable order. Mr. Levos, our objectives are essentially the same, and so I propose cooperation."
"Mr. Levos, do not believe his nonsense!"
Cooler pointed at Full Metal Cell Max.
"He made the same promise to me before, speaking of a future where we would rule the universe together. And what happened in the end?"
Years of effort and trust had turned to dust. His voice was thick with pain and unwillingness.
"Lord Cooler, my departure from you was a judgment based on reason, not emotion."
Full Metal Cell Max responded calmly.
"I acknowledge that my time with you was pleasant. I would change and reshape my ideas because of you. But logic told me that if I wished to evolve and grow faster, I had to leave you."
"Do you truly know what I sought? Compared to personal achievements like conquering the universe, I place higher value on the continued survival and self-optimization of the universe as a whole..."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over everyone present.
"Draining the pond to catch all the fish does not conform to the optimal strategy of evolution. What I require is an ecosystem capable of continuously generating high-quality combat data and stably providing energy, not a dead wasteland."
"This planet is now a perfect perpetual engine. It can provide nearly infinite energy to the entire universe and eliminate the root cause of conflict. It can also integrate magic and science, solving every disease and every unsolved problem."
"Or it can elevate all civilizations to an entirely new level, creating an ideal universe where no one needs to struggle merely to survive..."
"...and raise the mortal level of the entire universe."
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