The last thing Marcus Chen remembered was arguing on Reddit about whether Saitama could beat Goku, which in retrospect was a pretty pathetic way to spend his final moments among the living. He had been so passionately typing out a five-paragraph response about how Lord Boros from One Punch Man was criminally underrated when the massive heart attack struck him down at the ripe age of twenty-seven, killing him instantly while his fingers were still hovering over the keyboard, ready to explain the intricacies of Meteoric Burst to some ignorant fool who had dared to suggest that Boros was just another monster of the week.
The doctors would later tell his mother that it was a congenital heart defect that nobody had known about, a ticking time bomb that had finally gone off at the worst possible moment, and Marcus would have found it deeply ironic that he died of heart failure while getting his heart rate up over an anime debate if he had been conscious to appreciate the cosmic humor of it all.
But Marcus was not conscious, at least not in any way that made sense to him, because instead of finding himself in a black void or standing before some pearly gates or being reincarnated as a baby like in all those isekai light novels he had consumed by the dozens during his unemployed months, he found himself... awake.
That was the first strange thing.
The second strange thing was that he could feel power.
Not just a little bit of power, not the kind of power you feel after a good workout or a strong cup of coffee, but POWER, the kind of power that made every cell in his body—and he immediately noticed that his body felt very, very different—sing with barely contained energy that seemed to want to explode outward in every direction at once. It was like someone had taken the sun and compressed it into a physical form and then told that form that it was Marcus Chen, twenty-seven-year-old unemployed anime enthusiast and former accounting major who had dropped out in his junior year because numbers made his head hurt.
The third strange thing was that when he opened his eye—singular, he noted with growing confusion and a creeping sense of existential dread—he saw King Vegeta kneeling before him.
Now, Marcus had watched Dragon Ball Z when he was a kid, and he had rewatched Dragon Ball Super as an adult, and he had consumed enough Dragon Ball content to know exactly who King Vegeta was. The man was unmistakable with his widow's peak, his royal Saiyan armor, his cape, his goatee, and his general aura of someone who thought they were the most important person in the room despite the fact that they were currently prostrating themselves before someone else.
King Vegeta was kneeling.
Before him.
Before MARCUS.
"Lord Boros," King Vegeta said, and his voice was tight with barely concealed rage and humiliation, the voice of a proud king who had been forced to bend the knee to a superior power, "the preparations for the Kanassan mission have been completed as you requested. The elite squad will depart within the hour."
Marcus did not respond immediately because Marcus was too busy having a complete and total mental breakdown inside his own head while outwardly maintaining what he desperately hoped was an expression of cool, detached superiority.
Lord Boros.
He was Lord Boros.
He was LORD BOROS, the Dominator of the Universe from One Punch Man, the alien conqueror who had searched the cosmos for twenty years looking for a worthy opponent, the being who had been prophesied to find a match on Earth, the creature who could kick so hard he sent people to the moon, the warrior whose Meteoric Burst form burned through his own life force to achieve speeds and power that defied comprehension.
He was Lord Boros, except he was apparently Lord Boros in the Dragon Ball universe, which should not have been possible because those were two completely different anime from two completely different creators with two completely different power systems, and yet here he was, sitting on what felt like a throne—yes, he was definitely sitting on a throne, he could feel the cold metal beneath him and the way his body was positioned in a pose of casual dominance—while the King of all Saiyans knelt before him like a particularly well-dressed servant.
Marcus wanted to scream.
Marcus wanted to laugh.
Marcus wanted to pinch himself and wake up from this fever dream.
But Marcus did none of those things because some deep, instinctual part of him—a part that felt ancient and powerful and utterly alien—told him that showing weakness now would be catastrophic, that the being before him was a predator who would strike at the first sign of vulnerability, that maintaining the facade of the Dominator of the Universe was not just a good idea but a matter of survival.
So instead of screaming or laughing or pinching himself, Marcus—Lord Boros, he had to think of himself as Lord Boros now, he had to BE Lord Boros in every way that mattered—simply inclined his head in a gesture of acknowledgment and said, "Good."
His voice was not his voice.
His voice was deep and resonant and carried the weight of millennia of conquest, a voice that had ordered the destruction of entire civilizations and the enslavement of countless worlds, a voice that expected obedience and received it without question. It was the voice of Boros, the true voice, and Marcus felt it vibrate through a chest that was far too large and far too powerful to be anything human.
King Vegeta remained kneeling, and Marcus could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands were clenched into fists at his sides, the barely perceptible tremor of rage that ran through his body. This was a man who was used to being the one in charge, the one who commanded armies and destroyed planets and ruled over a warrior race that had conquered dozens of worlds. This was a man who had never knelt before anyone in his life until Boros had arrived and demonstrated, in no uncertain terms, that the Saiyans were not the apex predators they believed themselves to be.
Marcus searched his new memories—because he had memories, he realized with a start, memories that were not his own but that felt as real and vivid as his own life experiences—and found the story of how Lord Boros had come to rule over the Saiyan race.
It had happened fifty years ago, according to the memories, which placed it long before the destruction of Planet Vegeta in the original timeline, long before Frieza had arrived to enslave the Saiyans and eventually destroy them out of fear of the Super Saiyan legend. But in this reality, in this twisted version of the Dragon Ball universe, Frieza did not exist. There was no Frieza, no Cold Empire, no Cooler or King Cold or any of the frost demons who had terrorized the galaxy in the canon timeline. There was only Boros and his Dark Matter Thieves, who had arrived at Planet Vegeta half a century ago and had challenged the Saiyan race to war.
The war had lasted three days.
The Saiyans were a proud warrior race, perhaps the proudest in the universe, and they had thrown everything they had at the invaders from beyond the stars. Great Apes had rampaged across battlefields lit by artificial moons, elite warriors had pushed their power levels to heights that had never been achieved before, King Vegeta himself had led charge after charge against the alien forces that had descended upon their world.
None of it had mattered.
Lord Boros had fought alone against the entire Saiyan army, and he had not even bothered to remove his armor.
The memories showed Marcus—showed Boros—the carnage of those three days, the way entire armies had been swept aside by casual gestures, the way the most powerful warriors the Saiyan race had ever produced had been defeated without their opponent even acknowledging them as threats. King Vegeta had challenged Boros personally on the third day, had transformed into his Great Ape form and unleashed every technique he knew, every ounce of power his body could produce, and Boros had stopped his strongest attack with a single finger.
After that, the Saiyans had surrendered.
Marcus felt the weight of those memories, the weight of conquest and domination, the weight of absolute power that had crushed an entire civilization beneath its heel. It was intoxicating and terrifying in equal measure, because he understood now that he was not just some random person who had been reincarnated into a powerful body. He was the RULER of the Saiyans, the being who had shaped the last fifty years of galactic history, the tyrant whose word was law across a thousand worlds.
He was Lord Boros, and Lord Boros was one of the most powerful beings in any fictional universe he had ever encountered.
And he was in Dragon Ball, where power levels meant everything and the strong ruled over the weak by divine right.
"You may rise," Marcus said, testing his voice again, letting the words roll off a tongue that felt too long and too flexible to be human. He had teeth, he realized, sharp teeth that could probably bite through steel, and his tongue was not pink but a deep purple color that matched his skin.
His skin.
His PURPLE skin.
Marcus wanted to see himself, wanted to find a mirror or a reflective surface or anything that would let him confirm what his memories and his body were telling him, but he forced himself to remain still on the throne because Lord Boros would not fidget, Lord Boros would not show uncertainty, Lord Boros would sit on his throne like the conqueror he was and regard his subordinates with the calm assurance of absolute power.
King Vegeta rose to his feet, and Marcus got his first good look at the man who would one day father Prince Vegeta, the rival of Goku, the Prince of all Saiyans who would become one of the most powerful warriors in the universe. King Vegeta was tall for a Saiyan, with the characteristic flame-shaped hair that his son would inherit, and he wore his royal armor with the kind of pride that came from being born into power and never having known anything else.
Until Boros had come, that is.
Now there was something broken behind those proud eyes, something that had been shattered fifty years ago when King Vegeta—then just a young prince—had watched his father, the previous King, challenge Boros and be destroyed so thoroughly that there had not even been a body left to bury.
"Is there anything else you require, Lord Boros?" King Vegeta asked, and his voice was controlled now, the rage tamped down beneath layers of survival instinct and hard-learned subservience. He had spent fifty years learning to hide his hatred, fifty years of bowing and scraping and playing the loyal servant while his people were used as attack dogs for the alien conqueror who had stolen their world.
Marcus considered the question, and as he considered it, more memories surfaced from the depths of his new mind.
The Dark Matter Thieves had not simply conquered the Saiyans; they had integrated them into their forces, recognizing that a race of natural-born warriors with the ability to grow stronger after every battle was too valuable a resource to waste. Under Boros's rule, the Saiyans had become the shock troops of an interstellar empire, sent to conquer worlds and clear planets for colonization, their brutal efficiency making them the most feared soldiers in the galaxy.
It was, Marcus realized with a sick feeling in his gut, almost exactly what Frieza had done in the original timeline.
Except Frieza had feared the Saiyans, had been terrified of the Super Saiyan legend to the point where he had eventually decided to destroy them all rather than risk one of them ascending to challenge him.
Boros did not fear the Saiyans.
Boros did not fear ANYTHING.
Because Boros was too powerful to fear anything, too far above the rest of the universe to consider any threat from the so-called warrior race that served as his soldiers. In his memories, Marcus could feel that power, could sense the vast reserves of energy that lay dormant within his new body, could almost taste the potential for destruction that coiled in every cell of his being.
He was, quite possibly, the most powerful being in the Dragon Ball universe as it currently existed.
That thought should have thrilled him. He had been reincarnated into a world of gods and monsters with the power to stand among them, to fight alongside Goku and Vegeta and all the other warriors whose battles he had watched with such fascination in his previous life. He could train, he could grow stronger, he could eventually face the likes of Beerus and Whis and maybe even Zeno himself.
But Marcus was not a fighter.
Marcus was a twenty-seven-year-old former accounting student who had spent more time watching anime than he had ever spent exercising, who had never been in a real fight in his entire life, who had died of a heart attack while typing an angry Reddit post about fictional characters punching each other really hard.
Marcus was terrified.
Not of anyone else—because who could threaten Lord Boros, who in this universe could possibly challenge the being who had conquered the Saiyans without breaking a sweat?—but of himself, of the memories that lurked in his mind, of the things that Boros had done over the centuries of his existence.
Because Boros was old.
Boros was VERY old.
The memories stretched back across millennia, an endless parade of conquests and battles and destroyed civilizations that had dared to oppose the Dominator of the Universe. Boros had been born on a world that no longer existed, had risen to power through blood and violence and the simple fact that he was stronger than everyone around him, had eventually grown so bored with his own invincibility that he had set out across the stars looking for someone, anyone, who could give him a real fight.
In the original One Punch Man timeline, that search had led him to Earth and to Saitama, the Caped Baldy, the hero for fun who could defeat any opponent with a single punch. Saitama had been everything Boros had been looking for, a being of such overwhelming power that their battle had been the first true challenge Boros had faced in decades.
But this was not the One Punch Man universe.
This was Dragon Ball, and Saitama did not exist here.
Instead, there was Goku, who was probably just a baby right now—no, wait, Marcus accessed his new memories again—who would be born in about fifteen years if the timeline matched the original canon. Goku was not even a twinkle in Bardock's eye yet, assuming Bardock was even alive at this point, assuming the timeline had not been changed so drastically by Boros's presence that the familiar story Marcus knew would never unfold.
The possibilities made Marcus's head spin, which was an interesting sensation to experience in a head that had a single massive eye in the center of it instead of two normal human eyes on either side.
He was a cyclops.
He was a one-eyed alien conqueror with the power to destroy planets.
He was LORD BOROS.
And King Vegeta was still standing in front of him, waiting for a response to a question that Marcus had completely forgotten because he had been too busy having an existential crisis.
"That will be all," Marcus said, hoping that was an appropriate response. "You may go."
King Vegeta bowed again—a shallow bow, just deep enough to show respect without sacrificing too much of his pride—and then turned and walked out of the throne room. His cape billowed behind him as he walked, and Marcus watched him go with the single eye that dominated his face, tracking the Saiyan King's movements with a clarity of vision that was almost disorienting.
His eye—THE eye, Boros's eye—could see everything. It could see the heat signature of King Vegeta's body, the slight fluctuations in his ki that indicated barely suppressed anger, the micro-expressions on his face that revealed a man who was already plotting revenge even as he walked away from the being who held his people's fate in his hands.
Marcus filed that information away for later, because he was going to need to be careful around the Saiyans. They were a race of warriors, and they had spent fifty years nursing a grudge against the alien who had conquered their world. One day, one of them would decide that the time was right to strike, to try to assassinate the tyrant who ruled over them, and Marcus needed to be ready for that day.
But that was a problem for later.
Right now, Marcus had a more immediate concern: figuring out where the hell he was and what he was supposed to do now.
The throne room was massive, easily the size of a football field, with ceilings that stretched up into darkness and walls that were decorated with trophies from a thousand conquered worlds. There were weapons and armor and strange artifacts, skulls of alien creatures and flags of defeated nations, all arranged in a display that spoke to centuries of conquest and domination. The throne itself was made of some kind of dark metal that seemed to absorb light, and it was positioned on a raised dais at the far end of the room so that anyone who entered would have to walk the entire length of the chamber under the watchful gaze of their lord and master.
It was, Marcus had to admit, pretty impressive interior design for an alien warlord.
He stood up from the throne, and the movement was smooth and effortless in a way that his old body had never been. This body was powerful, perfectly conditioned, every muscle and sinew honed by millennia of combat and training. He stood easily seven feet tall—maybe eight, it was hard to tell without a reference point—and his limbs were long and graceful, covered in that deep purple skin that looked almost black in the dim light of the throne room.
He looked down at his hands—three-fingered hands with sharp claws at the tips—and flexed them experimentally. The claws were sharp enough to cut through steel, he knew that from his memories, and the hands themselves could crush diamonds to powder without any effort at all. He was a weapon made flesh, a being of pure destructive potential, and yet the mind driving this weapon was that of a normal human who had never so much as thrown a punch in anger.
The disconnect was jarring.
Marcus walked—no, he GLIDED, his movements too smooth and graceful to be called walking—toward the nearest reflective surface he could find, a polished shield hanging on the wall that had once belonged to some forgotten warlord of a forgotten world. He stopped in front of it and stared at his reflection, and what he saw confirmed everything he had already suspected.
He was Boros.
The face looking back at him was unmistakably the face of Lord Boros from One Punch Man, with the single massive eye that dominated the center of his face, the pointed features, the lipless mouth filled with sharp teeth, the ridged ears that swept back along the sides of his head. His hair was a wild mane of light blue or perhaps white—it was hard to tell in this lighting—that flowed down his back like a cape, and he wore elaborate armor that covered his chest and shoulders but left his arms and legs mostly bare.
The armor was important, Marcus knew from his memories. It was a limiter, a device designed to contain the vast reserves of energy that his body produced naturally, keeping his power suppressed so that he did not accidentally destroy planets every time he sneezed. Without the armor, Boros's power would run wild, burning through his own life force at an accelerated rate but granting him access to levels of strength that were almost incomprehensible.
Meteoric Burst.
The thought sent a shiver down Marcus's spine, which was an odd sensation in a spine that was not human and might not even be structured the same way. In the original One Punch Man, Meteoric Burst had been Boros's ultimate form, the state where he released all of his limiters and unleashed his full power. It had been enough to kick Saitama to the moon, enough to regenerate from being reduced to a paste, enough to charge an attack that would have destroyed the entire planet if Saitama had not stopped it.
And Marcus had access to that form.
He had access to THAT MUCH POWER.
The thought was terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure, because Marcus was not a fighter but some deep, primal part of his new body remembered what it was like to fight, remembered the thrill of combat and the satisfaction of facing a worthy opponent. Boros had been a fighter to his core, a being whose entire existence had revolved around the search for challenge and the joy of battle, and those instincts were still there, lurking beneath the surface of Marcus's consciousness.
He could feel them now, those battle instincts, whispering to him about power and combat and the glory of warfare. They wanted him to fight, to seek out strong opponents and test himself against them, to embrace his new nature as the Dominator of the Universe and crush all who stood in his way.
Marcus told those instincts to shut up and went to find a bathroom.
It took him twenty minutes to locate the facilities, mostly because the ship—and he was on a ship, he realized, Boros's massive flagship that served as both his personal transport and the mobile headquarters of the Dark Matter Thieves—was labyrinthine and confusing and staffed by aliens who all immediately prostrated themselves whenever he came into view.
The bathroom, when he finally found it, was sized for a being of his stature and equipped with plumbing that he did not entirely understand but which functioned well enough for his purposes. He spent ten minutes in there, just staring at his reflection in the mirror, trying to come to terms with the fact that he was no longer Marcus Chen.
He was Lord Boros.
He was the Dominator of the Universe.
He was one of the most powerful beings in all of Dragon Ball.
And he had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do with any of that.
The knock on the door startled him out of his reverie, and he turned to face the entrance with a speed that would have given him whiplash in his old body. In this body, the movement was effortless, his new muscles responding to his intentions with a precision that was almost supernatural.
"Lord Boros?" a voice called from outside. "The commanders are assembled for the daily briefing. They await your presence in the war room."
Marcus recognized the voice from his memories. It belonged to Geryuganshoop—no, wait, that was not right. Geryuganshoop had been one of Boros's commanders in One Punch Man, but the memories in his head suggested a different roster of subordinates, a mix of aliens from various conquered worlds who had proven themselves valuable enough to serve as lieutenants in the Dark Matter Thieves.
"I will be there shortly," Marcus said, and his voice came out smooth and commanding, the voice of a being who expected to be obeyed without question. It was strange how easily he slipped into the role, how naturally the persona of Lord Boros fit over his own personality like a glove.
He left the bathroom and made his way toward the war room, following a mental map that had been seared into Boros's brain over centuries of living on this ship. The corridors were wide and tall, sized for beings much larger than humans, and they were staffed by a variety of aliens who all stopped whatever they were doing to bow as he passed.
Marcus nodded to them absently, trying to project an air of casual authority while internally cataloging every face he saw. He needed to know who these people were, needed to understand the power structure he had inherited, needed to figure out how to maintain Boros's empire without revealing that the being wearing Boros's face was actually a confused human nerd from a universe where none of this was supposed to be real.
The war room was located near the center of the ship, a circular chamber filled with holographic displays and tactical equipment. A large table dominated the center of the room, around which stood a dozen figures of various shapes and sizes, all of whom turned to face the door as Marcus entered.
He recognized some of them from his memories.
There was Melzalgald, a being with a body made of countless smaller organisms that could merge and separate at will, granting him a form of immortality that made him almost impossible to kill permanently. In the original One Punch Man, he had been one of Boros's most powerful soldiers, and in this universe, he served a similar role.
There was Groribas, a massive creature with plant-like features and acid-based powers that could melt through virtually any material. He was not the brightest of Boros's commanders, but his raw power made him valuable in combat situations.
There were others, aliens whose names Marcus did not immediately recall but whose faces triggered vague memories of battles and conquests and discussions of strategy. They were his war council, the beings who helped him run his interstellar empire, and they were all looking at him with expressions of respect and fear and the subtle calculation of subordinates who were constantly measuring themselves against their master.
Marcus walked to the head of the table and sat down in the chair that was clearly reserved for him—the largest chair, of course, because Lord Boros would never sit in anything but the most prominent seat in any room.
"Report," he said, because that seemed like the kind of thing Lord Boros would say.
Melzalgald stepped forward, his multiple eyes focusing on Marcus with an intensity that was slightly unsettling. "My lord, the Kanassan campaign is proceeding as planned. The Saiyan strike team will launch within the hour, and we expect the planet to be fully pacified within three solar days."
Marcus nodded, accessing his memories to understand what was happening. The Kanassans were a race of psychics who had the ability to see the future, and they had been targeted for conquest because their abilities could potentially be useful to the empire. In the original Dragon Ball timeline, it had been the Kanassan mission where Bardock had received his visions of the future, the mission that had set in motion the events that would eventually lead to Goku's arrival on Earth.
But in this timeline, things were different.
Bardock might still be on the strike team—Marcus would have to check—but there was no Frieza waiting to destroy Planet Vegeta, no prophecy of destruction hanging over the Saiyan race. The future was unwritten, shaped by the presence of Lord Boros instead of the Frost Demon who had terrorized the galaxy in the original timeline.
"Good," Marcus said. "Continue with the plan. I want a full report when the mission is complete."
Melzalgald bowed—a strange gesture for a being whose body was constantly shifting and reforming—and stepped back. The other commanders gave their reports as well, detailing the status of various military campaigns and administrative matters across the empire, and Marcus listened to all of it while trying to absorb as much information as possible.
The Dark Matter Thieves controlled a significant portion of the known galaxy, he learned, with the Saiyans serving as their primary ground forces and a fleet of warships enforcing Boros's will across thousands of worlds. It was a massive empire, far larger than anything Frieza had controlled in the original timeline, and Marcus was now at the head of it all.
He was the emperor.
He was the conqueror.
He was LORD BOROS, and the fate of trillions of beings rested in his hands.
The weight of that responsibility settled on his shoulders like a physical burden, and for a moment Marcus wondered if he was going to have another heart attack right there in the war room. But his new body was not susceptible to the same weaknesses as his old one, and the moment passed without incident.
"Is there anything else?" Marcus asked when the last commander had finished their report.
There was a moment of silence, and then Groribas spoke up, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate the very air. "My lord, there have been rumors among the troops. Rumors of a prophecy."
Marcus felt his single eye narrow. "What kind of prophecy?"
"The Saiyans speak of a legend," Groribas said, and there was a note of uncertainty in his voice that suggested he was not sure how his master would react to this information. "A warrior of their race who will rise to become the most powerful being in the universe. They call this warrior the Super Saiyan."
The Super Saiyan legend.
Of course.
Marcus knew all about the Super Saiyan legend from his years of watching Dragon Ball. It was the prophecy that had driven Frieza to destroy Planet Vegeta in the original timeline, the fear of a Saiyan who could challenge his power and potentially defeat him. The legend spoke of a warrior who would appear once every thousand years, a being of immense power who would shake the very foundations of the universe.
In the original timeline, that warrior had been Goku, who had achieved Super Saiyan on Namek during his battle with Frieza.
But this was not the original timeline.
And Marcus was not Frieza.
"I am aware of the legend," Marcus said, keeping his voice carefully neutral. "It does not concern me."
Groribas looked surprised. "My lord? The prophecy speaks of a warrior who could potentially—"
"The prophecy speaks of a Saiyan who could become powerful," Marcus interrupted, and he was surprised by how easily the words came to him, how naturally he slipped into the role of the confident overlord who feared nothing. "I have faced the strongest warriors the Saiyans have to offer. I have defeated their kings and their champions without effort. Even if such a warrior were to arise, they would pose no threat to me."
It was not a lie, not exactly.
Boros was powerful—incredibly, impossibly, almost unbelievably powerful. In One Punch Man, he had been one of the strongest beings in that universe, capable of going toe-to-toe with Saitama for at least a little while. And while Dragon Ball characters could reach similar or even greater heights of power, those characters had not been born yet, had not trained for years and faced countless battles and pushed past their limits again and again.
Right now, in this moment, Lord Boros was probably the single most powerful being in the universe.
And Marcus was terrified of what that power could do.
Because he was not a conqueror.
He was not a warrior.
He was just a guy who had died while arguing about anime on the internet, and now he was sitting in a war room surrounded by alien generals, playing the role of the Dominator of the Universe because he did not know what else to do.
The meeting continued for another hour, with Marcus doing his best to project confidence and authority while internally panicking about every decision he had to make. He approved military campaigns without fully understanding them, signed off on resource allocations that might have been completely wrong, and generally tried to say as little as possible while still maintaining the illusion of being an all-knowing tyrant.
It was exhausting.
By the time the meeting ended and the commanders filed out of the war room, Marcus felt like he had run a marathon in his old body. He slumped back in his chair, letting the tension drain out of his new muscles, and stared up at the ceiling as he tried to process everything that had happened.
He was Lord Boros.
He was in Dragon Ball.
He was the ruler of an interstellar empire.
And he had no idea how he was going to survive this.
The door to the war room opened, and Marcus straightened up immediately, slipping back into his role as the Dominator of the Universe. A Saiyan warrior entered, young and fierce-looking with hair that stuck up in the characteristic Saiyan style, and he bowed deeply before approaching the table.
"Lord Boros," the Saiyan said, "I have been assigned to serve as your personal aide for the duration of my training. My name is Nappa."
Marcus stared at the young Saiyan, recognizing the name immediately.
Nappa.
The same Nappa who would one day serve as Prince Vegeta's bodyguard, the same Nappa who would come to Earth with Vegeta and be killed by Goku, the same Nappa who was apparently now assigned to serve as Boros's personal aide.
"I see," Marcus said, because he could not think of anything else to say. "Very well. You may begin your duties."
Nappa bowed again and took up a position by the door, standing at attention like a soldier waiting for orders.
Marcus looked at him, at this young warrior who did not yet know the fate that awaited him in the original timeline, and he made a decision.
He was not going to tell anyone that he had been reincarnated.
He was not going to reveal that Lord Boros was now being controlled by the consciousness of a confused human from another universe.
He was going to play the role, maintain the facade, and figure out how to navigate this new life without getting himself killed or destroying the timeline completely.
It would not be easy.
But Marcus had read enough isekai light novels to know that the first rule of being reincarnated in another world was simple: survive long enough to figure out the rules, and then use those rules to your advantage.
And with the power of Lord Boros at his fingertips, Marcus was pretty sure he could survive just about anything this universe threw at him.
The game had begun.
And for the first time since his death, Marcus allowed himself to smile—a thin, sharp smile that looked perfectly natural on the face of the Dominator of the Universe.
After all, if he was going to be stuck in Dragon Ball as one of the most powerful beings in the universe, he might as well try to enjoy it.