On the arena stage...
BOOM!
Billowing purple light roared across the Great Ocean. With Gran and Hit at the epicenter, the eight beams of energy converged on them with savage intent. Hit's face had turned deathly pale, but the moment Gran unleashed his Rules of Destruction, his heart skipped a beat.
"What is this?!"
"It feels like... the Rules of Destruction?!"
"My God, Lord Gran has actually pushed his Power of Destruction to the level of fundamental rules!"
"Hahaha! You're all dead meat now!"
Hit's emotions did a complete 180. He began looking at the surrounding candidates as if they were already corpses. Meanwhile, the eight candidates encircling Gran felt as though they had seen a ghost.
"This isn't normal Destruction energy. Could it be...?"
"Impossible! How can a candidate master the Rules of Destruction?!"
"He's insane!"
While they were paralyzed by shock, the purple light in Gran's hand exploded in intensity. His Rules of Destruction slammed into the eight incoming attacks.
CRASH!
BANG!
Fighting eight-on-one, Gran's power acted like a red-hot iron plunged into snow. Bert's and the others' Destruction energy began to dissolve at a visible rate. Hit watched in awe—this "Rule-level" Hakai was terrifyingly potent.
"It's too much!"
"We can't hold it back!"
"Run! Get out of here!"
Bert and the others paled, turning tail to flee in every direction.
VROOOM!
The instant they cleared the area, the ocean erupted. The deep purple light obliterated the water and the seabed beneath it, erasing every atom in its path.
"And so, the hunt begins," Gran said, cracking his neck as he watched the fleeing figures. "Hit, stay close."
With that, Gran blurred into a streak of absolute light, gunning straight for Rosa, the Goddess of Love from Universe 2. She was on Lord Beerus's "hit list," and Gran wasn't one to ignore his master's grudges.
Hit obeyed immediately, trailing behind Gran as best he could. However, Gran was so fast that Hit could only see the faint "taillights" of his aura—and that was only because Gran was intentionally slowing down to keep Hit within range.
"Damn it! There are eight of us! Why is he coming for me?!" Rosa screamed.
She was a massive woman, well over 300 pounds, and her Destroyer-candidate vestments were stretched tight over her frame. Fortunately, her wings allowed her to maintain a decent flight speed. But that "decent" speed was a joke compared to Gran.
THUD!
A fist buried itself in Rosa's face. Her features contorted as skin and muscle tore under the impact. The sheer force sent her hurtling backward, smashing through one mountain after another before finally coming to a halt, buried deep in a cliffside.
"Gah!"
Rosa was pinned in the rock, coughing up blood and shattered teeth. She looked utterly pathetic. A shadow fell over her as Gran walked up calmly.
"Time to die," he said, his voice devoid of emotion as he raised his hand.
Rosa's soul shuddered. She knew he was about to erase her with that Rule-level Hakai.
"No! Wait!" she shrieked in terror. "I was too arrogant! I was wrong! I shouldn't have provoked you! Please, just let me go!"
Gran shook his head slowly. "You weren't saying that when you thought you had the upper hand. You entered this Battle Royale; you should have been prepared for the end."
"Hakai."
Gran didn't waste another second. He condensed the First Level of the Rules of Destruction in his palm. As that universe-tier power manifested, the surrounding rocks began to dissolve into stardust.
"NO! Are you all just going to let him erase me?!" Rosa's voice echoed across the broken landscape, a desperate plea to the other seven candidates. "If I die, you're next! Without me, he'll just pick you off one by one! Save me! Please!"
Gran didn't react to her cries. If the others came back to save her, it would just save him the trouble of hunting them down.
Just as he was about to finish her...
BOOM!
A massive energy sphere, a thousand meters in diameter, plummeted from the sky.
"Hmm?" Gran paused. They actually came back?
However, if that giant ball of energy exploded here, it would ruin his clothes. He redirected his hand toward the sky.
"Go."
Zzzzt!
The moment the Rule-level Hakai touched the massive energy sphere, the latter simply vanished, dissolved into nothingness. A split second later, the void behind Gran rippled. A fist the size of a sandbag swung toward the back of his head.
But Gran didn't even need to look. As if he had eyes in the back of his head, he tilted his body with preternatural grace, letting the punch whistle past. A flurry of follow-up strikes followed, the raw power of the blows shattering the ground, but Gran moved like a phantom—elegant, composed, and completely untouchable.
"Done playing?"
Gran reached out casually and caught a massive, incoming kick.
BOOM!
The force of that kick would have pulverized a universe in the outside world, but Gran's hand didn't even tremble. He looked up at his attacker: Belloc, the slime from Universe 3.
Being a slime, Belloc didn't have natural limbs; he had morphed these into existence. Seeing his left leg caught, he instantly dissolved the transformation and retreated at high speed.
"That... that physical instinct is terrifying!" Belloc stood a short distance away, drenched in cold sweat.
Rosa, seeing that her savior was Belloc—the very man she had been fighting with earlier—was stunned. "Why did you come back for me?" she wheezed, clutching her bruised face.
"Hmph. You think I wanted to save a fat pig like you?" Belloc spat. "If you die, we lose a teammate. We could barely handle him eight-on-one; seven-on-one would be suicide!"
Before the match, the Gods had instructed them to prioritize Universes 6 and 7. Gran had just displayed power beyond anything they had imagined. If they let him pick off Rosa, their chances of survival would drop to zero. Rosa didn't even take offense at being called a "fat pig"; he had saved her life, after all.
At that moment, Hit finally arrived, panting heavily.
"Oh? Look at this. A stray fish," Belloc noted, spotting Hit. "Kill him first, then we all swarm Gran!" He shouted the command to the others, who were already closing in. Bert and the rest were lurking nearby, ready to strike.
"Right. Let's start with the Universe 6 trash..." Harry, the mummy from Universe 5, prepared to jump Hit before he could reach Gran.
Suddenly...
FLASH!
A white blur streaked across everyone's field of vision, followed by the sickening sound of flesh rupturing. The candidates turned to the source of the noise, their jaws dropping.
"BELLOC!!!" Rosa screamed.
Belloc, who had been standing right next to her, had been blown apart.
"It's the Universe 7 guy!" Bert's pupils contracted.
Gran had vanished from his position and reappeared next to Hit in the blink of an eye. The movement was so fast that not a single candidate had seen him move. Jiren clenched his fists until they turned white. Can we actually win against someone like this?
In the spectator stands, the Destroyer Mosco beeped in disbelief. "Again! Even I can't track his speed!"
"Exactly! I couldn't see him move earlier either!" Heles exclaimed. She turned to Mosco with a confused look. "Wait, your candidate just got blown up! Why aren't you reacting?"
"Dead?" Mosco shook his robotic head. "My candidate is an ancient being. You can't kill him with pure physical force. He's not done yet."
Back on the stage, Hit was still catching his breath when he heard Belloc's plan to kill him, followed immediately by the explosion of Belloc's body.
"So... so fast!" Hit's heart hammered against his ribs. Is this Gran's true power? No—he realized Gran still hadn't even unleashed his Seventh Tier ki.
Gran ignored Hit's awe and looked at the surrounding group. "Hit is my ally," he said with a smirk. "Touch him without my permission, and you'll regret it."
As he spoke, the puddle of "gore" on the ground began to ripple, reforming into the shape of the slime, Belloc.
"Oh?" Gran narrowed his eyes. He hadn't hidden his strength in that punch; he had channeled the full weight of his Peak Tier 6 power. Ordinarily, that should have erased every cell of a person's body. "I see. Another ancient physiology."
"Phew... Hah...!" Belloc gasped for air as he finished reforming.
"Belloc, are you okay?" Rosa asked, genuinely concerned now.
"Damn it!" Belloc shivered. "If it wasn't for my special constitution that immunizes me to physical force, that hit would have finished me for good!"
"If you're fine, stop talking and move! Watch out for his Rules of Destruction!" Bert roared as he launched a fresh assault.
With Bert's lead, Jiren, Blair, Primo, Harry, and Joel all lunged simultaneously.
"Now we're talking," Gran murmured. He shifted his stance and vanished from the rock, leaving Hit behind.
"Belloc, now's our chance!" Rosa growled, turning her sights back to Hit.
"You idiot, stay back! Didn't you see what just happened to me?" Belloc looked at Rosa like she was insane. "If that guy is comfortable leaving the Universe 6 candidate there, it means he isn't afraid of us attacking him! Forget that trash; we need to swarm the Universe 7 guy together or we're all dead!"
Belloc sprouted wings and took off. Rosa hesitated for a moment but realized he was right. Even if Hit joined the fight, he was a non-factor compared to Gran. If they killed Gran, Hit would be a simple cleanup job. She took to the sky and vanished after him.
"Damn it..." Hit muttered. He had heard every word. It stung to be called "trash," but his lips curled into a grin. Call me whatever you want. As long as I'm standing next to Lord Gran at the end, I'm the winner.
The arena began to echo with the sounds of world-shattering impacts.
BOOM!
It was Gran versus eight. Every clash sent shockwaves that leveled the landscape. Mountains crumbled, seas boiled, and entire sections of the stage were reduced to rubble in seconds.
In the stands, Anat of Universe 1 watched in horror. "This is terrifying. This level of power... It's no different from a battle between actual Gods of Destruction!"
Pell of Universe 2 shook his head. "Their raw power was already at that level. They only lacked the refinement. But look at Gran..."
Eyre of Universe 3 marveled, "Universe 7 is truly something else. Lord Beerus survived being ganged up on by all the other Destroyers, and now his candidate is doing the exact same thing with total composure!"
Kuru of Universe 4 gritted his teeth. "But Gran only has Peak Tier 6 power! Universes 5, 8, and 12 all have Tier 6 candidates, and Bert is a Seventh Tier! Why the hell is Gran still holding the upper hand?!"
<><><><><><><><><><><>
Want more chapters? Support my Patreon/Razerizz