boyutpedia Page 174
Page 174
Vegeta grabbed Lin Ye's arm, Goku's golden cudgel swept out a golden light wall, and Frieza's death beam formed an impenetrable barrier—but in the face of absolute nothingness, all defenses crumbled inch by inch.
Lin Ye's gaze was fixed on the Key of Time when the system suddenly issued a piercing alarm: [Warning! Genetic resonance detected between the host and the Chaos Core!]
Chapter 387: The Cage of Memories
Within the cracks of the Chaos Core, silver spacetime fluid flowed down like a leaky faucet, splashing onto the ground with a "plop," creating a scene that Lin Ye could touch even with his eyes closed: a windowless overtime office in the 21st century, where instant noodle containers were piled from the corner of the table to the wall, soup stains had formed a layer of grease on the floor, the computer screen was blindingly bright, and the numbers on the quarterly report were distorted, resembling Frieza's grinning face.
Lin Ye poked his finger at the desk, his fingertip touching something sticky. He brought it to his nose and smelled the oily odor of sausage. "What's going on? Did they drag me back to this lousy place again?" He glanced at the gaps between the keyboards, where he saw sausage crumbs stuck inside, exactly the same crumbs he remembered from his last overtime shift—back then he had complained about how this crappy keyboard harbored filth, and the next day he died suddenly in front of the screen.
A strange green light suddenly flashed across my retina, and the system interface popped up: [Memory cage detected, mental contamination rate 47%].
"My head feels a little heavy..." Lin Ye rubbed his temples. Just as he straightened up, he heard the water dispenser make a "glug" sound, and Kronos's voice drifted over from behind: "Looks like you haven't forgotten about this place, Manager Lin."
Lin Ye turned around abruptly and saw the Chaos Devourer wearing a wrinkled plaid suit, a crooked tie, a chipped "Outstanding Employee" metal badge on his chest, and holding an enamel mug with the company logo in his hand. He looked exactly like the supervisor who used to urge him to meet performance targets every day.
"Stop pretending." Lin Ye clenched his fist, his knuckles turning white. "Do you think dressing like this will remind me of those old stories?"
"It's not about remembering, it's about making you remember clearly." Kronos took a sip of water from his glass, the water dripping down his chin and spreading a dark stain on his suit. "This is where your power began. Working overtime until three every day, revising reports eight times and still getting yelled at, wanting to quit but afraid of not finding another job, that frustration with reality, that desire to have the power to crush your supervisor at will...aren't these damn emotions what made you the best container for the system?"
"You think you can sway me with this petty stuff?" Lin Ye kicked over the office chair next to him, the chair legs scraping loudly on the floor. "Right now, I can crush more than just the supervisor!"
"Don't rush, let's take our time." Kronos pushed up his non-existent glasses, and the office walls suddenly became transparent, like paper splashed with water. In the dark space outside, glittering "bubbles" floated, each bubble containing a different scene.
Inside the first bubble, Lin Ye, dressed in tattered martial arts clothes, knelt on the floor of the Omni-King's palace, his forehead pressed against the cold tiles, his voice trembling with tears: "Omni-King! I beg you! I'll do anything to revive my mother! Let me be your servant, let me erase any universe!"
The Omni-King sat high on his throne, swinging his short legs, his voice devoid of emotion: "Resurrecting people comes at a price, you know. Are you sure you want to make the trade?"
"I'm sure!" Lin Ye looked up from inside the bubble, his eyes bloodshot. "As long as my mom can come back, I don't care about anything else!"
Kronos's voice rang out from the side: "Look how filial he is. He even gave up his dignity to resurrect his mother... It's a pity that in the end, the Omni-King didn't resurrect his mother, and instead sent him to erase three lower universes. He didn't even get to see his mother one last time before he died."
"Enough!" Lin Ye punched the wall, the wall shook, and the bubble popped.
“What’s the rush? There’s more to come.” Kronos pointed to another bubble. Inside, Lin Ye was wearing the purple robes of the God of Destruction, holding a planet in his hand. Vegeta stood opposite him, his hair ablaze with gold, his roar shaking the very fabric of space: “Lin Ye! Are you crazy? That’s Earth! Gohan, Bulma, and all our friends are there!”
Lin Ye, inside the bubble, remained expressionless as his fingers slowly tightened, causing the planet's surface to crack: "To become a God of Destruction, one must abide by the rules of a God of Destruction—Earth's civilization level is too low and should be wiped out."
"Have you forgotten how Goku helped you? Have you forgotten how Dende saved you? You bastard!" Vegeta rushed forward, but was bounced back by a purple energy and crashed heavily to the ground.
Lin Ye's voice was as cold as ice: "Partners? That's all in the past. Now I'm the God of Destruction, I only need to follow the rules."
"See?" Kronos leaned close to Lin Ye's ear, his voice like a snake's tongue, "As long as you have power, you can destroy even the Earth that you care about most with your own hands. The so-called bond is nothing more than a comfort when you have no power."
Lin Ye's chest heaved, he remained silent, staring intently at the bubble. Suddenly, a third bubble floated in front of him, revealing ruins. His own corpse lay sprawled on the ground, a broken spear embedded in his chest. Zamasu stood on his back, holding Number 18's mechanical arm, grinning menacingly: "Lin Ye, weren't you so tough? Didn't you have your buddies helping you? Now you're like a dead dog?"
Number 18 lay not far away, half of his mechanical eye shattered, still calling out intermittently, "Lin Ye... don't... don't give up..."
"Enough!" Lin Ye could no longer hold back. He gathered Origin Realm energy in his palm, and a beam of light blasted through the bubble and the office wall. But when the dust settled, he found himself standing on scorched earth... Namek.
Frieza floated in mid-air, his metal arm piercing Krillin's chest, blood dripping down the mechanical arm. Young Lin Ye stood beside him, clutching a golden wishing orb in his hand, engraved with "Infinite Growth Physique," his eyes filled with hesitation, his fingers trembling.
“You were standing like this back then, weren’t you?” Kronos’s voice came from Frieza’s mouth, and the blood droplets on the mechanical arm condensed into words in the air before shattering into blood mist. “Krillin was dying, and you had a wish-granting orb that could make you stronger—you chose to grow stronger, not to save him, and you even thought you were pretty smart for choosing the long-term path.”
Young Lin Ye's lips moved slightly as he muttered, "Growth... it can keep making me stronger... If we choose to save Krillin now, we still won't be able to protect everyone when we encounter stronger enemies later... But... Krillin..."
"Choose!" Chronos's voice suddenly rose, and Frieza's face twisted in pain. "You want to protect your comrades, don't you? Now save Krillin, or choose to grow...choose one!"
Young Lin Ye closed his eyes briefly, but ultimately raised the wishing ball: "I choose the Infinite Growth Physique!"
Just then, Lin Ye's true form suddenly smiled and patted his younger self on the shoulder: "You didn't make the wrong choice."
Young Lin Ye was stunned for a moment, then turned to look at him: "I...I didn't save Klin..."
"But you got stronger later and saved even more people." A white light emanated from Lin Ye's palm, and Dende's smiling face appeared within the sphere of light—Dende held up a Senzu Bean, offering it to him: "Lin Ye, eat this quickly, and your wound will heal!"; Next was Vegeta, his hair dyed dark blue, yelling at him: "Hey! How did you get injured again? If you're this disheveled next time, I won't help you!"; Finally, Goku handed him a Flying Nimbus hair: "Partners are meant to help each other. Next time you're in danger, just call me!"
“You’re right, the infinite growth did hurt me ten times more.” Lin Ye gripped the ball of light, the energy of the Origin Realm flowing around him. “When I broke through to Super 3, my spine felt like it was being torn in two; when I was stuck at the Super Blue bottleneck, all my bones were cracking—but every time I was in pain, they were the ones who helped me get through it. The bonds also doubled along with the pain.”
"Hmph, stubborn as a mule." Chronos's voice vanished, and Frieza and the young Lin Ye suddenly shattered into specks of light. The next second, the scorched earth beneath Lin Ye's feet transformed into the battlefield of the Cell Games. Golden Cell's tail coiled around Android 18's neck like a snake. Android 18's face flushed crimson, yet she still struggled to look in Lin Ye's direction.
Vegeta stood to the side, enveloped in a deep blue aura, his fists clenched so tightly they cracked. He yelled at Lin Ye, "Hey! What are you spacing out for? Didn't you see Android 18 is about to be strangled? Show some Saiyan spirit! Don't stand there like a coward!"
"The Saiyan look?" Chronos transformed into Cell's appearance, the barbs on his tail piercing Android 18's shoulder, blood flowing down the barbs. "His so-called Saiyan look is just something the system calculated—you think you broke through to Super Saiyan Blue because you wanted to help him? Don't be naive, you're just jealous that he mastered the Origin Realm before you!"
Vegeta's arrogance surged: "Bullshit! Me, jealous of him? I just don't want that bastard to die at the hands of this fake!"
“And then there’s Android 18.” Cell turned to look at Android 18, his tail tightening even more. “You think she’s cooperating with you because she trusts you? She’s afraid that if you die, no one can stop me, and she won’t survive either!”
“No… Lin Ye…” Number 18 spoke with difficulty, his voice broken but clear, “Don’t believe him… It’s fake… It’s a mirror image he created… You forgot… We said during our gravity chamber training… When encountering a fake enemy… we should attack its core first…”
Lin Ye was startled, suddenly remembering how Number 18 had taught him the trick to distinguishing mirror image enemies in the gravity chamber: the core of the mirror image is weaker than the real one, and as long as you hit the core, you can break the illusion.
"It seems your cage is indeed malfunctioning." The Origin Realm energy in Lin Ye's palm transformed into a golden longsword, which he swung fiercely toward Cell's chest, the very core of the mirror image.
With a "rip," Cell's body was torn apart like paper, and the surrounding battlefield shattered in the process. Lin Ye steadied himself and found himself standing at the center of the Chaos Core. Kronos's true form was curled up in mid-air like an unborn fetus, with countless transparent fragments of memory connected to his forehead like umbilical cords.
"A malfunction? No, that's a gift I gave you." Kronos's eyes suddenly opened, and a blue light shone in his pupils—it was the last scene before Lin Ye transmigrated: he was lying in front of the computer when the screen suddenly exploded. In the blue light, the gold lettering on his employee badge, "Outstanding Employee," slowly distorted and finally turned into "System Host 001."
"You think time travel was accidental?" Kronos's body slowly became transparent. "From the moment you died from overwork, everything was planned. The quarterly report program on your computer didn't belong to the company at all; it was the system's launcher."
Lin Ye's Origin Realm energy suddenly fluctuated violently, not because of anger, but because of a forgotten detail... Echizen, the string of code that flashed when his computer crashed was exactly the same as the pattern on the Creation Fragment he had obtained before.
“Remember now?” Kronos laughed, a strange smugness in his voice. “You think you can use the Light of Creation because you’re talented? Don’t be silly. You and I are both created by the ‘System’—I am part of Chaos, and you are part of Creation.”
"Why did you create me?" Lin Ye pressed, tightening the energy in his palm.
“Because the Sower needs a ‘container’ that can hold both the light of creation and the core of chaos.” Cronus’s body became increasingly transparent, almost disappearing into the void. “Once you fully accept chaos, creation and chaos can become one, and the Sower can return… He is the ‘First God’ depicted in the murals of the Omni-King’s Palace.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the Chaos Core suddenly began to dissipate, and the surrounding space turned into absolute nothingness. Lin Ye stood in the nothingness and suddenly saw a silver seed floating in mid-air—one half of the seed glowed with golden light, the color of the light of creation; the other half was wrapped in black mist, the aura of the Chaos Core.
Just then, the seed suddenly began to spin, and golden and black light intertwined, slowly forming a blurry figure—the outline of that figure was exactly the same as the "First God" in the murals of the Omni-King's Palace.
Lin Ye clenched his fist, and Origin Realm energy gathered around him: "Whether you are the Seeder or some kind of Primordial God, you think you can turn me into a vessel? Not so easy."
The golden figure didn't speak, but slowly extended its hand, pointing in Lin Ye's direction. Lin Ye felt a heaviness in his chest, as if something was about to emerge from his body... Was it the Light of Creation, or the Core of Chaos? Before he could figure it out, a familiar voice suddenly came from the void.
"Lin Ye! Where are you?" It was Wukong's voice.
"Damn it! Stop hiding, come out now!" It was Vegeta's voice.
"Lin Ye, I can sense your energy. Hang in there a little longer, we'll be there soon!" It was Dandy's voice.
Lin Ye felt a warmth in his heart, and the energy in his palm intensified. He looked up at the golden figure, his eyes resolute: "Trying to control me? You'll have to get past my partner first!"
The golden figure paused for a moment, then suddenly scattered into countless points of light. Before Lin Ye could react, the surrounding void began to collapse, and his body plummeted downwards... Where would he land next? Would he return to his companions, or fall into a new prison?
Chapter 388: The Chessboard of the Gods
The ruins of the Omni-King's Palace clattered through time and space, and the shattered white jade floor tiles reassembled along invisible paths, eventually forming a gigantic chessboard spanning thousands of miles. Twelve luminous white chess pieces floated between the squares, each reflecting the figure of the God of Destruction, while Lin Ye stood on the empty square in the center of the chessboard, the patterns on the squares beneath his feet shifting in light and shadow with his breath.
"After all this time, the Tournament of Power is just a talent show." Beerus fiddled with the chess pieces around him with his cat paw, golden destructive energy condensing into a small ball of light at the tip of his paw. "In the end, the goal isn't to find the strongest, but to find an unlucky guy who can withstand the two broken powers of the 'First God'."
"Unlucky bastard?" Champa suddenly crushed the purple chess piece in his hand, and candy crumbs exploded with the shockwave. "Then what are we, the Gods of Destruction,? Cage-guarding dogs?" He glanced at Lin Ye and slapped the chessboard with the tip of his tail. "The Chaos aura on this kid is more than ten times stronger than Zamasu's back then. I think he'll drag us all down with him sooner or later."
The fragment of creation on Lin Ye's chest suddenly heated up, and the energy of the Origin Realm automatically enveloped his entire body. He stared at Beerus's always half-closed eyes and suddenly realized that when they first met, this cat god could have easily slapped him to death, but he held back; the Omni-King always smiled strangely when he saw him, it turned out that it wasn't because he liked him, but because he was watching the progress bar of the experiment.
"Don't glare at me like that." Weiss lightly tapped his staff on the chessboard, and the image of the First God emerged from the pale golden mist: the silver-haired deity held a sun formed from the light of creation in his left hand, and a black hole formed from the core of chaos in his right. Two streams of light converged at his feet, forming a galaxy of stars in the multiverse. "Before the First God split himself in two, he scattered these two things into the universe. The light of creation specifically targets those who break the rules, and the core of chaos prefers madmen who can cause destruction. Only you..."
The staff suddenly pointed at the scar on Lin Ye's chest, the very spot where the system had forcibly implanted the fragment of creation: "The only monster that both of these things have their eyes on at the same time."
"A monster?" Before Lin Ye could retort, the entire chessboard suddenly trembled violently. Dark purple vines grew wildly from the cracks in the chessboard, coiling around the twelve God of Destruction chess pieces like venomous snakes. The flower buds on the vines burst open, revealing the faces of those who had been devoured: Frieza's cold smile, Cell's fangs, and countless Lin Ye's fallen selves from parallel universes.
"You think you can just stand by and watch the show?" The remnant soul of Cronus wandered among the vines, his voice like countless needles piercing the ears. "Once I become the new First God, the first thing I'll do is wipe out this damned position of God of Destruction. A bunch of useless trash who live off the grace of the Omni-King."
Beerus's destructive energy erupted suddenly, the golden sphere striking the vines, only to vanish as if it had sunk into the sea. The cat god staggered back half a step, the fur on his paws bristling: "This is...my destructive power?" For the first time, he showed a look of terror. "How could you replicate the authority of a god!"
“Not only can it be copied, it can also be used in reverse.” Kronos’s voice suddenly turned sharp, and the vines that were binding the Chess Piece stabbed in. The image of Universe 6 faded rapidly on the chessboard, and the outline of Planet Vegeta disappeared as if it had been erased. “For example, let the Saiyans of Universe 6 die fifty years earlier, and let this fat cat taste what it’s like to lose his home.”
"Damn it!" Champa's roar shook the chessboard. He frantically used energy waves to cut the vines, but the image of the Sixth Universe continued to dissipate. Lin Ye suddenly stepped forward, blocking the remaining chess pieces. Origin Realm energy unleashed a pale blue barrier, firmly holding back the vines: "He's absorbing your emotions to increase his power! The angrier he gets, the more rampant his chaotic power grows!" He turned to Weiss, "Why did the First God have to split himself? What's he trying to achieve by doing this damn thing of choosing a vessel?"
For the first time, the smile on Weiss's face crumbled. His staff unfurled into a glowing scroll, on which was written a prophecy in ancient script: on the day the entropy of the metaverse reached its peak, the primordial god would transform into a chaotic behemoth that devoured everything, chewing up all universes and rebuilding them. Along the edge of the scroll were depictions of twelve gods of destruction, weapons raised, aimed at the back of the deity.
“Because he foresaw that he would turn evil.” Weiss’s voice lowered. “He created us, these gods of destruction, so that we would give him a quick death when the time came.”
A red light suddenly flashed on the system interface on my retina, and the text of the new mission began to distort while it was still flashing: [Unlock Final Mission: Rewrite the Laws of Creation. Option 1: Inherit the Light of Creation and become a puppet of order; Option 2: Accept the Core of Chaos and become an accomplice to destruction; Option 3…]
Suddenly, garbled text covered the screen, and a line of scarlet handwriting pierced through the interference, crooked and illegible as if hastily written: 【Creating a Third Possibility—Alice】
"Oh, your little AI knows more than these gods." Kronos's vines paused, as if mocking, "But the third possibility requires risking your life: stripping the system bare, losing all your power, and turning back into that overworked office worker who died from overwork. Would you do that?"
Lin Ye ignored him, his eyes scanning the spots of light on the chessboard. Vegeta's deep blue aura was gradually repairing the chess pieces that had been hollowed out by vines. Goku's Ultra Instinct resonated with the patterns on the chessboard. Even Frieza was using his Death Beam to cut the vines, and the purple light blade deliberately bypassed the square where Earth was located.
"What's wrong with ordinary humans?" Lin Ye's Origin Realm energy began to flow in reverse, and the fragment of creation on his chest gradually darkened. "The farmers on Namek can smash probes with hoes, the old man on Earth can build missiles to fight Piccolo, and even..."
He recalled his past self before the time travel, the office worker who used paperclips to shoot pictures of his supervisor in his cubicle, and now his image overlapped with the one on the chessboard. That guy, though a coward, would push his colleagues out of the elevator during an earthquake and would secretly leave sausages for stray cats.
"You're insane!" Kronos's vines suddenly contracted in fury. "Give up your power, and you're not even worth an ant!"
“I was never a god.” Lin Ye’s fist slammed into the center of the blank square, and tender green shoots sprouted from the cracks in the floor tiles. “I just don’t want to be anyone’s vessel anymore, whether it’s the system’s or the original god’s.”
The buds grew into towering trees at a visible speed, their branches laden with glowing fruits: Krillin's bald-head-shaped fruit still had ketchup on it, Android 18's mechanical arm fruit gleamed with a metallic sheen, and Vegeta's battle suit fruit had a scratch on its paint—the very spot where he'd been cut during his fight with Broly. At the very top, Goku held up a Senzu Bean, grinning broadly.
“This…” Beerus’s pupils shrank to slits as he watched the image of the sixth universe, which had been swallowed by the vines, slowly crawl back along the tree roots. “How can something swallowed by chaos possibly come back?”
Lin Ye touched the tree trunk, feeling the warmth flowing within—the joys and sorrows quantified by the system, things he thought had long been submerged by power. He looked up at the remnant soul of Kronos within the vines and suddenly smiled: "This is the third possibility. Neither a dog of order nor a slave to destruction, but a bridge connecting the two."
As soon as the words left his mouth, the chessboard suddenly tilted violently. The image of the First God became clear in the sky, and in those once calm eyes, the golden flames of the light of creation and the black mist of the core of chaos simultaneously ignited. The twelve pieces of the God of Destruction suddenly detached from the vines and automatically formed a defensive formation, while Whis's staff emitted a piercing hum.
"Looks like someone doesn't like this answer." Lin Ye clenched his fist, and the fruits on the tree trunk suddenly burst open at the same time, transforming into familiar figures that landed beside him. Krillin touched his bald head, looking bewildered, Android 18 moved his mechanical arm and frowned as he looked around, while Vegeta grumbled as he dusted off his battle suit.
"Hey, Lin Ye," Goku appeared behind him, scratching his head, his fingertips still covered in green Senzu Bean powder. "Where the hell is this stupid chessboard? I was just eating Senzu Beans in the Supreme Kai's World, how did I suddenly get dragged here?"
Before Lin Ye could answer, the image of the primordial god in the sky suddenly reached out, and a massive shadow instantly enveloped the entire chessboard. Cronus's vines let out excited shrieks, frantically climbing upwards along the shadow.
"Looks like we need to deal with the main culprit first." Lin Ye flexed his fingers; the fragment of creation on his chest, though dim, felt warmer than ever. "Are you all ready?"
Vegeta's deep blue aura shot into the sky first: "Enough talk, let's fight!"
Chapter 389: The Battle Song of Mortals
Fragments of the Chaos Core, trailing dark purple flames, crashed into Earth, reducing aircraft carriers in the Pacific Ocean to scrap metal and blasting glassy craters into the dunes of the Sahara Desert. Lin Ye stood on the titanium alloy roof of Capsule Corporation, each breath accompanied by excruciating pain as energy tore through his body. The stripping system felt like it was tearing flesh from his bones, and cold sweat dripped down his jawline onto Number 18's mechanical hand.
“Still sweating profusely.” Number 18 suddenly tightened her fingers, the metal joints making a slight creaking sound. “It’s not too late to stop now. I’ve had Bulma prepare a repair pod for you.” She placed her other hand on Lin Ye’s back, the heat dissipation vents in her palm spewing out white mist carrying static electricity, forcibly suppressing the rampaging energy flow within his body.
Lin Ye pressed down on her wrist, feeling the fine battle scars on her mechanical skeleton—the marks from their last battle against Kronos. "Keep an eye on the data stream for me," he said, bringing up a holographic screen displaying millions of battle records from parallel universes. "Convert these into a version that even a kindergartener could understand."
Alice's projection flickered violently beside her, the red light making the iris of her mechanical eyes blink: "Host, 15% energy remaining, detected that the left lung is beginning to undergo quantum annihilation." Suddenly, a window popped up, showing a photo of Lin Ye before his transmigration, wearing a plaid shirt and buying coffee downstairs in an office building. "Do you really want to become an ordinary person who can't even open a soda can?"
“This kind of ordinary person,” Lin Ye’s fingertips flew across the screen, simplifying the power generation principle of the Kamehameha into a calisthenics movement, “was happier than when he saved an old lady at the subway station last time than when he beat Frieza.”
Suddenly, Number 18 snapped the data cable from her wrist, sparks flying from the connector onto Lin Ye's hand. "I synchronized the firewall programs of all the robots worldwide." She fastened a silver bracelet to Lin Ye's wrist. "This is an energy shield for emergencies. The password is the date you first treated me to strawberry cake."
Electronic devices around the world simultaneously hummed. In Tokyo's ramen shops, televisions showed Master Roshi's breathing technique broken down into a three-minute instructional video; in New York taxis, diagrams of Namekian regeneration techniques were accompanied by the label "Suitable wounds: knife cuts, dog bites"; even monitors at Antarctic research stations were playing "How to use a fire extinguisher to fight low-level chaotic creatures."