Chapter 330: The Ancient One's Mirror-Space
Paying no mind to the four Demon Generals pinned in place by Tatsumaki, writhing in agony, nor to the lesser demon-kind grunts, Ryū and the others turned their focus to the real target: King Piccolo himself.
Even with a thick roof standing between them, Ryū's Observation Haki left King Piccolo nowhere to hide.
Ryū could "see" the Dragon Ball world's demon lord with perfect clarity — right down to exactly what he looked like, straight through the roof between them.
He looked exactly like his canon self — just as... spectacularly ugly. A face like that wouldn't even clear the threshold to get into the chat group.
Maybe it was just a difference in aesthetic standards, but it seemed like not a single Namekian could be called decent-looking.
Ryū suddenly turned to the Ancient One. "Can you sever that bond-like link between him and this Earth's Kami?"
The Ancient One nodded, then quickly shook her head instead. "Not entirely sure yet. But we can take him alive and just work through our methods one by one. If none of them pan out, we'll have to seal him away for the time being instead."
"Then let's take him alive. He's not that strong to begin with, so it shouldn't be too hard. Power levels in the Dragon Ball world at this point in the timeline aren't anything too outrageous — nowhere near our chat group's level, at least for now."
"Yara yara, if it's sealing techniques you want, I've got plenty of those myself."
"Hm... well, either killing him or sealing him counts as completing the quest, so either method works. Though after everything King Piccolo's done, letting him live really does feel like letting him off easy."
"Looks like he's already elderly, at that. Even if we seal him away, give it a few more decades and he'll die of old age regardless, won't he?"
"Guess so. Namekians live a long time, sure, but only relative to humans — nowhere near comparable to a certain youkai sage."
"Hey, hey, hey — Admin-sama, am I really that old? I'm only seventeen, you know!"
"..."
Inside the lavish hall, King Piccolo couldn't see his enemies outside, but he could hear every word they said just fine.
He heard the dismissive tone in Ryū and the others' voices with perfect clarity too.
These bastards were treating King Piccolo's life like some kind of joke — killing him or sealing him away, whichever suited their fancy?
Several veins bulged on his forehead, his jaw clenched so hard his teeth ground together — proof enough that King Piccolo had been thoroughly enraged.
Centuries sealed away had already left his temper a powder keg, and now a bunch of strangers were looking down on him to boot — the fuse lit itself in an instant.
"You bastards... I don't know who you are, but as far as King Piccolo's concerned, every last one of you is already dead!"
King Piccolo ground the words out through clenched teeth. It might have looked like he was talking to himself, but he was certain the "intruders" outside could hear every syllable.
Anyone capable of killing his demon-kind wouldn't lack for hearing that sharp, surely.
He raised a right hand, nails long and untrimmed, and in an instant a torrent of ki condensed into a blast twenty centimeters across, blazing with a light too bright to look at directly.
Just glancing at that ki blast was enough to feel the terrifying destructive power packed inside it.
"The voices were coming from... right about here. Die!"
The instant the words left his mouth, the ki blast — at least twenty centimeters across — shot upward toward the ceiling at blistering speed.
The invisible shockwave sent his throne flying, slamming it into the wall behind him hard enough to shatter the priceless, opulent chair to pieces.
At the same moment, the ceiling above erupted in a staggering blast of energy, an ear-splitting roar mixed with a sky full of dust and shattered masonry.
A massive hole was blown clean through the hall's roof, nearly half the ceiling's total area, cracks spider-webbing across every surrounding wall.
Abruptly, King Piccolo's pupils contracted sharply, as though he'd sensed something coming, and he ducked down in a hurry.
He felt something sweep past, grazing the back of his skull — a terrifying pressure rolling out like a once-in-a-century hurricane.
Even though it never actually connected, King Piccolo still felt his back and the back of his head throb with pain, as if struck by a massive hammer.
He spared a glance forward and sucked in a sharp breath — everywhere his eyes swept, the ground had been leveled flat!
He had no idea how his enemy had struck, or what technique had been used, but he could see the destructive power of that single blow with perfect clarity.
Wait... wait a second!!
Something was off!
What was going on here?
King Piccolo suddenly noticed something bizarre — the sky, the ground, everything around him seemed to have been turned inside out. And now he could only sense two ki signatures at all: his own, and the one that had to belong to whoever had just attacked him. The whole feeling was deeply wrong.
In that split second, King Piccolo abandoned every shred of dignity, scrambling forward like a rat, forcing several hundred meters of distance between himself and the Ryū behind him.
Ignoring the sweat pouring down his forehead, King Piccolo spun around to look back — at the human standing a hundred-odd meters away, who, no matter how he looked at him, seemed strikingly young. His expression turned wary and grim in the extreme.
Out of the corner of his eye, he took stock of his surroundings, and realized with a shock that he'd been dragged into some kind of strange mirror-space.
Inside this bizarre mirror-space, there were only two living things: himself, King Piccolo, and this unfamiliar young human standing before him.
Neither of them rushed to attack. For King Piccolo, it was wariness — he couldn't quite gauge just how strong Ryū actually was.
Ryū, on the other hand, simply didn't see King Piccolo as any kind of threat — that experimental kick a moment ago had already told him exactly what Piccolo was worth.
This Dragon Ball world's great demon lord, it seemed, simply couldn't match his own younger peak, age having taken its toll.
Even so, that was still more than enough to run roughshod over the whole early Dragon Ball timeline — so long as he didn't go picking a fight with Arale.
"The Ancient One's mirror-space really is handy — carves out a whole new battlefield on the spot. We could tear this place apart and the real world wouldn't feel a thing, short of shattering the space itself."
Ryū mused aloud, then turned a calm gaze on King Piccolo standing before him.
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