'Dragon Ball' Teases a Power Greater Than Grand Zeno

Dragon Ball Heroes' latest episode kicked its exciting new arc into high-gear, while teasing some potentially big implications for the canonized anime, as well.

However, of the many game-changing questions that were raised by the premise and characters of the "Universal Conflict: Dawn of War" arc, the biggest by far is no doubt the tease that there's a power in the Dragon Ball universe that's greater than the Omni-King, Grand Zeno!

In the latest episode, we finally meet the squad of six powerful villains who have escaped from the depths of the Prison Planet. The group, the "Core Area Warriors," invade Universe 6, and seemingly neutralize its God of Destruction, Champa. The attack is led by twin artificial humans Oren and Kamin, who prove to be more than a match for the combined front of Hit, Cabba, Caulifla and Kale - at least until Universe 7 Vegeta and Future Trunks show up on the battlefield!

Watching over all this action in Universe is the Core Area Warriors leader Hearts, who is having a strategy session with the resurrected Fused Zamasu. Not surprisingly, Zamasu has a bone to pick with Universe 7 for defeating him during Dragon Ball Super's "Future Trunks Saga" - which is when Hearts delivers this ominous line to Zamasu:

"We weren't planning to hunt down those from Universe 7 until a later date, but... you must refrain for now. Just be patient. Wait until after the Omni-King is defeated."

That's a pretty confident statement for a villain to be making about the ruler of all multiverse, and it suggests that, while Zeno may be omnipotent, he may not be 100% invincible. If Hearts and/or the other Core Area Warriors have some special kind of weapon or tactic to take out Grand Zeno, then it would have major implications for the franchise. While Dragon Ball Heroes is just a promo anime based on Japan's non-canon Super Dragon Ball Heroes arcade game, the game and anime have mirrored one another at key points. More to the point: early on we broke down why Dragon Ball Heroes could be an east testing ground for concepts that resonate well with the fandom. The storylines and/or developments that work best could be what gets mined into canon later. Grand Zeno being threatened and/or destroyed would rock the entire foundation gods and divine beings that the Dragon Ball Super series was built on.

Dragon Ball Super: Broly is out in Japan now. Funimation will bring the film to theaters in the United States on January 16th. Dragon Ball Super currently airs its English dub on Adult Swim during the Toonami block Saturday evenings at 9:30 p.m. It is also available to stream on Funimation and Amazon Video. The Japanese language release is available to stream on FunimationNOW, VRV, and Crunchyroll.