Dozens of kilometers away from the battlefield, in a desolate wasteland, a bottomless crater scarred the surface of the earth. The soil at the bottom had been baked into hard glass by extreme heat.
Lying in the center of this scorched earth was a body barely recognizable as human. Vegeta currently looked like a piece of dead wood that had been struck by lightning. His proud, custom-made Battle Armor had long since been blasted into dust. Fleshy wounds curled outward, mixing with the charred soil. Blood had trickled down, only to quickly evaporate in the heat, leaving behind dark red scabs.
His chest took agonizingly long pauses before each faint rise and fall. His lungs were like a punctured bellows, each breath accompanied by the sickening sound of bursting blood bubbles. His vital signs were irreversibly marching toward their end.
Yet, Vegeta's mind was unusually sharp. The intense pain merely stimulated his nerve endings. Humiliating images looped endlessly in his brain like a movie reel.
That monster with the two massive black horns. That crude, club-like weapon. That gigantic foot stepping mercilessly on his chest. And those mocking, disdainful, vulgar words.
The pride of the Saiyan Prince had been ground into the mud.
He was of the noble Warrior Race. The purest royal blood flowed through his veins. How could he die at the hands of some nameless, barbaric freak? This kind of death was simply too ugly—ten thousand times uglier than being defeated by that low-class warrior Kakarot on Earth.
If he didn't tear that horned monster limb from limb, he wouldn't be able to close his eyes in death.
"I... absolutely cannot... die here..."
He forced a few broken syllables out of his throat, the effort almost draining the last remaining oxygen from his lungs. Vegeta's eyelids felt as heavy as lead, but he clung to a single thread of lucidity fueled by the sheer malice in his bones.
The muscles on the right side of his cheek twitched violently. Using the last ounce of his strength, he ground his jaws together. His bloodstained teeth grated against each other.
Crack.
A tiny, nearly inaudible snap echoed inside his mouth. He had forcibly crushed a microscopic capsule hidden in the gap of his back molars.
This was the final trump card he had prepared after suffering such a massive loss on Earth. When that fat samurai Yajirobe had sliced off his tail, Vegeta had used the ensuing chaos to secretly pocket one of those miraculous beans. He had intended to save it as an absolute last resort against Frieza, never expecting to be pushed to the brink by some wild, unknown monster.
As the capsule broke, a round, green Senzu Bean rolled onto his tongue. There wasn't a single drop of saliva left in his mouth to swallow it down. Relying purely on the instinctual muscle spasms of his throat, Vegeta forcefully swallowed the dry bean, choking it down along with his own blood.
The Senzu Bean tumbled down his ruined esophagus and into his stomach.
And in that moment, a miracle occurred.
A surge of warm energy exploded from his stomach, rushing through his limbs and bones like a breached dam. Vegeta's shattered ribs popped with a series of crisp cracks as an invisible force pushed the jagged shards back into place. The breaks knit themselves together at a visible speed.
The pulped muscles in his arms began to writhe violently. Necrotic cells were rapidly metabolized and flushed out. Large patches of charred, dead skin flaked away from his body, revealing perfectly intact, newly formed muscle fibers that were even tougher than before.
His dried-out veins filled once more with rushing blood. His heart began to beat with heavy, powerful thuds.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Each heartbeat sounded like the pounding of a massive war drum.
Vegeta's eyes snapped open. His pupils, previously dilated by the approach of death, refocused sharply, the whites of his eyes laced with dense blood vessels. An unprecedented, berserk power coursed frantically through every meridian in his body. It was a sensation of absolute fullness he had never experienced before.
Boom!
A blindingly white aura erupted from Vegeta's body. The violent air currents shot straight into the sky like a pillar of light, forcibly punching a massive hole into Namek's green atmosphere. The surrounding bedrock was instantly pulverized by the crushing pressure, and even the floor of the crater trembled violently under the sheer weight of his presence.
The Saiyan's absurd racial trait had been perfectly triggered. Every time they recovered from the brink of death, their battle power experienced an exponential leap.
And this time, the leap was so massive that even Vegeta himself was left staggered.
He slowly stood up from the bottom of the crater, clenching his fists tightly. His knuckles cracked loudly. He looked down at his hands, overflowing with power, feeling the endless, surging energy within him. A slow smile spread across his face.
A low chuckle vibrated in his throat, growing louder and louder until it evolved into a hysterical, maniacal laugh.
"Hahahahahaha!"
"It's incredible! This feeling of power surging through my entire body—it's simply magnificent!"
Vegeta threw his head back and roared madly at the sky.
"What the hell is that trash Kakarot?! What the hell is that club-swinging, horned freak?! I am the strongest Saiyan Prince in the universe!"
His ki skyrocketed at a completely unreasonable rate.
100,000.
150,000.
200,000.
His battle power smashed straight through the 200,000 threshold, and it was still climbing at a terrifying pace. Back on Earth, he had risked his life just to wield a power level of 18,000. Even after recovering from being half-beaten to death by Zarbon here on Namek, he had barely broken 30,000.
But now? Over 200,000. This number was enough to let him crush his past self like a bug, ten times over.
The Ginyu Force? They were nothing. That horned monster? Dead meat. Even Frieza, that self-proclaimed Emperor of the Universe, would be on his knees licking Vegeta's boots today.
Extreme power brought extreme confidence. Only one thought echoed in Vegeta's mind right now.
Kill them all. Tear every single bastard who had trampled on his pride to absolute shreds.
He slowly turned his head. His gaze pierced through dozens of kilometers of desolate wasteland, locking onto the epicenter of the battlefield where violent explosions continued to ring out. The sky in that direction was completely enveloped in dark-gold flames and purple light. The tremors in the earth could be felt clearly beneath his feet, even from this distance.
Vegeta closed his eyes and carefully sensed the auras emanating from the fight. He easily caught Frieza's nauseatingly cold, sinister presence. The damned tyrant had indeed stepped onto the field himself. Simultaneously, he felt Kaido's berserk, completely unhinged Haki.
Old grudges and new hatreds surged into his heart all at once. Frieza's blood debt for destroying Planet Vegeta. Kaido's ultimate humiliation of stepping on his face. Everything would be settled today.
A deeply cruel smirk curved Vegeta's lips, his eyes glinting with bloodthirsty madness.
"Fight. Slaughter each other to your hearts' content. When you're both battered and broken, that is when the Prince will claim the throne."
He slowly crouched down, the muscles in his legs tensing to their absolute limit. His thighs bulged with veins.
Bang!
The ground beneath him caved in, forming a massive crater as the immense reactive force launched Vegeta like a cannonball. He transformed into a streak of white light, tearing through the air, burning with rage and surging battle power as he shot straight toward the heart of the battlefield.
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