The next moment.
All of King Vegeta's attacks stopped instantly. His eyes were bloodshot, and both hands instinctively clutched his abdomen as he murmured,
"Impossible!"
"Impossible... Ugh!"
Smack!
King Vegeta lost consciousness and collapsed to the ground. His body twitched uncontrollably, his butt sticking up in a pose that looked like a familiar, iconic scene.
Saigo chuckled. "No one's ever made that kind of request to me before. You're the first!"
Not wanting to waste time, Saigo crouched down and gave King Vegeta's big face a few hard slaps.
Smack, smack!
"Hey! Wake up! Quit sleeping! Hey!"
Still not awake?
More slaps, then!
Smack, smack, smack!
"Jeez. Your face is thick-skinned and hard as a rock. My hand hurts from slapping it!"
Seeing that King Vegeta showed no sign of waking, Saigo raised his hand, ready to hit him even harder.
Unexpectedly, King Vegeta slowly came to.
Saigo lowered his hand with a regretful look and stood up.
"Cough, cough! Tss—"
King Vegeta felt waves of pain in his abdomen, and his face was burning too. He could only clutch his stomach with one hand and rub his hot cheek with the other.
Seeing him looking half-dead, Saigo urged him on. "All right, if you're not dead, get up. You don't want your men seeing you like this, do you?"
The intense pain had left King Vegeta's mind numb. As soon as he heard someone speak, he shakily got to his feet and warily watched Saigo.
Realizing he had lost, his face fell, filled with dejection and despair.
"I'll give up the Saiyan throne. Could you spare my life?" King Vegeta begged, utterly defeated.
There wasn't a trace of fight left in his face.
Saigo sneered. "King Vegeta, you've disappointed me. You've faced one little setback, and you've already lost the courage to keep fighting. With an attitude like that, how could you lead the Saiyans to successfully rebel against Frieza? How could you lead them to glory?"
King Vegeta stared at him in disbelief, then asked in a panic, "Y-you... how do you know we're planning to rebel against Frieza? W-where did you hear about it? Who are you?"
The survival of the Saiyan race was at stake. For a moment, King Vegeta forgot the situation he was in. Panicked, he even let his question come out sounding like an accusation.
He firmly believed that the secret plan he had devised could never have been leaked. Everyone who knew about it was one of his most trusted confidants.
Few people on Planet Vegeta even knew they were planning to rebel against Frieza, and he could count on one hand those who knew the details.
Saigo was a newborn Saiyan who had only just finished his development. There was no way he could have gotten close to such a top-secret plan.
"Don't be so nervous. You might not believe how I know. If I told an ordinary person, they'd say I was making up some ridiculous lie. And no, your plan hasn't been leaked. So, do you still want to hear?" Saigo replied calmly.
King Vegeta immediately breathed a sigh of relief. If the information hadn't leaked, how had Saigo found out?
Something hard to believe?
What was going on? And how had he gotten so strong?
Could he be the Legendary Super Saiyan?
Full of questions, King Vegeta asked quietly, "Please tell me, so I can die knowing the truth!"
"Heh. Don't worry. You're still of some use alive!" Saigo glanced at King Vegeta, who had already resigned himself to death, and scoffed. Then he floated over to the throne and sat down before continuing, "Have you heard of the Super Saiyan God?"
King Vegeta felt relieved by the first part of Saigo's reply and flew over after him. But when he heard the question, he froze. "The Super Saiyan God?"
"Super Saiyan God?" repeated King Vegeta over and over.
The words meant nothing to him.
"Super Saiyan God... Super Saiyan God... I've never heard of it! We Saiyans only have one legend: the Legendary Super Saiyan!"
"Could you mean... the Legendary Super Saiyan?"
"Y-you can't be the Legendary Super Saiyan, can you?"
Thinking that Saigo might well be the Legendary Super Saiyan, King Vegeta recalled what had just happened and decided it made perfect sense.
His expression shifted several times: first excitement, then regret, then despair.
Watching King Vegeta put on a show of changing expressions, Saigo said regretfully, "Sadly, I'm not the Legendary Super Saiyan. But I'll be able to become a Super Saiyan in the future!"
"What?!"
King Vegeta was stunned. His eyes widened. Someone who wasn't the Legendary Super Saiyan could still become a Super Saiyan?
What nonsense was this?
Could an ordinary Saiyan really become the Legendary Super Saiyan?
Absolutely impossible!
"You heard me right! In theory, any Saiyan can become a Super Saiyan! But there are a few prerequisites. There's no need to get into them now." Saigo continued, "I can tell you for certain that the Legendary Super Saiyan, the Super Saiyan, and the Super Saiyan God all truly existed. It's just that many things have been lost as the Saiyan race passed down through the generations!"
"The reason I'm as strong as I am now is that the Super Saiyan God visited me in a dream while I was being developed. In that dream, the Super Saiyan God taught me many things, including how to increase my battle power!"
"That's how I managed to raise my battle power in just two short months until even you couldn't match me!"
After hearing all this, King Vegeta's face turned an odd shade, and his eyes widened so much they looked ready to pop out. His mouth hung open in shock.
His body trembled against his will, and he even stumbled backward several steps.
His eyes were full of disbelief, as though he couldn't accept what he'd just heard.
Perhaps Saigo's story was completely beyond his expectations, or it clashed violently with everything he had always believed and understood.
This abrupt upheaval in his understanding threw his inner world into chaos, leaving him unable to gather his thoughts.
The Saiyans had secrets like these?
Why had he never heard about them?
Was it because their legacy had been broken?
What had happened to the Saiyan ancestors?
Why had the Super Saiyan God chosen Saigo as the one to visit in a dream?
Those were the four questions troubling King Vegeta.
A long while later.
At last, King Vegeta emerged from the chaos in his thoughts. His expression complicated, he stared at Saigo for several seconds.
Then, looking somewhat relieved but also hopeful, he swiftly dropped to one knee and said respectfully, "Your subordinate, Vegeta III, pays his respects to King Saigo!"
"I hope King Saigo will save the Saiyans and lead us to rule the universe!"
Saigo hadn't expected Vegeta III to submit so quickly.
After all, the previous simulations had only mentioned a few things in passing; they hadn't described the details.
Still, being addressed as a king felt great!
"Get up! Until Frieza is defeated, you're still the Saiyan king in name. Understand?" Saigo admonished him. "And stop going around talking about ruling the universe. Frieza's clan isn't the only one with powerful people in the universe!"
"Have you already forgotten those two people who were stronger than Frieza and once came to Planet Vegeta?"
"If I'm not mistaken, you were the one they had under their feet back then, weren't you?"
Before you continue