"What's wrong? Has our Universe Emperor, Lord Frieza, never looked this rattled before?" Vegeta moved forward, and Frieza backed away in his Hover Pod.
That instinctive retreat revealed just how tense Frieza was.
Vegeta was quite pleased to see it. "Oh? Looks like you really are afraid of me."
After Vegeta mocked him several times, Frieza realized that his retreating was only making Vegeta even more arrogant.
He was the mighty Universe Emperor, yet this wild monkey Vegeta was ridiculing him.
Back then, he had wiped out Planet Vegeta with ease. He could have just as easily exterminated the entire Saiyan race.
He had spared Vegeta out of the kindness of his heart!
"You're asking to die, Vegeta!" Frieza leapt up, finally getting out of his baby carriage.
Vegeta merely smiled, then looked up at Frieza hovering high above, utterly unconcerned.
The next second, he vanished without another word and closed in on Frieza.
To Frieza's astonishment, Vegeta appeared right in front of him.
Frieza gritted his teeth and threw a punch at the approaching Vegeta. It clearly hit, yet his fist felt nothing at all.
"A afterimage?!" Frieza cried in shock. Before he could react, his body suddenly lost control and plummeted toward the ground.
"Rumble!!!" The impact shook the earth.
Frieza nearly sank the entire island with his crash.
Vegeta stood where Frieza had been moments earlier, his eyes full of amusement as he slowly descended.
Frieza was still buried in the thick cloud of dust. Vegeta could sense his energy fluctuating violently.
"Come out, Frieza. If that one punch was enough to knock you down, you'll have really disappointed me."
Not long after he spoke, a sudden gust erupted from the center of the swirling dust.
Frieza soon burst out, but he had lost all the swagger he'd shown before.
"Good, very good! Vegeta, let's see just how capable you really are now!" Frieza charged at him.
Vegeta could sense the dark aura surrounding Frieza.
If Vegeta had still only possessed a few tens of thousands in battle power, he wouldn't have been able to defend himself. He would have been terrified.
But now, Frieza was no more than an ant if he didn't transform.
Vegeta's base power was at least three million, while Frieza's first form had a mere 530,000 in battle power.
Even in his second form, Frieza would only reach a little over a million. His third form would be no more than two or three million at most.
Frieza's "fierce" assault didn't faze Vegeta in the slightest. Keeping his arms folded, he easily dodged every punch and kick.
"Did you forget to eat, Frieza? You think you can hit me moving that slowly? Keep dreaming." Vegeta taunted him as he dodged.
In truth, one punch would have been enough to leave Frieza unable to fight back.
Even his earlier attack had used only a tenth of his strength. Otherwise, Frieza would still be struggling to get back up.
Vegeta was doing this—using these methods to toy with Frieza—to get revenge!
That was right!
He had inherited everything from Vegeta, including all the memories of his life. Though he hadn't personally lived through them, they felt no different from his own experiences. After all, he was Vegeta now.
For all these years, the hatred for Frieza and the pain in his heart had been building. Now, he was venting it all and washing it away this way.
"Damn you! Damn you! Damn you! How dare you toy with me!!" Frieza grew more furious with every attack.
For so many years, ever since his birth, he had always been the one to toy with others. Aside from that one being, no one had ever dared to order him around.
Frieza's punches and kicks came one after another, but Vegeta gradually grew bored.
Only after Frieza changed tactics, put some distance between them, and unleashed a barrage of energy blasts did that round of attacks finally end.
"How's that? You see how powerful I am now?" His full-force barrage had hit Vegeta head-on. It was powerful enough to blast a planet apart; there was no way Vegeta had escaped unscathed.
But soon, Vegeta's voice reached Frieza's ears like a demon's whisper.
"Not impressed."
"What?!" Frieza tensed and spun around in a hurry. He saw Vegeta raising a hand, two fingers pressed against his head.
Anger, terror, disbelief...
"Already questioning everything? This is just the beginning!"
Vegeta faced Frieza with a cold expression, then suddenly turned his fingers into a palm and let out a fierce shout.
A terrifying shock wave blasted Frieza away in an instant.
Without hesitation, Vegeta powered up and chased after him, driving a heavy punch into Frieza's chest. Frieza howled in pain, spat blood, and continued hurtling backward.
The assault had only just begun. Vegeta sped up, caught him, and moved beneath him before kicking him skyward.
It wasn't over yet. Vegeta powered up again and shot into the clouds, reaching the sky ahead of Frieza. He waited until Frieza was just beginning to regain control of his body, then grabbed his face and drove him straight down.
"Rumble, rumble, rumble~~!!!"
A massive island was blasted to pieces by the terrifying force. Vegeta kept hold of Frieza's head and ground it viciously against the earth.
Only when he finally felt satisfied did he fling Frieza away, smashing him into the mountainside of another island.
The mountainside crumbled in an instant, and countless fragments buried Frieza's body.
At this point, the fight seemed to be over. Frieza had been completely unable to fight back, and he had surely suffered serious injuries.
Of course, only Vegeta knew that he had used just twenty percent of his strength to warm up, simply playing around with Frieza.
If Frieza didn't transform next, Vegeta would stop holding back and finish him off.
After all, if Frieza hadn't been strong enough to give him a proper fight after he transformed into a Super Saiyan, Vegeta would have killed him already.
He'd gotten all the anger out of his system anyway.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Planet Namek,
the Grand Elder had watched the entire battle through his psychic perception.
He had expected this outcome, but seeing it with his own eyes still left him deeply shaken.