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To save or to destroy, that is the question.

The problem wasn't significant, as Raditz didn't feel the need to save every planet he encountered.

He prepared to check the rewards first.

The rewards for both missions were thought-provoking.

The Seed of Life and the Seed of Embers.

There were no other descriptions.

Judging by their literal meanings, they should be related to creation and destruction.

Supreme Kai?!

God of Destruction?!

Didn't they correspond perfectly to creation and destruction?

"I'll take it one step at a time. I'll go find that prince from the first mission and get the lay of the land."

Raditz pondered for a long time without making an immediate decision.

He took to the air and used his ki sense.

"There's someone with a battle power of eight thousand in that direction, and a few others with over a thousand nearby. I'll go check that out first."

With a cyclone of energy enveloping his body, Raditz shot off like a bolt of lightning.

Before long, he arrived in front of a palace-like structure.

"Halt!"

The two soldiers at the gate immediately blocked his path upon seeing someone approach.

"Outsider, you are not welcome here."

Raditz stopped, hands in his pockets, a harmless smile on his face.

"Don't be so tense."

He swept a glance over the two, his tone casual. "I'm here to see your king. I have a way to solve your planet's problem."

The two soldiers exchanged a look, hesitation flashing in their eyes.

"His Highness the Prince will not see you," one of the soldiers said in a deep voice. "Please leave."

"The Prince? Does that mean the King has already fled?"

The soldiers' expressions turned ugly.

Raditz had his answer, confirming he hadn't come to the wrong place. "Fine, the Prince it is. Lead the way."

"You..."

"I said, I can solve your problem." Raditz cut the soldier off, raising his right hand as a blue energy sphere gathered, radiating a dangerous glow.

The two soldiers stiffened.

They could feel that the power contained within that tiny ball of light was enough to raze the entire palace to the ground.

After a brief silence, one of the soldiers turned and pushed open the palace doors.

"Follow me."

Inside the great hall, Daizi remained seated on the throne, eyes closed in repose.

"Your Highness." The soldier hurried into the hall and knelt on one knee. "This visitor says he can solve our problem."

Daizi slowly opened his eyes, his gaze landing on Raditz.

He scrutinized him for a moment, his brow furrowing even tighter.

"Who are you?"

Raditz also sized up the young prince sitting on the throne.

He had a handsome face, carrying a hint of resolve.

He wasn't anyone Raditz was familiar with.

"Just passing through." Raditz spoke the truth. "I saw this planet was dying, so I came over to ask about the situation."

Daizi didn't speak, merely staring at Raditz with a scrutinizing gaze.

Raditz wasn't in a hurry. After a while, he raised his hand and pointed toward the gray, hazy sky outside the hall.

"Are those two guys in that direction out there from your planet?"

Daizi's pupils suddenly constricted.

"How did you..."

He stopped mid-sentence.

Anyone capable of discussing those two guys so calmly couldn't have a low battle power.

He took a deep breath and asked, "You aren't with them?"

Raditz shook his head.

It seems these three high-combat-power individuals are two separate groups, corresponding perfectly to my two mission objectives, he thought to himself.

"I'm here to solve the problem."

"Interesting." Daizi tapped his armrest. "Then do you happen to know what the combat power of those two people is?"

"Around eight thousand," Raditz replied casually. "Yours is too."

The great hall fell silent for a moment.

Daizi's tapping stopped.

He re-examined Raditz, his gaze turning sharp.

That figure of eight thousand was something he had heard the two of them mention themselves when he fought them earlier.

He couldn't verify the truth of it, having only seen them tap a few times on the devices attached to their faces to measure his combat power.

"You can see combat power?"

"You could say that."

"Then what about you?" Daizi asked bluntly. "What is your combat power?"

Raditz thought for a moment and decided not to hide it.

A massive surge of ki erupted from within his body.

Instantly, the air in the great hall was violently compressed by an invisible vortex of energy.

The stone pillars and the ground shook intensely.

The two soldiers' legs began to buckle, and they could barely stand.

Daizi's body stiffened as well, though there was no fear in his eyes, only excitement.

After a mere two seconds, Raditz withdrew his ki.

The great hall returned to calm.

"Is that enough?" Raditz asked.

Daizi was silent for a moment, then suddenly laughed.

"Enough." He stood up from his throne and walked down with steady steps. "Allow me to introduce myself: Daizi, Prince of Pujinpa."

"Raditz."

Daizi nodded. Seeing that Raditz had nothing more to say, he took the initiative to explain the situation regarding the two individuals and the planet.

"Half a month ago, those two arrived here."

"Kabacha is a trade planet, and a large number of aliens come and go every day, so at first, no one noticed them."

"By the time we realized something was wrong, it was already too late."

"First, the forest vegetation withered on a massive scale, and then sandstorms began to spread, blotting out the sky."

"I sent people to investigate the cause, and after a few days, we finally found the source of the problem."

Daizi's eyes turned incredulous.

"It was a tree."

"A towering tree, growing on the far side of the planet. I've never seen a tree like it; its branches and leaves were abnormally lush, a green so deep it was almost black. Yet, for a hundred miles around it, nothing grew, and the soil had turned into gray, dead earth."

"It was as if it had been sucked dry."

"I intended to get close to that tree to take a look, but those two appeared." Daizi clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white. "Their combat power was completely beyond what we could handle."

"I could only manage to hold my own against one of them, but the other killed more than half of the men I brought."

"Later, I organized several more attacks, and once I even risked injury to rush to the base of the tree and attacked it with all my might."

Daizi shook his head with a sense of helplessness.

"It was completely useless; not even a layer of bark fell off that tree."

"After that, the situation got worse and worse, and the people on the planet began to flee..."

The great hall fell quiet, with only the sound of the wind wailing outside.

As Raditz listened to Daizi's description, an image suddenly flashed through his mind.

A tree capable of absorbing a planet's energy.

Two high-combat-power tree planters.

This sense of déjà vu...

Is that you? Otsuts...

Ahem, excuse me, wrong show.

Raditz pulled his thoughts back; he had a rough guess now.

In the Dragon Ball world, the only villain that immediately comes to mind when thinking of a "tree" is Turles.

That low-class Saiyan, who looked exactly like Sun Wukong, relied on eating the fruit of the Tree of Might to enhance his strength.

"What do those two look like?" Raditz asked.

"They are twins."

Daizi pulled a palm-sized screen from his chest, swiped his finger across it a few times, and handed it to Raditz.

"This is the footage we recorded."

Raditz took it and looked down.

Short and stout figures, purple skin, oval-shaped heads, and ugly appearances.

They wore scouters on their heads and combat suits on their bodies, very similar to those used by Saiyans.

This isn't Turles, either. Could they be his subordinates?

Raditz frantically searched through his memories.

The art style of these two guys reminded him of someone else: Guldo of the Ginyu Force.

That was the short guy who could control the time around him.

Since he now knew the culprit behind Kabacha Planet rapidly turning into a dead star, completing the first mission became much simpler.

As long as he destroyed that tree and returned the energy it had absorbed back to the planet, he should be able to achieve the goal of the "Planet Defense Battle."

Raditz quickly calculated in his mind and ultimately chose to complete the first mission.

The rewards for both missions were somewhat ambiguous, and if they were truly related to the two deities as he suspected, then it would be safer to choose the Supreme Kai.

"Then let's set off and go meet them."

Daizi was stunned. So confident?

"Those two have combat powers on par with mine, but they have great synergy and their abilities are somewhat bizarre. Are you sure you don't need to learn more?"

"Tell me while we walk."

Raditz turned and walked toward the outside of the palace, and Daizi followed.

A moment later, the two tore through the gray, hazy sky and headed toward the far side of Kabacha Planet.