Saving or destroying it—that was the question.
It wasn't a difficult one. Raditz didn't go around saving every planet he came across.
He planned to check the rewards first.
The rewards for both missions were intriguing.
Seed of Life and Seed of Embers.
There were no other details.
Going by their names, they seemed to have something to do with creation and destruction.
Supreme Kai?!
God of Destruction?!
Didn't those correspond perfectly to creation and destruction?
"Let's take it one step at a time. First, I'll find the prince from Mission One and learn more about the situation."
After thinking it over for a long while, Raditz still hadn't made a decision.
He rose into the air and sensed the ki around him.
"There's someone with a battle power of eight thousand in that direction, along with a few others over a thousand. I'll take a look over there first."
A vortex of ki enveloped him, and Raditz shot off like lightning.
Before long, he arrived at a palace-like building.
"Stop!"
The two soldiers at the entrance immediately blocked his way when they saw him approaching.
"Outsiders aren't welcome here."
Raditz stopped, hands in his pockets, and put on a harmless smile.
"Don't be so tense."
He glanced at the two men, his tone casual. "I'm here to see your king. I can solve the problem facing your planet."
The two soldiers exchanged a glance, hesitation flickering in their eyes.
"His Highness the Prince won't see you," one of them said gravely. "Please leave."
"The prince? So the king has already fled?"
The soldiers' expressions darkened.
Raditz understood. He'd come to the right place. "Fine, then the prince will do. Lead the way."
"You..."
"I told you, I can solve your problem." Raditz cut the soldier off and raised his right hand. A blue energy sphere gathered in his palm, radiating a dangerous glow.
The two soldiers froze.
They could feel that the tiny orb contained enough power to level the entire palace.
After a brief silence, one of the soldiers turned and pushed open the palace doors.
"Follow me."
Inside the main hall, Daiz was still seated on the throne, resting with his eyes closed.
"Your Highness." The soldier hurried into the hall and dropped to one knee. "This visitor says he can solve our problem."
Daiz slowly opened his eyes and looked at Raditz.
After studying him for a moment, he furrowed his brow.
"Who are you?"
Raditz studied the young prince on the throne in turn.
He was handsome, with a resolute air about him.
He wasn't anyone Raditz recognized.
"Just passing through," Raditz answered honestly. "I saw this planet was on the brink of death and came to ask what was going on."
Daiz said nothing. He simply watched Raditz, scrutinizing him.
Raditz didn't mind waiting. After a while, he raised a hand and pointed toward the gray sky outside the hall.
"Those two out there, in that direction—are they from your planet?"
Daiz's pupils shrank sharply.
"How did you..."
He stopped halfway through his sentence.
Anyone who could speak so calmly about those two couldn't have a low battle power.
He took a deep breath and asked, "You're not with them?"
Raditz shook his head.
So those three powerful fighters belonged to two separate groups, matching the targets of the two missions.
"I'm here to solve the problem."
"Interesting." Daiz tapped the armrest. "Do you know the battle power of those two?"
"About eight thousand," Raditz replied offhandedly. "Same as yours."
The hall fell silent for a moment.
Daiz stopped tapping the armrest.
He scrutinized Raditz again, his gaze turning sharp.
He'd heard the figure of eight thousand from the two men themselves when he'd fought them earlier.
He couldn't tell whether it was true. He'd only seen them tap a few times on the device over their faces before it measured his battle power.
"You can see battle power?"
"More or less."
"What about you?" Daiz asked bluntly. "What's your battle power?"
Raditz thought about it and decided not to hide it.
A tremendous surge of ki burst from his body.
In an instant, the air in the hall was crushed by an invisible vortex of ki.
The pillars and the ground shook violently.
The soldiers' legs began to buckle, and they could barely stay on their feet.
Daiz's body stiffened too, but there was no fear in his eyes—only excitement.
After barely two seconds, Raditz withdrew his ki.
The hall returned to calm.
"Is that enough?" Raditz asked.
Daiz was silent for a moment, then suddenly smiled.
"That's enough." He rose from the throne and walked steadily down from it. "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Daiz, prince of Pujinpa."
"Raditz."
Daiz nodded. When Raditz didn't say anything more, he took the initiative and began explaining the two men and the situation on the planet.
"Those two arrived here half a month ago."
"Kabacha is a trade planet. Countless aliens come and go every day, so at first no one paid them any attention."
"By the time we realized something was wrong, it was already too late."
"First, large swathes of forest vegetation died. Then sandstorms began to spread, blotting out the sky."
"I sent people to investigate the cause. It took several days, but we finally found the source of the problem."
Daiz's expression turned incredulous.
"It was a tree."
"A towering tree growing on the far side of the planet. I'd never seen anything like it. Its branches and leaves were unbelievably dense, so dark green they were nearly black, yet nothing grew for a hundred miles around it. The soil had turned into gray-white dead earth."
"It looked as if everything had been drained dry."
"I wanted to get closer and examine the tree, but those two appeared." Daiz clenched his fists until his fingertips went pale. "Their battle power was far beyond anything we could handle."
"I could only keep one of them occupied, while the other killed most of the people I'd brought with me."
"After that, I organized several more attacks. Once, I even charged all the way to the tree despite being wounded and attacked it with everything I had."
Daiz shook his head helplessly.
"It didn't do a thing. The tree didn't even lose a layer of bark."
"After that, things kept getting worse, and people started fleeing the planet..."
The hall fell quiet, with only the mournful wind howling outside.
As Raditz listened to Daiz's account, an image suddenly flashed through his mind.
A tree that could absorb a planet's energy.
Two powerful men who planted trees.
This feels familiar...
Is it you, Great Ōtsu—
Ahem, sorry. Wrong series.
Raditz pulled his thoughts back on track. He had a pretty good idea what was going on.
In the Dragon Ball world, when it came to villains associated with trees, the only one who came to mind right away was Turles.
The low-class Saiyan who looked exactly like Sun Wukong and grew stronger by eating the fruit of the Tree of Might.
"What do those two look like?" Raditz asked.
"They're twins."
Daiz pulled a palm-sized screen from his clothes, swiped his finger across it a few times, and handed it to Raditz.
"This is a recording we made."
Raditz took it and looked down.
They were short and stocky, with purple skin, oval-shaped heads, and ugly faces.
They wore Scouters on their heads and Battle Suits that looked much like the ones Saiyans wore.
These aren't Turles, either. Could they be his underlings?
Raditz frantically searched his memories.
The two reminded him of someone else: Guldo of the Ginyu Force.
The short guy who could control time around himself.
Now that he knew who was responsible for turning Kabacha Planet into a near-dead world, completing the first mission would be simple.
He only had to destroy the tree and return the life energy it had absorbed to the planet. That should fulfill the goal of the "Planet Defense Battle."
Raditz quickly weighed his options and ultimately chose to complete the first mission.
The rewards for the two missions were both rather vague. If they really were related to the two deities he suspected, then it was safer to choose the Supreme Kai.
"Then let's get going and meet them."
Daiz stared at him, stunned. Was he really that confident?
"Their battle power is about the same as mine, but they work well together, and their abilities are strange. Are you sure you don't need to hear more about them?"
"We can talk on the way."
Raditz turned and headed out of the hall. Daiz followed.
A short while later, the two of them cut through the gray sky, heading for the far side of Kabacha Planet.