Mysterious Arrival

The scene on Earth appeared clearly within the crystal ball.

It was chillingly desolate—a landscape of ruins, the ground riddled with cracks and craters, scattered with chaotic rubble and broken walls still shrouded in lingering dust.

The sky hung low, a leaden layer of clouds sealing out all light, while occasional flashes of lightning tore through the horizon, making the devastation below all the more striking.

The wind howled across the battlefield, whipping up fine grit and pelting it against scorched rocks with a rhythmic patter, as if adding a soundtrack to this silent, dead land.

In the center of the frame, a black-haired youth hovered in mid-air.

His posture was upright, his form enveloped by the wind, his hair drifting messily and his robes snapping in the gale. There was an inexplicable calmness about him—not a sign of weakness, but a suppressed power, like an undercurrent in the deep sea, ready to erupt at any moment.

His hands hung naturally at his sides, his fingertips glowing faintly, while ripples danced in the air beneath his feet as if he were treading upon invisible waves.

Behind him, a thick tail swayed leisurely, as if it could tear apart anything standing in its way at a moment's notice.

"This youth..." Kibito Kai leaned in toward the crystal ball, his face nearly pressing against the cold surface.

He stared fixedly at Jiang Che, his brows knitting together. "His ki is truly extraordinary. If you look closely, it's as if an invisible barrier is wrapping around his entire body. But why can I not sense his true strength?" He waved his hand through the void, trying to grasp something, but caught only air.

"Because that is god ki!" Old Supreme Kai's voice suddenly deepened, his eyes filled with vigilance and awe.

He slowly straightened his back, though his hand remained pressed against the crystal ball.

"Mortals cannot perceive god ki at all; only we of the divine race can detect it. It is like the wind—you cannot see it, you can only feel it brushing against your skin. That boy's ki is that very wind." His fingers traced the surface of the crystal ball, his fingertips trembling slightly and unconsciously.

"But... he is clearly a Saiyan!" Kibito Kai suddenly pointed at the tail, his voice rising sharply. "How could a Saiyan possess god ki? It's impossible!" His entire face was etched with disbelief, cold sweat beading on his forehead.

Old Supreme Kai fell silent for a moment, his gaze fixed on Jiang Che like a sharp blade.

His breathing grew rapid, and it was a long while before he spoke, his voice low, hoarse, and trembling: "If I am not mistaken... he is the legendary existence recorded in the ancient texts..." He weighed every word carefully.

"What?" Kibito Kai pressed impatiently, leaning forward, his knuckles turning white.

"A Super Saiyan God." Old Supreme Kai uttered these words slowly, each one landing like a heavy hammer inside Kami's Lookout.

His gaze became distant, as if piercing through time to see the blurred handwriting on the pages of yellowed, ancient books.

"That power has surpassed the limits of a Super Saiyan and stepped into the realm of the gods. To be honest, I always thought it was merely a legend. I never expected it to truly exist..." As he spoke, his voice carried a tremor, whether from excitement or fear, he could not tell.

Kibito Kai gasped, his chest heaving violently.

His pupils reflected the image in the crystal ball, his lips slightly parted. "A Super Saiyan God... wouldn't that make him even stronger than Son Goku and the others?" Even as he said it, he felt it was absurd, yet the reality before his eyes made it impossible to deny.

"Stronger is an understatement..." Old Supreme Kai stared intently at the crystal ball, unable to even blink. "Look there—Baby's attack is completely useless."

In the image, Baby was diving down from the sky, wrapped in dark purple energy like a falling meteor.

He roared as he threw a punch, the force of it tearing through the air with a piercing shriek, while the rubble on the ground was swept up by the shockwave and blasted in every direction.

The force of this punch was enough to shatter a mountain range.

He slammed his fist fiercely toward Jiang Che's chest.

Just as the fist was about to make contact, a thin layer of red light manifested on Jiang Che's skin.

It was not dazzling, yet it acted like an invisible barrier, stopping Baby's attack dead in its tracks three inches away.

With a dull thud, Baby's fist struck what felt like an invisible iron wall, and the recoil sent him flying backward.

He retreated several steps, each one leaving a deep crater in the ground, sending debris flying and dust billowing.

Yet, his strike hadn't caused even a ripple of disturbance in Jiang Che; the red light hadn't even flickered.

"This..." Kibito Kai was completely stunned, his mouth hanging open in an exaggerated circle, his jaw nearly hitting the floor.

He pointed a stiff finger at the crystal ball, his voice nearly failing him. "Baby is a monster capable of parasitizing Saiyans! Every one of his attacks can shatter mountains, yet this youth didn't even move!" He looked back at Old Supreme Kai, his eyes filled with incomprehensible shock. "This is like an ant biting an elephant!"

"It seems a great event is upon us." Old Supreme Kai took a deep breath, his voice echoing through Kami's Lookout; even the stars outside the window seemed to tremble at his words.

"The appearance of this youth will likely change the fate of the entire universe..."

His gaze pierced through the void, as if he could already see the smoke of the distant battlefield.

At that very moment, on the battlefield on Earth.

The sky was stained a grayish-yellow by thick smoke and dust, the earth was cracked, and molten magma seeped through the fissures, the air thick with the scent of scorched earth and blood.

The wind roared, whipping up debris and slamming it against the ruins with dull, heavy thuds.

Several distant mountain peaks had been sheared in half, the rubble piled into hills, and the gullies in the ground looked like shocking, jagged scars.

"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!" Baby's roar tore through the silence, making even the air tremble.

He gritted his teeth, veins bulging and muscles swelling, before suddenly throwing a violent punch at Jiang Che!

The punch carried the destructive force of a city-leveling blow, the wind of it tearing the air into a piercing shriek like the roar of a wild beast.

But Jiang Che merely tilted his body slightly, his movement as light and effortless as a falling leaf caught in a breeze.

He barely moved his feet, simply pivoting his body, and the punch grazed his robes, slamming instead into a massive boulder behind him—with a deafening "boom," the boulder exploded, sending stone flying and gray mist obscuring the sky.

Jiang Che's long red hair fluttered in the wind, dancing like flames beneath the gloomy sky.

A mocking smirk played on his lips, his eyes filled with disdain and amusement.

"Is that all you've got?" Jiang Che asked softly, his tone as calm as casual conversation, yet every word felt like a blade stabbing into Baby's heart.

"And you call yourself the strongest in the universe? This attack doesn't even qualify as a scratch."

"You're courting death!" Baby roared, his pupils erupting with a frenzied crimson light.

He opened his maw wide, a dazzling orb of light gathering deep within his throat. The glow grew brighter and more intense, as if it intended to swallow everything in its vicinity.

Then, a massive wave of energy erupted from his mouth!

The energy wave was a full ten meters in diameter, dark red in color, with twisted electric arcs coiling around its edges. It surged toward Jiang Che with the momentum to destroy heaven and earth.

Wherever the energy wave passed, the air was instantly heated into white mist. The ground was plowed into deep trenches, and soil and rock melted under the high heat, churning and hissing.

Debris was swept into the air, pulverized into powder by the energy wave, and scattered as ash.