Crack.
Son Gohan planted his foot, and Vegeta's breastbone shattered instantly, his entire chest caving in.
A mass of blood mixed with chunks of internal organs poured from Vegeta's mouth.
But the next moment, brilliant white light burst forth again. His collapsed chest visibly rose back into place, and his shattered bones healed as if they had never broken.
Boom!
A violent golden aura forced Son Gohan back half a step.
Vegeta's power surged again.
Sixteen quadrillion!
Vegeta flipped to his feet and swung his right leg down like a battle axe toward the side of Son Gohan's neck.
Thud!
Son Gohan raised one arm to block, taking the blow head-on, then retaliated with a heavy punch to Vegeta's cheek. Half of Vegeta's jaw was knocked clean off, and his body slammed into a distant munitions factory like a cannonball.
But in less than a second, Vegeta shot skyward again, completely unharmed, his power soaring to twenty quadrillion!
Son Gohan stayed where he was, letting his green aura blaze wildly around him.
He was waiting for Vegeta to recover again and again, growing stronger each time. The Legendary Super Saiyan's nature only truly revealed itself when fighting an opponent of equal or greater strength—the stronger the opponent, the more intense the desire to fight, and the faster his power rose!
Vegeta, bolstered by Miracle Power, was undoubtedly the perfect stepping stone.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Above the ruins, two streaks of light collided again and again.
With every clash, Son Gohan smashed Vegeta apart with even greater brutality. His arms broke, his abdomen was pierced, and his skull was crushed. But at the last possible moment, the white light always pulled him back from death and granted him even greater strength.
Thirty quadrillion.
Forty quadrillion.
Fifty quadrillion!
In the distance, several Saiyan officers huddled behind a blast-resistant barricade, clutching the latest tactical Scouters. The numbers on their screens were changing faster and faster!
"Sixty quadrillion..." one officer stammered, kneeling on the ground and trembling all over. "These two monsters... They're going to split the whole planet apart!"
Boom!
In midair, Vegeta punched Son Gohan in the cheek. Son Gohan's head snapped to the side, and his body slid backward hundreds of meters.
Vegeta stopped in midair and looked at his unharmed fists, brimming with explosive power. Then he threw his head back and laughed hysterically.
"Hahahaha! I hit you!"
Vegeta's Super Saiyan 3 aura had nearly become tangible, golden arcs of electricity crackling wildly around him. Miracle Power had forcibly dragged his battle power up to match Son Gohan's!
"Weren't you so arrogant just now, Son Gohan?" Vegeta raised both hands and aimed his palms at Son Gohan below. "The Legendary Super Saiyan isn't anything special! I've surpassed you!"
Countless golden, highly condensed ki blasts rained down.
Vegeta had unleashed his classic Prince's technique!
The dense barrage of light blasts sealed off every escape route, filling the entire sky with blinding golden light.
Son Gohan rolled his neck, a wild grin curling his lips.
"You're celebrating too soon."
He raised his lone right hand, palm up. His violent green energy instantly split into thousands upon thousands of emerald orbs, surging upward to meet the golden downpour.
Explosive Meteor!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Green and gold blasts collided violently in midair, turning the entire sky into a sea of flames made of pure destructive energy. The chain of explosions shook the crust into massive collapses, and magma erupted through the cracks.
Vegeta plunged through the flames and closed in on Son Gohan in an instant.
"Big Bang Attack!"
He thrust out one hand. A blinding golden orb exploded with a roar less than half a meter from Son Gohan's face.
Son Gohan neither dodged nor retreated. He condensed a highly compressed green energy sphere in his right hand and slammed it straight into Vegeta's attack.
"Massive Meteor!"
Two blasts, each with power in the tens of quadrillions, detonated at point-blank range. The terrifying recoil sent both of them flying. Son Gohan crashed into the lava lake below, sending a hundred-meter-high wave of molten rock surging into the air. Vegeta was blasted into the wreckage of a fallen heavy battleship, smashing its supposedly indestructible interstellar armor into countless fragments.
Splash.
Son Gohan shot out of the lava with not even a trace of a burn on his body. The Legendary Super Saiyan's flesh and energy shield were extraordinarily durable.
Elsewhere, Vegeta burst out through the shattered battleship. The entire left half of his body had been blown away in their previous clash, but the white light quickly churned over the wound, growing him a brand-new body in two seconds.
Their battle had reached its boiling point.
They fought from the upper atmosphere to the planet's core, then climbed back from the core to the stratosphere.
"Die! Final Flash!!!"
At an altitude of ten thousand meters, Vegeta clasped his hands together. A thick golden beam, powerful enough to pierce the moon, roared down.
Below, Son Gohan planted his feet apart and raised his right arm. Golden and green energy compressed violently in his palm, then became a devastating beam just as thick, surging upward to meet Vegeta's.
"Massive Masenko!"
Boom!
The two beams collided in midair and locked in place. Space warped to its limit, and pitch-black rifts in space-time even appeared around them.
Seventy quadrillion.
Eighty quadrillion.
One hundred quadrillion!
Their battle went on for a long time.
As they traded reckless blasts and fought to the death, both of their battle powers soared to an astronomical level that left one breathless.
The dark red sky had been completely torn apart, exposing the starry void of outer space directly overhead.
"Push it down!" Vegeta's eyes were bloodshot as he desperately drove his ki forward, trying to overwhelm Son Gohan's Masenko.
Son Gohan suddenly thrust with one arm. His ferocious Legendary Super Saiyan aura erupted like a volcano, forcing the Final Flash back.
The beam skimmed past Vegeta's shoulder and shot into space, instantly vaporizing tens of thousands of ships along the outer-space defensive line.
"Tch!" Vegeta gritted his teeth and shook his burned shoulder. He tried to call on the Miracle Power within him to heal the wound, then use the opening to push his strength even higher.
But this time, things were different.
The expected surge of white light never appeared. Only one or two faint white sparks flickered over the wound on his shoulder, barely healing the surface before going out completely.
Vegeta froze.
He tried to activate Miracle Power again, but there was nothing inside him. The power that could disregard all rules and twist reality had disappeared.
Miracle Power wasn't infinite. The Miracle Power Kakarot had granted him had its limits after all.
A battle power of one hundred quadrillion, combined with the cost of regrowing his limbs over and over, had completely drained his reserves.
Vegeta's heart skipped a beat. A chill unlike anything he had ever felt raced up his spine and into the back of his head.
Without Miracle Power, he was no longer immortal. He could no longer grow stronger without end.
And standing opposite him was Son Gohan.
Boom!
The grassy-green aura surged higher again. The wild presence around Son Gohan hadn't weakened in the slightest; after fighting so intensely, it had only grown more violent and profound. The Legendary Super Saiyan's boundless reservoir of energy seemed not to know the meaning of fatigue.
One hundred and ten quadrillion.
One hundred and twenty quadrillion.
Son Gohan's battle power was still rising, with no sign of stopping!
"How is this possible..." Vegeta stared blankly at the green figure before him, who looked like an ancient demon god. His voice trembled.
The talisman he'd been so proud of had run dry, but where was his opponent's limit?!
Whoosh!
Son Gohan vanished from where he stood.
Vegeta didn't even see his afterimage before an unimaginable pain struck his abdomen.
Thud!
Son Gohan drove a heavy knee into Vegeta's stomach.
This time, no white light came to protect him. Son Gohan's knee punched straight through Vegeta's abdomen, and the searing pain swallowed his reason in an instant. He opened his mouth and vomited mouthful after mouthful of blood mixed with chunks of flesh.
"Don't stop, Vegeta! Keep fighting!"
Son Gohan's haughty voice rang out. He raised his right fist high, then brought it down with a heavy whoosh, smashing it squarely into Vegeta's face.
Boom!
Vegeta's nose shattered instantly. He plummeted like a meteor, slamming into the devastated ground and leaving behind a bottomless crater.
He tried to stand. The moment he braced himself against the ground with his right arm, Son Gohan came crashing down from the sky and planted a heavy foot on his back.
Crack.
The sound of his spine breaking rang out sharply in the silent ruins.
"AAAAAAH!" Vegeta let out a piercing scream. He desperately tried to draw on the ki within him, but his golden Super Saiyan 3 hair began to recede uncontrollably. It shortened from the waist-length strands, the arcs of electricity vanished, and at last it returned to its short, black base form.
His power had run dry. Miracle Power was gone.
"Huh? Vegeta, have you already reached your limit?" Son Gohan noticed that Vegeta hadn't recovered from his injuries and looked surprised. "I'm not done playing yet. You really are useless, Vegeta."
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