Instantly Killed

"Die!"

A piercing roar was squeezed from his throat.

His speed was absurdly fast. As he passed, he left behind ripples of black, looking like a true demon.

But he didn't even look cool for 0.0003 seconds; he hadn't even touched Son Gohan yet.

BOOM!

The dark green Legendary Super Saiyan aura that had been boiling around Son Gohan suddenly stalled. Immediately after, a pressure as tangible as reality erupted outward with him at the center.

Every sound between heaven and earth was extinguished.

A blinding crimson light ignited from his chest, then expanded with a roar like a galactic explosion!

ROAR--!

Accompanied by a low, deep, ancient ape cry, a wild red aura shot straight into the sky, piercing completely through the dark red firmament.

Wild, black hair hung down to his waist. The tattered battle suit on his upper body was instantly shredded by the terrifying airflow, replaced by red, savage ape fur covering his solid chest muscles and broad back.

At his previously empty left shoulder, a dense mass of red light began to writhe frantically.

Energy condensed into matter; the severed arm was reborn!

In this Super Saiyan 4 state, he no longer needed to fight Vegeta with one hand tied behind his back.

The aura erupting from him alone was enough to blast Vegeta back.

BANG--!

Demon Vegeta was like a man crashing headlong into an insurmountable divine barrier. His body flew backward at a speed even more miserable than his charge, grinding the steel fortress dozens of miles below into fine powder.

"Is this your final strength?" Son Gohan shook his head, his eyes full of disappointment.

"I am truly sorry, but you are so weak that you can't even stir the slightest bit of interest in me."

Son Gohan touched the left hand manifested by his Super Saiyan 4 form and gently flexed his joints, his neck emitting a crisp sound of cracking bones.

"Since you have exhausted your tricks, then it is time for a regrettable exit."

After the battle with Vegeta just now, his base combat power had already reached the terrifying height of 1.5 trillion.

At this moment, under the exaggerated multiplier of Super Saiyan 4, the value soared to the heavens.

"Sixty quadrillion!"

Behind the ruins of the defense line, the Saiyan soldiers who had just narrowly escaped death were now unable to even muster an expression of terror.

They could not believe the value displayed on the scouter was real!

"It's coming."

Standing in the distance, Trunks stared fixedly at the red storm, his arms shielding his face, his eyes erupting with fanatical light.

This is Brother Gohan's strongest form!

In the palace hall.

Kakarot, who a second ago had been half-reclining on the throne with the air of one looking down upon ants, suddenly sat bolt upright.

The smile on his face vanished completely.

What form is this?

The energy data transmitted through the white light screen in mid-air made this high and mighty King of the Saiyans feel, for the first time, a sensation known as "loss of control."

CREAK--

The indestructible special metal armrest was crushed into a lump of scrap iron in his palm.

He stared coldly at the cold man draped in red ape fur within the light screen, the killing intent in the depths of his eyes beginning to boil.

On the battlefield.

Demon Vegeta struggled to crawl up from the depths of the ruins, his pitch-black eyes devoid of any ripples, and once again let out a mindless roar, charging toward Son Gohan in mid-air without fear of death.

Son Gohan looked at the black shadow rushing toward him with an expressionless face, not intending to hold back any longer.

SWISH.

His figure vanished into thin air, his speed reaching the extreme.

In an instant, he appeared before Vegeta without warning, his right arm reaching forward in a casual, understated motion.

SPLAT.

There was no earth-shattering energy collision, no heaven-rending commotion.

Son Gohan's right hand pierced directly through that layer of black aura, as if poking through a fragile sheet of window paper, entering through Vegeta's chest and exiting through his back.

Vegeta's form froze instantly.

The demonic aura enveloping his entire body dissipated without a trace in an instant, like a punctured balloon.

One-hit kill.

Such an absolute chasm in power left no room for resistance.

Son Gohan didn't even have the interest to spare a second glance, slowly withdrawing his right hand. He looked up, his sharp gaze piercing through the heavy smoke and steel barriers, locking precisely onto the direction of the royal palace hall.

It was as if he had crossed thousands of miles to lock eyes with King Kakarot upon the throne.

"Still not planning to show yourself?"

Vegeta's body collapsed backward, powerless.

A horrific, bloody hole had been gouged into his chest, his heart completely pulverized, and his life force was fading with frantic speed.

Yet, in this moment of dying, the demonic power that had devoured his sanity collapsed, granting him a fleeting sliver of clarity.

I cannot die... I cannot die...

Everything King Kakarot had bestowed upon him, his obsession with defeating the Legendary Super Saiyan, the glory of being the greatest under the Saiyan King... all of it had been trampled into ruin by this lowly, mongrel piece of trash.

He had lost completely.

But he was Vegeta! Once the Prince of all Saiyans!

"I still cannot... die..." Vegeta's withered lips parted, blood gushing out in great mouthfuls.

Exhausting the final shred of strength in his body, he violently raised his blood-soaked left hand.

In his palm, a high-purity white energy sphere, infused with all the remaining demonic power within him, was hurled fiercely into the high sky.

"I will not lose!"

The white light pierced through the clouds, detonating outside the artificial atmosphere of Planet Vegeta, transforming into an alarmingly large, blinding full moon.

Over seventeen quadrillion units of Blutz Waves instantly bathed the earth.

Simultaneously, that pitch-black demonic power followed the light waves, raining down upon the tens of thousands of Saiyan soldiers below like a viscous, black storm.

Vegeta's pupils dilated and went blank.

"It's the full moon!!"

"That is the power of Lord Vegeta!"

The Saiyan soldiers and officers struck by both the moonlight and the black rain began to twitch uncontrollably.

Crack, crack, crack—!

The dull sounds of muscles tearing and bones expanding erupted one after another across the entire defensive line.

They instinctively looked up at the artificial full moon in the sky, the most primitive instinct of the Great Ape Transformation fully awakened. But this time, because it was laced with Vegeta's residual demonic power, the effect was far more terrifying!

The bodies of the Saiyans swelled frantically like balloons. In the blink of an eye, ten thousand Great Apes, dozens of meters tall, rose from the ground.

Moreover, the fur on these Great Apes was not the usual brown, but a blinding, dark gold!

Demonized Golden Great Apes in the Super Saiyan state!

Not only that, but the surface of every Golden Great Ape was wreathed in black, demonic energy flames that writhed like venomous snakes.

"ROAR—!!!"

Ten thousand Demonized Golden Great Apes roared at the sky in unison.

The terrifying sound waves blasted away hundreds of meters of rock from the surface. The entire Planet Vegeta trembled violently under this collective, berserk surge of energy, as if it might shatter into pieces at any second.

Son Gohan frowned slightly.

If it were merely ten thousand ordinary Golden Great Apes, he wouldn't even need to look at them.

But these ten thousand-plus monsters, corrupted by demonic power, had completely lost their sanity and locked their targets onto him.

The most troublesome part was that the Vegeta-ape could condense that bizarre black energy, forcibly linking all ten thousand massive energy sources together!

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom—!

Without a moment's hesitation, the ten thousand Demonized Golden Great Apes opened their gaping maws simultaneously.

Ten thousand pitch-black, highly compressed energy beams, carrying the force of world-ending destruction, surged toward Son Gohan like a tidal wave.

That could no longer be called energy beams.

It was a black tide of death that split the sky and the earth in two!

Son Gohan's gaze sharpened.

He could easily charge through this energy tide, or even evaporate these apes along with half the planet in a single strike.

But he could not dodge, nor could he ignore it.

Because Trunks was directly behind him!

If that linked energy were to strike, given Trunks' current strength, not even his ashes would remain.

"Damn it!"

Son Gohan decisively halted his charge toward the palace and blinked back in front of Trunks.

He thrust both arms forward.

His energy flared wildly, forming a massive, semi-circular protective barrier, shielding himself and Trunks tightly within.

"RUMBLE—!!!"

Ten thousand black beams of light poured down like a river from the heavens, slamming solidly into the barrier. The blinding glare instantly swallowed everything in the world.