Thank You

Son Gohan shifted his gaze from his fingers and looked down at Kakarot, whose face wore a sickly smile.

"Though I really hate to admit it, I actually have to thank you this time." Son Gohan's voice rang clearly through the air, calm but utterly sincere.

Without Kakarot, he would never have crossed the threshold of mastering Hakai Energy so quickly, much less used it in his Super Saiyan 4 form.

The sickly smile on Kakarot's face instantly froze, and his brows knitted together.

"Thank me? What do you mean?"

"It means nothing. A dying man doesn't need to know all the whys and wherefores." Son Gohan looked down at him coldly.

Kakarot felt completely looked down on. He refused to believe that anything in this world could suppress his divine power. In this universe, he was the absolute creator. "You bastard! So what if you're some God of Destruction? Don't think I'm afraid of you!"

He raised his right hand and pointed his index finger at Son Gohan's chest.

A hiss.

A beam of pure white light, as thick as a thumb, shot from his fingertip. It carried no earth-shattering energy fluctuations, only the purest power of rules. It ignored the physical distance of space and instantly struck Son Gohan in the chest.

Son Gohan hung in place, neither dodging nor evading.

The white light collided with the layer of calmly flowing purple-black aura around his body.

It sizzled.

The beam vanished completely in the Destruction Energy, failing to stir even a ripple before dissipating into wisps of smoke.

It hadn't even managed to harm a single hair on Son Gohan's head.

Kakarot watched in startled disbelief. Since gaining control of Miracle Power, this was the first time one of his attacks had been blocked so effortlessly.

"Try this!" Kakarot roared, raising both hands.

His ten fingers jabbed frantically.

Countless white beams poured out like a torrential downpour, sealing off every route of escape for Son Gohan.

Son Gohan remained as still as a mountain. The purple-black Hakai Energy was like an absolute defense, corroding every Miracle Power beam that came close. The vacuum all around them crackled with the sound of the two powers of rules colliding.

Kakarot panicked. He abruptly brought his hands together, drew on even more Miracle Power within him, and thrust them forward with all his might.

A thick beam of white light, more than ten meters in diameter, roared out.

"Disappear!"

Faced with the dazzling pillar of white light, Son Gohan still didn't dodge.

Kakarot's lips had just begun to curl into a grin when his whole face froze.

The thick beam of light contained the vast amount of Miracle Power he had poured into it. It should have forcibly erased everything it touched according to his will. But when the beam, powerful enough to destroy heaven and earth, struck Son Gohan, it was as useless as a squirt gun, doing nothing but splashing a few droplets.

The layer of Hakai Energy completely canceled it out, scattering it into countless weightless flecks of light that drifted through the air.

"Impossible... Die! Erase him!" Kakarot howled, thrusting both hands forward again and frantically increasing the flow of Miracle Power.

Son Gohan looked up at the blinding white light that filled his vision. His purple eyes remained unruffled. With his solid energy foundation, he had nearly limitless Hakai Energy at his disposal.

He took a step forward.

Boom.

With the white beam, powerful enough to reduce dozens of galaxies to nothing, crashing against him, Son Gohan walked forward as casually as if out for a stroll. He was like an unstoppable purple great axe, cleaving the thick beam apart straight down the middle.

"How is this possible...?" Kakarot's voice broke.

He watched helplessly as the muscular man strode through his attack. No matter how he commanded Miracle Power to "annihilate," "isolate," or "destroy," it was useless. The purple-black energy crudely canceled it all out.

Son Gohan kept walking, and the distance between them shrank rapidly. A thousand meters, a hundred meters, ten meters!

At the very moment Trunks fought his way through the raging energy currents and reached the edge of the battlefield, he witnessed the scene that would make him a fan of Gohan for the rest of his life.

Kakarot was pushing against the beam of light with all his might, while Son Gohan had already reached him.

A huge hand covered in dark red ape fur suddenly thrust through the white light. Its five thick fingers clamped around Kakarot's entire face like an iron vice.

A sizzling sound of corrosion rang out between those fingers.

The protective barrier around Kakarot was like a sheet of wet paper before that merciless hand, shattering in an instant.

With its wielder captured, the pillar of light abruptly stopped firing.

The world fell silent, leaving only the chilling sound of the aura corroding flesh.

Kakarot dangled in midair, his head locked in the giant hand's grip. He tried to struggle, but an unimaginable force made him writhe in agony. If the hand squeezed just a little harder, his head would burst like a ripe watermelon.

"Let... go..." Kakarot's fingernails dug into Son Gohan's forearm as he tried to dissolve the hand with Miracle Power. But the moment the white glimmers appeared, the Hakai Energy devoured them.

"You had a great time tying me up and beating me just now, didn't you?" Son Gohan brought his face closer, his merciless purple eyes looking down at Kakarot's features, crushed out of shape. "So let's switch roles and play again."

He gave Kakarot no time to catch his breath. Holding his head in his right hand, Son Gohan drew back his left arm. His knotted muscles swelled, and the terrifying power of one hundred quintillion flooded into his fist.

A purple-black glow enveloped his left fist.

He swung.

There were no flashy moves, just the purest, most overwhelming violence.

BAM—!!!

A muffled impact, loud enough to shatter eardrums, reverberated through the silent starry sky along with the surging energy. Son Gohan's heavy punch slammed into the right side of Kakarot's chest.

It was utterly devastating.

The fist imbued with Hakai Energy smashed through the barrier of rules without resistance and sank into flesh. The terrifying kinetic force tore through Kakarot's chest, spraying blood everywhere.

"Ughhhhhh!" Kakarot let out an utterly bloodcurdling scream.

His body nearly collapsed under that one punch. Most of his chest cavity shattered in an instant, and his right shoulder along with his entire arm exploded into a cloud of blood under the violent impact!

Son Gohan opened his hand, then swept out with one kick. Kakarot's battered body shot away like a meteor, trailing a long streak of blood.

Rumble!

Kakarot's body smashed through hundreds of floating pieces of battleship wreckage before crashing into the broken surface of Planet Vegeta below. The immense force drove him deep into the scorching mantle, unleashing a super-heated magma tsunami that spread across more than a thousand kilometers.

Trunks stood at a distance, utterly dumbfounded.

That guy with the bizarre divine power had just had his head seized by Gohan and half his body smashed apart with one punch! Just how powerful had Gohan become?

A dazzling white light burst through the dark red molten rock and shot into the sky.

Kakarot hovered in midair, gasping for breath. The half of his body that had been shattered was steadily regenerating under the influence of Miracle Power.

But the Hakai Energy clinging to the edges of his wounds stubbornly obstructed Miracle Power. As a result, an injury that should have healed instantly took several seconds to mend.

Kakarot looked down at his newly restored right side, and the composure on his face finally vanished completely. In its place were shock and fury unlike anything he had ever felt.

He was deeply reluctant to accept it, but the other man's so-called divine power wasn't all show. That purple-black energy was on par with his Miracle Power in terms of rank, and even surpassed it in pure destructive power.

Miracle Power had no effect on him.

Which meant he would have to face this red-haired brute in a real hand-to-hand fight.

And if his divine power ran out...

Remembering the lethal force of that punch, Kakarot shuddered.

Since proclaiming himself a god, this was the first time he had felt the threat of death.

Whoosh!

Space twisted, and Son Gohan's demonic figure appeared directly above Kakarot. Without wasting words, he brought down a vicious kick, his right leg surrounded by purple-black winds that tore through everything in their path.

"Get away from me!" Kakarot roared, swinging his left hand. A dense white energy net wrapped tightly around him.

Bang! Son Gohan's kick struck the net, sending it—and Kakarot inside it—crashing into an active volcano thousands of meters tall. The entire volcano collapsed and exploded under the tremendous force.

Rocks flew everywhere as Kakarot burst out of the rubble in a sorry state. He glared viciously at Son Gohan, who looked down at him from above, his chest heaving.

"Damn it..."