I Should Thank You Too

From the moment he was born, he had always had everything go his way, standing high above everyone else. Yet now, he was in such a sorry state.

"Die! Just die!"

Kakarot threw his arms wide, and the Miracle Power within him surged even more violently, pouring out like a river bursting its banks.

The entire star system containing Planet Vegeta began to tremble violently.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Miracle Power began to warp reality. More than a dozen enormous dead stars formed in an instant, their gravity threatening to crush space as they hurtled toward Son Gohan.

Son Gohan stood where he was and raised one hand.

Destruction Energy took the form of a towering blade. He swept it through the air.

A streak of purple light flashed past. Before the dozen-odd dead stars could even explode, they silently vanished into dust.

"It's not over!" Kakarot roared hysterically.

His fingers twisted frantically in the air. Miracle Power furiously rewrote the fabric of space around them.

Hundreds of miniature black holes, each radiating an immense pull, formed around Son Gohan, tearing at space from every direction. Then, hundreds and thousands of jagged spatial rifts swept toward him like a raging storm, accompanied by energy tempests capable of pulverizing anything. They swallowed Son Gohan whole.

He tried to crush Son Gohan with the forces of nature.

At the heart of the storm, a glimmer of purplish-black light appeared.

Son Gohan walked out at an unhurried pace.

The violent energy storm, the rifts tearing through space, even the hundreds of black holes devouring everything—all of them were brutally nullified and dispelled by the purplish-black aura as soon as they came within half a meter of him.

"Don't you have any other moves?" Son Gohan raised his right hand. A ball of purple light danced in his palm.

Whoosh!

Son Gohan vanished and reappeared in front of Kakarot. He pressed the purple orb of Destruction into Kakarot's chest with a savage blow.

Bang—!

Kakarot's upper body exploded into a cloud of blood once more.

A flash of white light passed, and Miracle Power restored his body again. But the moment his head grew back, a mighty roundhouse kick struck him head-on, pulverizing a vast swath of Planet Vegeta's surface along with him.

Blown apart, then restored.

Blown apart again, then restored again.

He had no chance to fight back. It was nothing but one-sided torture.

Amid the overwhelming pain, Kakarot's body was shattered dozens of times.

After reforming his body tens of thousands of meters away once more, he didn't dare approach his opponent again.

Kakarot hung in space, panting heavily. The madness in his eyes gradually faded, and he began to calm down.

He realized something.

His Miracle Power was not inferior in rank to the purple divine power his opponent wielded. Its upper limit might even be higher. But he had been using it too crudely. Treating Miracle Power like magic and unleashing it to create black holes and storms was utterly pointless against an opponent with divine power on the same level.

The most important reason Son Gohan could crush him was his own overwhelming strength!

"I understand!" Kakarot lowered his head to look at his hands, then suddenly curled his lips into a smile.

Whoosh.

The vast white light that had filled the entire star system suddenly contracted at astonishing speed, as though the scene were being played in reverse.

In the blink of an eye, all the Miracle Power he had released flowed back into his body.

Son Gohan narrowed his eyes. He could sense that the aura of the man before him was undergoing some kind of transformation.

"So this is the divine realm?" Kakarot murmured. As a tremendous amount of Miracle Power coursed through him, his body gave a series of creaks under the strain.

But Miracle Power immediately repaired the damage, and with each repair, it forcibly expanded the limits of his body.

Boom!

A pure-white radiance rose from Kakarot's body, much like the God of Destruction's power that flowed over Son Gohan. It came from within him and circulated without end.

His once-black hair stood on end in an instant, turning pure silver and gleaming with an untouchable, sacred brilliance.

Not a trace of violent energy escaped him, yet the instant this form appeared, the space around them cracked apart under an invisible pressure.

His appearance was similar to Super Saiyan 1, but it radiated a dense, divine aura.

Kakarot clenched his fists and closed his eyes, deeply savoring the power inside him—a power unlike anything he had felt before.

When he opened his eyes again, his silver-white gaze was filled with feverish excitement and arrogance.

"I did it! I did it!" Kakarot burst into laughter. His laughter echoed strangely through the vacuum. "So that's it! I've been trying to use power to change the world, but I forgot that I myself am the world!"

He looked at Son Gohan, no longer showing any trace of his earlier panic.

"Son Gohan—no, God of Destruction. I really should thank you. If it weren't for you, it might have taken me much longer to understand this." Kakarot rolled his neck, the white radiance at the corners of his eyes leaving long trails. "In return, I'll use this sacred form to crush you with my own hands."

Before the words had even faded,

Kakarot vanished without a trace.

So fast!

Son Gohan's battle instincts screamed a warning. He didn't even look; his body instinctively leaned back.

A fist wrapped in white radiance swept past the tip of Son Gohan's nose.

In its wake, hundreds of kilometers behind them, a small asteroid was blasted to dust by the invisible force of the blow.

"Think you can dodge me?"

Kakarot sneered. He flipped his wrist, turned his fist into an elbow, and smashed it toward Son Gohan's chest.

Bang!

Son Gohan raised his left arm to block. Purplish-black Destruction Energy and white Miracle Power collided with a thunderous crash.

Two divine laws clashed fiercely at point-blank range.

The tremendous backlash sent both of them flying backward.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Without a moment's pause, two afterimages collided violently in space.

Purple and white light clashed furiously among the stars. Every exchange unleashed kinetic force powerful enough to destroy a planet.

Fist met fist, leg met leg.

Kakarot brought his immense power to bear on himself. Relying on the divine realm's supreme physical strength and Miracle Power's ability to heal him, he engaged Son Gohan in the most brutal hand-to-hand fight.

Bang!

Son Gohan took a heavy blow to the shoulder, but his purplish-black right fist slipped through Kakarot's guard like a viper and slammed into his cheek.

Blood sprayed, but a flash of white light made the wound heal instantly. Kakarot retaliated with a knee to Son Gohan's abdomen, smashing him down toward the planet.

Rumble!

The blow punched straight through Planet Vegeta. A massive crack spread from the surface to the planet's core.

Son Gohan burst out through the crust on the other side. He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, but the violent purple aura around him had only grown more terrifying.

"Roar!"

Son Gohan let out a roar that sounded nothing like a human's and shot skyward again, surrounded by purple lightning.

The battle reached its most primal, white-hot intensity.

Clash! Clash! Clash! Clash! Whoosh! Boom...

As the fight went on, Son Gohan's power climbed with unreasonable force. The wild instincts of his Legendary Super Saiyan nature made him fight faster and hit harder under pressure.

He also grew more adept at wielding Destruction Energy.

Kakarot refused to be outdone. He drew on the Miracle Power within him, continually raising his own strength and clinging to Son Gohan's pace as it climbed.

The two fought to a standstill, neither able to overcome the other.

The entire starfield collapsed in their battle, riddled with black rifts that would not heal.

Once again, they collided fists in a world-shattering clash.

The purplish-black storm and the tide of white light matched each other, sending both fighters hurtling back tens of thousands of meters.

Kakarot stopped in midair, his white aura surging violently. He panted as he stared at Son Gohan in the distance.

The rush of excitement began to recede, and reason took over once more.

He realized they couldn't keep this up.

This man was just like Broly. His power was an unfathomable bottomless pit. Kakarot had to crush him completely with overwhelming strength!

Otherwise, he would end up like Vegeta, worn down to death by Son Gohan.

As he considered his next move, his gaze suddenly shifted, and he spotted something.

"Hahaha! Talk about perfect timing!" Kakarot exclaimed with delight.

Son Gohan followed Kakarot's gaze and thought, This is bad!