Legendary Super Saiyan Transformation

Time flew by.

Half a year passed quietly in the monotonous white void of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The dull sounds of flesh striking flesh echoed across the empty Lookout Plaza.

Trunks was like an inexhaustible cheetah, furiously throwing punches under ten times gravity. The sweat evaporated from his body before it could even hit the ground.

Half a year ago, he'd struggled just to stand here. Now he could move like a swimming dragon in this hellish field of gravity.

The Saiyan physique combined with the high-pressure environment had triggered the first explosive surge in Trunks's potential.

In just half a year, his base power level had soared from barely reaching the threshold for transformation to around 700 million.

And Gohan, who was already a genius and possessed the Legendary Super Saiyan Bloodline, had made even more terrifying progress.

Years of accumulated potential, combined with the boost from the Legendary Super Saiyan Bloodline, had sent his base power level soaring to ten billion!

Ten billion.

Back during the Namek saga, he could have breathed once and ground fully transformed Frieza into the dirt.

"Stop."

Gohan raised his only remaining arm and easily caught Trunks's full-force punch. The powerful rebound sent Trunks stumbling back seven or eight steps before he landed on the white floor with a thump, gasping for breath.

"Gohan, with the strength I have now... I should be able to hold my own against the Androids, right?" Trunks wiped the sweat from his chin.

"Heh. The Androids?" Gohan's lips curled in disdain. "Even without transforming into a Super Saiyan, you could beat them up however you wanted."

Trunks froze, staring blankly at his hands. He could hardly believe his ears.

"All right, that's enough training for today." Gohan walked to the center of the plaza and gazed out at the endless white space. "Next, I'm going to run an experiment."

"An experiment?" Trunks got to his feet and backed away to a safe distance.

"Yeah." Gohan clenched his fist, his knuckles cracking. "I'm going to try to unlock the true power within me."

Legendary Super Saiyan transformation.

For the past six months, he'd tried to transform every day, but he'd never succeeded. Still, he was gradually starting to grasp the trick.

For an ordinary Super Saiyan, the key to transformation was an extreme emotional shift.

But the Legendary Super Saiyan was different.

It was a more ancient, purer bloodline. It required something else, too: "wildness."

What kind of person had the original Gohan been?

A sheltered flower who should have grown up to be a scholar in peaceful times, but had been forced to take up his fists by the apocalypse. He fought to protect others, and deep down, he loathed fighting and resented having no choice but to do it.

That temperament had nothing whatsoever to do with actively seeking battle—a trait rooted in "wildness."

"Trunks, back away." Gohan lowered his center of gravity as the ki inside him began to race.

"Hyah!"

Golden ki erupted around him. But then, threads of strange, dark green began seeping into the pure gold.

His muscles swelled like balloons being inflated, his veins bulged, and his bones creaked with a grating sound.

Pseudo-Legendary Super Saiyan.

It increased his battle power by a mere tenfold, yet came with an intensely frenzied urge to destroy.

"What a terrifying aura..." Trunks swallowed instinctively. He couldn't sense even a trace of Gohan's usual gentle, dependable nature. Instead, Gohan felt like an ancient, savage beast ready to devour anyone who came near.

"Wildness doesn't mean losing your mind and turning into a lunatic who only knows how to destroy." Gohan's voice dropped to a deep growl, punctuated by heavy breaths as he fought to suppress something.

"True wildness is pure fighting instinct."

"It means breathing in slaughter and taking pleasure in battle. It's an extreme bloodlust paired with absolute calm!"

Gohan stared fixedly into the void ahead.

His goal was to hold on to this uncomfortable Pseudo-Legendary Super Saiyan state for as long as possible, forcing his gentle body to adapt to and accept this savage, violent nature.

Dark green ki surged wildly around him.

In his mind, the original Gohan's memories began to flash back uncontrollably.

Uncle Piccolo, his chest pierced by a ki blast.

Vegeta, his neck snapped beneath Android 17's foot.

Krillin, Tien Shinhan, Chiaotzu, Yamcha... one familiar face after another falling in pools of blood.

And in the rain that night, the two demon siblings had kicked him around the ruins like a ball, torturing him as his left arm was ripped clean off, the pain searing to the bone.

Despair.

Resentment.

Helplessness.

The images churned in his mind, trying to drag him into an abyss of sorrow.

"Burn away every last one of these useless negative emotions!" Gohan roared inside himself.

Sorrow couldn't save Earth, and anger couldn't kill the Androids.

Only absolute violence!

Only the wildness that could crush everything!

"Kill!"

Gohan's eyes flew open.

A cold, dark gleam instantly covered his emerald-green pupils.

Whoosh—!

A piercing whistle of rushing air exploded through the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

In the next instant, the threads of dark green ki devoured every trace of gold, forming a towering pillar of green light that shot straight toward the void above the Lookout.

Rumble!

The entire space of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber began to shake violently. Under the impact of that terrifying aura, it warped as if it were about to collapse.

The sudden surge of ki sent Trunks flying. He tumbled across the ground more than ten times before finally managing to stop, battered and disheveled.

He looked up in horror at the center of the pillar of light.

The green light gradually faded.

Gohan stood where he was.

His frame was even more exaggerated than in his Pseudo-Legendary state, but he wasn't a bulky mass of muscles. Instead, his build retained sleek, explosive lines.

His once-upright golden hair had turned a dazzling grassy green.

A tangible-looking green aura blazed around him, with thick bolts of lightning darting through it and crackling.

Most terrifying of all was his gaze.

His green-gold eyes held an air of disdain, as if he looked down on everything, along with a feverish craving for battle.

The first stage of the Legendary Super Saiyan!

He'd done it.

Gohan clenched his right fist, feeling the boundless power within him, vast as a sea of stars.

His base power level was ten billion.

And the first Legendary Super Saiyan transformation multiplied it by a full hundred!

One trillion!

His battle power had soared straight into the trillions!

In this desperate timeline, where even a full-power Super Saiyan hadn't appeared yet, what did a trillion-level battle power mean?

Android 17 and Android 18 could muster four hundred million at most. Even Cell, lurking in the shadows, wouldn't have a fraction of that even in his perfect form.

If he walked out of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber now, he could crush those demon siblings into cosmic dust with a single finger.

"G... Gohan?" Trunks struggled to get up, not daring to go any closer. The absolute bloodline suppression left his legs trembling uncontrollably. Saiyans with a higher concentration of Saiyan blood were suppressed more intensely, just as Vegeta had been in the movie.

"Don't be afraid, Trunks." Son Gohan turned to him, a wild grin tugging at his lips.

He had completely mastered this legendary power.

But Gohan wasn't satisfied yet.

He'd realized that the wildness of the Legendary Super Saiyan was strikingly similar to that other realm. Did that mean he could skip Super Saiyan 2 and Super Saiyan 3 and directly reach for the realm that represented the ultimate in wildness?

Super Saiyan 4.

The ultimate power formed by compressing the Golden Great Ape state.

"Strike while the iron is hot."

Gohan closed his eyes and sank his awareness into the deepest part of his body.

All Saiyans had tails. Although the original Gohan's tail had been pulled off when he was young, the power of the Legendary Super Saiyan could draw directly on the power of the Great Ape.

"Come out!"

Gohan growled, forcefully guiding the green aura within him to crash against a deeper genetic lock.

Boom!

A terrifying beast's roar suddenly rang out in his mind.

The faint image of a golden Great Ape, as massive as a mountain, appeared behind him.

Trunks's eyes widened as he stared at the apparition. Everything happening before him was turning his understanding of the world upside down. Was this Gohan's true strength?

"Haaaaaah!"

Gohan gritted his teeth, trying to force the colossal Great Ape Power into his humanoid body.

If he could compress that power, the door to Super Saiyan 4 would open for him!

Crack!

The moment the Great Ape Power touched his body,

a sharp crack sounded from the bones in Gohan's right arm, and then the blood vessels all over his body bulged as if they were about to burst.

Pain.

Excruciating pain tore through his reason in an instant.

"Gah!"

Gohan suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood. The Great Ape apparition behind him shattered like a bubble.

The green aura went out completely, as if someone had doused it with ice water.

His legs gave way, and he collapsed onto the white floor, reverting to his black-haired, black-eyed base form.

"Gohan!" Trunks was terrified out of his mind. He scrambled over and caught Gohan in his arms.

"Cough, cough... I'm fine."

Gohan wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and panted heavily. His whole body felt as if it had been crushed under several million tons of water pressure; even moving a finger took effort.

He'd failed.

He wasn't discouraged. If anything, his gaze had grown brighter.

For that brief instant, he really had touched the threshold of Super Saiyan 4.

But the reason for his failure was simple: his vessel was too fragile.

A base power level of ten billion sounded impressive, but against the kind of power that Super Saiyan 4 could transform by several thousand or even ten thousand times, it was like trying to hold lava in a paper cup.

His body would collapse and explode before the power could be fully compressed.

To withstand Super Saiyan 4's power, his base battle power would have to reach at least the hundreds of billions, if not higher!

"So there's no shortcut."

Trunks hurriedly took out the Senzu Bean Gohan had given him and fed it to him.

"Gohan, what was that just now...?" Trunks hesitated.

"Just an experiment. Don't worry about it." After eating the Senzu Bean, Gohan shook out his right arm, his gaze turning sharp again. "Trunks, keep training."

"But can't we already beat the Androids?"

"What if a stronger enemy shows up in the future?" Gohan cut him off, a cold smile tugging at his lips.

There was still a year and a half left in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

Over the next year and a half, he would raise the base battle power of this body to a level that would make even the gods tremble.