The Detector Accidentally Turns On, Exposing Their Location; Frieza's Pursuers Have Already Surrounded Them

After the original battle on Namek, Frieza had suffered more than enough.

Back then, Vegeta had relied on controlling his power level at will, specifically targeting the scouters' blind spots, and had outright cut off his nose. Even the Dragon Balls already in his grasp had been ruined.

Ever since then, that purple-skinned bastard had treated scouters like the apple of his eye, refitting the entire army with the latest model of Scout Goggles.

But even so, in the eyes of the Frieza Force, who had no way to sense ki, beings capable of freely raising and lowering their power level to avoid detection could be counted on one hand across the entire universe. The odds were so low they could be completely ignored.

So as far as they were concerned, this thing was the most perfect detection device in the universe. It had no weaknesses at all.

Even if a ship's cameras had blind spots they couldn't scan, Frieza had never worried.

Any Saiyan with even a little power would definitely be picked up by the scouts' automatic detection, their position exposed in an instant.

Even cannon fodder with power levels only in the double digits could be automatically captured, let alone Saiyans whose power levels were several times higher than ordinary people's. Even if Gou Kong did nothing at all, as long as the scouters were on, he absolutely couldn't escape the reconnaissance net's lock-on.

Unless every scouter malfunctioned at the same time, it was impossible for such a high power level to go unnoticed. This was also why the Frieza Force trusted their scouters to the point of blindness.

But for all their calculations, they never calculated that a special situation would arise.

A tiny loophole no one had noticed had unknowingly turned into a fatal flaw.

Scouters truly couldn't detect targets whose power levels were below the threshold—but only on the premise that no one manually turned one on.

And at this moment, Kakarot, who was about to be sent to Earth, had a power level so low it didn't even meet the threshold for automatic detection. As long as they made good use of this "minor flaw" everyone had overlooked, and combined it with the ability to freely control power level, they could slip away from the surveillance blind spot and vanish.

Bardock had already calculated everything clearly: Frieza's command ship was currently docked on the far side of Planet Vegeta. This plateau happened to be an absolute blind spot for all the scouters, and Kakarot's pitifully low power level didn't even reach the automatic detection threshold. As long as no one scanned manually, he would be absolutely safe.

He had even figured out the ship's surveillance blind spots ahead of time. As long as they weren't discovered by a scouter, they could simply slip through the blind spot straight to where the ship was hidden.

The only thing that worried him was Frieza getting bored out of his mind and moving the command ship. If the ship changed its docking point, the original surveillance blind spot would change too. Every time it moved, he would have to find the blind spot all over again, and their escape time would be dragged out by at least several times. That was not a situation he wanted to see.

"All right, it's time. Gou Kong, press that blue button and launch the Space Pod."

Bardock spoke in a low voice, his finger already hovering over the blue launch button on the control console.

Gine wiped the tear tracks from her face, her red, swollen eyes pressed close to the Space Pod's porthole as she looked at the ignorant Kakarot inside. Her voice was choked yet gentle. "You have to survive!"

"Whoosh—"

As Bardock pressed the button, the white Space Pod instantly lit up with a dim-blue tail flame. It slowly rose from the ground, then shot toward the sky with astonishing acceleration. In the blink of an eye, it pierced into Planet Vegeta's gray, murky atmosphere, and soon turned into a tiny dot that was almost impossible to see.

Bardock and Gine kept their eyes fixed on that tiny dot until it completely vanished beyond the horizon. Only then could Gine no longer hold back, throwing herself into Bardock's arms and sobbing aloud.

"Kakarot will grow up healthy on Earth. I guarantee it."

Gou Kong spoke up and offered a couple words of comfort, and he meant them.

That kid had the protagonist's halo protecting him. Once he reached Earth, he would definitely do just fine.

He was just a little worried that if the child hit his head, became stupid, lost his memory, and completely treated himself as an Earthling, that would be the real trouble.

Just as he had finally breathed a sigh of relief, the scouter in his arms suddenly let out a sharp "beep, beep," stabbing pain into his eardrums.

"What the fuck?"

Gou Kong's smile froze on his face in an instant, and a chill shot straight from his tailbone to the top of his skull.

He yanked open the collar of his bodysuit and pulled out that glowing green eyepiece.

On the screen, the crimson numbers were jumping upward like mad. The alarms grew more urgent by the second, like a death warrant.

The power was actually on?

He had clearly turned it off with his own hands before!

Gou Kong lowered his head and glanced at the folds on the inside of his battle suit, then instantly realized what had happened.

Just now, to free up his hands and help Gine support Kakarot, he had shoved the scouter messily into his inner pocket. This damn bodysuit was too elastic, and it had forced the power button open!

What the hell was this?

Earlier, he had even laughed at Frieza's soldiers for relying on scouters like useless wastrels, only to immediately make such a low-level mistake himself. This was simply lifting a rock only to drop it on his own foot, capsizing in a gutter all the way back to grandma's house!

He cursed, hurriedly snapped the scouter over his left eye, and the numbers jumping across the lens made his scalp go numb. First there were a dozen or so. In the blink of an eye, they became thirty-two. Before he could even catch his breath, the number jumped straight to forty. The distance column showed a glaring "100 meters," and it was still rapidly shrinking!

A hundred meters, to the elites of the Frieza Force, was only two or three breaths!

"This is a fucking ambush?"

Gou Kong's brows twisted into a knot, and a layer of cold sweat instantly seeped out across his back.

The first thing he thought of was the four grunts he had killed earlier.

Those purple-skinned lackeys really had left a backup plan!

They must have been carrying devices that automatically sent a signal after death, or the instant their communications were cut off, they transmitted their coordinates. Otherwise, how could anyone have found this godforsaken plateau so precisely?

He had even laughed at Frieza's soldiers for being idiots earlier, only to turn around and hand them his coordinates himself. It was the biggest joke under heaven.

Gou Kong cursed inwardly, wishing he could slap himself.

He had been so focused on calculating the scouters' blind spots that he had forgotten that even if communications were turned off, the damn things would keep emitting radio waves to mark their position!

When he killed those four Frieza grunts earlier, he should have crushed their scouters into scrap metal while he was at it. How could he have left behind this disaster?

Those dead bastards must have been carrying automatic signaling devices. The moment communications were cut off, their coordinates were sent back to headquarters, and someone followed the signal all the way to this godforsaken plateau!

"Fuck, I capsized in a gutter all the way back to grandma's house!"

He cursed under his breath, his five fingers clenching hard. The green Scouter in his palm let out a strained creak under the pressure, then shattered into powder in the next instant. Sharp fragments dug into his palm, but he did not feel a thing.

"Bardock, Gine! Frieza's lackeys have got their eyes on us! Move, now!"

Gou Kong whipped his head back and roared, his voice carrying an urgency unlike anything before.

Bardock's pupils contracted sharply. One look at Gou Kong's ashen face and he instantly understood how grave things were. He grabbed Gine by the wrist and turned to retreat deeper into the highlands.

But someone had blocked the way.