Beaten by Dodoria until I vomited blood, I'm furious: Today I'll beat you to death, you pig.

In the distance, toward King Vegeta's royal city, flames were soaring into the sky, burning the gray canopy of clouds crimson. The thunder of exploding energy weapons could be heard clearly from several kilometers away, and even the plateau beneath his feet was trembling faintly.

"What... what the hell is going on?"

He had counted it out on his fingers before, clear as day. If that purple-skinned onion-head Frieza wanted to destroy the planet, there should have been at least a month of buffer time left!

Why had he suddenly made his move?

Before he could sort out his thoughts, Dodoria, whose face was covered in blood across from him, let out a sneering laugh.

The bridge of his nose, smashed in earlier by Gou Kong's headbutt, made his words leak air, and his voice, mixed with bloody froth, sounded especially grating. "Ha! Congratulations, you mongrel! Today, every last one of you low-class Saiyans is going to be wiped out by Lord Frieza!"

"Why? I clearly calculated there was still a month left! Why are you attacking early?" Gou Kong roared through gritted teeth, his mind a complete mess.

"Still a month? Hahaha!" Dodoria seemed to have heard the funniest joke in the world. Clutching his nose, he laughed so hard he bent back and forth, dark-red blood trickling down through his fingers and staining the battle suit on his chest in blotches. "You're still in the dark even now? Fine. Before you die, I'll let you understand! Lord Frieza is exterminating your race today, and it's all because of you!"

"Because of me?"

"What else?" Dodoria took a step forward, purple waves of aura surging around him, shaking the gravel by his feet into frantic jumps. "You disobeyed Lord Frieza's orders and secretly stole a Space Pod to run away. Did you really think you could hide that from everyone? Lord Frieza already found us Saiyans an eyesore, and after what you pulled, you fanned the flames outright! Originally, Lord Frieza planned to wait until all the Saiyans returned to the nest before making his move. But now? Heh, thanks to you, you idiot, the plan's been moved up!"

Gou Kong's mind buzzed, and he understood in an instant.

It was those four Frieza grunts he had killed earlier!

It was the scouter in his arms being switched on by mistake!

All of his arrangements, all of his calculations, had been ruined by this one low-level mistake!

All of his escape plans had gone up in smoke.

The timeline, which had already been stretched tight, had now been twisted directly into a dead knot, without even the slightest room to maneuver.

"Today, I'm going to kill every monkey on this planet, and the trash who come back late can be settled one by one!" Dodoria closed in with a savage grin, his knuckles cracking as though he were tallying livestock for slaughter in advance. "I was still thinking of sparing your life because your combat power was high. But now? You don't have that privilege anymore! All those arrogant things you did to me before—I'm going to collect on them one by one today!"

Gou Kong stood rooted to the spot, his mind in chaos.

Was he really going to die here today?

Even if he had been able to withstand Dodoria's attacks just now, Frieza's army had already surrounded Planet Vegeta so tightly that not even water could get through. There was no way to escape!

Kakarot could be sent away because Gou Kong had stuffed him into a Space Pod in advance. But what about himself?

Now he did not even have a chance to take off, let alone go to Earth...

Was he supposed to just give up?

Had he struggled for so many years only to end up as a puff of dust on Planet Vegeta after all?

Dodoria gave him no chance to stand there in a daze. With a roar, he charged forward, his fist as big as a sand pot smashing viciously into Gou Kong's face with a shriek of displaced air!

Bang!

The terrifying force made Gou Kong's vision go black, and his entire body flew backward out of control. He skimmed past several sharp rocks, his tight battle suit sliced to tatters, before finally crashing into a distant rock wall with a boom, forcibly smashing a half-man-deep crater into the hard stone. Broken rocks sprayed all over the sky.

"Cough—!"

Gou Kong coughed up a mouthful of bloody spit. His head was heavy and muddled, his vision swaying violently.

His cheek burned with pain, half his face swelling up, and even opening his mouth was difficult.

He simply let Dodoria rush up, fists raining down on his head and face.

He did not even have the desire to fight back.

If he was going to die anyway, what did it matter where he died?

All his previous efforts had been wasted. His dream of going to Earth was shattered. The plan to survive until the very end was completely finished. Lying flat and dying here seemed like it made no difference...

This was so damn unfair!

Why?

He had clearly calculated every step. He had clearly sent Kakarot away. He had clearly hidden the ship. How had one stupid flaw led to total defeat?

If someone told him this lousy script had been designed from the start to kill him, he would absolutely believe it!

"Fuck, the bastard who wrote this bullshit script—if you've got the guts, come out! I'll have a face-to-face chat with you!"

Gou Kong gritted his teeth, mentally cursing some author in who-knew-what dimension eight hundred times over.

As he was cursing, he looked up and saw Dodoria's twisted smiling face, smeared with blood, grinning in that cheap, obnoxious way while still shouting, "What? Scared? You don't even dare fight back anymore? How damn boring!"

Looking at that revolting face, a surge of rage suddenly shot up from the bottom of his heart, burning away all of his despair in an instant.

Why?

Why did he have to be beaten to death by this pack of trash?

He had painstakingly survived all these years and risked his life to send Kakarot away. Was it all so he could be beaten to death here by a pink-skinned toad?

He thought of the Space Pod he had hidden deep in the plateau. He thought of the life on Earth he had planned out before. He thought of the little Prince Vegeta he still had not beaten enough. He thought of the final score he had not yet had time to settle with Frieza.

Die just like this?

What a massive loss!

To hell with being destined to die!

To hell with the script's arrangements!

As long as there was still the slightest chance, he would fight to the end!

Gou Kong suddenly raised his arm and precisely clamped down on Dodoria's descending fist!

His vision was blurred, his head groggy from the beating, but the strength in his hand was astonishing. His knuckles squeezed Dodoria's finger bones until they creaked, and the pain made the pink-skinned toad's expression change in an instant.

"That all you've got?" Gou Kong grinned, his bloodstained teeth white enough to send a chill down the spine, his tone full of mockery. "You hit me a few hundred times, and all you did was scratch me up a little? A swine like you has fists as soft as cotton."

"You!" Dodoria was shocked and furious. Just as he was about to struggle, he saw Gou Kong's other fist already smashing toward him with crushing force!

Bang!

The punch landed squarely on Dodoria's already-collapsed nose bridge. The sound of bone shattering was clearly audible, even drowning out the explosions in the distance.

Dodoria screamed miserably, his entire body flying backward as if struck by a high-speed train. He shot back dozens of meters, rolled seven or eight times across the ground, and the dust he kicked up covered half the plateau. Finally, with a boom, he smashed into a massive boulder and couldn't get up for a long while, leaving only pained groans drifting in the wind.

Gou Kong pulled himself free from the hollow in the rock wall and brushed the shattered stones off his body. Bruises still marked his face, but his eyes shone with a frightening brightness. His full 19,000 battle power erupted without reservation, and the violent waves of energy sent the stones by his feet flying more than ten meters into the air.

"I changed my mind."

He stared at the wretched Dodoria in the distance and walked forward step by step, each footfall making the ground tremble, his footprints sinking deep into the hard rock.

"Today, I'm gonna beat you flat first. Later, I'll settle the score with Frieza, that purple-skinned onion head!"

With that, Gou Kong stomped hard against the ground and shot forward like a cannonball. The wind from his fist tore through the air with a sharp sonic boom, and even the surrounding air was compressed into visible ripples.