The Vanishing Signal

"Ah!"

After Slug furiously blew up the planet, just as Li Ming had expected, he did not die. He continued surviving in space, but having lost his spaceship, he could only drift through the void, unable to leave.

With nowhere to vent his rage, Slug wildly erupted with ki, shoving aside the planetary debris in his path as he frantically searched for traces of a spaceship. He knew his own ship well—if any escape pod had survived, he still had hope of leaving this place and avoiding a direct confrontation with Frieza.

In the end, Slug found the wreckage of his shattered spaceship in space. After searching through it, he successfully obtained an escape pod, a small spacecraft similar to the one Goku had ridden as a child.

"Hm? Found it!"

Ecstatic, he activated the ship and left, while etching this grudge into his heart. He would lie low and wait for his chance.

Whoosh!

A barrier formed around the ship's surface, and it swiftly vanished into the vast universe. This was the key to how spaceships could travel through space even without thrusters.

Not long after Slug left, Frieza's spaceship arrived as well. However, it did not stop and instead headed straight in one direction in pursuit.

Inside the ship, Frieza sneered. A red dot moving at high speed was projected on the display before him.

"Hehehehe! Saiyan, you won't escape my grasp."

"Lord Frieza, the Galactic King has rejected our terms. What should we..." An alien cautiously approached and spoke. To Frieza, subordinates like them were disposable consumables with no value whatsoever. At any moment, they might become targets for Frieza to vent his anger on.

"It doesn't matter. The Galactic King is still useful, so don't touch him yet. I'll deal with the Saiyan first, then go find him."

"Yes." The alien bowed slightly, then seemed to remember something and continued, "Lord Frieza, we also found Slug's spaceship along the way, but it appears to have been destroyed. Only an escape pod remains. What should we do?"

"Ignore him. It doesn't matter if he lives a few more days. The Saiyan is what matters most right now!"

"Yes!"

Only then did the alien turn to leave, but in the next instant, a beam of light abruptly appeared and pierced straight through his chest. He collapsed to the ground as Frieza turned away in the distance.

He did not want anyone to know that he feared Saiyans. As the Emperor of the Universe—even if that title was self-proclaimed—what Frieza valued most was his pride. No one could be allowed to know anything that might make him lose face!

As the most gifted genius in the history of the Frost Demon race, Frieza possessed unparalleled advantages, with talent surpassing that of both his father, King Cold, and his older brother, Cooler!

Yet that very arrogance made his pride even greater than theirs, and made him even less capable of accepting the fact that he feared Super Saiyans!

But this was an ancestral warning passed down by the Frost Demon race since ancient times: beware of Super Saiyans. Like a curse, it accompanied every Frost Demon throughout their life.

King Cold and Cooler believed in exterminating the Saiyans completely, but Frieza insisted on treating them as toys. In his view, this was how he could prove that the so-called Super Saiyans were nothing special, and also the best way to prove himself.

Yet the more he acted this way, the more it showed just how much he cared about the Saiyans.

Touch even slightly upon his sensitive nerves, and he could explode in an instant. Li Ming was now the one who had touched that nerve, which was why Frieza had come all this way to hunt him down personally.

Having proclaimed himself Emperor of the Universe, Frieza naturally cherished his reputation. Situations where he acted personally were actually rare. Coupled with the fact that he now had no capable subordinates left, personally pursuing Li Ming had become inevitable.

After a moment, Frieza seemed to think of something and called out inside the ship, "Hehehe, someone come."

"Lord Frieza." A new alien soon entered. The moment he heard Frieza's laughter, a chill ran down his spine.

But he had no choice. Frieza's terror had already surpassed even the instinctive fear of death!

"Where is Vegeta?"

The alien swiftly accessed the ship's information. Frieza's rule had not weakened due to the deaths of Dodoria and Zarbon. Instead, he continued exploiting his subordinates with even more brutal methods, leaving them too afraid to resist.

Driven by fear, their efficiency was astonishing. The alien quickly pulled up information on Vegeta's location and said, "He is at the main base and has not left. The other two Saiyans are there as well."

"Is that so? Hehehehe!"

Frieza seemed to think of something and burst into laughter.

He and Vegeta were very alike. One was the most gifted of the Frost Demons, while the other was the most gifted among the Saiyans. In some ways, their thoughts coincided perfectly—such as their arrogance.

That arrogance made them desperately eager to prove themselves, to prove that they were the strongest!

To a certain extent, even their methods of proving themselves were similar. Frieza controlled Vegeta to prove his own strength and seek entertainment.

After Vegeta successfully became a Super Saiyan, he too was desperate to prove himself. That was why, despite knowing Cell was powerful, he chose to let him continue growing.

In the end, even their outcomes were astonishingly alike: both were brutally humiliated.

Two days later, Frieza's spaceship approached its target—a dead planet. A group of aliens landed on its surface and began searching for the target.

More than ten minutes later, they found nothing. Even the scanners showed no response, while Frieza sat calmly aboard the spaceship.

"Hehehe!" This laughter was filled with a grim and terrifying killing intent! He had been played. Realizing this, Frieza was utterly enraged!

Buzz!

A blazing fireball appeared at his fingertip. Frieza ordered the spaceship to take off immediately, then detonated the entire planet!

Along with it, the several hundred aliens on its surface vanished completely into cosmic dust.

Realizing that the target he had pursued for two whole days was fake, Frieza's rage reached its peak. He had already abandoned all thought, wanting only to vent his fury!

Over the next half year, even the Galactic Patrol that had supplied Frieza with information suffered disaster. Frieza trapped them directly inside their central headquarters in the Milky Way, leaving them too afraid to emerge.

Only then did the Galactic Patrol finally realize the problem: they had been used by Li Ming as well.

The tracking device they had given Li Ming worked both ways. It allowed him to discover Frieza's whereabouts, but it also allowed Frieza to find him.

Li Ming had anticipated this long ago. Fundamentally, the Galactic Patrol was no different from Frieza. One played the good cop, the other the bad cop. In the end, it all came down to whose fist was bigger.

The Galactic Patrol had originally intended for Frieza and Li Ming to confront each other head-on. No matter who won in the end, they would be able to sit back and reap the benefits.

They had even deliberately provided Frieza with their internal intelligence network to ensure he could successfully catch up to Li Ming—a massive system spanning the entire Milky Way!

Jaco had once said something to Tights that left a deep impression on Li Ming.

"Out of every hundred thousand flies on Earth, one is a Galactic Patrol reconnaissance robot!"

That meant the largest intelligence network in the entire Milky Way was in the hands of the Galactic Patrol. How could Li Ming not pay attention to that?

He had never trusted the Galactic King from the very beginning. After fighting Slug, he had steadily stoked Frieza's fury while making sure Frieza could not find him, thereby redirecting Frieza's resentment toward the Galactic Patrol.

As an organization with official backing, the Galactic Patrol could not possibly be wiped out. But after offending Frieza, they would have no chance to keep causing trouble.

That bought Li Ming some time to catch his breath.

In truth, not long after Frieza destroyed the planet and left, Li Ming appeared on a nearby inhabited planet. His face was terrifyingly pale, and the ki within his body had fallen to rock bottom.

Frieza realized he had been tricked precisely because the scouter had shown no response at all.

Li Ming had not used a Senzu Bean to recover. On one hand, he did not want to waste one; on the other, he wanted to use this to mislead Frieza and make him believe it completely.

After all, Li Ming's current battle power was already approaching three million. It was difficult for him to suppress it to the point where it could not be detected.

Stet ran over from afar. When he saw Li Ming, his face lit up. "My lord! You've finally returned!"

Li Ming had taken him along when he left. Though Li Ming had his own reasons, Stet was still deeply grateful to him. In this cruel universe, that gesture was nothing less than the kindness of giving him a new life.

"Crunch!"

Li Ming took out a Senzu Bean and swallowed it before asking, "Well? Have you figured out where we are now?"

Namek was too far from Earth. Li Ming's Instant Transmission had not yet reached the point where he could travel freely through the universe. In the end, he simply did not have enough ki.

"Yes! We're already far from the center of the universe. There are two star systems between us and Namek."

"Which direction? Are there any inhabited planets in between?"

"This way. As for that... given the limited conditions, I don't know whether there are any inhabited planets. I'm terribly sorry, Lord Li Ming!"

Stet felt deeply guilty, believing he had let down Li Ming's trust.

Li Ming did not mind. He placed a hand on Stet's shoulder and immediately activated Instant Transmission. He had already sensed life in that direction, so the rest would be simple.