The Scepter's Hum

Old Kai shrank into the corner, his neck hunched so low it almost disappeared, terrified of being caught in the crossfire should Beerus lose his temper.

Whis remained as unhurried as ever, elegant and composed as if nothing at all were happening.

He tilted his head slightly with a faint, enigmatic smile, tapping his staff against the ground twice to produce a crisp sound, as if attempting to impose order on the chaos before him with the noise alone.

"Lord Beerus, don't get so worked up. Getting angry is bad for your digestion," Whis said languidly, turning his gaze toward Son Goku. "Besides, Son Goku's tendency to treat life-or-death battles as nothing more than a challenge—this insatiable excitement of his—might, in a sense, become a secret weapon for our Universe 7."

"A secret weapon? I'd say it's more of a fatal flaw!" Beerus crossed his arms and plopped back onto the rock, his tail lashing even more violently than before. "A fool like him, only ever thinking about fighting, is bound to suffer dearly in a brawl of that scale. He won't even have time to cry when it happens!"

Just as Beerus simmered with rage and Son Goku puzzled over what exactly an "unexpected weapon" could mean—

"Hum..."

A faint, subtle vibration emanated from the tip of the staff in Whis's hand, clear enough to make one's scalp prickle.

The smile on Whis's face stiffened for a fraction of a second.

His blue eyes lowered slightly, fixed intently on the crystal ball slowly rotating at the top of his staff.

The halo within the sphere flickered, its flow accelerating as if responding to some anomalous fluctuation from a distant place, one that ordinary beings could never perceive.

"Oh?" Whis raised an eyebrow, his attention entirely captured by the staff.

The breeze in the Supreme Kai World seemed to freeze in place.

Though the sound was faint, it pierced the lazy air of the temple like a cold, thin wire, drilling clearly into everyone's ears.

Beerus was semi-reclined on a floating cushion, a shimmering dessert held in his hand.

At the sound, he paused, his purple brows furrowing as he turned a sharp gaze toward Whis. "Hm? What is it?"

Whis did not answer immediately.

He took half a step forward, his staff appearing in his hand as if by magic.

He extended a slender finger and brushed the orb at the top of the staff, as if stroking a feather.

Inside the sphere, starlike points of light began to rotate and drift slowly.

Whis closed his eyes slightly, casting his perception out like an invisible ripple, silently crossing countless light-years to reach the most desolate corners of the universe.

Before long, he opened his eyes.

The smile on his face became intriguing—touched with surprise, amusement, and even a hint of delight.

"Interesting..." His voice remained gentle but carried a deeper meaning. "On the very edge of Universe 7, there is a planet called Vampa. It is illuminated by a dark red star year-round, its surface covered in nothing but rock and wild beasts, with almost no trace of civilization. But just a moment ago..."

He paused, and the lights inside the staff's orb accelerated abruptly. "An astonishing energy fluctuation erupted there, so powerful it directly rewrote the energy readings for that entire sector."

"Vampa?" Beerus sat bolt upright, tossing the dessert aside; it rolled across the ground a few times.

He curled his lip, his tone dripping with disdain. "What kind of powerhouse could come from a dump like that, a place even space pirates can't be bothered to visit? Didn't some unlucky fool's energy furnace just explode?"

"No, Lord Beerus," Whis said, shaking his head gently as the smile deepened. "This energy is quite unique. It isn't a typical explosion; it is filled with a raw, violent rage that threatens to tear through space itself. And more importantly..."

He drew out his words, pointing the tip of his staff toward the distance. "From the aftershocks of that energy, I caught a scent... a very, very familiar one."

Beerus squinted, a dangerous glint flashing in his dark red pupils. "Don't play games. What kind of scent?"

Whis turned his head, his gaze sweeping over Son Goku—who had perked up his ears at the mention of "great power"—and slowly uttered three words:

"Saiyan."

The air turned deathly still.

"Wh—?!" Son Goku sprang from the ground, his orange martial arts uniform rustling with the movement.

His eyes were wide, filled with disbelief and excitement. "A Saiyan?! Besides me, Vegeta, and Gohan and the others, are there really other Saiyans still alive? And in a place like that?!"

Whis did not answer directly, maintaining his mysterious smile. His deep gaze seemed to have crossed the endless starry sky, landing on that wasteland recently baptized by energy.

At that very moment, billions of light-years away, on Vampa.

Broly's roar finally began to subside.

His massive frame, wreathed in grass-green energy, descended slowly from the high altitude.

The landscape for dozens of kilometers around his previous position had been completely transformed.

Hard rock had been melted by intense heat into crimson magma, bubbling and hissing.

The air was thick with the acrid stench of sulfur and scorched stone.

Further out, the earth had split into countless bottomless chasms that stretched toward the distant horizon.

The giant beasts that once ruled the planet had either been vaporized in the initial burst of energy or ground into cosmic dust by the subsequent shockwaves.

Only a few of the most cunning and smallest creatures had managed to escape to the frozen zone on the other side of the planet, huddled in rock crevices, not daring to make a sound.

Broly finally landed on a solitary black boulder that had miraculously escaped being melted.