Old Kai huddled off to the side, shrinking into himself and practically losing his neck as he feared that if Beerus flew into a rage, he'd get caught in the crossfire.
Whis, meanwhile, remained his unhurried self, as elegant as if nothing had happened.
He tilted his head slightly, a faint smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He tapped the ground twice with his staff, producing a clear chime, as if trying to bring some order to the chaos with its sound.
"Lord Beerus, don't get too worked up. Getting angry isn't good for your digestion." Whis spoke leisurely, then turned his gaze to Son Goku. "Besides, Son Goku's attitude—treating even a fight to the death as a challenge and getting terribly excited about it—might, in a way, become our Universe 7's secret weapon."
"Secret weapon? I'd call it our biggest weakness!" Beerus folded his arms and sat back down on the rock, fuming, his tail swishing even faster than before. "That idiot only thinks about fighting. In a battle royale at that level, he's bound to pay dearly sooner or later. By then, it'll be too late to cry!"
Just as Beerus was still simmering with anger, while Son Goku wondered what exactly Whis meant by "unexpected weapon"—
"Hmm..."
A faint hum came from the top of the staff in Whis's hand, so clear it made everyone's scalp tingle.
Whis's smile stiffened for the briefest moment.
His blue eyes lowered slightly, fixed on the crystal orb slowly turning atop his staff.
Now the light inside the orb flickered, brightening and dimming, and began to flow faster, as if responding to some abnormal fluctuation from a distant place—one beyond the perception of ordinary people.
"Oh?" Whis raised an eyebrow slightly, his attention drawn entirely to the staff.
Even the breeze in the Supreme Kai World seemed to freeze.
The sound was quiet, yet like a cold, fine thread, it pierced the lazy air in the Lookout and slipped clearly into everyone's ears.
Beerus was reclining on a floating cushion, still holding a glistening piece of dessert.
At the sound, he paused. His purple brows furrowed, and his sharp gaze shifted to Whis. "Hmm? What is it?"
Whis didn't answer right away.
He stepped forward half a pace, the staff somehow back in his hand.
He reached out with his slender fingers and gently touched the orb atop it, as if stroking a feather.
Inside the orb, starlike points of light began to rotate and drift slowly.
Whis closed his eyes slightly and sent his senses outward like invisible ripples, quietly crossing countless light-years and spreading to the most desolate corners of the universe.
Before long, he opened his eyes.
His smile grew inscrutable, touched with surprise and amusement, and even a hint of delight.
"How interesting..." His voice was still as gentle as ever, but now carried a deeper meaning. "At the very edge of Universe 7, there's a planet called Vampa. It's bathed all year in the light of a dark red star. Its surface is covered in rocks and beasts, with hardly any signs of civilization. But just now..."
He paused, and the points of light in the staff's orb suddenly sped up. "An astonishing burst of energy suddenly erupted there. It was powerful enough to directly alter the energy readings of that region of space."
"Vampa?" Beerus sat bolt upright, casually tossing away the dessert in his hand. It bounced and rolled across the ground.
He pursed his lips, his tone full of disdain. "That dump's so remote even space pirates can't be bothered to go there. What kind of strong fighter could come from a place like that? Maybe some unlucky fool's reactor blew up."
"No, Lord Beerus." Whis shook his head gently, the smile at the corners of his mouth deepening. "This energy is very unusual. It wasn't an ordinary outburst, but was filled with raw, violent fury, powerful enough to nearly tear space apart. More importantly..."
He deliberately drew out his words, pointing the top of his staff into the distance. "From the energy's lingering traces, I caught a... very, very familiar presence."
Beerus narrowed his eyes, a dangerous glint flashing in his dark red pupils. "Stop stringing us along. What presence?"
Whis turned and glanced at Son Goku, whose ears had perked up with excitement at the mention of "powerful energy." Then he slowly uttered three words:
"Saiyan."
The air froze.
"Wha—?!" Son Goku sprang up from the ground, his orange-red gi rustling with the movement.
His eyes were wide with disbelief and excitement. "A Saiyan?! Besides me, Vegeta, and Gohan, are there really other Saiyans still alive? And in a place like that?!"
Whis didn't answer directly. He simply maintained his mysterious smile, his deep gaze seeming to pass through endless stars and settle on the wasteland that had just been bathed in energy.
At that very moment, billions of light-years away, on Vampa—
Broly's roar finally began to fade.
His massive body, wreathed in a grass-green aura, slowly descended from the sky.
For dozens of kilometers in every direction around the spot where he had hovered, the landscape had been utterly transformed.
The solid rock had melted into crimson magma, bubbling and popping.
The air reeked of sulfur and scorched stone.
Farther away, the earth had split into countless bottomless ravines that stretched all the way to the distant horizon.
The colossal beasts that had once ruled the planet had either been vaporized by the initial energy burst or ground into cosmic dust by the shock waves that followed.
Only a tiny number of the cleverest and weakest creatures had managed to flee to the frozen lands on the other side of the planet. They huddled in cracks in the rock, not daring to make a sound.
Broly finally landed on a lone black boulder that had somehow escaped being melted.
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