God of Destruction: Annihilation Fist

At last, a savage smile spread across Beerus's lips.

He looked at the Saiyan before him, battered and covered in blood. Broly was like a volcano on the verge of eruption, his aura chaotic, yet he stubbornly refused to fall.

Beerus could not help but shout, "Good!" His tone carried a hint of anticipation and excitement. "Now, let me show you—the true power of a God of Destruction!"

This time, he was no longer casually flicking out energy spheres.

He seriously raised his right hand and slowly clenched his fingers.

In almost an instant, a heart-palpitating purple radiance erupted from his palm.

This was no ordinary light, but pure energy filled with the will of destruction. It was as though something living were slithering and coiling in his hand. Even the air gave off a shrill sizzling sound, as if space itself were being corroded.

Rather than condensing the energy into a long-range attack as before, Beerus directly wrapped that terrifying destructive power around his right fist.

At that moment, his fist seemed no longer made of flesh and blood, but forged entirely from "destruction" itself.

Purple energy danced along his knuckles, warping and dimming the surrounding space. Even the light seemed to be swallowed into his fist.

"God of Destruction: Annihilation Fist."

The instant the words fell, Beerus vanished.

It was not an afterimage left by high-speed movement. His entire body had completely merged into space and disappeared into thin air.

Broly's pupils contracted sharply. His beast-like instincts blared frantic warnings as every muscle in his body tensed to its limit, and green energy flared around him once more to protect him.

But he could not keep up with Beerus's speed at all. All he saw was a deep, violent flash of purple light, like a bolt of destruction from the dawn of the universe.

The next second—

BOOM!!!!!!!!

The deafening blast shook the heavens. Even the planet's core trembled.

Beerus's fist, covered in destructive energy, slammed solidly into Broly's chest.

The green aura shattered and vanished like glass. His battle suit instantly disintegrated into dust, followed by skin, muscle, bone... The power of that punch was enough to destroy a young star from within in an instant, reducing it to cosmic dust.

"Ughhh—!!!"

Broly was sent flying backward at an unimaginable speed, like a meteor struck head-on by a super starship's main cannon.

He crashed violently into Vampa's surface, gouging out a bottomless ravine dozens of kilometers long as shattered rock and lava erupted into the sky.

But it was not over yet. The enormous momentum carried him straight through the atmosphere. Like a shooting star flying in reverse, trailing the dying embers of life, he shot into the cold, dark depths of space.

At that moment, his consciousness sank completely into darkness and chaos.

He could no longer feel pain in his chest. There was only a destructive sensation of "vanishing."

He could clearly "feel" his sternum and ribs shattering and being annihilated beneath that punch, while his internal organs suffered catastrophic damage.

By his ears—if he could still sense anything at all—there was only the dead silence of vacuum, along with the illusion of life rapidly slipping away.

His body rolled and spun helplessly through deep space, beyond his control.

Warm blood continuously poured from the massive wound in his chest and from his mouth and nose. The instant it left his body, the absolute-zero void froze it into strings of crimson ice crystals that drifted behind him, like a cruel and eerie galaxy adorning this crushing defeat.

Wave after wave of darkness came crashing down, trying to swallow his last trace of consciousness.

Agony, cold, suffocation, the shadow of death—everything dragged him toward eternal slumber.

But—

Just as his consciousness was about to sink completely, a faint yet stubborn flame still flickered.

It was neither ki nor energy. It was the Saiyan's unwillingness and fury from the depths of his soul.

"Not... yet..."

His lips trembled weakly in the vacuum.

There was no sound, yet that will seemed to carve its mark into the void.

"...over!!!"

Back on the stretch of Vampa's land that had just been devastated, Beerus slowly withdrew his fist.

The purple destructive energy receded like the tide, revealing his clean white glove.

He stood where he was, his head slightly tilted toward the direction Broly had vanished. The afterglow of that punch still lingered in his gaze.

"Whis," he said, his tone returning somewhat to its usual laziness, though a trace of tension could still be heard, "is he dead?"

In the distant sky, Whis, who had been silently observing all along, lightly turned the staff in his hand.

Countless intricate patterns of light emerged within the crystal ball at its tip, as if it were reading some kind of information from the universe.

A moment later, the smile on Whis's lips deepened, carrying a touch of appreciation and amusement.

"No, Lord Beerus," Whis answered brightly. "Not only is he not dead, but his life force... how should I put it? It had clearly fallen to rock bottom just now, yet now it is growing stronger again at a very interesting rate. He is simply like an uncut jade that, once polished, has become even more dazzling."

Beerus fell silent for a while.

There was almost no change in expression on his purple face, but those eyes that were always half-lidded, as if nothing mattered to him, had now opened fully. They were sharp enough to pierce through the stars as they stared at the figure struggling and transforming in the depths of space.

"...That monster."

He said it quietly.