Ever since he had crossed over into this world, the Paragus who might have had another life ahead of him had already disappeared.
All that remained was an empty shell, swept along by ambition, fear, and the will to survive.
He had treated Broly as a tool, a shackle, and a hope, all tangled together into one complicated obsession.
Forty-one years.
On this desolate, cruel planet, their relationship had been less like family and more like a chain: they depended on each other, and tormented each other in turn.
But forty-one years—no matter how brutal the daily training, how afraid Paragus was, or how desperately he tried to control Broly's untamed power; no matter how many struggles, roars, and silences filled the wasteland—time itself was cruel enough to have carved indelible marks deep into their souls.
It was a habit, and a twisted bond, like two vines wound around each other, coexisting and opposing one another, their roots long since driven into the rings of their lives.
"Bro...ly..."
Paragus seemed to sense a shadow drawing near.
He struggled to turn his cloudy, bloodshot eyes, veiled in a film of gray.
With all his strength, he managed to focus on Broly's face, now utterly cold and expressionless.
His lips moved. A wheezing "khh... khh..." rasped from his throat, mingling with blood.
He desperately tried to say something. Perhaps an order, a curse, or something else.
But in the end, only a faint breath and some blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
Blood still flowed from his severed arm, though more slowly now.
Dark red blood seeped into the scorched earth, spreading into an ominous stain. The stench of iron was so strong it caught in the throat.
Broly didn't say a word.
He didn't press a hand to the ghastly wound, nor did he try to treat it.
He simply crouched there, quietly watching the old man rapidly growing weaker before him, watching the last color drain from his face and his chest rise and fall ever more faintly.
The light of life drained bit by bit from that battered body, like sand slipping through an hourglass. No one could stop it.
He could have prevented all this.
The power within him was vast as a sea of stars. Sealing a wound like that and keeping someone alive would have been effortless.
But strangely, at that moment, he felt nothing.
He had no urge to act, and no reason to intervene.
It was as if a cold, detached observer had curled up in the depths of his soul, simply watching this irreversible end unfold.
The last glimmer in Paragus's eyes reflected Broly's motionless figure.
An indescribable emotion—perhaps the fear of finally understanding, perhaps the despair of seeing his plans fail completely, or perhaps a last trace of resentment toward the "monster" he had personally "raised" but never truly controlled—fell into his lifeless gaze like a pebble into still water, sending out the faintest ripple before vanishing.
Then that last glimmer went out for good.
His pupils dilated. All life left his eyes, leaving only dull, dusty glass beads.
His chest rose once, almost imperceptibly, and then fell still.
Paragus was dead.
Broly slowly stood up, his towering figure especially lonely in the thin light.
He looked down at the body that had only just gone cold, stiff and lifeless at his feet.
Forty-one years on this forgotten planet: all their struggles, schemes, fears, and twisted dependence had come to nothing but a bloody death in the wilderness, almost casual in its brutality.
There was no heroism, and no meaning. It was like an insect being crushed.
He raised his head. His gaze passed over the shattered rock walls and settled on the unchanging sky.
The dark red star still hung there, stingily casting its cold light and heat over the whole world, staining it dark red and deep purple, like congealed blood.
And deep in Broly's eyes, something began to stir.
It had slept too long and been suppressed too long. Perhaps even he himself had nearly forgotten it.
But the scent of death and blood was like a key, slowly rousing it from its cold slumber.
This wasn't sorrow, and it wasn't anger.
The feeling was more primitive, more desolate, like a rumbling deep within the earth beneath a frozen wasteland.
Paragus was dead.
Broly stood before the body, head bowed, silent for a long time.
Forty-one years was neither long nor short.
He had never truly felt anything for the man who was his "father" in name only.
Ever since he could remember, Paragus had looked at him with nothing but fear and a desire to use him.
Those eyes had never shown him any warmth, only meticulous scheming and poorly concealed dread, as if he were not a son but a weapon liable to explode at any moment.
But now, even that twisted relationship had ended.
Paragus's body lay on the charred, cracked rock. His blood had long since congealed, mingling with Vampa's dust.
The final expression frozen on his face was one of shock and resentment. His wide eyes reflected only the eternally gloomy sky of this planet.
The wind wailed across the wilderness, whipping up fine sand that struck Broly's chest and expressionless face.
"Just as well."
Broly murmured the two words in a flat voice, as if stating something that had nothing to do with him.
He gave one last look at the lifeless husk, then slowly turned around. His heavy combat boots ground over the rubble as he prepared to leave the barren land that had been his home for forty-one years.
But just as he took a step—
The ground beneath his feet suddenly shook violently!
At first, it was only a faint tremor, as if some giant thing were turning over deep underground.
But soon, the shaking became utterly violent!
For several kilometers around him, layers of rock bulged like crushed eggshells, then exploded!
A bottomless, dozens-of-meters-wide fissure split open behind him with a roar, as if cleaved by an invisible giant axe!
Scorched earth and house-sized boulders were hurled into the air by a brutal force, then crashed down like raindrops, pockmarking the ground.
Rumble—!!!
Amid the deafening roar, a colossal creature burst out of the earth.
It was—the Centipede Monster.
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