God of Destruction Awakens

Four years were enough for a sapling to grow as tall as a rooftop, for a child to go from toddling to racing all over the mountains, and for a planet's scorched battlegrounds to grow green with grass once more.

North City's reconstruction was fully completed in the third year after Cell's defeat. The overpasses that had once been torn up by their roots now stretched across the city again. The burned-out frames of cars had been melted down and recast into track steel for new maglev trains. Sleek silver-white buildings rose from the sites of shattered skyscrapers. Bulma's father, Dr. Brief, personally designed North City's new energy supply system, combining Capsule Corp's energy-conversion technology with that shared by the Namekians, allowing the city's power grid to leap directly from conventional nuclear fusion into the age of clean energy. After reconstruction was complete, North City's residents sent a commemorative banner to the Lookout, embroidered with the four large words: "Long Live the Guardian." Piccolo's antennae twitched when he saw it. He stuffed the banner into a corner of the Lookout's storage room beside the previous "Long Live the Guardian" banner. That one had been delivered after the Cell incident, and it was already gathering dust.

West City had changed even more. The Saiyan settlement had grown from an initial cluster of tents into a proper town, then expanded from a town into a modern city exclusively for Saiyans. Bulma named it "New Vegeta." King Vegeta was silent for a long time when he heard it, then nodded. At New Vegeta's opening ceremony, King Vegeta stood on the platform with hundreds of Saiyan warriors and their families behind him. He wore a dark blue formal suit specially designed by Bulma, with the Saiyan royal crest pinned to his chest—a restored ancient Saiyan emblem that Ji Ming had recreated from rubbings taken from the stone pillars of Planet Sadala after returning from Namek. King Vegeta looked over the densely packed crowd below, picked up his speech, and read two words: "Very good." Then he folded the paper, slipped it into his pocket, and sat down.

Bulma sighed below the stage. "I wrote him a three-thousand-word speech."

Vegeta stood beside her, the corner of his mouth twitching faintly. "Getting him to read two words was already pretty good."

Ji Ming smiled as he listened to them, but did not interrupt. He leaned against a stone pillar at the edge of the ceremony plaza, one arm still wrapped in a strip of bandage from a scrape he had gotten during morning training. Several years had passed since the defeat of Majin Buu. He had grown from four and a half to nearly nine years old, nearly reaching Vegeta's shoulder in height. The baby fat had completely vanished from his face, leaving the sharply defined contours of a young boy. But his gaze was far heavier than any nine-year-old's should have been—those were the eyes of someone who had fought from Frieza to Buu, from Earth to Namek, from Planet Sadala's ancient stone steps to the threshold of Ultra Instinct. Over the years, he had recorded the data from every battle in Bulma's database. The terminal in the Lookout's combat room stored the battle reports he had dictated, catalogued by year. From the Saiyans' revival to Buu's annihilation, every entry was crisp and cold.

But he did not intend to think about any of that today. Today was the day New Vegeta was completed. Dende was watering flowers at the Lookout, Piccolo was teaching his disciples in the back mountains, Chiaotzu and Tien Shinhan's little dojo had already accepted its third batch of students, and Chi-Chi had said over the phone last night that the newly brewed plum wine was ready to be opened. Ji Ming unwound the bandage and rubbed his wrist. The healed skin bore faint white marks in the sunlight. Krillin passed by nearby, pushing a stroller. The little dog Mr. Satan had forced on him sat in the passenger seat. Krillin waved and smiled at Ji Ming, who raised a hand in return.

The sky was blue. The clouds were white. The wind was gentle.

At the farthest edge of the universe, a sleeping being slowly opened his eyes.

Deep space. An unknown starfield millions of light-years from the Milky Way. A planet roughly the size of Earth floated alone at the edge of the sea of stars, its surface covered in dense pale-purple mist. Dozens of tiny satellites hovered in synchronous orbit beyond its atmosphere. Every satellite was carved with ancient cuneiform script. The writing belonged to no known civilization, yet it quietly shimmered with dark golden light in the vacuum. Inside the planet, there was only silence. No insects chirped, no wind blew, and there was not a trace of living breath.

Beerus was asleep. He lay on an enormous bed formed from pure white matter in the deepest part of the temple, his eyes closed, his slender body curled in an utterly relaxed pose. His tail hung motionlessly over the bed's edge. Dozens of stone pillars surrounded him, each set with hundreds of crystals giving off a pale purple glow that brightened and dimmed slowly like a heartbeat. He had slept for thirty-nine years. To him, thirty-nine years was merely an ordinary afternoon nap. He could not even remember when he had last awakened—probably to blow up a planet that had not looked particularly nice.

Just as his dream reached the part where he was taking huge bites out of some delicious food he had never tasted before, one of his ears twitched. Not his dream ear—his real ear. The pair of purple cat ears atop his head turned halfway on their own in his sleep. The delicacy in his dream suddenly seemed incredibly close, close enough that his nostrils flared slightly, as if it were right at his lips.

He woke up.

Beerus slowly pushed himself upright, his eyes half-open and his golden pupils still somewhat unfocused. He sat at the edge of the bed in a daze, his tail flicking twice unconsciously as his mind drifted along the border between dream and reality. He remembered what he had been eating in the dream—a cooked dish, tender and juicy meat coated in some kind of sweet-and-salty sauce, served on a strange white round plate atop a wooden table. More than a dozen other dishes had been on the table, including a bowl of golden liquid floating with chopped scallions. The lingering aroma of the dream seemed to cling to his tongue, and saliva automatically welled in his mouth.

He got up and walked out of the temple, his steps light and slow. The purple mist parted automatically before him, opening a straight path. At the end of the path was the observatory at the temple's outer edge, where one could overlook the entire satellite array. Whis stood at its edge, his left hand behind his back and his right gripping his staff as he used its tip to poke at a small satellite floating nearby.

"Oh my, Lord Beerus. You're awake." Whis did not turn around.

"Whis, I had a dream." Beerus walked over and stood beside him, his hands behind his back and an unusually serious expression on his face.

"Oh? What did you dream about?"

"Food. What was it? Something delicious that I've never eaten before. I don't know what the soup was called either. It was served in a strange round dish."

Whis lightly tapped his staff, and the crystal orb at its head lit up with a pale blue glow. An image of a blue-and-white planet appeared within it, slowly rotating. "You were describing Earth. You dreamed of human food from Earth, as well as your archrival—the Super Saiyan God." Whis turned around, his smile as gentle as ever, though there was a hint of amusement at the corner of his mouth. "It seems it is time to visit Earth, Lord Beerus. They appear to have become quite interesting."

Beerus stared at the blue planet. His ears rotated halfway, and the laziness in his golden eyes gradually gave way to the sharpness of a hunter sizing up prey. "Then let's go have a look. But wait, Whis—you said this Super Saiyan God. Is he strong?"

"Who knows? Perhaps he is very strong. Perhaps he is only a name."

Beerus did not ask again. His tail slowly swayed behind him as the mist around the temple began to recede to either side, revealing a clear expanse of stars above. Somewhere among them, Earth continued to turn quietly.

One ordinary morning, Ji Ming woke before the roosters crowed on Mount Paozu. He had had an unpleasant dream—of a purple planet, a temple upon it, and a pair of golden pupils gazing toward Earth through the boundless depths of space. There was no killing intent in those eyes, only a touch of lazy curiosity, but that absolute, overwhelming pressure made his aura burst forth automatically for an instant when he woke before slowly subsiding. He sat up, his chest rising and falling faintly, one hand pressed over his heart as he felt it beat. The Crimson-Gold Light Core had floated quietly within him for more than four years, yet now it trembled slightly, as though responding to something.

He walked out of his room. Chi-Chi was already busy in the kitchen. Freshly sliced scallions and ginger were neatly arranged on the cutting board, while porridge bubbled on the stove, filling the entire house with the scent of newly harvested rice. Son Goku was not awake yet—he had stayed in the Gravity Chamber until three in the morning. If Bulma had not remotely cut the power, he would have trained until dawn. Chi-Chi said that when he came back, he had been drenched in sweat and collapsed onto the tatami to sleep without even changing clothes, so she had no choice but to cover him with a blanket.

Ji Ming sat at the table. Chi-Chi pushed a bowl of porridge in front of him, then set down a small plate of pickled radish and half a salted duck egg. He took a sip, and the warmth of the rice porridge sliding down his throat dispersed some of the lingering chill. "Mom, I'm going to see Aunt Bulma today."

"You're going to see her again? You were just there last week. Is she asking you to fix some engine again? You're still so young. She can't keep using you as child labor—"

"It's not an engine." Ji Ming chewed on a piece of pickled radish. "It's about a god."

Chi-Chi's movements paused. She put the spatula back in the pan, turned to look at Ji Ming's face, and fell silent for a moment. She rarely tried to stop him anymore—from four and a half to nearly nine years old, her son had punched his way through enemy after enemy whose names she could not even remember. She had long known that he was destined for more than kitchens and vegetable fields. But every time she heard him say "a god," her heart still clenched.

"Go after you finish eating," she said. Her voice no longer trembled, though it was still softer than usual. "Finish your porridge."

Ji Ming gave a quiet grunt and lifted the bowl, drinking every drop of porridge and even scraping clean the grains of rice at the bottom. He set down the bowl and stood. As he passed Chi-Chi, he paused and lightly touched the back of her hand. Chi-Chi turned her hand over and clasped his fingers tightly, giving them a firm squeeze before letting go. Go.

Ji Ming stepped out the door. A white aura ignited beneath his feet, and he shot toward West City as a streak of white light.

Bulma was already waiting for him in the laboratory on the top floor of Capsule Corp headquarters. She sat before a holographic terminal, her fingers flying over the keyboard as lines of spectral analysis data that even Ji Ming could barely understand scrolled across the display. A cup of coffee sat beside the keyboard, already cold, with a blurred lipstick mark on its rim.

"I built a model based on the dream you sent me," Bulma said without looking up, getting straight to the point. "You said there was a purple planet in your dream, a temple, a humanoid creature with cat ears, and golden pupils. Based on the characteristics of divine energy you collected on Planet Sadala and Namek, I reverse-engineered that being's energy spectrum. The result was absurd—his energy fluctuations don't belong to any known physical law. But there's one especially strange thing: the frequency of his divine energy has roughly a forty percent overlap with the Crimson-Gold Light Core inside you. It isn't a complete overlap. It's like a chord—certain frequencies can resonate within your Light Core. I'm still studying what exactly that means, but instinctively, it points to one thing—your Light Core has already reacted to him."

Ji Ming was silent for a while, then said three words. "God of Destruction."

Bulma pushed up her glasses but said nothing. Of course she had heard that name. Three passages in Frieza's ancient records mentioned the title "God of Destruction." Every one was written in the Frost Demon Clan's oldest cipher. The translations were only a few lines long, but the fear between the words hit like a wave across tens of millions of years.

"When will he arrive?"

"I don't know. But now you know that he's looking for you."

"Not me." Ji Ming looked out at the sky beyond the window. "He's looking for the Super Saiyan God."

A few days after returning from West City, on a completely uneventful morning, Beerus and Whis appeared above Mount Paozu.

Beerus did not arrive in a spaceship, did not open a wormhole, and produced no energy fluctuations that a detector could capture. He simply appeared from nowhere. One moment, the clouds were still quietly burning in the morning light. The next, two figures were floating directly above Mount Paozu's peak. Beerus stood with his hands behind his back, his purple skin carrying a cold sheen beneath the sun. His ears tilted slightly forward as his golden pupils locked onto the inconspicuous little house below with astonishing speed. Whis still wore his gentle smile. His staff rested lightly in the air, the crystal orb at its tip still holding flecks of starlight picked up while crossing the starfields.

Inside the house, Chi-Chi was bringing breakfast to the table. Son Goku sat before it, chopsticks already in hand. Ji Ming stood at the kitchen door with a bowl, holding a piece of pickled radish between his chopsticks. Vegeta happened to be on Mount Paozu at the time—he had lent New Vegeta's Gravity Chamber to Nappa's rookie squad the night before and had come to Mount Paozu to borrow one instead. He stood by the door with coffee in hand, the protective film on the shoulder of his newly replaced battle armor not yet peeled off. All four of them froze at once.

Not because they saw anything. The air had suddenly become heavy. It was not the even weight imposed by a Gravity Chamber, but something subtler—something seeping inward through every pore, the overwhelming suppression of divinity crushing all mortal things. The dishes in the cupboard began to clink softly together, and the chandelier on the ceiling swayed by two degrees.

Ji Ming set down his bowl and walked out of the house with Son Goku, one behind the other. Vegeta emerged from the side door and stood by the courtyard wall, a crack appearing in the coffee cup clenched in his hand. Beerus slowly descended into the yard, his feet touching the soft earth of Mount Paozu. He glanced down at several radish sprouts by his feet.

"This is the place. The place from my dream." He sniffed again, then turned toward Chi-Chi and showed a smile that could almost be called friendly. "Hey, Earth woman. Would you be willing to make something delicious for me?"

Chi-Chi looked at Goku, then at Son Gohan, then at the purple cat-eared creature before her. She held her spatula and remained silent for quite a while. She had seen no small number of aliens by now, but this was the first one who had smiled and immediately asked for food. "If you mean Earth no harm," she said.

"Whether I mean harm depends on my mood." Beerus's ears twitched. "But right now, I only want to taste what I had in my dream."

Chi-Chi went back into the kitchen and lit the stove again. She was not sure exactly which dish Beerus had dreamed of as "delicious," so she followed the usual menu she made for Goku and the others—braised pork, stir-fried vegetables, miso soup, and a freshly steamed pot of white rice. Less than an hour later, the food was on the table. Beerus picked up a piece of braised pork and put it into his mouth, chewing very slowly. Then his pupils widened slightly, and his tail flicked softly behind him.

"This is it. And that soup—what is it called?"

"...Miso soup."

"Yes. It was delicious. Whis, have a bowl too."

"Thank you, Lord Beerus."

After the meal, Beerus rose and slowly made his way to the open space behind Mount Paozu's courtyard. He tipped his head back to look at the sun. "Earth's sun is more stable than ours. It's warm without being harsh on the eyes." Then he turned to Ji Ming and Son Goku. "By the way—where's the Super Saiyan God? Bring him out. I want to fight him."

Son Goku scratched his head and looked toward Ji Ming. Ji Ming stepped forward, his expression calm. "Far away, yet right before your eyes. But becoming a Super Saiyan God will take some work."

Beerus's golden eyes lingered on Ji Ming for a moment, a flicker of interest passing through them. He did not press the matter immediately. Ever since meeting this child, his intuition had been quietly stirring—this person's ki was as silent as a volcano sealed beneath ice. He could clearly sense the immense reserves of power within him; by all normal instincts, any warrior with such reserves would inevitably leak fighting spirit. Yet this child kept everything locked down tight, without letting out even a trace. It felt as fresh and novel as the meat he had just eaten.

"How did you know?"

"Because your ears twitch slightly every time you speak. And the fact that you could sit obediently in my mother's hands and eat braised pork means your hostility isn't aimed at this planet—at least not right now." Ji Ming calmly met his gaze. "I know who you are. You are Beerus, the God of Destruction of this universe. And if my understanding is correct, the one beside you is the angel Whis."

Whis's smile did not change, though a trace of approval appeared in his eyes. Beerus stared at him for a long while, then laughed. "Interesting. You're the first mortal who dared expose me upon our first meeting." He sat up straighter on the stone, his tail swishing in several circles. "Then bring out the Super Saiyan God."

Over the next few days, Ji Ming and Son Goku devoted themselves to researching the conditions required to achieve Super Saiyan God in the mountains behind the Lookout. Piccolo and Dende combed through fragmented ancient Namekian texts concerning "god ki," while Whis occasionally offered pointers. "The power of you Saiyans is pure physical strength, while god ki requires purity of the soul. Calm your hearts before sensing the flow of ki." Vegeta moved the Gravity Chamber behind the Lookout and trained with reckless intensity. Several times, Goku dragged him back from the brink of death, only to hear him muttering, "The next one."

Three days later, as the sun rose from the eastern side of the Lookout, Ji Ming sat cross-legged at the center of the plaza. Five people with Saiyan blood surrounded him—Son Goku, Vegeta, Son Gohan, Goten, and Trunks. Vegeta silently extended his palm first, followed by Son Goku, then the three children. Five streams of golden light gathered around Ji Ming, slowly lifting his body into the air. Ji Ming closed his eyes as the Crimson-Gold Light Core vibrated violently within him—the frequency that resonated with the power of destruction across deep space was precisely activated. Every stray thought was stripped from his mind, leaving only his breathing, and the steaming bowl of miso soup sitting in the corner of Chi-Chi's kitchen.

The golden light faded. Ji Ming descended to the ground once more. His hair shifted from black to red, and the golden flames around his body dispersed, replaced by a crimson aura—not burning, but flowing, drifting steadily and evenly around his outline. His eyes changed from emerald green to scarlet, and there was a distant emptiness deep within his pupils, quickly filled again by familiar calm.

For the first time, a Super Saiyan God fully descended into this universe.

Beerus rose from the stone platform. For the first time, a serious gleam appeared in his golden eyes. "Yes, this is it—the Super Saiyan God." He paused. "You're a little shorter than I imagined."

Ji Ming stood where he was, expression tranquil. "You're a little more talkative than I imagined."

Beerus laughed. It was the smile of a hunter who had finally found prey worth pursuing. "Let's begin."

Both figures vanished at the same instant. Less than a hundred meters above the Lookout, their first punches collided, and a ring of platinum-white shockwave erupted from the point of impact, tearing apart every cloud within several kilometers. Whis raised a hand and erected a rainbow barrier to protect Mount Paozu and the nearby residential areas below, then leaned on his staff again and looked up to watch. Within the realm of godly speed, Ji Ming sensed Beerus's attack path—not with his eyes, but with his entire body stretched like an open net, every nerve receiving the smallest disturbance. He barely twisted aside to evade Beerus's straight punch. The force of the blow brushed past his ear and sheared off a single strand of hair, leaving it suspended in the air. Immediately afterward, Beerus's tail lashed toward Ji Ming's left waist. Ji Ming raised his knee to block it, and the second clash of their godly energies sent a reverberating ring roaring through the skies above Mount Paozu.

They fought from the Lookout to the remote uninhabited regions deep within Mount Paozu, then continued their aerial struggle from above North City all the way to the sea outside West City. The crimson and violet streaks chased, collided, and tore at one another. Every high-speed crossing created such severe visual lag that none of the spectators could properly follow them—Krillin later said over the communicator that his eyes had not kept up from beginning to end. The battle lasted a long time, so long that King Kai repeatedly called the Lookout's hotline to confirm that Earth was still there. During the fight, Beerus felt a warmth he had not experienced in ages—the last opponent who had excited him this much was already an old acquaintance buried in memories from millions upon millions of years ago.

When the two finally returned from the open sea to the Lookout plaza, both were covered in broad purple bruises and abrasions, their breathing heavier than usual. Beerus's tail hung still beside his feet. He stood opposite Ji Ming, his golden eyes carefully examining him from head to toe.

"You won. Not in power—you're still far beneath me in that regard. But your body kept growing throughout the battle. Not transforming, but something purer. Your body is alive, while my power exists only to destroy. In that respect, you won."

Ji Ming raised a hand to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth and exhaled. "The purpose of a Super Saiyan God is to protect. If I were merely competing with you in destruction, I couldn't beat you even in several hundred million years."

Beerus snorted and waved a finger at Whis. "We're leaving."

"Lord Beerus actually admitting defeat? That hardly sounds like you."

"I'm not admitting defeat. I'm saying this guy is qualified to live a little longer—also, Chi-Chi stuffed something else into my bag just now. Smells like alcohol?"

After watching them rise into the sky and leave, Ji Ming dropped onto the Lookout's stone steps, the crimson godly flames slowly fading back into his normal black-haired state. Deep within his sea of ki, the Crimson-Gold Light Core quieted and stopped trembling.

That night, Mount Paozu hosted another dinner. Chi-Chi made a huge pot of sukiyaki. When Vegeta emerged from the Gravity Chamber, one lock of his hair was still sticking up, and he silently moved his seat to the spot closest to the stove. Bulma opened two bottles of alcohol she had brought from West City's cold storage and poured a glass each for Master Roshi and Dr. Brief. Chi-Chi took a sip, frowned at the burn, and added half a glass of Sprite. Krillin and Android 18 sat with their child at the table by the window, while Chiaotzu brought the little dog a bowl too.

Ji Ming sat in his usual old seat, his bowl piled with meat Goku had picked for him, tofu from Chi-Chi, and pumpkin from Piccolo. He lowered his head to look at the neatly arranged food in his bowl and smiled.

Outside the window, the night breeze passed through the treetops of Mount Paozu, while insects chirped in long and short bursts. Beneath the Lookout's stone steps, the note Beerus had slipped into Whis's pocket before leaving listed boiled fish as the dish he wanted to try next time. What the God of Destruction wanted had never truly been destruction.