Old Version BOSSes are Worse Than Dogs, Not Even Needing King Kai Fist

Turles tilted his head and looked at Chen Mo for a few seconds.

The old-fashioned scouter beeped again.

Turles lowered his head and glanced at the reading. Then he looked up. The way he looked at Chen Mo had changed.

"Five hundred thousand."

Turles read out the number, his voice half a tone lower than before.

"An Earthling. Five hundred thousand battle power."

He repeated it, as though confirming that he had not misread it.

Chen Mo stood where he was without moving.

His ki flowed naturally over the surface of his body, neither deliberately suppressed nor deliberately released. He was simply standing there normally.

Five hundred thousand was five hundred thousand.

Turles's tail loosened from around his waist and hung behind him, the tip swaying lightly.

"I've been on this planet for six years," Turles said. His tone was different now, stripped of that condescending superiority and carrying an extra layer of wariness.

"Six years. I ate thirty-seven Fruits of the Tree of Might and raised my battle power from just over thirty thousand to four hundred and seventy thousand. I thought I was already the strongest in this sector of space."

"Then an Earthling fell from the sky, and he's stronger than me."

Chen Mo looked at him. "You hid here for six years just to avoid the Frieza Force?"

Turles's expression stiffened for a moment.

"Avoid?" He gave a cold laugh. "I'm a Saiyan. A low-class warrior. Do you know how low-class warriors are treated in the Frieza Force? Cannon fodder. Cannon fodder not even worth counting when they die."

There was something long suppressed in his voice.

"When Frieza blew up Planet Vegeta, I was out on a mission. When I came back, my home was gone. My people were all dead. The Frieza Force told me it was hit by a meteor."

The corner of Turles's mouth twisted.

"I'm not an idiot."

Chen Mo said nothing.

Turles continued, "I ran. I took the Tree of Might seeds I stole from the Force's warehouse and fled somewhere no one could find me. I planted the tree, ate the fruit, and grew stronger."

He looked up at the golden fruit in the canopy.

"As long as I keep eating them—five hundred thousand, one million, five million—sooner or later, I'll surpass Frieza. I'll surpass everyone. This universe will be mine."

Chen Mo listened to the end.

He looked at Turles for two seconds.

"You didn't know Frieza was dead?"

Turles froze.

"What?"

"Frieza. He's dead. He was killed by a Super Saiyan on Planet Namek over a decade ago. Later, he came to Earth looking for revenge and was chopped into pieces by another Super Saiyan."

A very complicated expression appeared on Turles's face.

Chen Mo continued, "You hid on this barren planet and ate fruit for six years. The man you wanted to surpass had already been a corpse for over a decade."

Turles said nothing.

Several seconds of silence passed.

Then he laughed.

The laughter was dry, like stone scraping against stone.

"Dead? Frieza is dead?"

"Dead."

"Killed by a Super Saiyan?"

"Yes."

"Which Saiyan?"

"Kakarot."

Turles's laughter stopped.

"Kakarot." He repeated the name, his eyes turning sharp. "The son of Bardock, that low-class warrior. The baby who was sent to Earth."

"You know him?"

"I met him once." Turles's tone was icy. "That useless bastard who looked exactly like me. He became a Super Saiyan?"

"He did. Then he died. Heart disease."

Turles fell silent again.

After a few seconds, he took a deep breath.

"So these six years of mine," Turles said softly, "were a joke."

"More or less."

Turles suddenly raised his head.

The look in his eyes had completely changed.

The loneliness and wariness from before vanished, replaced by pure killing intent.

"You Earthling. You've got a sharp tongue."

"I'm only stating the facts."

"Facts?" Turles's energy began to rise, making the rubble beneath his feet tremble. "I suffered on this planet for six years, and you think you can dismiss it all with one word—joke?"

"You can disagree," Chen Mo said. "But the facts won't change just because you do. Frieza is dead. The six years you spent preparing to surpass him truly had no meaning."

Turles's energy erupted.

A purple aura rose from his body. The ground beneath his feet cracked, rubble floated into the air, and several roots of the Tree of Might snapped amid the tremors.

All 470,000 points of his battle power were unleashed.

"I'll kill you first," Turles said in a low voice. "Then I'll keep eating the fruit. Whether Frieza is dead or not, the ruler of this universe can only be me."

Chen Mo did not activate the King Kai Fist.

He adjusted his breathing, letting his energy flow out steadily.

500,000. That was all.

No red aura. No explosive surge of pressure.

He simply stood there, releasing his normal base battle power.

500,000 against 470,000.

The difference was only 30,000.

It was practically no difference at all.

Chen Mo knew very well that if he activated the Thirtyfold King Kai Fist, fifteen million battle power would be enough to punch straight through Turles. But there was no point in that.

What he lacked was not numbers. What he lacked was combat experience.

He had trained with Trunks for a year, fought Goku's phantom, and passively taken beatings from Android 18.

But he had never truly fought on equal terms against an opponent whose battle power was close to his own.

Turles. 470,000. A Saiyan.

He had real combat experience. He had experience killing.

The perfect sparring partner.

Turles moved.

He was fast. Saiyan physical attributes already held an advantage at equal battle power.

He vanished from where he stood in a flash, appearing on Chen Mo's left the next instant. His right fist came smashing in with a vortex of energy.

Chen Mo tilted his head.

The wind from the punch brushed past his ear, and the airflow sliced open the skin on his cheek.

Too close.

Chen Mo swept his right elbow sideways, slamming into Turles's forearm. The two forces collided.

The shockwave pulverized the rock beneath their feet.

Turles used the force to retreat and landed on the ground.

He glanced at his forearm. The spot where it had been struck was red.

"You caught that," Turles said.

"Your shoulder moves first when you throw a punch," Chen Mo said. "The tell is too obvious."

Turles narrowed his eyes.

Then he smiled.

"Interesting."

Turles charged again. This time, it was not a single punch, but a continuous combo.

A feint with his left fist, followed by a rising right knee.

His body spun, and his tail swept out.

A Saiyan's combat instincts were displayed to the fullest at that moment.

Every strike flowed into the next rather than standing alone, the momentum of one naturally carrying into another and forming an unbroken offensive.

Chen Mo blocked, dodged, and counterattacked.

The two of them fought across the wasteland.

Their speed kept increasing. Shockwaves spread outward in layer after layer.

More than a dozen roots of the Tree of Might were snapped. Distant rocks were shaved flat by the blasts of air.

Chen Mo's mind raced at high speed.

Every exchange was gathering data.

Turles's punching habits.

His angles of exertion. The rhythm of his footwork. Gaps in his defense.

Five hundred thousand against four hundred and seventy thousand. The gap was too small—too small to crush the other with numbers alone.

He had to rely on technique, prediction, and in-the-moment reactions to secure every hit.

That was exactly what Chen Mo needed.

Turles kicked Chen Mo's crossed arms.

Chen Mo was sent flying, bouncing twice across the ground before flipping over and steadying himself.

"Earthling." Turles caught up and threw a punch at Chen Mo's face.

Chen Mo twisted aside, then fired a ki blast that exploded against Turles's waist and ribs.

Turles grunted, sliding sideways to open up some distance.

He looked down at the burn mark on his waist. His battle suit had been torn.

"You're not with the Frieza Force," Turles said. In the brief lull between blows, his breathing was somewhat hurried. "The Frieza Force doesn't have Earthlings at your level."

"I'm not."

"Then where did your battle power come from?" Turles wiped the corner of his mouth. "Five hundred thousand. The strongest person in the entire Frieza Force is Ginyu, at one hundred and twenty thousand. You're four times stronger than him."

"I trained for it."

"Trained?" Turles looked as though he had heard a bad joke. "An Earthling trained to five hundred thousand? On a trash planet like Earth? A place with an average battle power in the single digits?"

"That's right."

Turles fell silent for a second.

Then he suddenly accelerated, grabbing Chen Mo's wrist with his left hand as his right fist came crashing in.

Chen Mo did not dodge. He took the punch head-on with his forehead.

Bang.

Both of them staggered back at the same time.

The skin across Turles's knuckles had split. A swollen lump rose on Chen Mo's forehead.

"You could clearly have dodged that," Turles said with a frown.

"I was testing the strength of your right hand," Chen Mo said. "It's fifteen percent weaker than your left. Your right arm was injured before."

Turles's expression changed.

His right arm had indeed been injured.

Three years ago, when he had planted the Tree of Might, a native beast on this planet had bitten it off.

It had only grown back after being restored by the Fruit of the Tree of Might.

But its strength had never fully recovered.

This Earthling.

After only a few minutes of fighting, he had noticed.

"Someone like you," Turles stared at Chen Mo, "shouldn't only have a battle power of five hundred thousand."

Chen Mo did not answer. He rolled his neck.

Taking a Saiyan's punch to the skull really did not feel very good.

But his bones were fine. The body enhanced by Ultra Divine Water could still take it.

Turles's breathing steadied.

His killing intent was fading.

Something else was taking its place.