Understated Crushing

The force of that knee strike had poured every ounce of his body's energy into it.

A ring of milky-white sonic clouds even formed before his knee. The air was violently torn apart, letting out a piercing shriek.

Let alone a person—if it had hit a granite hill, it would have smashed it into powder.

Yet Qi Heng did not even shift his feet.

He merely lowered his right hand casually, spread his fingers, and pressed down lightly. His palm met Vegeta's knee strike head-on, a blow powerful enough to split mountains and shatter rocks.

"Pfft."

A dull sound rang out, like a palm sinking into a thick sandbag.

The earth-shattering collision everyone imagined never came.

Qi Heng's palm firmly held Vegeta's knee in place. His body did not move at all, and not even the corner of his clothes was stirred by the shockwave.

Vegeta, however, felt as though his knee had struck an iron wall forged from the core of a star.

All his strength was swallowed in an instant, vanishing completely like mud sinking into the sea.

The recoil shot up his leg bone, bringing numbness and aching pain.

Vegeta's expression changed completely.

Shock, disbelief, and ignited fury were all written across his sharply defined face.

"You—"

"Vegeta." Qi Heng's voice remained as calm as ever. His golden pupils reflected Vegeta's rage-distorted face, yet his gaze did not ripple in the slightest. "I told you, I have no interest in your daughter. I came here only to find Son Goku."

"Shut up!" The fury in Vegeta's eyes nearly burst into flames, the Saiyan prince's pride tossed into a blazing inferno like dry kindling.

He abruptly pulled back and retreated. The ground beneath his feet exploded with a burst of air as he widened the distance between them.

Energy rampaged through his entire body like a storm.

"A Saiyan of unknown origins and mixed blood dares to put on airs in front of me, Vegeta? I'll show you what the power of a true pure-blooded Saiyan really is!"

The moment he finished speaking, his aura erupted.

"Rumble—!"

Golden flames burst from every pore of his body. They were no longer flickering tongues of fire, but a genuine torrent of molten lava.

The clouds overhead were ripped open, leaving a massive hole in the sky.

His hair rose strand by strand, changing from black to gold with dazzling brilliance.

His pupils turned an icy emerald green—his Super Saiyan transformation was complete.

Centered on him, terrifying energy swept outward like an invisible tsunami.

The ground began to shake violently. Cracks spread wildly, while the paving stones in the street were peeled up layer by layer.

The pressure in the air soared. The glass windows of the distant Capsule Corporation building could no longer withstand it and exploded one after another, crystalline shards raining down with a clatter like a downpour.

Alarms blared from the hovering cars lining the street. Their frames creaked within the energy storm, seeming ready to be crushed into metal pancakes at any moment.

"Oh? A Super Saiyan." Qi Heng remained where he was, without even changing his posture.

He raised his eyes toward the overwhelming Vegeta. His tone was as calm as if he were watching children play, even carrying a hint of boredom.

"Your energy is decent, but this... is nowhere near enough."

"Not enough?!" Vegeta's face twisted completely with rage, making him look like a vicious ghost crawling out of hell.

Qi Heng's casual remark was more unbearable to him than any venomous mockery.

"Then I'll show you... what enough really means! Aaaaah—!"

He threw back his head and roared, erupting completely.

The Saiyan bloodline slumbering within him ignited like a stellar core. Energy gushed forth as though a cosmic torrent had burst through its dam.

"Crackle—! Boom!!!"

His aura surged again, rising at an almost exponential rate.

The already blazing golden aura deepened and turned more violent, churning like liquid solar fire.

Then thick bolts of blue lightning exploded from within the aura, wrapping around his body with sharp crackling sounds.

Every arc contained enough power to instantly vaporize an entire city.

His muscles swelled slightly. The lines of his body beneath his battle suit became even more savage, while veins bulged on his temples and neck like coiled dragons and serpents—Super Saiyan 2!

An even more terrifying energy storm descended.

"Crack, boom—!"

With Vegeta's feet as the center, the ground within a hundred-meter radius collapsed and sank like glass struck by a massive hammer, forming a huge crater.

The outer walls of Capsule Corporation also began to fail. Dense cracks spread across them like spiderwebs.

Distant streetlamps were uprooted, twisting and snapping in the shockwave as they flew toward the horizon.

Rubble, dust, and metal fragments were all swept into the golden energy storm, becoming a terrifying vortex of destruction.

Even Bulla, watching from far away, had to raise a hand to shield her face and retreat again and again. A pale purple protective aura lit up around her body, and only then did she barely withstand that suffocating pressure.

Vegeta hovered at the very center of the energy vortex, his long golden hair whipping wildly in the currents as blue lightning serpents coiled around him. He looked like a god of thunder and war.

He slowly raised an arm and pointed at Qi Heng. In his emerald-green eyes burned confidence and fighting spirit on the verge of spiraling out of control. His voice had turned hoarse, like grinding metal. "Now what?! Am I qualified to make a pretentious bastard like you get serious?!"

Qi Heng stood in the middle of the empty street, with the setting sun slanting down and stretching his shadow long behind him.

He tilted his head slightly, his calm gaze settling on Vegeta.

The wind swept through, stirring up grit and dust that whirled between the two of them.

As Qi Heng watched him, a faint sense of boredom suddenly arose within him—an exhaustion born from too many battles and too much familiarity with life and death, a weariness that surfaced whenever he faced such an overwhelming gap in strength.

Super Saiyan 2.

In his original world, this level of power did not even count as a warm-up.

He did not even need to transform, did not need to get serious, and could not be bothered to assume a fighting stance.

Compared to the battles he had experienced—battles that crossed galaxies and tore apart dimensions—the warriors of this spacetime were truly far too weak.

It was like a tiger looking at a puppy; he could not even muster any interest.

"Vegeta," Qi Heng said, his voice so flat it was almost cold, like a basin of ice water poured directly over Vegeta's head and seeping into every inch of his boiling blood. "Do you really want to fight?"

"Stop looking down on me!"

Vegeta shot forward in an instant. The ground beneath his feet exploded, and shattered stones sprayed outward like rain.

He moved so fast that several golden afterimages trailed through the air, as though countless versions of him were charging Qi Heng at once.

His right fist had long since gathered its power. The aura of Super Saiyan 2 burned and compressed madly around it, condensing into a blinding sphere of light, like a miniature sun being born before his fist—scorching, violent, and brimming with the aura of destruction.

This punch contained all his strength. Carrying the pride and unwillingness of the Saiyan prince, it tore through the air and shot straight for Qi Heng's face.

Qi Heng did not dodge.

His expression did not change. He merely raised his left hand casually, spread his fingers naturally, and blocked the strike.

"Bang—!"

Fist and palm collided like a massive bell being struck, and a deep boom erupted as a visible shockwave spread in every direction.

The remaining storefront windows on both sides of the street shattered completely. Farther away, rubble and dust were hurled into the air by the invisible force before raining back down.

Vegeta's fist—his all-out blow, powerful enough to punch through the planet's core—had been caught firmly by that slender palm, locked tightly within it.

It could not advance even an inch, nor could it retreat an inch.

The instant all that power and destruction touched that hand, it simply vanished.

Vegeta's eyes widened, his pupils filled with disbelief.

His full-power attack—an attack unleashed without holding anything back in Super Saiyan 2—had been caught so casually by this man with one hand.