Black Tide Rages

There wasn't a hint of a smile on his lips, and his breathing remained perfectly steady, as if nothing had happened.

Only the index finger of his right hand tapped lightly along the seam of his trousers, one tap after another, as if silently timing something.

"Too slow."

The voice was so low it was almost carried away by the wind, yet it still pierced through the noise. "The power is good, and the timing of the burst is accurate... but the speed is still 0.3 seconds off."

He tilted his head slightly, his gaze following the moving energy source in the smoke and dust. "Baby won't fall so easily."

Before he could finish speaking, there was movement in the smoke and dust.

First came the sound of pebbles rolling down, then the rustling of fabric rubbing together.

One foot stepped out of the dust, the sole of the boot crushing fist-sized rocks with a sickening cracking sound.

Baby slowly straightened up, her movements gracefully deliberate, as if the punch she had just delivered was merely a casual touch.

A thick, black liquid, not like blood but more like melted asphalt, dripped from the corner of his mouth, carving tiny pits into the ground.

A charred fist mark tore through the orange gi on his abdomen, the edges still smoldering, revealing slightly reddened skin underneath—but that skin was regenerating at a visible speed, the new flesh buds wriggling and intertwining like earthworms.

Baby, however, was laughing.

The smile spread from the corners of his mouth, pulling across his entire face, even the corners of his eyes were filled with crazy lines.

His dark red pupils shone frighteningly bright in the smoke and dust, with golden specks of light flickering like starlight deep within them—signs of Vegeta's power being extracted and squeezed out.

"Not bad... really not bad..."

Baby raised her hand, wiped her mouth with her thumb, and then slowly examined her fingertip, which was covered in black liquid.

He extended his dark purple tongue and slowly licked his fingertips, the movement resembling a ritualistic indulgence.

"Super Saiyan 3... that's actually quite interesting."

The voice suddenly turned deep, like rusty iron scraping against each other, "As expected of the legendary Son Goku, even shrunk to this state... he can still unleash such power."

He paused, his neck made a soft "crack" sound, and his head tilted to the left at an odd angle of thirty degrees.

"But you thought—" the voice suddenly ripped apart, becoming hoarse like sandpaper grinding metal, "That's it?"

"Boom--!"

Black flames shot into the sky.

It was no longer a scattered energy wave, but a thick, viscous tide of ink.

The flames surged and coalesced, twisting in the air into countless ferocious tentacles, before suddenly contracting and tightly enveloping Baby's body.

Black energy flowed and solidified on the body's surface, forming a layer of armor full of sharp spikes and angles. Bone-spur-like protrusions extended from the joints, and the shoulder armor curved upwards like the fangs of a demon.

His muscles bulged beneath his armor, stretching Vegeta's original body to the point of being bloated, with bluish-black veins writhing on his skin like earthworms.

The vertical lines on his face became thick and heavy, like scars, extending from his cheekbones to his temples and even climbing up his forehead, where they converged into a distorted symbol between his eyebrows.

The most terrifying thing was the eyes—deep within the dark red pupils, golden light erupted like a volcanic eruption, instantly engulfing the entire iris.

Those eyes turned pure gold, but within that gold swirled dark red veins like bloodshot veins, as if two different colored venomous snakes were intertwined within their eye sockets.

"In this form..." Baby began, his voice no longer human, but a mixture of metallic vibrations and a beast's growl, "Every drop of Vegeta's blood, every bit of his power, boils in my hands!"

He slightly bent his knees.

The ground beneath their feet silently sank, forming a circular pit three meters in diameter, its walls as smooth as a mirror.

"Son Goku— " His drawn-out voice exploded in the air, "Let me show you the fully unleashed... Saiyan!"

"Call out--!"

There was no sound of air being cut.

The speed has surpassed that of sound.

Where Baby had stood, only a ring of spreading black ripples remained; the person had long since vanished.

In the next instant, seven black afterimages appeared simultaneously in the void—left, right, front, back, up, and down. One of the afterimages even floated eerily in mid-air three meters behind Kid Goku.

Each afterimage maintained a different attack posture: punch, kick, elbow strike, knee strike... as if seven Baby launching an attack at the same time.

It's not an afterimage.

Each one was a real remnant of energy, carrying a portion of the original body's attack intent.

This is the sense of temporal and spatial dislocation that occurs when speed exceeds a certain critical point.

Kid Goku's golden pupils suddenly shrank to pinpoints.

He caught it—at the instant the third and fourth afterimages alternated, at a 45-degree angle to the left and a distance of seven meters, the energy fluctuation solidified for a fraction of a second.

That's it.

Without hesitation, he dodged to the right, his body leaving a trail of golden light.

But Baby's speed directly distorted the very act of "prediction".

The first punch landed head-on.

Kid Goku barely managed to raise his right palm to block, and the moment their fists collided, golden flames and black energy exploded into a visible shockwave.

The sparks didn't scatter; instead, they splashed out like viscous lava, each spark leaving a long, thin trail of light in the air.

Kid Goku grunted, the ground beneath his feet cracked, and he slid back half a step, his shoes scraping against the rocks with a piercing screeching sound.

The second punch then came from below.

Baby's left fist, like a venomous snake emerging from its hole, aimed straight at Kid Goku's jaw from below.

Kid Goku leaned back to the limit, his fist grazing his chin. The wind he generated was not airflow, but a solid black blade—that wind blade cut through a strand of golden hair on his forehead, leaving a thin line of blood on his cheek. The blood droplet was immediately evaporated into red mist by the energy.

The third punch followed immediately.

Baby's right fist slammed down from above, expanding as he swung his arm, and lava-like cracks appeared on the surface of his black armor.

This punch wasn't like an attack; it was more like the sky collapsing—the ground began to crumble in large sections before the fist even arrived.

Kid Goku crossed his arms, and golden flames condensed into a shield of light in front of him.

"Bang--!!!"

The sound of the impact came half a second later.

Sound simply cannot keep up with the speed of the energy burst.

The golden light shield shattered instantly, turning into countless specks of light.

The Kid Goku's arms creaked as if the bones could no longer bear the weight, and he shot backward like a cannonball. His feet plowed two half-meter-deep furrows in the ground, the rocks at the edges melting into crimson magma, hissing and emitting black smoke.

He hadn't even gotten his footing yet—

The fourth strike has arrived.

Not a fist, but a knee.

Baby appeared like a ghost directly in front of his backward flight trajectory, his right leg raised high, the black bone spurs at his knees looking like a monstrous battering ram.

The knee-raising motion was slow, so slow that you could see the contraction of every muscle and the friction of every piece of armor—but this slowness was just an illusion; in reality, it was an afterimage left on the retina due to the speed.

His real knees were already between Kid Goku's chest and abdomen.

The air seemed to freeze at that moment.

Time seemed to turn into thick honey.

Trunks's gasp caught in his throat.

Pan opened her mouth.

Mr. Satan closed his eyes.

Qi Heng's index finger stopped.

Only that knee strike, carrying a black tidal wave of destruction, truly—imprinted itself on the surface.

Baby's right knee, enveloped in thick, inky black flames, tore through the air like a falling meteor, whistling sharply, and slammed into Kid Goku's chest.

At the moment of impact, the dull sound of bones cracking was drowned out by the deafening roar of the air explosion, and a visible black shockwave exploded outwards, completely crushing the surrounding shattered building debris into dust.

"Puff--!"

As if struck by lightning, Kid Goku's body arched violently, and a mouthful of scalding blood spurted from his mouth.

Blood traced a gruesome arc in the midday sun, scattering droplets that shimmered with a blinding yet eerie red light.

The immense impact caused him to lose control completely, and he was sent flying backward like a kite with a broken string.