Two-Star Ball Scramble

The wind and snow howled ever more fiercely, shards of ice pelting Muscle Tower's steel-plated exterior walls in a dense rustling barrage.

Chen He stood in the snow crater blackened by the explosion before the main entrance, with no intention whatsoever of using the front door. He loosely curled his five fingers into a fist, not even bothering with a charging motion, and drove a straight punch directly into the half-meter-thick reinforced steel blast door.

"Thoom—! Boom!"

The dull metallic impact made the entire tower tremble. A deep fist-shaped dent instantly caved in the center of the door, while dense cracks tore out from its rivets. The entire door panel flew backward, crushing several Red Ribbon Army soldiers waiting in ambush behind it into bloody pulp.

"Pah." Chen He spat out the grit mixed with snowmelt from his mouth and stepped inside.

The alarms inside the tower had already erupted into a continuous wail, and the urgent red flashes painted the corridors like a slaughterhouse.

"Wow, it's even warmer in here than outside." Goku rode the Flying Nimbus in behind him in a blur, sniffing as he looked over the wreckage scattered across the floor. "Chen He, is the Dragon Ball we're looking for up there?"

"On the top floor." Without looking back, Chen He headed upstairs. "Move it. The people up there are probably already tired of waiting for the show."

Just as Chen He had expected, General White's hands had begun to shake in the control room on the fourth floor of Muscle Tower. On the radar screen, the two red dots representing the intruders were climbing floor by floor at an utterly unreasonable speed.

"Useless! You're all useless!" General White slammed a hand onto the console and shrieked hysterically into the intercom. "Sergeant! Where's Sergeant Metallic? Tell him to release that metal can for me! And Ninja Murasaki—tell him that even if he dies on the second floor, he'd better stop them!"

However, two minutes later...

In the hidden trap room on the second floor, the so-called ninja, Ninja Murasaki, did not even get the chance to show off his prized shuriken or water techniques before Chen He's Afterimage Fist, fast enough to leave layer upon layer of phantoms, directly dazzled him blind. By the time Ninja Murasaki slashed through the illusion before him, Chen He's real body was already behind him, casually chopping down with a hand strike that snapped his cervical spine.

"Too slow." Chen He could not even be bothered to look at the corpse on the floor as he continued upstairs. His entire body was currently burdened by five times gravity. Every tightening and relaxing of his flesh frantically squeezed out a Saiyan's potential. That faint pain of muscles tearing apart and rebuilding instead filled him with a sick kind of excitement.

On the third floor, he ran straight into the enormous android—Android 8.

His broad face, covered in stitch marks, was filled with reluctance. His thick hands were clenched tight, yet he could not bring himself to bring them down on the two children before him.

"The officer... the officer told me to kill you. But I... I don't want to fight." Android 8's voice was muffled, carrying a trace of pleading.

"Android 8? You look really strange." Goku poked his head out from behind Chen He and studied the giant curiously.

Chen He stopped before Android 8, his cold gaze sweeping over the mechanical structure faintly exposed beneath his chest. His keen psychic power could sense considerable strength within this big man, but his aura was unusually gentle—one could even call it cowardly.

According to the original story, this guy would eventually become Goku's friend. But Chen He was a pragmatic, utilitarian man. He had no interest in playing some "redeem him with love" act.

"If you don't want to die, move." Chen He's voice held no warmth, even carrying a trace of the innate superiority buried in a Saiyan's bones. "The Red Ribbon Army's control chip won't keep you under their control for much longer. Once I go up there and kill that trash, you can go wherever you want."

Android 8 froze, apparently not expecting such words from this fierce-eyed boy. He looked into Chen He's eyes, cold as ice yet utterly devoid of killing intent toward him, then silently stepped aside and yielded the ladder leading to the top floor.

"Thank you... You're not a bad person." After holding it in for a long while, Android 8 finally blurted out that single sentence.

"Don't get the wrong idea. I just don't like having you in my way." Chen He snorted. His legs exploded with force, and he shot off the ground like a launched shell, charging straight toward the command room on the top floor.

The control room door on the fifth floor was, without surprise, kicked to pieces by brute force.

General White had not even managed to draw his pistol from its holster when he saw the black-haired boy standing before him like a ghost. Chen He was so fast that the afterimage of him tearing through the alloy door still lingered in General White's vision.

"Y-you... What kind of monster are you?!" General White collapsed into his chair, his face as white as the snowfields outside.

Chen He did not waste words. His right hand shot out like lightning, clamping around General White's neck and forcibly lifting the hundred-plus-pound adult into the air.

"Where is the Dragon Ball?" Chen He stared at him with dark eyes, the strength in his hand tightening inch by inch.

"It's... it's in the drawer... Don't kill me..." General White's legs kicked wildly in midair. Starved of oxygen, his entire face had turned a dark purplish red.

Goku climbed up at that moment and immediately spotted the open metal lockbox on the desk. Inside lay a quiet orange-red orb marked with two red stars.

"Found it! It's the Two-Star Ball!" Goku excitedly snatched up the orb.

The moment he heard the words "found it," Chen He did not even leave the other man a chance to beg. His eyes turned cold, and his five fingers suddenly clenched. With a crisp crack, General White's neck was brutally crushed, and his body was casually flung into the corner like a rag doll.

[Ding! Completely destroyed the Red Ribbon Army's White Squad branch and killed the primary leader, General White.]

[Points gained: +1000! Current total points: 3050!]

Hearing the system prompt in his mind, Chen He exhaled a breath of stale air and rolled his slightly sore neck. Under the pressure of five times gravity, taking down these Earthlings had been effortless, but the taut sensation coursing through his body satisfied him greatly.

He walked to the window and watched the blizzard still raging outside, his knuckles cracking as he clenched his fist.

"The first one is ours." Chen He turned his head to glance at Goku, who was stuffing the Two-Star Ball into his bag. "Let's go, Goku. Next... the southern jungle."