That is the real battlefield

The storm on the beach gradually subsided. Besides the heavy smell of stale tobacco, the air now carried the stench of burnt flesh.

A massive crater with glassy edges had been blasted into the spot where Mercenary Tao had knelt. The sand inside had fused into a vitreous mass under the intense heat. A shred of a pink robe, torn beyond recognition, hung from a broken branch and swayed forlornly in the sea breeze.

Goku stood at the edge of the crater with the Power Pole in hand, staring at the blackened patch as the excitement on his face slowly faded. In the end, his brows furrowed awkwardly. He liked fighting strong opponents and was used to wrestling wild beasts in the forest, but Chen He's method of making someone vanish without even letting them finish a single sentence—leaving not even bones behind—made the wild child who had grown up deep in the mountains feel an indescribable discomfort.

"Chen He..." Goku put away the Power Pole and scratched his messy hair before asking hesitantly, "That guy was bad, sure, but you didn't even let him finish talking about the defense layout before you just... smacked him out of existence?"

Chen He had his back to Goku as he undid two buttons on his gravity vest, giving his nearly suffocated chest a moment of relief. Hearing Goku's words, he turned his head slightly. There was not the slightest ripple in his dark eyes. "Dead men keep secrets best. Now that we know the Dragon Balls are at their headquarters, would a defense map mean anything to us?"

Goku froze for a moment. What Chen He said made sense, but something still felt wrong. He had always thought Chen He was an amazing, dependable companion, yet sometimes the coldness radiating from him felt more poisonous than the fiercest wolf king Goku had ever seen on Mount Paozu.

"But Bulma said the Red Ribbon Army has lots of people all over the world, and lots of cannons..." Goku muttered quietly.

"Then we'll smash them all," Chen He said matter-of-factly.

He took the Three-Star Dragon Ball from his waist and weighed it in his palm. Including the one in Goku's backpack, they now had two Dragon Balls. The remaining five were all gathered at the Red Ribbon Army headquarters.

On the system panel in his mind, 6,050 points lay quietly waiting. The icon for the shop's Level 2 access flickered with a cold gleam, silently tempting him to continue harvesting. Chen He admitted that he was pragmatic. Without overwhelming strength, when the Saiyan named Raditz descended upon Earth a few years from now, all the warmth and martial arts tournaments on this planet would be nothing more than soap bubbles waiting to be popped.

"Let's go. We're heading to West City to find Bulma." Chen He brushed the sand from his hands and strode toward the edge of the forest.

"Okay." Goku gave the crater one last look, tightened the backpack on his back, and hurried after him.

West City, the underground laboratory at Capsule Corporation headquarters.

The room was piled high with tangled wires and machine casings gleaming with metallic luster. Bulma sat before three enormous electronic displays, her hands clattering across the keyboard. Her normally tidy blue hair was now disheveled, her eyes bloodshot from staying up too long, with faint dark circles beneath them.

Yamcha's projection still flickered intermittently from the miniature communication capsule on the desk.

"Bulma! Are you even listening to me?!" Yamcha shouted hoarsely through the desert wind and sand, his expression frantic. "The aircraft sent out from the Red Ribbon Army headquarters has already crashed. I think Mercenary Tao may have run into Chen He and the others! That's Mercenary Tao! He's a monster who'll even assassinate a king if the price is high enough! No matter how strong Chen He is, he's just a kid who finished a martial arts tournament not long ago. We need to help them!"

"Shut up, Yamcha. You're interrupting my coding!"

Bulma irritably rubbed her temples and slapped the mute button. Looking at the anomalous energy fluctuation points she had just reanalyzed with her core algorithm, her heart began pounding uncontrollably.

She had known Chen He and Goku the longest. Goku was a single-celled organism, but Chen He... that guy who always wore a grim face and handled everything with extreme rigor—even harshness—was definitely not the sort of idiot who would throw his life away for nothing.

"You two idiots, don't you dare try to be heroes..." Bulma bit her lower lip and pressed the confirmation key to merge the radar bands, her fingers trembling slightly.

"Hey, Bulma."

The alloy doors of the laboratory suddenly slid open without warning, and a familiar voice came from the entrance.

Bulma whirled around.

Several tears had been ripped into Chen He's black training uniform, revealing patches of reddened skin beneath, but his hands were still tucked in his pockets, and he looked as calm as though he had merely returned from a stroll. Behind him, Goku rubbed his empty stomach and stared eagerly at the vending machine in the corner of the laboratory.

"Chen He?! Goku?!" Bulma sprang from her chair and rushed to them in a few strides. She circled Chen He three times, her voice rising sharply out of tune. "Did... did you run into Mercenary Tao? Yamcha said he was headed your way!"

"We did." Chen He pulled his right hand from his pocket and placed the Two-Star Dragon Ball and Three-Star Dragon Ball together on Bulma's experiment table, which was stained with engine oil.

The two orange-red spheres reflected a warm glow beneath the incandescent lights.

"Th-then where is Mercenary Tao?" Bulma held her breath, her large eyes fixed tightly on Chen He.

"Dead." Chen He turned to look at the radar projection on the main display, his tone as matter-of-fact as if he were reporting the weather. "Turned to ash. How's the upgrade on your radar's interference module? We need the exact coordinates of the Red Ribbon Army headquarters."

For a moment, the laboratory fell deathly silent, broken only by the hum of machinery. Bulma looked at the Dragon Balls on the experiment table, then at Chen He's face, so calm it was almost cruel, and suddenly found her mouth dry. The world's greatest assassin had sounded, in these two guys' mouths, like a pile of roadside trash casually cleared away.

She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down, and shifted her gaze back to the screen.

"It's done." Bulma's voice lowered, and an unprecedented seriousness appeared in her eyes. "I cracked the Red Ribbon Army headquarters' powerful electromagnetic shielding. They've pulled all their defensive forces back to the main base. Chen He, there aren't just cannons and tanks this time. According to the external intel I found, there are at least twenty thousand fully armed mercenaries at their headquarters."

She turned around and looked directly into Chen He's eyes. "Are you really going? That isn't a tournament ring. It's a real battlefield."

Chen He stared at the coordinates on the screen, where dense clusters of red dots had lit up. At last, a faint but chilling curve lifted at the corner of his mouth.

"A battlefield?"

He fastened the buttons of the gravity vest draped over his shoulder once more, feeling the familiar, crushing sixfold gravity press back into his bones. In an instant, the savage Saiyan battle intent deep in his eyes ignited completely.

"Just what I wanted."