Krillin vs. Chiaotzu

The curtain finally rose on the main tournament, and the cheers of tens of thousands of spectators flooded the stands, nearly shattering the dark clouds over Kapok City.

The first match was Krillin versus Chiaotzu.

Watching Krillin take a deep breath and walk toward the ring, Yamcha sat on the contestants' preparation bench, his hands hanging limply over his knees. A white bandage was wrapped around his chest, with blood faintly seeping through it. Bulma waved anxiously from the stands, but Yamcha merely stared at the specks of mud on his shoe tips.

He knew what Krillin was worried about, and he knew everyone was holding their breath over the matches to come. From the very beginning, this Martial Arts Tournament had veered off the course everyone had expected.

"Stop looking at those two green-clad brats, Goku." Yamcha turned his head toward Son Goku, who was leaning against the wall and continuously stretching his arms. His voice was somewhat hoarse. "That Tien Shinhan from the Crane School has been staring at Chen He. But I think... he has no idea what kind of monster he's about to face."

Goku stopped stretching. He glanced at the expressionless Tien Shinhan in the distance, then at Chen He, who was resting with his eyes closed.

"Tien Shinhan is strong. His 'ki' is sharp, like a blade." Goku spoke seriously, the usual bright smile completely gone from his face. "But what Chen He has suppressed inside him... isn't something a blade can cut through. Yamcha, when you were up there just now, did you really not even touch Chen He's clothes?"

Yamcha's body stiffened slightly before he gave a bitter smile and shook his head.

It was far more than simply failing to touch him. In that instant, he had felt as if he were not facing a martial artist his own age, but a mountain crashing toward him at high speed. Even the way Chen He had looked at him carried an absolute, extreme rationality. That indifference still sent chills down Yamcha's spine whenever he thought of it.

"That guy Chen He... what is he even thinking?" Yamcha clenched the edge of the bench and murmured absentmindedly. "I keep feeling like he isn't here to compete at all."

At that moment, Chen He was leaning beneath a shaded pillar in the farthest corner with his eyes closed.

The extreme fiftyfold gravity was like countless red-hot steel wires twisting tightly around the muscles in his thighs and back. Every breath consumed an enormous amount of stamina. Without the terrifying foundation of 40,000 battle power supporting him, his internal organs would have long since been crushed into pulp by this absurd gravity.

His mind remained deathly silent. The system's slumber had not only taken away its data feedback, but also the sense of security he had first built for himself in this world.

"Damn it... I grew too fast and attracted attention... I almost got discovered..."

The final mutterings before the system fell dormant replayed in Chen He's mind again and again. In this Dragon Ball world, which seemed peaceful but could destroy planets at the slightest provocation, what kind of existence could frighten that ever-mechanical, icy system into playing dead?

Was it Earth's god, who had already noticed the abnormalities on the surface? Or was it the Frieza Force, currently at the height of its power in the vast universe? Or perhaps... something even higher?

Chen He's hand clenched slightly within his sleeve, followed by a sharp spasm caused by the excessive burden of fiftyfold gravity.

Without the system, he could not check his points, could not purchase Saiyan bloodline, and even the next "check-in" now seemed impossibly distant. Yet the anxiety caused by this lack of information did not throw him into disarray. On the contrary, his rigorous, almost cruelly pragmatic nature had tempered his will into something even harder amid that prolonged suffocating sensation.

"As long as my body can still move, 40,000 battle power is real." Chen He slowly opened his eyes, and not a ripple of emotion stirred in his pitch-black pupils.

On the ring, Krillin and Chiaotzu were already locked in battle. Chiaotzu floated in the air, his tiny hands aimed at Krillin as he muttered strange incantations, trying to use psychic powers to control Krillin's movements. Krillin clutched his stomach and rolled about the ring in a miserable state, his face drenched in sweat from the pain, yet he still relied on the unyielding will he had learned under Master Roshi to desperately seek an opportunity to counterattack.

At the other end of the contestants' area, the third eye on Tien Shinhan's forehead remained locked tightly on Chen He.

"Why... why is his breathing rhythm still the same even now?" Tien Shinhan roared inwardly.

As the Crane School's prized disciple, he could see every weakness in Krillin and Chiaotzu, and accurately calculate the distance of every one of their attacks. But when he tried to analyze Chen He, the result filled him with a terrifying sense of absurdity.

Chen He stood there quietly. Although his "ki" had been forcibly locked inside his clothes, the heat radiating from the surface of his skin distorted the air around him. Even the ground around him seemed to have sunk ever so slightly under a weight it should never have had to bear.

"He's seriously injured... yes, he must have gone astray in his training, and his body is on the verge of collapse!" Tien Shinhan gritted his teeth, trying to use that excuse to calm the fear constantly rising in his heart. "Otherwise, there's no way to explain why he's so sluggish! In the upcoming main tournament, as long as I use the Crane School's speed to wear him down, then no matter how strong he is, he'll only be able to watch himself die of exhaustion!"

"You're wrong, young man."

An old yet steady voice suddenly sounded behind Tien Shinhan.

Tien Shinhan spun around and discovered that the old man in sunglasses and a somewhat ridiculous suit, Jackie Chun, had somehow appeared behind him. Jackie Chun stood with his hands behind his back, his eyes hidden behind dark lenses and filled with complexity and regret.

"What would an old man like you know?" Tien Shinhan snorted, masking his unease.

"I know martial arts, and I know what despair is." Master Roshi looked at Chen He's back, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes seemed to deepen in an instant. He could sense that Yamcha's withdrawal was not merely because he had lost the match, but because his fighting spirit had been utterly broken by Chen He's heavy punch—a punch that had not even touched him.

As a grandmaster who had founded his own school, Master Roshi understood all too well how helpless a young man could feel when faced with an uncrossable gulf. And Chen He had not even turned his head. The cold indifference with which he treated everything as nothing but data and obstacles sent a tremor from the depths of this centuries-old man's soul.

"That child... carries a darkness and a weight we cannot possibly understand. The weakness you think you see is merely a shackle he has placed upon himself." Master Roshi left those words in a low voice, then turned and walked toward the preparation area.

"A shackle?" Tien Shinhan stood frozen in place, both hands trembling uncontrollably beneath his robe.

BOOM!

At that moment, a tremendous crash erupted from the ring. At the critical moment, Krillin had used the unusual trick of "arithmetic" to disrupt Chiaotzu's focus, then blasted Chiaotzu off the ring with a heavy punch.

"First match, winner: Krillin!" the referee announced loudly.

Thunderous applause erupted from the stands. Krillin clutched his stomach and smiled weakly in exhaustion, while in the contestants' area, Chen He merely slowly straightened up. With every heavy step making the floor let out a piercing creak, he coldly walked toward his own side of the preparation area.

No matter what the system's slumber meant, and no matter what kind of storm this world would face next, on this stage, he would use the coldest method possible to crush every obstacle before him—including these self-righteous Earth martial artists—into dust.