I Only Punch Once

Before the gong for the fourth main match had even sounded, the smell of gunpowder in the air was already thick enough to choke on.

Pebbles at the edge of the massive central crater were still rattling down through the cracks. Tien Shinhan knelt on one knee, gasping for breath. The third eye on his forehead throbbed violently from overusing the Tri-Beam, forcing him to keep it tightly shut, while his other two eyes remained fixed on the passage across from him.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Heavy, almost unnaturally heavy footsteps emerged from the shadows.

Every step Chen He took made the thick stone stairs groan under the burden. He reached up and tore open the top three buttons of his black training uniform, revealing the heavy gravity vest beneath—a vest slightly warped by its own weight and faintly gleaming with a dark metallic sheen.

The extreme fiftyfold gravity was like countless red-hot steel wires viciously twisting around the muscles in his thighs and back. Every breath drained an immense amount of stamina. If his battle power had not supported him, his internal organs would have long since been crushed into pulp by that outrageous force of gravity.

Every breath felt as though he were swallowing a mouthful of red-hot iron filings.

"Fourth match! Contestant Chen He versus—contestant Tien Shinhan!!"

At the referee's trembling announcement, the cheers of the tens of thousands of spectators abruptly died down.

Below the stage, in the contestants' area.

Krillin clenched his fists so tightly that his nails dug deep into his palms. "Goku, Senior Brother Chen He's condition... his ki is too chaotic. It's like a volcano about to explode. Why is he fighting while carrying that monster-like weight?"

Goku leaned against the mottled wall with his arms folded, a complicated flame flickering in his usually clear eyes. This boy who had grown up on Mount Paozu possessed sharper instincts for ki and combat than anyone else.

"He's tempering himself," Goku said quietly. His voice had lost its usual brightness and instead carried a tremor born of Saiyan instinct. "Chen He got stronger too fast—so fast that even his own body is almost unable to hold onto that power. He's using that fiftyfold monster to forcibly hammer all that ki floating on the surface into his bones, one punch and one kick at a time."

Yamcha lowered his head with a complicated expression. Looking at his bandaged chest, the last traces of pride and unwillingness belonging to a young martial artist completely vanished from his heart. He had thought Chen He's sluggish movements were due to injury, but now he understood. That was no injury. Chen He was a pioneer walking ahead of everyone else, cultivating through a method of self-mutilation beyond imagination.

"Match—begin!!"

The instant the referee's whistle fell, Tien Shinhan unleashed a nearly hysterical roar.

"Haaahhh—!!"

Tien Shinhan's green robe instantly shredded under the violent surge of ki, exposing his muscular upper body. His pride and self-respect had long since been warped into an almost frenzied obsession by the emotionless indifference in Chen He's gaze—the look of an apex predator regarding a roadside stone.

There was no probing, no holding back. In an instant, he turned into a dazzling streak of white light, driving the Crane School's "speed" to the absolute limit of his body!

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Four blurry afterimages suddenly spread around Chen He. With a piercing screech through the air, Tien Shinhan's hands transformed into a skyful of claw-like shadows that rained down upon every exposed vital point on Chen He's body.

I don't believe it! I don't believe the gap can be this huge!! Tien Shinhan roared madly in his heart.

Chen He remained where he was. Under fifty times gravity, even his retina seemed to perceive Tien Shinhan's movements with a faint, sluggish stutter. He could clearly feel the wind from Tien Shinhan's claws stinging his skin.

Too slow. Even with his movements slowed fiftyfold, the other man's speed still looked like he was crawling through a swamp.

Chen He ignored the claw winds tearing toward his body. He merely forced his heavy upper body around, his right arm carving an incomparably dull arc through the air as he threw an utterly ordinary side punch forward.

There was no unnecessary technique, not even a ki blast gathered around it.

Yet the instant that sluggish, slow punch was thrown, the air before its fist edge could not withstand the immense compression and erupted with a thunderous boom!

BOOM—!!

A visible, milky-white blast of wind pressure exploded outward in a hemisphere.

Before Tien Shinhan's countless claw shadows could even touch Chen He's clothes, that terrifying wave of wind pressure slammed head-on into his chest like a speeding steel train.

"What?!"

The madness in Tien Shinhan's eyes instantly turned into horror. Before that wind pressure, the speed, footwork, and afterimages he had been so proud of were as fragile as a scrap of paper in a storm. He desperately tried to twist away in midair, but the air around him had become as heavy as mercury, locking his joints completely in place.

Pfft—!

A mouthful of blood sprayed from Tien Shinhan's mouth.

He had not even been struck by Chen He's fist before the berserk shockwave from the punch's wind blasted him straight away. He flew more than a dozen meters through the air before crashing heavily into the ruins, clutching his chest with both hands and coughing violently.

The entire arena fell silent. The cheers of tens of thousands of spectators lodged in their throats like a flock of ducks being strangled.

Chen He slowly withdrew his fist and stood there, taking two ragged breaths. The drain on his stamina from the extreme gravity was terrifying. After just one strike, he felt that more than half his strength had already been spent. This powerless feeling of being unable to sustain himself made him slightly uncomfortable, but a satisfied chill gleamed in his black eyes.

He raised his head and glanced at Tien Shinhan, whose face was frozen with shock and bitterness amid the ruins. Then he slipped both hands back into his pockets, turned around, and walked unhurriedly off the stage, every step leaving a deep footprint and producing a teeth-grinding creak.

"Fourth match... the w-winner! Contestant Chen He!"

Only after Chen He's figure had completely disappeared into the shadows of the corridor did the referee's stammering voice finally ring out. Below the stage, Goku slowly pulled up the sleeve of his martial arts uniform, and the fighting spirit in his eyes had fully ignited into something tangible.