Arrival

In the boundless sea of stars, a silver-gray spaceship streaked at full speed through the eternal silence like a lone shard of ice.

Meanwhile, the cramped gravity chamber inside had become a true furnace of flesh and blood.

[200x Gravity.]

The warning lights on the console gave off an irritating dim red glow. The high-frequency vibrations of the internal components traveled up through the alloy floor, leaving their feet numb.

"Ha... huff... ha..."

Goku had collapsed to his knees on the floor, both hands braced desperately against the ground. The muscles in his arms were so engorged with blood that they looked ready to split apart. Dark red droplets fell from his nose and the corners of his eyes onto the scorching metal plates, instantly evaporating in the heat and releasing a somewhat pungent scent of rust.

"Chen He... I think... I understand how you used to feel."

Goku struggled to raise his head. A startling feral light flickered in those eyes blurred by blood. Back on Earth, he trained to surpass himself and fight strong opponents. But now, with everyone on Earth resting on his shoulders, he finally understood what kind of pain had forged Chen He's almost pathological way of growing stronger without leaving himself even the slightest way out.

It meant placing one's life against a whetstone and grinding it down inch by inch.

"If you understand, then get up. Stop talking."

Chen He stood on the other side of the console, his face pale and utterly bloodless. The dark golden gravity vest on his body groaned painfully. The two hundredfold burden, combined with the fiftyfold gravity of the vest itself, was no easier on him.

He knew that, with the storyline's course having been altered by the butterfly effect, Frieza's army on Namek had likely already set their sights on the Dragon Balls. If the two of them could not force their power levels into an entirely new realm before landing, then this ship would become their steel coffin.

"System... help me increase the Kaio-ken multiplier... ah..."

"Again!"

Chen He shouted low and stepped forward. Under two hundred and fifty times gravity, that single step crushed a two-inch-deep dent into the specially made alloy floor. His iron fist, tempered over countless days and nights, shot toward Goku's face with a piercing screech of compressed air.

"Okay—!!"

Under the crushing pressure, Goku's body let out a violent burst of crackling. The passive trait of a Saiyan's near-death transformation was completely ignited at that moment. His previously scattered ki was frantically compressed by the gravity, and it actually seemed to be rising faintly.

BOOM!!

Two iron fists, grinding madly against the limits of two hundred times gravity, collided without restraint in the center of the cramped gravity chamber.

At that moment, on Namek, tens of thousands of light-years away.

It was a planet glowing with an eerie green radiance. Three enormous suns hung eternally in the sky, pouring their ghastly white light over the towering mushroom-shaped plateaus.

The once peaceful village had already become a rolling sea of flames.

"Oh my, oh my... It seems the elder here has no intention of cooperating with my work either."

Frieza sat quietly in his small floating chair, holding a cup of dark red drink. His scarlet eyes were filled with elegant yet cruel indifference. Before him, the bodies of several towering Namekian warriors lay scattered in pools of blood, their pale green blood soaking the earth into muddy sludge.

Beside the floating chair, Zarbon and Dodoria stood with their heads lowered, trembling slightly.

"L-Lord Frieza..." Zarbon pressed the portable scouter at his ear, his face turning pale. "Just now... that traitor Vegeta's signal landed at the western edge of the planet. And... according to reports from the scouts on the front lines, another unusual force seems to be approaching in an unidentified spaceship."

"Oh? Vegeta." Frieza took a sip of his drink, his sharp tail swaying leisurely through the air. "That disobedient little dog suffered such serious injuries, yet he still dared to return here. But... what exactly is this other force you mentioned?"

"Power-level calculations... cannot accurately lock onto them. But based on the separation waves they generated outside the atmosphere, the other side may possess... combatants exceeding three hundred thousand." Zarbon's voice had begun to tremble faintly.

Because of Chen He's arrival and the chain reaction from that brutal battle a year ago, the balance of power throughout the entire star sector had long since undergone an irreversible upheaval. The Frieza Force, which had originally been capable of sweeping through everything in the original story, was now somewhat lost as well.

The smile at the corner of Frieza's mouth slowly faded.

His scarlet eyes narrowed slightly as he turned toward the green clouds on the horizon. Destructive energy hidden at his fingertips gave off several piercing crackles. "Three hundred thousand... Honestly, there are always insects who overestimate themselves and enjoy throwing the order of this universe into complete chaos."

Half a month later.

Accompanied by a heavy, grating roar of atmospheric friction, the modified silver-gray spaceship crashed through Namek's thick green cloud cover like a burning meteor and landed with a thunderous impact amid the ruins of a remote wasteland.

Click.

The alloy hatch slowly opened.

Chen He stepped out first. His training clothes were already tattered beyond recognition, but the instant his feet touched solid ground again, the self-forging he had endured under four hundred times gravity, again and again through blood and pain, finally settled into the green sky with a calm and terrifying weight.

Goku followed close behind. Bare-chested, he was covered in newly formed, savage dark red scars across his chest and back. He looked over the unfamiliar, eerie planet, then lowered his gaze to his hands. An unprecedented depth flashed through his clear eyes.

"Chen He, I can feel it." Goku's voice was quiet. "That guy's ki... is right behind that mountain."

Chen He slipped both hands into the pockets of his tattered pants and glanced at the several green dots beginning to blink on the Dragon Radar. His dark eyes reflected the green world without the slightest ripple.

"Let's go."

At that moment, they shot through Namek's ghastly white sunlight at full speed, heading toward the dark abyss that was about to tear the entire star system apart.