Chapter 47

No matter how one looked at it, North Kai's Planet did not seem like the kind of place where peerless martial arts could be born. There was only a palm-sized lawn, a vintage convertible, and an ape that knew nothing but how to clap.

Yet at this very moment, the little planet that drifted through its days filled with bad jokes felt as heavy as if it had been filled with lead.

"The Kaioken can indeed multiply your ki." North Kai stood with his hands behind his back, his usual comical manner unusually absent, his features scrunched together in stern seriousness. "But the essence of this technique is pushing your body beyond its absolute limits. Your heart will become like an out-of-control engine, and your blood will flow fast enough to burst your veins."

Word by word, he broke down the secrets of channeling energy through the Kaioken and the principles behind its explosive power for Son Goku, terrified of overlooking even a single fatal detail.

"If your physical foundation isn't strong enough, boom—" North Kai made an exaggerated exploding gesture and gritted his teeth. "You'll be like an overinflated balloon, blowing yourself into a puddle of bloody mush!"

Son Goku sat cross-legged on the grass, propping his chin up with one hand as he listened intently.

Of course, he knew just how overbearing this technique was. Even the creator of the Kaioken standing before him had been unable to completely master it to this day, unable to withstand the backlash of that violent power. By ordinary standards, this was a technique that was suicidal through and through.

But Son Goku grinned, an irrepressible spark of excitement flashing through his dark eyes.

The Kaioken's backlash was indeed deadly, but sheer toughness was exactly what he had in abundance right now. There was the absurdly beastlike constitution granted by the Ancient Saiyan Bloodline, along with the powerful body he had forged over the past few years in the Gravity Chamber. Besides, even the original Son Goku had mastered it proficiently. There was no reason for him to fail.

Son Goku slowly clenched his fists, feeling the force of his knuckles grinding together.

The berserk combat power brought by stacking the Kaioken would soon become the heaviest hammer in his hand. He would use that tearing impact to smash open the realm that had existed only in Saiyan legend for thousands of years!

"I understand. As long as I leave myself enough breath to stay alive, it'll be fine." Son Goku took a deep breath, rose from the grass, and brushed the blades of grass from his pant legs. "Lord Kai, let's begin!"

Another half hour passed.

North Kai finished explaining the final steps for ending the technique and was about to nag him with a few more earnest warnings like an old mother: "You can start by trying to sense the flow of your blood and ki at one and a half times. Getting started is the hardest part, so don't get greedy and rush ahead—"

"Twofold—Kaioken!"

Before he could finish his warning, Son Goku let out a low, powerful roar.

"Bzzzz—!"

With the distinctive high-frequency hum that suddenly exploded through the air, Son Goku's ki surged sharply. The normal aura he had released curled back in an instant, transforming into a glaring scarlet red.

The muscles across his body suddenly tightened and swelled, forcibly stretching his loose martial arts uniform. A bright red outline clung tightly to the contours of his body, making him resemble a blood-soaked god of war.

"This brat... succeeded in stacking it to twice the power on his first try?!" North Kai's tiny eyes behind his sunglasses went round, his jaw nearly dropping to his feet.

But before he could cry out, Son Goku's next action made the fat all over this god's body tremble.

"Fourfold—Kaioken!"

"Bzzzz—!" The deafening vibration rose again, but Son Goku's voice remained steady.

His skin had already been dyed through by the dark red aura, and the extreme heat caused the surrounding air to twist and boil violently.

"Eightfold—Kaioken—"

A pungent stench of blood and scorched flesh spread through the air as the dark red aura grew ever more violent.

"Ten—fold—Kai—oken."

As he heavily forced out those words, Son Goku suddenly threw back his head and released a long howl that tore through the sky!

Boom!

"Haaah—!!!"

Amid a shriek so sharp it nearly pierced the eardrums, the gravity field of North Kai's Planet completely collapsed. With Son Goku at its center, the special turf within a hundred-meter radius was crushed into dust by an invisible, terrifying pressure.

Even more horrifying was his form. Around that berserk dark red aura, a layer of brilliant golden light had forcibly emerged, tightly wrapping the red glow within. Under the terrifying burden of tenfold power, fine bloody vapor seeped from Son Goku's pores, turning into a dreadful layer of red sweat that steamed into the air.

A terrifying combat power of thirty million, carrying a suffocating pressure, was completely locked within that dark crimson body!

The incredibly hard soil beneath him let out a groan of unbearable strain, sinking over a vast area and being forcibly pressed into a huge crater covered in cracks.

"You're insane! You little brat, you're insane! Stop it, now!" North Kai scrambled backward in terror, snatching up Bubbles, who had likewise been scared witless on the ground. His voice cracked from shouting.

"Ten times the burden! You don't have the life to withstand that! Your veins and muscles will be torn apart completely in less than two breaths!"

Crack!

The black sunglasses on North Kai's nose finally gave in to the suffocating pressure. Dense cracks spread across the lenses before they shattered all over the ground.

Yet Son Goku, standing at the very center of that storm of pressure, slowly straightened his back within the crater.

He panted heavily, his chest rising and falling violently, but the sight of muscles splitting and blood vessels bursting never came. The physical potential awakened by the Ancient Saiyan Bloodline was frantically resisting the destructive backlash of the tenfold burden.

"So this is what the Tenfold Kaioken feels like? Damn, this is exhilarating!"

Son Goku paid no attention to the terrified North Kai. He slowly closed his eyes and immersed all his focus into the deepest depths of his blood.

The heat was right.

At this moment, the limit-breaking pressure that defied all common sense underwent its most violent transformation. The suffocating sensation brought by the tenfold burden was like an overturned deep sea, transforming into countless invisible sledgehammers weighing a thousand tons. Following his boiling blood inward, they crashed with the force of thunder raging through ten thousand valleys against the door of destiny sealed deep at the end of his genes—the door named Super Saiyan.

Thump!

Thump!

Thump!

The sound of Son Goku's heartbeat was as heavy as ancient war drums. It drowned out the howling winds on North Kai's Planet and even caused the entire little planet to resonate to its rhythm.

Son Goku had taken a path of advancement different from the original story—he had not waited for a moment of heart-wrenching grief, nor had he allowed emotion to control him. He had chosen the most domineering method: relying purely on a body tempered to its peak and the explosive force of the Tenfold Kaioken, using absolute power to crush the solid barrier of that critical threshold!

As the final thunderous heartbeat violently exploded within his chest—

Son Goku abruptly opened his eyes, and a world-shaking roar erupted from his throat.

"Haaah—!"

Within his formerly deep black eyes, a point of dazzling golden light exploded in the deepest part of his pupils, so brilliant that one hardly dared look directly at it, as though a supernova had ignited.

Then, within the dark red aura wrapped in golden light, a strand of brilliant color quietly crept up the black hair on his forehead, dampened by sweat.