Elsewhere, Elec's fists tightened involuntarily at his sides. He stared fixedly at the clashing purple flames of ki at the center of the battlefield, his expression shifting between ecstasy and excitement.
Maki stopped chewing her candy. Her eyes, usually carrying a hint of frivolity, watched the battlefield without blinking.
"Big brother!"
She couldn't help speaking, her voice trembling in a way she hadn't even noticed herself.
"Jass... he really looks like he can do it!"
Elec didn't turn around. His gaze was locked on Jass as he fought Turles, as though held there by a magnet.
His eyes were full of gratification and anticipation.
It was as if he could already see Jass fighting countless powerful warriors across the universe for the Heeters Family.
And the day when he would finally make the Heeters Family's wish to rule the universe come true.
Ahem, he was getting a little ahead of himself.
But the excitement in his eyes at that moment was real.
Jass's attacks grew increasingly frenzied.
Purple ki engulfed his body, and every punch brought a piercing shriek as it tore through the air.
Like a maddened beast, he abandoned all technique, leaving only the most primal charges and blows.
The canyon floor couldn't withstand such power. Cracks spread outward from him, and violent currents swept broken rocks into the sky, only for energy to grind them to dust before they got far.
Turles moved through the storm of attacks.
Jass brought a mighty hammer blow crashing down. Turles merely tilted his head slightly, and the enormous energy hammer brushed past his cheek, the wind from the blow stirring the black hair on his forehead.
Jass followed with a sweeping kick, its wind powerful enough to slice through rock. Turles simply leaned back, and it swept past the tip of his nose.
As he fought, Jass could feel his own power. It was greater than ever before.
He should have won!
He had to win!
But he soon realized something was wrong.
No matter how much he increased his speed or strength, he only seemed to have his opponent on the defensive.
He still couldn't land an effective blow.
But that hadn't been an illusion.
At first, Turles had been caught completely off guard and had indeed felt some pressure from Jass's sudden surge in power.
That had led to their earlier exchange, a back-and-forth struggle in which they had seemed evenly matched.
But as Turles gradually got into form,
every move Jass made began to look slow and clumsy to him, full of openings he could exploit.
"How could this be? Why?"
Jass's breathing grew heavier. He put everything he had into every attack, only to hit nothing.
His fists struck the air, and his energy blasts struck empty ground.
His opponent was like a shadow he couldn't catch, always dodging at just the right moment before an attack landed.
The feeling was even more despair-inducing than his crushing defeat twenty years ago.
In that fight, he had been the stronger one, losing only because of some inexplicable mistake.
But this time, it was the complete opposite.
He was the challenger who had overestimated himself.
Gradually, the confrontation in the canyon could no longer be called a fight.
It was more like a one-sided beating.
At last, pushed to the limit, Jass gathered every ounce of his power into his right fist.
Purple ki condensed over his knuckles into a dazzling ball of light.
With this punch, he would smash that hateful face before him to pieces!
But his fist still failed to land on Turles's face as he had wished.
Turles reached out and stopped it in front of him.
"A little surprising, but this is as far as you go."
As Turles caught Jass's fist, he suddenly offered his assessment in a leisurely tone.
Jass's reason crumbled, and in the blink of an eye he snapped, letting out a beastly roar.
He abruptly broke free of Turles and flew high into the air.
Astonishing energy began gathering in both his hands.
At first, it was only a point of light.
In the blink of an eye, it swelled into a fireball the size of a basketball.
Purple lightning flashed wildly inside the energy ball. The immense energy warped the space around it, producing a strained hum.
Turles looked up.
His cold expression finally changed a little.
It faded.
His brows furrowed.
Was this guy crazy?
Was he planning to destroy the planet outright?
He was even more thin-skinned than Vegeta!
The gratification and delight on Elec's face froze completely the moment he saw the purple energy ball.
The color rapidly drained from his face, leaving it deathly pale.
"Jass!"
"Calm down!!"
He shouted himself hoarse at the figure high overhead, his voice changing pitch with tension.
The figure in the sky seemed not to hear his cries.
Madness had completely consumed Jass. Mechanically, he poured the last trace of power in his body into the energy ball.
The purple sun continued to swell.
"Big brother!"
Maki's face turned deathly pale with fright, and she grabbed Elec's arm.
Beside them, cold sweat had long since soaked Oil's back.
On the other side, the relaxed expressions had vanished from Amond's and Daiz's faces as well.
Amond spat on the ground.
"Has this little runt gone crazy? He can't win, so he wants to drag everyone down with him?"
Daiz said nothing. He only stared fixedly at the ever-growing purple ball of light in the sky, his brows knotted tightly.
"He's lost his mind."
Through the gap in the spaceship's hatch,
Tights also saw the purple sun hanging high in the sky.
She didn't know exactly what it meant.
But she could see the terror and despair on the faces of the people below in the canyon who had been so arrogant moments ago.
She could feel the spaceship trembling slightly beneath her feet.
She could hear the hum in the air growing louder and louder, as though it would tear her eardrums apart.
A fear born of pure biological instinct shot from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head.
"Lord Turles!"
Amond could bear it no longer and shouted to Turles in the canyon.
"Take that lunatic out!"
Before Amond had finished speaking,
Turles was already gone.
Without any warning or preparatory movement, and without even cracking the ground beneath his feet,
he vanished from everyone's sight just like that.
Then, before everyone's eyes, the purple energy ball high in the sky began to change.
The terrifying ball of light, powerful enough to blast the entire planet to pieces, was shrinking.
Turles's right fist was buried in Jass's abdomen.
Blood sprayed from Jass's mouth, tracing a long scarlet arc through the air.
Turles pulled back his fist.
Jass's body lost all support. His arms fell limply to his sides, his head drooped, and he plummeted straight down from the sky.
The purple ki that had been burning fiercely moments ago peeled away from his body strand by strand as he fell, like ashes scattered by the wind.
Boom-!
Jass's body slammed into the ground less than five meters in front of Elec and the others.
Rock shattered, and dust billowed into the sky.
In his final moments before losing consciousness, all Jass could see was the figure suspended high in the air.
It overlapped with the figure he couldn't banish from his mind.
The same angle, the same upward gaze.
That familiar yet unfamiliar sight... until his eyes closed completely.