Frieza's hovering chair streaked across the night sky like a purple-white shooting star, eventually hovering above the commercial district that had been reduced to a sea of fire.
Below, the skyscrapers that once symbolized wealth and prosperity are now nothing but burning ruins.
Every wisp of rising black smoke, every piece of collapsing wall, was like a needle piercing Frieza's gloomy face.
These are all his assets.
It's all my money!!
The air temperature seemed to freeze instantly because of his presence alone.
Frieza's eyes were icy cold as he slowly lowered his gaze to the battlefield below.
Then, the anger in his heart burned even more fiercely.
Amidst the ruins, his prized elite soldiers were being humiliated by a group of men in orange prison uniforms.
Even Zarbon and Dodoria, his two most capable henchmen, were now covered in wounds, leaning against the ruins in a sorry state, panting heavily, completely outmatched.
A one-sided beating.
Utter disgrace!
"Hahaha! This is Frieza Force? Is that all they've got?!"
"What a waste of worry!"
"We have obtained Moro's power! We are now invincible!"
"Big guys! Let the world witness the fury of our imprisonment!"
A muscular fugitive stomped on a soldier's chest, laughing arrogantly.
He raised his hand, and in his palm, a huge dark red energy ball, several meters in diameter, quickly condensed and took shape.
The ki blast was aimed at the relatively intact commercial building behind them.
Inside the building, countless terrified screams echoed through the shattered glass; the building was filled with civilians who hadn't had time to escape.
"Turn to ashes!"
The fugitive grinned maliciously and suddenly pushed his arm forward.
Severely injured and lying on the ground, Zarbon and Dodoria could only watch helplessly, their eyes filled with resentment.
Just then...
"Boom--!"
A soft sound.
The dark red ki blast, powerful enough to level an entire commercial building, stopped eerily less than half a meter from the glass curtain wall.
Time seemed to have been forcibly paused at that moment.
The entire battlefield, which had been noisy, violent, and filled with screams and explosions, instantly fell into a deathly silence.
The flying pebbles, the burning flames, and even the dust particles floating in the air all froze in mid-air, defying the laws of physics.
The fugitive, who had been grinning maliciously and was about to admire his masterpiece, froze completely.
He remained motionless, his arms still extended forward.
It wasn't just him.
All the fugitives wreaking havoc in the ruins, whether they were throwing punches or laughing maniacally, were frozen in time.
They became the most bizarre sculptures in this destroyed city.
"Wha... what's going on?!"
"My body... I can't move!"
An invisible, absolute force completely imprisoned them and this space.
The air was deathly silent.
Frieza simply raised his arm, his face grim, and waved it lightly.
The suspension seats began to glide slowly forward.
Like a monarch surveying his territory, he swept past the "sculptures" frozen in mid-air with an unparalleled sense of oppression.
Below, the panicked civilians fleeing through the ruins also noticed this bizarre scene.
They stopped in their tracks, staring in shock at the hovering, deadly Ki Blast and debris overhead.
All eyes were finally drawn to the figure high above in the sky.
That emperor, dressed in purple and white, not particularly tall, yet exuding an aura of divinity.
Severely injured, Zarbon and Dodoria struggled to their feet from the ruins.
The two exchanged a glance and instantly understood Frieza's intention.
Zarbon raised his arm and roared with all his might.
"It's King Frieza!"
Dodoria followed closely behind, his voice hoarse but equally filled with excitement.
The two voices were like boulders thrown into a calm lake.
The survivors grasped at this last straw.
Fear and despair transformed into primal worship and fanaticism at that moment.
" King Frieza!"
"It really is King Frieza!"
"We're saved!!"
A deafening roar of cheers and adoration erupted from every corner of the city, the sound waves converging and echoing through the heavens.
Frieza's hovering chair paused slightly in mid-air.
When Frieza opened his eyes again, a cruel smile curled at the corners of his mouth.
His gaze swept over the fugitives below, whose eyes had shifted from arrogance to panic, now trapped in an invisible prison.
"Remember, in your next life, stay away from Frieza Force!"
Frieza smiled and murmured softly.
Then, a crisp snap of fingers rang out in the deathly silence.
"Snap."
The next second.
All the dark red energy blasts hovering in mid-air instantly changed direction.
With ten times the speed and power of their arrival, trailing blinding flames, they hurtled toward their respective masters!
"No--!"
The fugitives let out desperate cries in their hearts.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
A series of even more violent explosions erupted in the center of the battlefield!
The devastating energy shockwave completely engulfed the imprisoned fugitives along with the ground beneath their feet.
There were no screams.
There was no struggle.
Faced with Frieza's absolute power, these villains who had just been spouting arrogant words were wiped out of the universe without even a trace of ashes, by his own most triumphant attack.
The firelight illuminated Frieza's gleeful yet cold face.
At the very moment Frieza snapped his fingers, wiping out the arrogant group of escaped convicts.
On the other side of the distant starry sea.
Inside a massive spaceship hidden in the shadows of an asteroid belt, the dimly lit analysis room glows with the cold light of data.
Several strangely shaped, large-headed, grayish-white alien analysts were sweating profusely as they tapped on the densely packed control panels in front of them.
A massive flow of information refreshed like a waterfall across dozens of screens in front of them.
Every piece of data represents a planet being plundered, and the cries of countless lives.
"Stop!"
"This guy..."
A hoarse voice echoed softly in the analysis room.
One of the analysts who was closest to the screen shuddered and immediately froze the image on one of the main screens as instructed.
On the screen, a still image is displayed.
In the scene, the purple and white cosmic emperor sits high above the burning ruins, looking down at everything below.
These are the last images passively collected and transmitted back by those fugitives who were just wiped out by Frieza in their final moments.
The final gaze before death.
Moro slowly emerged from the shadows, his withered body casting a distorted shadow in the flickering light.
He walked step by step toward the huge screen.
His deep, dark eyes gazed at Frieza's figure in the image, lingering for a long while.
" Frieza..."
Moro's withered lips parted slightly as he uttered the name.
The corners of his mouth slowly curled upwards.
"It looks like..."
"It's a very delicious 'prey'..."
Moro had had his fill of watching and seemed to have temporarily lost interest.
He waved casually, then turned and walked back into the shadows.
"I'll write this down first..."