Where was Doroba now?
"How…?" Someone immediately looked up at the ceiling—only to see Doroba embedded in the wall like a painting, stuck there for the moment, unable to fall. The sight left everyone dumbfounded.
Wasn't his power level supposed to be 100?
Was the scouter lying??
Doroba was the most bewildered of them all. He stared down at the ground where Taro continued walking forward as if nothing had happened. The people who had been blocking his path earlier now scrambled to get out of his way, some even flaring their energy to launch themselves aside in a panic.
By the time Burely had left the hall and disappeared, Doroba finally crashed to the floor with a thud—still struggling to process what had just happened. 'This… this guy…' He treated me like this and didn't even bother to explain? Just walked away without a word? Not even a mocking remark to let me know what the hell just happened?!
---
With his pass in hand, Taro followed the directions given by the Saiyan palace guards and made his way toward what seemed to be King Vegeta's office.
The administrative style was quite different from that of Earth's royal palaces, and Taro took a moment to observe the surroundings. Compared to Earth's refined craftsmanship, Saiyan architecture was far more rugged… though, to be fair, most alien civilizations favored a brutish aesthetic. In one word: crude.
"Apologies, Lord Burely, but King Vegeta is not here…"
A cloaked Saiyan guard, likely part of the elite royal defense, stopped Taro at the door.
Taro extended his senses briefly and confirmed that there was no trace of King Vegeta's presence behind those closed doors. He had met Vegeta before, so he was familiar with the prince's energy signature. Since King Vegeta was his father, their energies should have been nearly identical.
Since the king wasn't here, Taro had no reason to wait around. He decided to leave and wander the planet instead, perhaps find a quiet place to meditate and train. After all, this world was doomed to destruction soon—might as well make some use of it before then.
But just as he was about to exit the palace, a sudden premonition flashed through his mind. He stopped in his tracks.
'Why did that thought occur to me just now?'
He muttered to himself, his sharp eyes scanning the area. As a martial artist and part-time sorcerer of his caliber, even without actively sensing energy, his subconscious constantly absorbed information from his surroundings.
This sudden intuition might have been his own instincts warning him.
So, as he turned back, he expanded his senses outward—starting from the palace and spreading further, searching for anything unusual. It didn't take long before he detected an energy signature eerily similar to Vegeta's.
Its power level was around 10,000—not particularly strong—but the energy itself carried a cruel, tyrannical edge that Taro found distasteful.
King Vegeta.
He wasn't far. Judging by the energy's location, he seemed to be in the mountains behind the palace.
A minor character like King Vegeta wasn't worth Taro's concern. What truly caught his attention was the faint, mist-like energy lingering beside the king. Had Taro not reached his current level of mastery over natural energy, he might have missed it entirely, dismissing it as nonexistent.
"Hmph… the God of Destruction, is it?"
A faint smirk crossed Taro's face as he turned a corner—and then vanished without a trace.
---
Vegeta couldn't stop replaying the earlier scene in his mind.
Had that Burely really suffered a drop in power level? Was the scouter's reading of 100 accurate, or had this so-called Burely somehow concealed his true strength? Did a method to hide one's power level truly exist in this world?
If so… he had to convince his father to assign this man to him. He needed to learn that technique!
Vegeta's heart burned with intensity, though his face remained cold as he searched for his father.
After scouring the palace with no luck, he overheard the guards mention that King Vegeta had ordered the royal chefs to prepare an extravagant feast—all of which had been transported to the back mountains. The back mountains? Vegeta knew his father had a private cave dug out there, but something felt off. Saiyans had voracious appetites, yes, but King Vegeta was a man of terrifying self-discipline—he never ate outside designated meal times.
When he arrived at the cave's entrance, he found it completely unguarded.
'Strange.' His father was obsessed with appearances—why would he leave his private retreat unprotected?
What he didn't know was that King Vegeta wanted everyone on the planet to stay far away from this place. Because right now, he was enduring the second-greatest humiliation of his life—the first being the indignity he suffered years ago at the hands of Freeza. And today… he was experiencing something just as degrading.
Vegeta moved silently through the cave, his natural stealth making his approach undetectable. But when he reached the end of the passage and peered inside—what he saw made him jerk back in shock.
What was happening?
His father—the proud King Vegeta, the mightiest ruler of the Saiyan race—was on his knees, his head pinned beneath someone's boot.
The figure lounging on the throne was a strange, beast-like creature—tall, with long, upright ears, purple skin, bulbous eyes, and a narrow, slit-like gaze. He wore nothing but a draped vest around his neck, fitted pants, and combat boots… the very same boots now resting atop King Vegeta's skull.
The purple rabbit-like being casually feasted on the lavish spread before him, all while keeping the Saiyan king crushed beneath his foot. And King Vegeta—frozen in terror—didn't dare move an inch. Every time the creature reached for another dish, Vegeta could see his father's body tense up in dread.
'He's… afraid.'
Not just afraid—terrified. As if at any moment, the being stepping on his head could erase him from existence without a second thought.
This sight shattered the young prince's understanding of power.
But what happened next shattered it even further.
The purple rabbit, still leisurely eating with one foot on King Vegeta's head, suddenly paused. His cold, golden-slitted eyes flicked toward the far end of the banquet table—a gaze filled with such natural malice and destructive intent that it sent chills down Vegeta's spine.
And then—whoosh—in the very next instant, a black-haired Saiyan materialized out of thin air right where the creature was looking.