King Vegeta's ambition, his dream of universal dominion, lay in tatters at his feet, shattered by a being he couldn't begin to comprehend. As his life bled into the dirt, all he felt was a searing, impotent rage. Seeing Frieza emerge, pristine and amused, filled him with a despair so deep it choked him.
Yet, a final spark of defiance flickered—thoughts of his prodigy son, Vegeta. With a last surge of venom, he spat, "Frieza! One day… a Saiyan will defeat you!"
"Oh ho ho ho! Are you referring to your… 'genius' son, Vegeta?" Frieza's laughter was a delicate, mocking chime. "A mere ten-thousand power level? He's less than a rounding error."
Genius? The concept was absurd to him.
"You seem to cling to that boy," Frieza mused, observing the fleeting fire in the king's eyes. "Let me share a secret, King Vegeta. Do you know what this lord's battle power truly is?"
An inexplicable dread, colder than death itself, seeped into King Vegeta's heart. He couldn't stop himself. "H-how much?"
Seeing the terror he craved, Frieza smiled sweetly. "My battle power is… five hundred and thirty thousand."
"Wh—what?!" The words weren't just numbers; they were a cosmic verdict. All pain, all thought of his own demise, vanished, swallowed by the sheer, impossible magnitude of that figure.
Five hundred and thirty thousand.
In King Vegeta's universe, power over ten thousand was elite. Power over one hundred thousand in his Oozaru form made him a king who dreamed of ruling stars. This… this was a force of nature. A monster that rendered legends like the Super Saiyan pathetic fantasies. His entire frame of reference, his lifetime of conquest, collapsed into dust. Even Vegeta… his brilliant son… could never, in ten lifetimes, reach such a height.
"Oh ho ho ho! Now, King Vegeta," Frieza said, his voice dripping with malicious glee, "watch. Watch your planet die with your own eyes."
He didn't grant the mercy of a final blow. Instead, he ascended back to his ship, issuing a single, chilling order to his forces below: Exterminate them all.
The slaughter began. Frieza's soldiers, like rabid hounds unleashed, descended upon the Saiyan settlements. The warriors who had once been the scourge of the galaxy, selling conquered worlds, now became the prey—screaming, fleeing, dying in helpless clusters under relentless energy fire.
In the residential sector, Bardock—haunted by a foreboding he couldn't shake—heard the first explosions and burst from his dwelling. He immediately collided with the nightmare he'd feared.
Dodoria.
"It's you!" Bardock's face hardened into a mask of grim recognition.
"Oh?" Dodoria's piggish eyes lit up with recognition. He'd just finished off Bardock's team. "Bardock. Your teammates were calling your name before they died. Quite touching."
"What?!" The confirmation of his worst fear ignited a volcano within Bardock. He moved, a blur of rage, his fist aimed to crush Dodoria's smug face.
Bang!
Dodoria's hand shot up, catching the blow effortlessly. With contemptuous ease, he slammed Bardock into the ground.
BOOM!
The impact cratered the street. Bardock felt ribs snap, pain flaring white-hot, but he clamped his jaw shut, refusing to cry out.
"Tough little bug," Dodoria grunted, mildly impressed.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Around them, the symphony of genocide continued. Saiyan homes erupted into fireballs. The screams of men, women, and children—his people—pierced the air.
"STOP IT!" Bardock's fury became a supernova. His ki erupted, breaking Dodoria's grip. He shot forward, not at the general, but at a nearby Frieza soldier gleefully torching a row of houses. Bardock's fist met the soldier's face with a sickening crunch, vaporizing the attacker in a burst of righteous fury.
Whoosh!
Bardock became a storm of vengeance. He flashed to another Frieza soldier who was leveling a building with a cackle, his fist a piston of pure rage that drove the soldier through the ground, leaving a smoldering crater.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
He moved like a vengeful ghost. In the span of a few heartbeats, the squad of soldiers terrorizing the residential sector was neutralized—smashed, broken, or fleeing.
"BASTARD! I AM YOUR OPPONENT!"
Dodoria's bellow of fury shook the air. He could not tolerate this. Heavy losses under his watch meant facing Frieza's displeasure, a prospect more terrifying than any Saiyan.
Bang!
He intercepted Bardock's next charge, their clash sending a shockwave through the ruined street. Though Bardock's power had surged in his rage, Dodoria's base strength still held a significant advantage. He pressed the attack, each blow a thunderous impact meant to crush and break.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Thud! Thud! Thud!
But a cold dread began to seep into Dodoria's mind. Bardock wasn't just holding on—he was adapting. The strain of suppression was growing. The Saiyan was getting stronger.
"DIE!"
Panic catalyzed into decisive action. Dodoria mustered his full power in a brutal shove that sent Bardock skidding back. Without pause, he cupped his hands, a massive, churning sphere of violet energy coalescing between them—a finishing move meant to erase the low-class warrior from existence.
The energy ball shot forth, death incarnate.
But then, a blur of motion. A figure darted from the rubble of a nearby dwelling, placing herself squarely between the oncoming annihilation and Bardock.
Gine.
She had been watching, hidden but never looking away. Instinct, love, something purer than survival, propelled her into the path of destruction.
"GINE!!!"
The scream tore from Bardock's soul. Time seemed to fracture. In that splinter of an instant, as he saw his wife silhouetted against the killing light, something within him shattered and then reforged.
Whoosh!
It was not a movement his body should have been capable of. It was a teleport of pure, desperate will. He was there, in front of her, his back to Dodoria, his hand coming up.
BANG!
He didn't block it. He swatted it. Dodoria's full-power energy blast, a sphere capable of vaporizing a city block, was deflected like an irritating insect, sent screeching harmlessly into the sky where it detonated in a useless firework.
"Wh-what?!" Dodoria stumbled back, his piggish eyes bulging with incomprehensible terror. The Saiyan before him… his eyes were pools of crimson fire, his face a network of bulging veins. The aura radiating from him was no longer just power—it was a primal, deafening roar of the soul. This was no mere surge in battle power. This was something else entirely.