Slug's ship had only actually taken two direct hits over the course of the long battle. One hole in the front window, put there before I'd gotten to the site, likely by Zeck, and a second, more precise, Namekian-shaped hole, put there by me kicking Slug's body directly through the ship in order to stop the liquid metal 'ceiling' from expanding any further.
The force from that kick had created a large tunnel directly under the ship that opened in an entirely different part of the giant pile of upturned dirt that had once been a forest, a few kilometers away, where the Namekian had dug himself out and attempted to sneak up on me from behind… without properly hiding his energy signature.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that me, Zeck, and even Slug himself had all taken deliberate measures to avoid damaging the ship, the fact remained that it'd been too close to the site of the battle. When I entered the ship through the hole in the front windshield, it genuinely looked like a hurricane had swept through the entire ship. Live wires occasionally sparked, having been ripped right out of the walls by the force of the blast, and shards of broken glass and torn metal jutted out from nearly everywhere.
As for the ship's main computer, it was completely down, though I was pretty sure that it was just the interface that was damaged, rather than the actual computer itself, which, naturally, meant that the data, at least, was salvageable.
Moving on from the brig for now, I made my way down the hall, deeper into the ship, toward the weak ki signatures that I could now sense from the depths of the ship, now that they were close, and the ship's outer shell was blocking the blunt of the massive residual ki levels outside.
The ship's maintenance shop and medical bay were both utterly annihilated. I had to destroy the doors, only to learn that the ceiling had collapsed in both rooms, and everything inside had been crushed.
As for the room that'd held the liquid metal that'd been somehow programmed to blot out the sky, it was, naturally, a gigantic hole now, not a room.
Then, I made it to the room labeled 'Lord Slug's Quarters'.
"...Now, everything makes sense." One of the walls had caved in… or rather, exploded inward, and the floor was covered in juice and fruit skins.
Namekians didn't eat. I didn't see Slug keeping fruit in his quarters for any reason… except one.
Things must have butterflied somehow.
It made sense, in a way.
The exact timeframe of Turles' defection was unknown according to the original timeline, but that fact didn't change the fact that he was a Saiyan.
And I'd altered my own course in life. As a Saiyan Prince, it made sense that my actions would somehow affect the course of events for other Saiyans as well.
I'd expected those effects to be muted, as the only living Saiyan that I'd actually interacted with was my brother, who didn't really care about anyone or anything, but it made sense that the possibility of my existence somehow altering the course of events surrounding Turles life existed.
Even a difference of a few seconds could theoretically have catastrophic results over the last twelve years since my team had left Planet Vegeta.
For example: Turles running into Slug, and the old Namekian regaining his youth by absorbing the life force from the Tree of Might fruits.
Based on the number of destroyed fruit skins in Slug's cabin, the old Namekian had clearly destroyed several planets in order to get more fruits.
Too bad the battle had destroyed all of them, along with the seed itself. Now, they, along with all of the life force that'd been inside them, were gone. It honestly broke my heart… I wanted to study the whole tree… not just a couple of destroyed skins.
Unfortunately, there wasn't anything I could do about it right now. Destroyed was destroyed, and I didn't have time to loiter.
I moved on, deeper into the bowels of the ship.
Finally, after a cursory look into a few other rooms, I found myself in front of the storage room that Slug's henchmen had apparently barred themselves inside after the battle had started.
Giving a resigned sigh, I halfheartedly tried to palm the door open, knowing that it wouldn't work.
BEEP. The pad flashed red. Locked.
"...Figures. Well… let's get on with this." I wasn't looking forward to this… From what I remembered from my previous life, Slug was sent off Namek as a child, like Kami, except he'd been sent to a lightless world that specifically worshiped evil.
Which had worked for him, since he was some sort of mutant, born with a heart as black as night. With his Super Namekian abilities and his evil heart, he'd become the reigning monarch of those 'demons', and moved out to conquer the rest of the universe.
What that meant, in theory, was that all of Slug's underlings were true, unrepentant evil to the core… and they were stupidly strong by Earth standards, too.
Evil and strong? I couldn't simply allow them to run loose… and I didn't simply keep around materials capable of locking up demons with power levels in the low thousands, either.
I reached forward, tapping on the door. It creaked inward under the pressure of my casual tap. This was to give the henchmen inside notice that the door was about to be breached.
I heard clamoring and shouting from inside, then i gave the door a casual palm strike.
It groaned, shuddered, then fell inward.
Immediately, my arm was bitten by a giant crocodile alien. "Well, that confirms that." I muttered, annoyed, angry, and disgusted in equal measure, as ten different ki weapons blasted at me simultaneously.
Three of them hit the crocodile-faced alien whose teeth gripped my arm. His jaw's grip slackened, dead before the smoke even cleared.
Without hesitation, I shook my arm lightly.
The force caused the crocodile alien's head to instantly explode, soaking my clothes with blood.
I grimaced. The feeling of killing a sentient being with one's bare hand was something inarguably and unequivocally disgusting in ways that I couldn't even begin to describe with words. I watched in solemnity as the headless corpse fell to the ground in front of me. The other aliens paused in shock, too, staring at their former companion, not because he was dead, but because of how easily I'd destroyed the corpse's head.
"Sorry. Hopefully, you get reincarnated into someone not evil."
Ten near-simultaneous Dodon Rays later, and I was effectively alone, slightly nauseous.