c26: Enjoy the Battle
"What!"
Sabo roared furiously as his energy surged, the pressure from his ki pulverizing the debris around him into fine dust. His figure emerged from the rubble—blood smeared at the corner of his mouth, his battle armor scratched and cracked.
"Damn it! Your battle power is only 1,200—how can you be this strong?!"
Sabo had initially assumed Li Xu must have transformed, but Li Xu hadn't changed forms at all, and his speed was far too fast for Sabo to track.
"You can ask King Yemma about that when you see him,"
Li Xu replied coldly. He had no interest in explaining himself only villains monologued about their powers to flaunt their strength.
Whoosh!
Li Xu lunged again, instantly closing the distance to Sabo.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Sabo reacted swiftly. With a recorded combat power of 23,000, he wasn't that far below Li Xu. He had only been overwhelmed earlier due to his own carelessness.
The two engaged in a brutal close-range brawl. Though Sabo fought back fiercely, Li Xu maintained the upper hand through superior speed, technique, and energy control.
As they clashed midair, three more fighters descended onto Planet Carodi Vegeta, Nappa, and Raditz.
Li Xu sensed their arrival clearly but didn't pay it any mind.
Beep-beep! "Combat power: 23,000!"
Beep-beep! "Combat power: 1,200!"
The trio stood nearby, watching the intense sky battle unfold. Raditz checked his scouter readings and began sweating nervously.
"Vegeta, the one with 23,000 has to be Lord Sabo... but the guy fighting him, the one who killed Lord Cui, is only reading 1,200? How is that possible?"
Raditz's voice trembled with disbelief.
"Idiot!" Vegeta barked.
"Can't you tell? He's suppressing his power! He only releases it at the moment of attack!"
Every time Li Xu struck, his ki surged just enough to match or exceed Sabo's then vanished instantly. The scouter couldn't register such brief fluctuations in real time.
If Li Xu had overheard Vegeta, he might've been impressed. Unlike Cui or Sabo, Vegeta had sharp combat instincts—he recognized the hidden mechanics at a glance.
Vegeta's eyes glinted with interest. He understood the benefit of such precise energy control: maximizing stamina and minimizing detection in battle.
Crack!
Vegeta yanked off his scouter and crushed it in his hand.
"Vegeta, what are you doing?"
Nappa asked in confusion.
"Fool. If the opponent can suppress and release power at will, then these numbers are meaningless,"
Vegeta growled.
"Cui must have died because he relied on that faulty data."
"Oh…"
Nappa and Raditz nodded. They crushed their own scouters as well unknowingly saving their lives by removing the devices Frieza often used to track and punish failure.
"Vegeta, should we join the fight?" Nappa asked, eager for action.
"Let's wait,"
Vegeta said flatly.
"When they've worn each other down, we'll step in."
Though he hated to admit it, both combatants were currently stronger than him.
Whoosh!
Back in the battle, Li Xu seized an opening and slammed his fist into Sabo's midsection. The blow sent Sabo flying backward straight through a massive boulder before crashing into the ground.
"Kamehameha!"
Li Xu followed up instantly, releasing a brilliant blue wave of energy from his palms, firing it straight at Sabo's impact point.
BOOM!
The energy blast detonated upon contact, engulfing the landscape in a roaring explosion. A hemisphere of light and fire spread outward, while powerful shockwaves kicked up winds and debris. Vegeta and the others shielded their eyes with their arms.
"Was Lord Sabo... killed?"
Raditz whispered, unsure.
As the dust cloud faded, a battered figure emerged. Sabo had survived but just barely. His armor was almost completely destroyed, his limbs bruised and trembling, and green blood dripped from several wounds.
"You're pretty tough,"
Li Xu said with a grin.
"Didn't think you'd still be standing."
Sabo wiped the blood from his chin and gave a grim smile.
"I hate that smug look of yours… but when it comes to life and death, pride doesn't matter."
"That's nonsense. If you've got a trump card, just use it," Li Xu said with scorn, arms crossed. He could tell Sabo was about to transform but didn't intend to interrupt him. In Dragon Ball, interrupting a transformation was rare fighting pride often took precedence.
"Hopefully, you'll still be laughing when it's over," Sabo growled.
Li Xu watched as Sabo's muscles expanded. His limbs bulged grotesquely, and veins popped across his forehead. His facial features twisted in strain and aggression. His ki surged wildly, creating wind blasts across the terrain.
Originally, his power level had been around 23,000, but now it had climbed to approximately 28,000 a significant but still insufficient increase, given Li Xu's technique and stamina control.
"What?!"
Vegeta, watching from a ridge with Nappa and Raditz, widened his eyes in shock.
"All these years under Frieza, and we never knew Sabo had a transformation," he muttered. It was rare for elite soldiers under Frieza especially non-Saiyans to possess any form of transformation or power-up.
"Unmatched power!" Sabo howled, laughing as his energy crackled around him.
"This makes it a little more fun!" Li Xu grinned. While Sabo's strength had gone up, it still wasn't enough to excite him. He wanted a real challenge.
Sabo charged at full speed, his enhanced form causing the ground to crack beneath each step. He swung his fist at Li Xu's head.
Li Xu caught it cleanly with his palm.
Boom!
With his other leg, Li Xu drove a knee into Sabo's gut. Sabo's eyes bulged as he coughed out a mouthful of greenish fluid, similar to the Namekian biology Frieza's subordinates often exhibited.
But Sabo wasn't done. He clenched his other fist and slammed it into Li Xu's jaw. Blood trickled from the corner of Li Xu's mouth as the impact forced him to release his grip.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The two exchanged a flurry of strikes. Elbows, knees, fists all slammed into one another in rapid succession. Shockwaves burst from every collision, shaking the nearby landscape. They fought in a blur of motion, blow for blow.
Though Li Xu wasn't using his Law of Force, his base battle power of 25,000 clashed evenly with Sabo's newly transformed 28,000. His superior combat instincts and refined ki control compensated for the raw power difference.
Boom!
They clashed midair with simultaneous punches and were blasted backward from the force, each sliding across the air before regaining balance.
Whoosh...
Both fighters hovered across from one another, their breaths heavy and uneven. The extended exchange had pushed their stamina, making the air between them thick with tension.
"Vegeta, now's our chance," Nappa said, his eyes fixed on the two.
"With your power, if you strike from behind, you could finish them both especially with Lord Sabo distracting him!"
"Fool," Vegeta snapped.
"It's better if both of them die. If you had a brain, you'd realize that." He glanced at Nappa coldly.
"And besides, I have a feeling that even if I jumped in, I wouldn't be able to kill that guy."
Vegeta's instincts honed from countless battles were warning him. Despite Li Xu's modest power reading, his combat technique and hidden reserves made him more dangerous than anyone they'd fought before.
Nappa fell silent. His fear of Vegeta outweighed even his loyalty to Frieza. Raditz stayed quiet, too. The Saiyan trio knew when to wait.
"This has been the most fun I've had in a fight…" Li Xu laughed, breathing a bit harder now.
"But it's time to end the game."
This battle had given him valuable combat experience especially in facing stronger opponents without relying on all his abilities. But continuing would serve no further purpose.
"Hah! You're full of yourself," Sabo spat, wiping blood from his lip.
He still believed Li Xu was bluffing.