"Yo, isn't this the traitor Vegeta? What are you doing here, punk? Come to beg Lord Frieza for mercy?" Before long, a snide voice sounded, and a purple alien with a catfish-like mouth and two feelers around it came before them.
This was Cui, a Frieza Force elite with a power level as high as 18,000. He was also an old rival of Vegeta's, often picking fights with him on the strength of having a similar power level.
"Who are these people? Your friends? Tsk, tsk. The mighty prince of the Saiyan race standing with a few pieces of trash whose power levels are only in the hundreds. Vegeta, you've fallen far." Cui had already scanned Goku and the others with his scouter when he arrived.
But the numbers on the device filled him with contempt—a bunch with not even five hundred in power level. Trash among trash. It also put him at ease; he'd been worried Vegeta might have recruited a few helpers with power over ten thousand.
Huh? Wait—the emblem on that ship looks familiar.
For Musashi and the others were riding a craft built by the Chimera Ant Army, and the Chimera Ants and the Frieza Force were old enemies.
They'd fought countless battles big and small, and the Frieza Force had come off the worse every time. So how could Cui, an elite of the Frieza Force, fail to recognize the Chimera Ant emblem?
"Lord Musashi, shall we take this one out? Now isn't the time to start a war with the Frieza Force. Everything we do is best done in the shadows," one Chimera Ant senior officer whispered at Musashi's side.
"Wait, th-this emblem is—" Cui now remembered what the emblem on that ship meant, and cold sweat broke out on his brow.
The Chimera Ants were best known within the Frieza Force for their ability to conceal power levels, a trick that had cost the Frieza Force dearly.
"Vegeta, you bastard, you really betrayed King Frieza and joined the Chimera Ant Army!" True to his reputation for negative IQ, Cui actually shouted this in front of the Chimera Ants.
"Idiot..." Vegeta shot Cui a disdainful glance. In the past he might have taught him a harsh lesson, but his power level now was nothing like before.
Lift a finger to swat Cui? He felt it beneath his dignity.
"Nappa, take him out!" Vegeta might not deign to act, but that didn't mean he couldn't order someone else to. A loyal subordinate like Nappa was perfect for the job.
"No problem, Vegeta. I've been sick of this ugly mug for ages." Nappa stroked his smooth chin and grinned wickedly up at the flustered Cui in the sky.
There was a time when an elite like Cui was someone he couldn't possibly take on. Now the guy was nothing but a snack to him.
"Vegeta... are you insane? You're sending Nappa to fight me? Do you want him dead?" For all his stupidity, Cui did have one virtue—
he knew how to bully the weak and fear the strong, and he could read the room. The Chimera Ants didn't seem inclined to attack him, and Vegeta had sent out Nappa, whose power level was only 8,500. Lord Cui wasn't afraid of Nappa—only eight thousand-odd? He himself was a towering 18,000.
"Vegeta, has betraying King Frieza to join the Chimera Ants fried your brain? Watch me tear him to pieces right in front of you!" Cui—
But as the words left his mouth, a dark blur flashed again and again around him.
"Who did you say you were going to tear apart?" Nappa's hulking form appeared before Cui, and he was carrying a corpse in his hand.
Cui recognized it—the grunt who'd brought him the intel.
"When?" Only now did Cui realize that at some point all the surrounding Frieza grunts had vanished. On the ground below the two of them lay a great heap of bodies.
"Vegeta was right—you really are an idiot." Nappa tossed the corpse aside with disdain as if it were trash.
"Mere Nappa! How dare you talk to me like that! I'll kill you and show you Lord Cui's true power!" A power level of 18,000 erupted from his scrawny frame.
One ki blast after another poured from Cui's hands, all aimed at Nappa.
Fighting styles in the Dragon Ball world differ from other worlds—simpler and more straightforward.
Don't be scared—just hit it!
"Die! Die! Die!" Cui kept firing ki blasts, chanting as if venting something.
Because just now, Cui had actually felt something called fear toward Vegeta. To be frightened by mere Vegeta—unforgivable.
"Vegeta! You're next!" Cui seemed to have finished venting. He pointed at Vegeta and blustered, but anyone could hear the quaver in his heart.
Vegeta didn't even acknowledge him...
"Hey... ugly... you really gave me a start." A voice that chilled Cui rang out. When the smoke from the blasts cleared, Nappa stood there completely unscathed—not a single scratch, only a smudge on the armor plates at his sides.
"Impossible!" At last, fear took him. He thought of a terrible legend—a legend that even frightened Frieza. Trembling, he squeezed out a few words.
"Su...per... Saiyan?"
"Hahaha... not a bad guess. Looks like you know quite a bit. I may already have grown into what Frieza fears most—a Super Saiyan." Vegeta actually cracked a rare smile. What could be more satisfying than seeing an old rival trembling before him?
All because he'd gone to Earth—what a miraculous place. In just a few short months he'd grown more than in decades.
"Damn it... I have to report to King Frieza." It wasn't loyalty that moved Cui; he simply wanted to use Frieza's hand to get rid of Vegeta.
A Super Saiyan? No way that could be King Frieza's match. Frieza's invincible image was indelibly imprinted on the Frieza Force.
Even though "Super Saiyan" had always been a taboo in Frieza's heart—anyone who dared utter those words before him would be killed without mercy—
no one believed that Frieza feared the so-called Super Saiyan, nor that a Super Saiyan could defeat him. The legend circulated only among Saiyans—who knew if it was real? Frieza's invincible power, on the other hand, was plain to see throughout his army.
You could say Frieza was the pillar of the entire Frieza Force. In the original story, after Son Goku killed him, the whole force declined.
Granted, there were still countless cosmic-level experts in the force then, but that couldn't halt the decay. In the end, the army that once controlled seventy percent of the universe was reduced to scrounging by.
"You're finished, Vegeta! King Frieza will be here soon to kill you!" Cui tried to distract Vegeta with Frieza's name and quietly slip away.
But as soon as he turned, a solid wall of flesh blocked his way.
"Hey, where do you think you're going?" Nappa, all jowls and muscle, grinned at him.
What followed were screams upon screams. With only 18,000, Cui was no match for Nappa, whose power now exceeded 100,000.
"Huh? A decent ki is heading this way. Piccolo... it feels kind of like you," Goku said. Of everyone present, he was the most sensitive to ki.
"Just more trash." In Vegeta's eyes now, anyone under a few hundred thousand was a grunt.
"(@ο@) Wow—Piccolo, is that your brother? You look alike!" When the owner of that ki appeared, Goku got a good look at him and exclaimed.
Nail, the strongest warrior-type Namekian on Planet Namek.
"Long time no see, Nail. How is the Grand Elder? Give him my regards," Musashi greeted him first. "We've come, as agreed."
"You're all so strong..." Now it was Nail's turn to be shocked. He'd thought himself exceptional, but first there was a Frieza he couldn't face—a suffocating presence even from afar—
and now a whole crowd of masters stood before him, each of them feeling above him.
"And you are?" Nail quickly picked out a fellow Namekian among them—Piccolo.
"Piccolo..." Piccolo answered very briefly.
"You're strong too. I never knew a Namekian could become this powerful."
"All right, this isn't the time to reminisce... The Frieza Force is rampaging across Namek. I assume the Grand Elder is aware," Musashi cut in—Vegeta was visibly impatient; if not for Frieza's terrifying power, he'd probably have rushed off alone already.
"If there's something, say it."
"The Grand Elder wishes to see you..."
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