With Hearts's match settled, everyone's attention quickly shifted to another battlefield that was just as eye-catching.
There, the fight had already reached a fever pitch.
Savage Beast versus Hit, Universe 6's strongest assassin.
Savage Beast's attacks had no pattern at all.
Every punch and kick carried pure, chaotic destructive desire.
All the while, he kept muttering nonstop.
"Where are you? Come out!"
"You little bug, all you know is hiding!"
Boom!
A wild punch tore through the air, making the entire space tremble violently.
And within that space, Hit moved as if he were strolling through a courtyard.
Savage Beast's frenzied assault had already wrecked the hardened arena floor. The ground had turned pitch-black, with faint firelight flickering from its depths.
Savage Beast's eyes were filled with bloodthirsty madness.
He could sense his opponent's presence, yet he could not capture his path.
That feeling irritated him beyond measure.
The entire arena was collapsing and splitting apart.
Tch.
A sound so faint it was almost inaudible rang out.
Hit's figure appeared behind Savage Beast like a ghost.
His hands were still tucked in his pockets, his expression cold, as if none of this had anything to do with him.
Only one raised foot landed with perfect precision on the center of Savage Beast's back.
Bang!
An invisible shockwave exploded inside Savage Beast's body.
A force condensed to the extreme instantly shattered all his internal organs.
"It hurts! It hurts so much…"
Savage Beast let out a roar and lost his balance, crashing forward.
But he did not completely lose mobility.
At the point where his back had been struck, a terrifying bloody hole was healing rapidly at a visible speed.
Even as he shouted about pain, he stabilized himself and launched a counterattack toward Hit's original position.
Yet his sure-kill punch only destroyed an afterimage.
"Hiding? Hiding again? Can't you come out and fight me fair and square?!"
Whoosh.
A knife-hand strike pierced through Savage Beast's neck, then slashed down diagonally.
Savage Beast's head flew high into the air.
Yet a twisted smile appeared on his face.
"Useless! It's useless… hahaha…"
"You can't kill me!"
"Your killing moves don't work on me. An assassin against an immortal body? You have no chance of winning!"
Savage Beast's body caught the head and pressed it back into place.
A few seconds later, his aura grew stronger again after recovering from the injury.
Hit frowned slightly.
He really was a troublesome opponent.
An immortal body, combined with a Saiyan's passive talent.
Conventional assassination techniques were completely useless against him.
In the audience stands, everyone was sweating for Hit.
Because the matches were being held simultaneously, Hit had no ready-made answer to copy.
He had to find the solution himself.
Krillin was just about to call out a warning, but Piccolo stopped him.
"Hit has the pride of a true master. If you say the solution out loud, he definitely won't use it!"
"Besides… another person's solution may not suit him."
"This guy is insane, and he's strong."
In the audience, Goku watched without blinking, excitement written across his face.
"But Hit isn't bad either."
"Hit's fighting looks like art."
"Exactly. He always uses the most precise moves and just the right amount of force. He really is a top-class master."
Tien praised him sincerely.
Gohan's expression was heavy.
He had personally experienced Savage Beast's terror.
That madness, born purely for destruction, could even affect the opponent's mind.
If the battle dragged on, even Hit might not be completely unaffected.
"The result of this match is hard to predict."
"Mr. Hit's combat talent is no worse than Uncle Piccolo's."
Inside the arena.
"Damn it, damn it, damn it! Is hiding all you can do?"
Savage Beast roared and charged wildly.
After recovering from injury again and again, his speed had grown faster, and his strength was increasing.
His entire body turned into a blood-red blur as he unleashed attacks in every direction.
He did not care whether he hit.
He wanted to destroy this entire space with indiscriminate attacks and force out that slippery opponent.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions of energy erupted one after another across the arena. Great sheets of ground were torn up and reduced to dust.
Hit's figure flickered constantly through the explosions and shockwaves, avoiding each fatal blow with perfect timing.
He had pushed Time-Skip to its limit.
Within fractions of a second, he could observe, judge, move, and act inside a separate space.
Although Savage Beast's combat power was far above Piccolo's, in Hit's eyes, the difficulty of this match had not increased much.
After dodging once more, Hit suddenly stopped moving.
He no longer evaded.
"Hm?"
Savage Beast paused, a trace of confusion in his eyes.
"Done hiding? Finally decided to let me eat you?"
Hit remained silent. He merely pulled his hands out of his pockets.
An icy aura spread from his body.
It was no longer the calm stillness from before.
"Finally getting serious?"
Savage Beast immediately grew excited.
He could feel it.
His opponent was now giving off the scent of "death."
Hit lowered his body slightly.
"Time Freeze."
He softly spoke two words.
In an instant, the entire world seemed to be paused.
Savage Beast's swinging fist stopped in midair.
His burning aura also froze completely.
Even the crazed expression on Savage Beast's face was locked in place.
Only Hit could move freely within this frozen time-space.
He slowly walked up to Savage Beast and raised a finger, pointing it at his forehead.
If he wanted to, he could instantly pierce through the man's brain and churn the tissue inside into paste.
But he did not.
He knew that would be meaningless.
As long as even the smallest cell remained, this monster could revive and become even stronger.
He had to find a method that could make him lose combat ability completely, all at once.
Hit's fingers moved across Savage Beast's body.
Heart, brain, spine…
Muscles, skin, bones, blood vessels, hair, nerves.
Nothing escaped his inspection.
He was studying his opponent's physical structure.
Unfortunately, his Time Freeze could not be maintained for long against this opponent's brute force.
Only a few short seconds.
Then, just as Savage Beast was about to break free from Time Freeze's restraint, Hit's lips curved slightly.
"Then this will do."
Hit tapped several points on Savage Beast's body.
Whoosh.
Time suddenly began flowing again.
Crack, crack, crack.
Along with the sounds of bones shifting out of place, Savage Beast's fist continued swinging forward, but it struck nothing.
"What did you just… do?"
Savage Beast sensed something was wrong, but he could not tell what.
Hit had already appeared a hundred meters away, his hands tucked back into his pockets.
The next second, Savage Beast's pupils contracted.
He suddenly discovered that his body was falling out of his control.