First, she had broken the melee stalemate with a ki blast. Now, she had unveiled her Great Ape Power. These two consecutive moves, born of frustration, betrayed a mind losing its discipline. While her raw power now rivaled his, her temperament remained a volatile flame, lacking the steady, controlled burn of true mastery.
As Rhode rose to eye level with the radiant, power-wreathed Ayla, he felt the finality of the contest settle in his bones. She had given him a thrilling fight, pushed him further than anyone had in years, but the path to victory was now clear.
"Aira," he called out, his voice calm, carrying easily over the hum of her unleashed energy. "Do you still wish to continue?"
"Of course!" she shot back, defiance blazing in her eyes.
"Very well."
Whoosh.
He was simply gone. Not a blur, not a dash—an utter disappearance from her senses, followed by an instantaneous reappearance. Even with her tenfold-enhanced perception, Aira only registered the movement after the impact.
**BANG!**
A devastating chop landed on the side of her neck, driving her from the sky and cratering the ground once more.
What?! How? The shock was mental as much as physical. She hadn't seen it coming.
Whoosh.
The warning screamed in her soul a microsecond before Rhode's foot descended like a piledriver toward her chest. She barely got her arms up in time.
**BANG!**
The defensive block saved her from broken ribs, but the transfer of kinetic energy was colossal. She was hurled backwards, skidding for hundreds of meters across the featureless plain, her boots carving smoking trenches into the "ground."
What technique is this? Her mind raced. He wasn't glowing with the telltale aura of sustained Great Ape Power. Yet the force behind his strikes eclipsed her own amplified might.
**BANG!**
Another attack, a whip-kick aimed at her temple. She blocked again, but the impact sent her spinning away, her defenses barely keeping up.
Damn it! Frustration boiled within her, hotter than her own ki. She was being toyed with, reacting, never initiating.
But Aira was a fighter honed in a decade of solitude. As the barrage continued, her analytical mind, sharpened by Yardratian meditation, began to dissect the pattern. The epiphany dawned.
He's not maintaining it. He was triggering the Great Ape Power in instantaneous, perfect bursts—only at the precise moment of impact or defense. It was a staggering display of control. It conserved energy, minimized stamina drain, and created terrifyingly unpredictable power spikes that shattered her rhythm. It also explained why her earlier surprise attack had only bruised his pride, not his body. He'd matched her surge in the instant of contact.
The realization didn't bring despair. It ignited a fiercer fire. He wasn't beating her with overwhelming force; he was outmaneuvering her with sublime efficiency. The gap wasn't a chasm, but a ledge she could reach.
"AGAIN!"
The cry tore from her throat, not of defeat, but of exhilaration. Her aura blazed anew, not with wild abandon, but with focused intensity. For the first time since their fateful clash on Reina, she wasn't being effortlessly crushed. She charged, not away from his onslaught, but directly into it.
"Heh."
Rhode's playful smirk vanished, replaced by the serene focus of a master duelist. He met her charge head-on, his own power rising to meet hers, no longer holding anything in reserve.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The Time Chamber became a cosmic canvas for their war. Their forms vanished and reappeared in staccato flashes of violence. Shockwaves from their collisions rippled out like silent tsunamis. Ki blasts, now launched not from frustration but as calculated extensions of their melee, streaked across the void, exploding in sun-bright detonations that would have scoured continents and shattered planets.
But here, in this boundless, artificial reality, there was only the fight. The endless, thunderous, glorious fight. Earth was safe. The universe, for this moment, contained only two Saiyans, pushing each other toward their absolute limits.
As the battle raged, the primal Saiyan instinct for combat—the sheer, unadulterated joy of testing one's limits against an equal—took hold of them both. The clash escalated from a duel into a symphony of controlled fury. Rhode's mastery lay in his flawless, instantaneous application of Great Ape Power, a surgical strike of amplified force that gave him a razor-thin edge.
But Aira was a creature of momentum. The exhilaration of a true, competitive fight fueled her. With each exchange, each block and counter, her power didn't just hold—it crept upward, her spirit burning brighter, adapting, pushing back against his precision with raw, growing intensity.
For a timeless stretch within the Chamber, they were locked in a perfect, violent stalemate. A winner seemed impossible to crown.
Then, a flicker.
The brilliant, controlled glow wreathing Aira's body stuttered. It wavered, pulsed erratically like a dying star, and then—snuffed out. The immense pressure of her amplified power vanished, leaving only her base aura, now drained and dim.
**Bang!**
It happened in the same instant Rhode committed to a punch. His fist, carrying the full, tenfold-multiplied force of a perfectly-timed Great Ape surge, connected.
Even as his senses screamed a warning and his phenomenal control screamed to pull back, physics and momentum had their say. He managed to claw back the vast majority of the force, but not all of it.
Aira's crossed arms, moving on instinct, intercepted the blow. There was a sickening CRACK. The reduced, yet still colossal, force didn't just knock her back; it launched her like a cannon shot across kilometers of empty space before she crashed into the unyielding ground, a broken, unmoving heap.
Whoosh.
Rhode appeared beside her in an instant, all battle-lust gone, replaced by cold assessment.
The sight was brutal. Her defensive arms were shattered, grotesquely bent. The residual kinetic energy had ravaged her torso, leaving her bleeding internally, her life force guttering like a candle in a storm. She was moments from death.
"Tch."
Rhode's face was an impassive mask. He knelt, not to comfort, but to analyze. He extended his senses into her broken form, gauging the damage, the depth of her power, her potential.
A cold realization settled in his gut. Her base power... once she recovers from this near-death Zenkai... it will surpass mine.
For a long moment, he simply watched her life fade. A dark, pragmatic whisper suggested this was an opportunity neatly delivered by her own overreach. Eliminate the rising rival. Secure his position.
"Heh."
A short, self-mocking laugh escaped him. The thought was pathetic. Letting fear of being surpassed dictate his actions? That was the mentality of a small-minded tyrant, not a warrior seeking the heights.
If she challenged him again, he would simply beat her before she could power up. That was the answer. Not cowardice.
Decision made, his hands settled over her broken body. A soft, green-gold light emanated from his palms—the Yardratian Recovery Technique, a power born of deep Spirito understanding. He poured energy into her, knitting shattered bone, repairing ruptured organs, reversing cellular death. In moments, the gruesome wounds vanished, leaving only unblemished skin and the steady rise and fall of her chest. She was healed, merely unconscious from the systemic shock.
"Hoo..."
Rhode exhaled, a long, slow breath that carried the last of the battle's tension from his body. A profound relaxation settled over him, mental and physical.
But it was immediately chased by a sharp, cold spike of urgency.
He had won. In a death match, his control and tactics would have secured total victory.
Yet, the undeniable, inconvenient truth remained: Aira's raw power was now his equal. The gap he had worked so hard to maintain had closed. The comfortable plateau he'd envisioned was gone.
The quiet life of research was over. The race was back on.
Patreon Seasay , 50 advanced chapters