Goku said, “Here I come, Oryon!”
Oryon, painfully short on real combat experience, figured it wouldn’t hurt to get an early read on where he actually stood.
He beckoned Goku forward with a curl of his fingers.
“Bring it.”
Son Goku stamped down hard and shot toward him.
Oryon raised his guard—only to find Goku’s silhouette had vanished.
Swish, swish, swish!
His shape bounced from spot to spot, darting so fast it left several afterimages trailing behind him.
“That’s the Afterimage Technique!” Krillin gasped.
“Goku’s opening with the Afterimage Technique right off the bat? Is he probing for an opening?” Master Roshi wondered aloud.
Behind that dazzling technique, Goku himself was reeling with shock.
He’d meant to throw a simple probing attack—but the instant his fist was about to connect, a jolt of danger shot through him.
Pure instinct made him snap into the Afterimage Technique.
His body split into a scatter of afterimages, circling Oryon from every angle, hunting for even the faintest opening.
And yet Oryon seemed to be nothing but openings.
At the same time, every inch of him also felt dangerous.
For a moment Son Goku was simply lost.
The Afterimage Technique burned through stamina fast, so Goku stopped hesitating, picked an angle, and drove a punch straight at Oryon.
Oryon never actually saw him coming, but something told him Goku was to the left, so he threw a testing punch that way.
Goku’s shape snapped back into existence out of thin air.
“Ugh…”
He clutched his stomach and staggered backward—thud, thud, thud—veins bulging on his forehead, his face twisted in pain.
“He hit him!” Krillin cried out.
Master Roshi murmured, “Never expected Goku to whip out the Afterimage Technique and still eat a direct hit.”
Piccolo’s pupils trembled.
Just now, Son Goku’s movement had been so fast that even Piccolo hadn’t managed to pick out his real body—yet Oryon had shattered the Afterimage Technique with a single punch.
A suspicion began to form in Piccolo’s mind: could this man’s strength already have surpassed his own?
Impossible.
Absolutely impossible!!
In this world, the strongest were himself and Son Goku, and no one else.
There was no way anyone could outmatch the two of them.
But then—what exactly was that punch just now?
Just a coincidence, probably.
He’d know for sure soon enough.
That was the excuse Piccolo kept feeding himself.
Son Goku shook off the ache in his stomach and wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Oryon, you’ve gotten really strong!”
Even as he said it, his fighting spirit hadn’t dimmed one bit—he stripped off his jacket and tossed it to the ground.
It landed with a heavy thud, and the earth beneath it caved in noticeably.
Krillin blinked, startled.
Bulma chimed in, “See, I knew it. Goku’s been strong since he was a kid—there’s no way one punch would take him down.”
Among all their friends, Goku had always been the strongest, the one everyone counted on to keep them safe.
With the weighted clothes off, Goku settled himself, loosened up with a quick stretch, and dropped back into a fighting stance.
“Let’s go again!”
“This time, you make the first move. Come at me with everything—let’s see if I can take it!”
Oryon nodded.
“All right, then. Don’t blame me.”
The words barely out of his mouth, Oryon charged straight at Goku and drove a punch at his chest.
It was such a plain, no-frills straight punch that even with his Power Level not yet raised, Goku could track it clearly.
He snapped his hand up, clamping down hard on Oryon’s fist, trying to block it.
But the instant Oryon’s fist met his palm, a searing pain shot through Goku’s hand.
The back of his own hand slammed into his chest.
Goku staggered back several steps.
Seeing Goku’s arm knocked wide open, Oryon fired off another punch, straight into his chest.
Bang!
Goku let out a pained grunt and stumbled back further, a trickle of fluid at the corner of his mouth, his face gone ashen in an instant.
“Goku, are you okay?”
Krillin asked anxiously.
Oryon didn’t press the attack.
Instead he stared at his own fist, a little startled.
Had he put too much force into that?
This was his first real fight—he honestly had no sense of how to hold back.
Even with Goku’s wealth of combat experience against his own near-total lack of technique, he’d still crushed him outright.
Goku clutched his chest and sank to his knees.
“How is this possible?”
“I couldn’t even block your punch!” Goku exclaimed in disbelief.
Everyone who heard him was stunned.
“What?”
“Goku couldn’t block Oryon’s punch?”
Remembering that just yesterday Oryon had wanted to train under him, Master Roshi’s face was written all over with astonishment.
“So you were already this strong, kid? Then what was all that talk yesterday about becoming my disciple?”
Oryon looked at Goku.
“Want to keep going?”
Goku shook his head hurriedly.
“No, no, that’s enough. I really didn’t expect you to be this much stronger than me. I can’t even imagine how I’d beat you!”
Bulma stared at Oryon in shock, an astonishment beyond anything she’d felt before.
How could this be?
Just yesterday, Raditz had flattened both Oryon and Goku with a single blow each—she’d assumed the two of them were roughly matched, if not that Oryon fell slightly short of Goku.
Now, after this one sparring match, it turned out Oryon was crushing Goku entirely.
A wave of regret welled up in Bulma.
He was this strong?
She looked at Oryon again.
Handsome, sunny features, a lean and well-built frame, tall stature—and now, strength that outstripped even Goku’s…
Damn it, and just yesterday she’d handed him straight over to Lunch.
What an idiot she’d been!
So what now, now that she regretted it?
Bulma’s mind started churning with little schemes of her own.
The sparring match over, Goku had recovered and strode toward Oryon, brimming with excitement.
“Oryon, your strength is way beyond anything I expected. With you joining us, I’m sure the three of us together can beat Raditz today.”
Oryon smiled back.
“Then let’s get going.”
“Right!”
“Flying Nimbus!”
A golden cloud came soaring in, and Goku hopped onto the Flying Nimbus.
“Want to ride with me, Oryon?”
Oryon shook his head.
“I doubt I could even sit on the Flying Nimbus. You go ahead.”
Goku nodded.
“All right, I’ll head out first!”
With that, he shot off atop the Flying Nimbus, with Piccolo racing after him.
Oryon followed as well.
The three of them kept a close formation as they flew toward where Raditz was.
“Flying Nimbus, go faster!”
The Nimbus’s speed surged suddenly.
Piccolo immediately pushed his flying technique to match—he didn’t fall behind by so much as an inch.
But Oryon, in that instant, got left behind.
Piccolo’s mouth curved up slightly.
Sure, after his breakthrough the night before, Oryon’s strength had shot up, and even his Flight Technique had grown sharper.
But the Flight Technique was still an inferior mode of flight, and Piccolo figured Oryon was bound to fall behind regardless.
Sensing that he’d shaken Oryon off, a flicker of smugness rose in Piccolo.
“Heh. Compared to that, my Demon Clan’s flying technique really is superior—much faster than that so-called Flight Technique.”
Behind them, Oryon watched the two figures shrink into the distance and blinked.
“By rights, I should be considerably stronger than both of them. So why am I pushing this Flight Technique until it’s practically smoking, and I still can’t catch up…”
Oryon fell into thought.
The Flying Nimbus, of course, was a different story entirely—at full speed, even a Super Saiyan 2 Gohan relied on it.
Even short of a Super Saiyan in full transformation, Goku himself had used the Nimbus to make his way back after training on King Kai’s Planet.
A single call and it could reach anywhere on the globe in an instant—a speed probably beyond anything Oryon could even imagine.
So it made perfect sense that the Nimbus outpaced him.
But Piccolo’s strength should be beneath his own—so why was he faster…
A flicker crossed Oryon’s eyes.
“Could it be that Piccolo isn’t even using the Flight Technique at all, but some other, more advanced flying skill?”
“That has to be it. You could pedal a bicycle until it smokes and still never catch a sports car!”
“I’ll have to look into this properly later—see if there’s a way to steal Piccolo’s flying technique for myself.”