Dragon Ball Roshi

A crimson-colored, phoenix-like great bird soared through the sky. With Taro's immense power supplementing it, the Undying Bird's flying speed was unbelievable—one flap of its wings carried it across vast mountains and rivers.

The wind howled past his ears as Taro flew through the boundless clouds. From above, he caught sight of the distant city of Sayuan below.

Blood and fire raged within it.

The Demons had come, slaughtering the humans of Sayuan City and leaving nothing but destruction in their wake. The entire city had been reduced to rubble—most of the buildings lay in ruins, and the streets had collapsed. Circular, radiating craters sprawled across the city and its surroundings; from the sky, it looked like a tattered cloth riddled with bullet holes.

In the city of Sayuan, there was almost no trace of living beings.

Taro's face remained expressionless as he patted the back of the Undying Bird. Leaping into the air, *boom*—a white aura of ki erupted from his body and wrapped around him. *Snap*—his entire figure transformed into a streak of white light, flying toward the Mitsurugi Dojo outside the city.

The Phoenix let out a loud, mournful cry and flapped its massive wings, diving through the clouds to follow him. Its cry carried a note of sorrow, as if it shared Taro's heavy heart in this moment.

---

Taro landed before the ruins of the Muten school Dojo at the foot of the broken mountain.

Or rather... the ruins of the dojo.

Even the mountain gate had been reduced to two shattered stone pillars. The buildings behind it had all collapsed into piles of rubble, leaving only remnants of walls and broken stones.

Taro's face was drawn tight. Without hesitation, he stepped into the ruins of the dojo. He tried to sense even the faintest trace of a life force—but there was none to be found. He couldn't tell whether his disciples had scattered or been killed.

"Piccolo..." A surge of anger rose in Taro's heart.

There were only a few hundred Demon Clan warriors.

The mortal world was vast.

Sayuan City was but a small dot on the map of the human world. And yet, in less than half a day since the Demons had descended, this place had already been reduced to rubble? And, as fate would have it, it was Taro's hometown that had been utterly destroyed?

There was no doubt. It could only be Piccolo, the Great Demon King, that bitter enemy of his, who had led a detachment of Demon Clan warriors here. From the Mutaito Mountain, they had tracked him down to this place. After all, the founder of the Muten School was none other than Mutaito's eldest disciple—a fact that had been a key part of the Muten School's reputation. Everyone within ten, even a hundred miles, who had heard of the Muten School knew this.

Piccolo knew Mutaito's background. From that knowledge, it wasn't hard for him to trace the Muten School back to Sayuan City.

From the sky came another mournful cry. A fiery-red figure descended from above, landing amidst the ruins—it was the Undying Bird. Its ancestors had once lived here. Now, it swivelled its head back and forth, scanning the surroundings. Scattered, broken corpses lay within the rubble, their blood long dried into sticky stains. One could easily imagine the horrific battle that had taken place here.

The bird, already possessing intelligence, gazed around with bright, soulful eyes, its sorrow evident. It let out a series of low, mournful cries.

Taro stood in silence. With a single thought, his ki spread outward, sweeping across thousands of miles in an instant. There—it was! The repulsive aura of Piccolo, the Great Demon King emerged, located more than three hundred miles to the east. Beside him was another dark, sinister presence—a Demon Clan warrior with a power level of around 1,600.

"The Great Demon King?" Taro's lips curled into a cold smile.

He could easily imagine how Piccolo, with a mere power level of 300, must have groveled and begged just to survive in front of such powerful Demon Clan warriors. In the face of overwhelming power, a being like Piccolo, the embodiment of the Kami's negative aspects, would not care about something as trivial as dignity. Just as he had once, during his duel with Son Goku, resorted to threatening Tien Shinhan's life when he realized he couldn't win, crippling Goku by destroying one of his arms and breaking both of his legs in the process.

If Piccolo could abandon the principles of martial virtue, how could he possibly care about something as small as personal pride?

Of course, the later Piccolo—the so-called "Piccolo Jr."—would never stoop to such behavior.

Taro beckoned the Phoenix with a wave of his hand, using psychic energy to lift its body and place it gently on his shoulder. Just as he was about to use Instant Transmission to teleport to Piccolo's location, something caught the corner of his eye.

"Hm?"

Near a broken wall, Taro noticed something.

As he approached, the pile of rubble covering the broken wall began to float into the air, drawn by Taro's psychic energy. The stones hovered, *clack-clack-clack*, before falling neatly to the side, clearing the area.

Beneath the broken wall lay a bloodied figure, their body covered in filth, with a gaping wound in their back.

Taro's eyelid twitched. Though the person's clothing was tattered and filthy, there was no mistaking that it was the martial arts uniform of the Muten School. The body was curled into a ball at the base of the broken wall. Taro stepped forward, attempting to turn the corpse over, but he couldn't move it at first. It was then that he noticed the disciple's hands were tightly gripping the base of the wall, buried deep into the ground, as if they had been protecting something.

Closing his eyes briefly, Taro's calm but fluid psychic energy flowed outward, reaching into the spaces where the corpse's hands were buried deep in the wall and ground.

*Crack, crack…*

The walls and ground around the corpse's hands cracked open, cut cleanly by Taro's Ki Blade, which was as fluid as water yet sharp as a blade.

Two chunks of stone dangled from the disciple's ten fingers. Taro carefully turned the lifeless body over, revealing a face with eyes that had not closed even in death. The Phoenix perched on Taro's shoulder let out a low, mournful cry. Taro, still expressionless, remained silent for a moment before noticing something on the ground where the disciple's body had once lain—a faint line of blood-red characters:

"The Demon Clan attacked. Muten School disciples gave their lives to protect our master. Left behind the founder's relics in hopes the master would return to see this. In hopes the master would return to see this. In hopes the master would return to see this. These words are left by an unworthy disciple."

The writing was etched deep into the stone, stained with blood, though parts of it had blurred with time.

Taro gazed at the message in silence for a long moment before finally sighing. He placed a hand gently over the disciple's open eyes and whispered softly, "Wait for me... I'll bring you all back." With a light touch, he closed the disciple's eyes.

*Crack.* Nearby, the ground split open, revealing a rectangular, human-sized fissure. *Wham!* A long, cuboid stone slab floated up, suspended by Taro's psychic energy, leaving behind a deep rectangular pit in the earth.

The massive stone hovered in the air as Taro carefully placed the disciple's body into the pit.

*Crack, crack, crack…*

The hovering stone slab was crushed into fine powder. The fragments hovered briefly before cascading down, filling the pit and burying the body.

Taro rose slowly, glancing at the Phoenix on his shoulder. Its eyes seemed shrouded in a mist of sorrow. Then, his gaze returned to the blood-red inscription on the ground. Finally, his eyes fixed on the last part of the message:

"In hopes the master would return to see this. In hopes the master would return to see this. In hopes the master would return to see this."

A surge of Ki poured out from Taro.

*Crack, crack.* The stone slab bearing the blood inscription, along with a one-meter radius around it, was cut loose from the ground by his Ki. *Wham!* A massive inverted cone of stone floated upward. Taro enveloped it in his cascading psychic energy, grinding it layer by layer. Bits of debris and dust peeled away, hovering around him in the air.

Gradually, from within the stone, a small wooden box began to emerge.

With a thought, Taro guided the small wooden box out of the massive chunk of stone, suspending it before him. He extended his palm toward the floating debris and dust, and with a single powerful clap of his hand, *boom!* the fragments disintegrated into fine powder, scattering into the air.

Taro's expression grew complicated. With a slight pinch of his fingers, he crushed the small metal lock on the wooden box.

*Click.*

He opened the box.