Chapter 9 - Chapter:9

Empty your stones or else 🔫

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The command room fell silent after the transmission ended, the last flicker of Vegeta's forced bow fading from the holo-screen. Frieza sat motionless, eyes half-lidded, tail swaying with a slow, predatory rhythm. The empire felt different already—lighter, cleaner, like the air after a wildfire had burned away rot.

King Cold was gone.

The old rules were gone with him.

Now only Frieza's order mattered.

A soft chime echoed through the room.

"Lord Frieza," a soldier announced from behind the doors, voice steady but careful. "The empire's regional governors await your directives. Many request an audience. Others… object to your ascendance."

Frieza didn't turn. "Objections?"

"Yes, my Lord. Several warlords claim… King Cold's death left a power vacuum."

A thin smile cut across Frieza's face.

"Then let us fill it with corpses."

He rose, cape sliding behind him like a shadow unspooling from a nightmare. His boots clicked once, twice, each step a death sentence preparing itself.

"Bring the holographic projector online," he said. "I will address my empire."

The soldier snapped a salute. "At once, Emperor."

The command deck lights dimmed.

The projector flared to life.

Within seconds, the faces of dozens of planetary leaders shimmered into view—screens filled with scaled, horned, furred, and armored silhouettes. Some bowed immediately. Others hesitated. A few glared with open hostility.

Frieza inhaled once and let the silence stretch until it carved tension into bone.

"My loyal subjects," he began, voice soft as silk, sharp as broken ice. "And my disloyal ones."

Several governors froze.

"I bring you news. King Cold… has retired."

A few swallowed. A few understood the euphemism instantly.

"And with his retirement comes a new era. My era. One of conquest without hesitation. Growth without compassion. Compliance without flaw."

A hulking reptilian general dared to speak. "Lord Frieza," he rumbled, "tradition states the throne belongs to—"

Frieza lifted a single finger.

The general's transmission screen exploded into static as his skull vaporized on the other end of the galaxy.

Gasps erupted. Screens shook. Someone dropped to their knees.

Frieza lowered his hand with surgical calm.

"Anyone else wish to quote tradition at me?"

Silence.

Sweet, trembling silence.

"Good. Now listen carefully."

His tail wrapped around the arm of his throne like a serpent choking prey.

"Within one month, the Cold Empire will be fully reorganized under my banner. Every planet, every garrison, every laboratory will answer directly to me. Resistance will be met with extinction. Compliance will be rewarded with survival."

He leaned in, crimson eyes glinting like fresh wounds.

"And for those of you harboring illusions of rebellion—let me offer clarity."

He lifted his palm.

A miniature hologram of a star appeared above it.

Then he crushed it.

The room flickered with a shockwave of collapsing data—the visual of an entire solar system imploding in his hand.

"Any questions?"

There were none.

"Excellent," Frieza said. "Now leave my sight."

One by one, screens blinked out until the room returned to darkness.

Only Frieza's laugh remained—low, slow, a terrible promise echoing through metal corridors like a ghost dragging chains.

---

Far across the galaxy, in a dusty Saiyan outpost carved into the remains of a ruined planet, Raditz sprinted across the hangar. His heart punched his ribs with every step. The emergency pod loomed ahead, hissing with pressure, lights blinking like impatient eyes.

Vegeta stood waiting, arms crossed, expression unreadable.

"Two years," Vegeta muttered. "In that cramped tin can. Alone. You better not embarrass the Saiyan race, Raditz."

Raditz bowed deep. "I will retrieve Kakarot. Even if I must drag him by his tail."

Vegeta's scowl deepened.

Raditz froze.

"…oh."

"Just go," Vegeta snapped.

Raditz climbed into the pod.

The hatch sealed shut.

Engines whined.

Then with a violent burst of force, the emergency pod rocketed into the endless dark—tiny, insignificant, yet carrying the first domino in a chain reaction that would rip universes open.

---

Back in his throne room, Frieza leaned back, savoring the quiet, letting the future settle into place like the final piece of a loaded weapon.

"Two years," he whispered.

until Goku learned what fear truly was.

until the canon snapped into alignment.

until Frieza arrived to break it all with his own hands.

The empire trembled.

The universe tightened.

And far away, Raditz hurtled toward Earth in a metal coffin.

Frieza closed his eyes, let the cold wash over him, and smiled.

Everything was exactly where he wanted it.

As for how Frieza destroyed that governor's planet during the hologram call.

Frieza didn't need to lift a finger to the stars anymore—not physically.

Not when the entire empire's infrastructure had been rewired at his command.

The moment he raised his hand during the meeting, when that little holographic sun appeared above his palm, every governor thought it was just theater—a threat, a symbol.

It wasn't.

That star he crushed wasn't a metaphor.

It was the live feed of a remote hyperspace cannon aimed directly at the general's home system.

A weapon King Cold built.

A weapon Frieza perfected.

A weapon only he could activate.

Cold's version needed five minutes to charge.

Frieza's needed five seconds.

Earlier that same morning—before the scientist pissed himself and died—Frieza had secretly ordered his loyal recovered soldier to reroute the cannon's targeting core.

Coordinates locked.

Failsafes removed.

Authentication set only to Frieza's ki signature.

So when Frieza held out his hand…

When he curled his fingers…

When he crushed the hologram star between them…

The cannon fired across light-years.

It didn't shoot beams.

It didn't vaporize planets.

It detonated the star at the center of the general's system.

One tiny collapse.

One instantaneous implosion.

One shockwave that devoured everything—moons, planets, fleets, colonies—before any of them understood they had been sentenced.

The general's skull erupted on screen because the supernova ripped space apart the exact moment he tried to finish his sentence.

No theatrics.

No bluff.

No

"Frieza pointing a finger and magically blowing things up across galaxies."

He planned it hours beforehand.

He timed it to the second.

He weaponized the exact moment he wanted to make a point.

That is how he crushed an entire solar system in the palm of his hand during a conference call.

It wasn't luck.

It was execution.

Calculated.

Cold.

Perfect.

Frieza leaned back in his chair, letting the aftermath settle in his mind.

A whole solar system erased—wiped clean in an instant—yet the only thing he felt was mild annoyance.

It was a pity, truly.

The mortal count in this universe was already embarrassingly low, a thin scattering of life clinging to cold rocks and dying stars. The last thing he needed was fewer subjects to rule.

But weakness had a price.

And King Cold's old loyalists would never have bowed without watching one of their own be turned into cosmic dust.

A necessary sacrifice, he decided.

A message carved into the fabric of space itself: rebellion isn't brave—it's suicide.

He remembered the original version of the cannon, the one Cold boasted about endlessly in their training.

A cumbersome relic that required a "staggering" amount of ki to fire—billions of units, days of charging, a full power donation from King Cold himself.

To Frieza, that amount was pocket change.

Nothing more than brushing lint off his cape.

Cold once nearly passed out powering the thing, acting like he had moved a mountain.

Frieza powered it with a sigh.

He smirked. Convenient hardly covered it.

A planet-breaking weapon meant he didn't have to dirty his hands, didn't have to travel, didn't have to waste even a second on trash pretending to be threats.

Let them scream across the galaxy.

Let them swear loyalty or tremble in private.

He didn't care. The weapon kept the gears turning while he refined himself.

Still… he wasn't delusional.

He knew the limits.

Against a truly strong opponent, the cannon was nothing.

Something like Beerus would dodge the beam, tap the barrel once, and the entire mechanism would implode like a wet pastry.

Even beings below Beerus—Jiren, Broly, hell, even a full-powered Goku down the line—wouldn't bother acknowledging it.

They'd walk right through it.

But against planets?

Against empires built on numbers rather than gods?

It was perfect.

A tool for sweeping filth.

Not for war against the divine.

Frieza's tail flicked once behind him, a slow arc of cold satisfaction.

He had erased a system not because it was powerful—but because it was loyal to the wrong king.

Cold's shadow had stretched long across the empire.

Today, Frieza cut it cleanly in half.

And this universe, small and trembling as it was, would learn the truth:

There is no throne beside his.

Not anymore.