A month had passed since Tundra's advisor, Sorbet, had been killed, and it had taken a toll on Tundra. He wasn't used to doing this much work. Initially, Sorbet had wanted to gradually give him more and more responsibility before having Tundra take over all of the duties.
Tundra knew he needed a new advisor, but who was capable enough for the job? Not Kukki, not Cherry. Shitaki could be a candidate, but he wasn't good enough.
Eventually, Tundra settled on Shitaki. To be fair, he only really knew three people, and Shitaki was the best suited out of the bunch — not as a true advisor, no, but as someone to help take half the load off him before he could steadily reintroduce the rest.
Shitaki celebrated day and night — until all of the partying abruptly ended when Tundra slammed a stack of books and notes onto his private desk, tasking him with learning all of it by the end of the next week.
But this didn't make Shitaki give up. No, he would never give up this opportunity. So for the next fortnight, he studied the contents of the books: Economist by Trade, The Era of King Cold, and How to Effectively Rule for Dummies — books that outlined what Shitaki absolutely needed to know — along with a few notes from Tundra himself so their processes would not differ too greatly.
Another day passed, and the ship reached its intended target — a new group of space pirates that had attacked Tundra Force ships.
At first, Tundra had sent out a fleet of soldiers after them, but for some reason he had lost all contact with them as soon as they reached the target. It wouldn't take long for him to find out why.
One of the pirates flew out of their ship — a young-looking woman with green hair and blue skin, seemingly unbothered by the vacuum of space — and smashed a hole into Tundra's ship, immediately sucking one of the soldiers out into space.
Tundra flew over to the breach and sealed it with his ki, willing the dark energy to remain solid. The pirate on the other side looked surprised and tried to punch more holes into the hull, only to find a force field blocking her strikes.
Tundra then flew into space, grabbed her by the head, and hurled her back into her own ship, flying straight through it and knocking her unconscious.
Several more pirates flew out, clearly far stronger than the previous one. It was a good thing Tundra had brought a high-end scouter with him to record the battle.
Powering it on and scanning the group, he found something shocking. The strongest among them had a power level of one million. That was practically unheard of in the galaxy — excluding Tundra's royal line, of course.
Tundra smiled. They were still well within the range of insects to him. All he did was fire a small ki beam through one of them.
Seeing the beam pierce his comrade, the strongest pirate immediately rushed to the wounded. But instead of uselessly attempting to treat the injury, he placed a hand on the dying pirate's chest, fusing him into himself. Then he rushed to the others and did the same.
The pirate's muscles bulged, and his skin shifted from dark blue to deep violet as he absorbed more of his own kind — some willing, some not. By the end of it, the monstrous man had grown greatly in size and power.
The scouter exploded the moment the pirate absorbed the first of his kin. Tundra had not expected that and was momentarily shocked — just before the hulking pirate rushed toward him.
Tundra quickly moved out of the way.
But something was strange. He was certain he had moved — yet the pirate grabbed him from the position he had occupied earlier and kneed him in the stomach before grabbing his leg and tearing it off with a shout, then throwing him away.
The brute seemed mindless.
Tundra was in shock. It hurt. It actually hurt. He hadn't expected it to — not from the amount of ki the pirate had displayed, and it made him angry, how dare a mere pirate harm his body? But he had to calm down, at least for now
He focused, forcing himself to recover, regenerating the lost limb while examining the pirate's ki. It fluctuated wildly, and steam rose from his body. The form was clearly unstable.
Tundra regained composure and flew away. He needed a way to defeat him.
The brute reached for him again. This time, Tundra saw exactly what had happened — he had been forcibly teleported to the brute. He didn't understand how it worked, but he needed to escape it.
Fleeing wasn't an option; he could simply be teleported back. He needed to understand the mechanism.
So each time the brute threw him, he did not immediately counterattack. Each time the brute attempted to tear off his limbs, he allowed it, regenerating the damage and flying away again — much to the brute's frustration.
Eventually, as the brute began to tire, Tundra felt the pull on his ki more clearly whenever he was teleported — a sensation he could now attempt to resist.
His resistance began halting the teleportation just short of completion. As the brute grew more exhausted, Tundra was able to dodge every attack and even land a few of his own.
But he did not want the battle to end yet.
He needed to understand exactly how the teleportation worked, and for that, he needed the brute to exhaust himself further.
The more tired the brute became, the more noticeable the technique was. Eventually, Tundra could even sense the ki used to teleport him — and began attempting to replicate it.
The first attempt resulted in the brute not moving at all. The second caused the brute to teleport slightly closer. The attempts continued in this pattern until, finally, Tundra succeeded.
By then, the pirate had reverted to his previous, smaller form.
Tundra teleported him directly into his hand and hurled him through the pirate ship — then teleported him back into his grasp and crushed his head.
Letting the corpse drift through space, Tundra flew back to his ship. A protective shield surrounded it, no doubt activated to protect the crew.
He entered and was greeted by the entire crew.
"Bring me to a healing pod."