Ultra Ego Vegeta: How Beerus's God of Destruction Training Made Him Nearly Unbeatable

Anyone who only followed the anime would assume Super Saiyan Blue Evolution was the absolute ceiling for Vegeta. But the Dragon Ball Super story kept going in the manga through the Moro arc and later the Granolah arc, and in that story Vegeta found a level of power he could not have dreamed of: the power of a God of Destruction. I'm going to lay out every reason Ultra Ego Vegeta has never been this dangerous, including some reasons I don't think most people are even considering.

The last time I built one of these videos around Vegeta, it was about Super Saiyan Blue Evolution, the form he used exclusively in the anime. That form was not something Toriyama came up with. It was designed by a Toei Animation staff member for the anime specifically. Since then, the manga kept moving forward, and Vegeta attained something far beyond Blue Evolution: Ultra Ego, developed under Beerus as his teacher.

What Makes Ultra Ego Different From Ultra Instinct

Ultra Instinct is the godly form meant to represent the power of the angels, the state they're in at all times. Ultra Ego could be seen as the God of Destruction version of that, but there are a lot of differences between the two. Vegeta is much more powerful and dangerous after training with Beerus, and that's not only because Vegeta himself got stronger physically. It's because of the new abilities he now has access to and a new understanding of Hakai power.

Even setting Ultra Ego aside, by the time of the Granolah arc Vegeta is already far more powerful than he was during the Tournament of Power, just from training. He trained with the Yardrats during the Moro arc, and he'd spent a huge number of battles and training sessions with Beerus, Whis, and Goku. All of that made him a stronger fighter on its own. Ultra Ego adds a whole other layer of danger on top of that foundation.

Hakai Power Means True Eradication, Not Just Blowing Things Up

Ever since 2013's Battle of Gods, it's been clear that Hakaishin, the gods of destruction, are a dangerous breed. Their job in the god hierarchy is to destroy. The Kaioshin are the gods of creation, the Hakaishin are the gods of destruction, and you need both to balance the universe under the rules of the Dragon Ball multiverse. Vegeta was tapping into a godly power far beyond what Super Saiyan God and Super Saiyan Blue give access to. Those forms tap into god ki, but Hakai ki serves a very specific purpose: destruction in the truest sense. That doesn't mean blowing up a planet, which Vegeta has been able to do since the original Saiyan arc. It means literally eradicating something from existence.

We didn't truly understand how strong Hakaishin are until Dragon Ball Super showed Beerus's confrontation with Arale, who humiliated Vegeta with her gag character powers. I know it's a strange example, and power scaling gag characters is genuinely difficult because they can break the laws of the universe in more ways than one. But in that same episode Beerus erased the ghost of Dr. Mashirito, and that's the real point.

In the regular Dragon Ball world, if you get blown up you simply die and go to the afterlife, where you're judged by King Yemma. Gods of Destruction can erase you from ever having existed with Hakai, which means no resurrection. Presumably the only way to come back from that is the Super Dragon Balls, since they're the most powerful artifacts in Dragon Ball Super and can override the multiverse's own laws. I'm not trying to argue gag characters are as strong as the Super Dragon Balls, I'm just using both examples to illustrate how absolute Hakai power really is.

Why Guilt Is Still Keeping Vegeta Below Beerus

While training Vegeta, Beerus noticed the one thing keeping him from fully grasping Hakai: he needed to let go of his guilt. Vegeta carries a lot of guilt over the innocent people and civilizations he destroyed before his fight with Goku and even after, something he talks about directly on Namek during the Moro arc. He's genuinely a changed man, but to access the maximum power of Hakai you have to treat destruction as necessary, even when it isn't, without remorse.

I want to be clear there isn't enough evidence to suggest Vegeta has overcome Beerus with Ultra Ego, and I don't think he has. Beerus is still more powerful, not just from his experience and presumably centuries of being alive, but because he has truly mastered Hakai. If Vegeta and Beerus fought all out with no rules, Beerus would erase him easily. That said, Vegeta may be creeping up on Beerus's power at some point down the line. We'll see where the story takes that.

Forced Spirit Fission Gives Vegeta Tricks Even Goku May Not Have

Vegeta's new understanding of energy isn't limited to Hakai. During the Moro arc he learned Forced Spirit Fission, letting him manipulate energy in ways maybe even Goku doesn't know how to do. Combined with Hakai power, that makes him incredibly hard to beat. I'm not going to say Vegeta has surpassed Goku, but he now has abilities that would give Goku real trouble, and he might be able to use them together to overcome some of what Ultra Instinct offers. That might be worth its own breakdown at some point.

Why Guilt, Not Weakness, Cost Vegeta the Fight With Granolah

Granolah wished to become the strongest in the universe, and that wish gave him a new understanding of abilities he hadn't had access to before. Both he and Vegeta were essentially rookies at using this new power, but Granolah's wish superseded every mortal in existence. Vegeta's inability to tap into that ultimate top-tier Hakai power that Beerus described comes back to his inability to let go of guilt, and Granolah represented exactly that guilt, being a member of a civilization the Saiyans had destroyed.

That's why Ultra Ego Vegeta didn't beat Granolah. A lot of fans were upset that Granolah beat Vegeta, but if you actually analyze what Beerus said and watch the fight, that's not what happened. Vegeta's own guilt is what stopped him from tapping into the ultimate power he needed to win. I understand fans wanted the win, but this wasn't a case of Vegeta being stopped by someone stronger. His own character growth, his own improvement as a man, is what cost him the fight, since it's hard for anyone who isn't a legitimate God of Destruction to be guiltless about killing unless they're something like a psychopath. To master this power fully, Vegeta will have to let go of that guilt.

Absorbing Punishment Is Ultra Ego's Signature New Ability

Ultra Ego brings other useful abilities too. Tied to Forced Spirit Fission, Vegeta can manipulate energy including the genki used for the Spirit Bomb, which we saw during the Moro arc. Could he convert that kind of energy into Hakai energy? Possibly, though we don't see it demonstrated with that type of energy. We do see it with kinetic and physical energy.

In his Ultra Ego state, Vegeta can absorb physical blows and get stronger from them, one of the most interesting things about that whole arc. You can pummel him and beat him up and he just gets more powerful, his body somehow converting physical punishment into energy. This goes way beyond a Zenkai boost or the near death boosts Saiyans normally get. He can convert energy at will, in real time.

That means to actually beat Vegeta once he masters this, you'd have to avoid physical attacks entirely or find some way to stop that conversion. Vegeta fans should feel good about this, since he's never been fed this well. He's not immortal, but he's never been this hard to beat. His use of Hakai energy isn't as effective as Beerus, more comparable to how Toppo used it in the Tournament of Power, but it still makes him almost unbeatable.

Why Black Frieza Still One-Shotted Him

Black Frieza one-shotted both Ultra Ego Vegeta and Ultra Instinct Goku at the end of the Granolah arc. That happened because he caught them both off guard, his speed and power so far beyond what their eyes and bodies could sense that he landed two direct blows before either could react. If Vegeta doesn't see a hit coming, he can't absorb and convert it. He can still be beaten physically, but you'd need to be fast enough that he never sees the blow coming at all.

Picture that ability in a real fight, boxing, MMA, or otherwise: opponents could hit you all day and you wouldn't feel it, and you'd actually get stronger from it. It reminds me a bit of Absorbing Man from Marvel Comics, maybe not quite as extreme as he's become. There's still a limit, since taking enough hits will eventually drop him, so he has to be careful not to push it too far. This isn't an ability Vegeta has ever had before, and Goku has no idea how to tap into anything like it either.

Ultra Ego Reflects Vegeta's Brawler Roots the Way Ultra Instinct Reflects Goku's

Ultra Instinct is about letting your body move on its own, reacting at speeds beyond light in the context of this kind of manga and anime. It's about not getting hit at all. Ultra Ego flips that completely: it's about getting hit, eating it, and getting stronger from it. That changes Vegeta's whole combat style, but it also fits who he's always been, since he's always been more of a brawler than Goku.

I feel like Ultra Instinct may be more useful in combat overall, but it also fits Goku's character more naturally. Ultra Ego is Vegeta going back to his roots without actually regressing as a person. It takes an aspect of his past, one he somewhat regrets now that he's a better man, and brings it back to the forefront with brand new powers attached. I love that there's that duality, that Toriyama and Toyotaro chose to go back to the beginning to give Vegeta his best and strongest form yet. This is the strongest Vegeta has ever been, and probably the strongest he'll be for quite some time, at least until he fully masters Ultra Ego.