Cloud Dragon

His sleeve began to writhe. Giorno looked down, and a pen was tossed out.

Then a crimson palm slowly emerged, its fingers waving in the air as they gradually devoured Giorno's flesh.

"Golden Experience!"

Giorno summoned Golden Experience, only to discover in horror that its arms were riddled with holes, making any effective attack impossible.

"Giorno, move!"

Mista drew his revolver and emptied the magazine, severing Giorno's arm before it could be devoured. But the next second, Mista fell backward, blood spraying from his body.

Sex Pistols, which had flown out alongside the bullets, had been attacked by Notorious Big. As it was gradually devoured, the Stand grew a little larger.

Fortunately, a few of the Sex Pistols hadn't touched Notorious Big. Otherwise, Mista would have been as good as dead.

"Mista!"

The gunshots drew everyone's attention. Narancia, furious and alarmed, immediately summoned Aerosmith and fired at Notorious Big on the ground.

The bullets were fast, but Notorious Big was faster. It extended a mass of tentacles to catch them, quickly devoured them, then seized Aerosmith in the blink of an eye.

Pfft!

Narancia spat blood and collapsed. In a single exchange, two members of Bucciarati's team had been taken out of the fight, and Giorno had even lost an arm.

Dawn stubbed out his cigarette and slowly rose to his feet. Metal Dragon flew behind him as he walked toward them, one step at a time.

[Stand: Beyond Imagination: Emperor Engine]

An immense pressure swept over them. Everyone felt a tremendous weight welling up from deep inside.

Clutching his severed arm, Giorno studied the battlefield. He seemed to have noticed something.

Notorious Big briefly stopped moving. With no intelligence of its own, it was barely affected.

After a moment of stillness, it rushed toward Dawn.

"Mr. Dawn, don't move! It only attacks moving objects!"

Relying on his keen battle instincts, Giorno had figured out Notorious Big's mechanism in a short time. He immediately called out a warning.

"I know. I'll send it to the grave right now."

Metal Dragon suddenly grew, its enormous body filling the cabin and crushing the seats out of shape.

Roar!!!

Its spark plugs flashed. A carefully controlled blast of flame slammed into Notorious Big, carbonizing and vaporizing it in an instant.

"Is it over...?"

Bucciarati was still shaken. This time, the enemy had only activated its ability after dying. Caught off guard, it had gravely wounded three members of the team in no time.

"No. It's not over. In fact, its attack has only just begun."

Dawn shook his head. The thunderous sound of a pumping heart still hadn't stopped. If anything, it was growing louder.

Notorious Big was immortal. It could devour any moving matter to grow stronger, and its greed had no end.

Now it was devouring the entire plane. Only a small part of its flesh had made it into the cabin. The outside of the plane was probably covered in those crimson lumps.

The plane's crash was unavoidable.

Dawn could, of course, escape with everyone on Metal Dragon. But considering the possibility of Dragon Tamer evolving, he chose to keep intensifying the pressure of Emperor Engine.

The immense pressure made it increasingly difficult for everyone to breathe. Trish, the only ordinary person among them, felt the discomfort most strongly.

"Mr. Dawn?"

Giorno hesitantly spoke up. This indiscriminate pressure would limit everyone's ability to fight, but he didn't know what else he could say.

Mr. Dawn was rarely this cautious. Their current enemy was probably extremely troublesome.

Trish, among the group, felt waves of pressure pouring from Dawn. She had to change somehow, or she would surely be crushed—even killed!

Her legs went weak, and she nearly fell. She tried to look Dawn in the eye, but her eyes kept blinking rapidly of their own accord, her gaze instinctively shifting away.

Faced with this suffocating pressure, her powerful mental strength reached its limit and surged out like a broken floodgate.

As Diavolo's daughter, she had always had the potential to awaken a Stand. All she'd lacked was a sense of urgency and a strong enough fixation.

The pressure from Emperor Engine made everything fall into place, allowing Trish to awaken her Stand just as she had in the original story. She gained the power to soften any object.

From then on, sharp attacks would no longer work against her.

Dawn sensed Trish's awakening and immediately withdrew Emperor Engine.

With the power to soften objects, there was little need to worry about Bucciarati's team's safety after the plane crashed.

Next came his fight.

"Bucciarati, open a zipper to the outside. I'm going to take this thing on."

Bucciarati hesitated. Dawn urged him, "Its main body is eating the plane. If we don't deal with it, we'll all die."

Hearing this, Bucciarati hesitated no longer. He summoned his Stand and punched the floor.

"Sticky Fingers!"

Metal Dragon suddenly shrank, coiling around Dawn as it slipped through the zipper and out of the plane. In an instant, fierce winds swept over them, and clouds shrouded the area.

A gigantic crimson monster was greedily draining energy from the plane's engines, growing larger by the second.

"I've been waiting for you."

Metal Dragon grew with the wind, becoming a dragon more than twenty meters long. Dawn gripped its horns with both hands, his clothes snapping in the gale.

"Blast it!"

Roar!!!

A pillar of fire battered Notorious Big. The air filled with the sizzling sound of frying meat, and it howled in pain.

Following the rules of Stands, Notorious Big swung a thick tentacle at them. Metal Dragon didn't dodge. It lashed out with its steel tail, and the two collided.

Bang!

The tentacle clung tightly to Metal Dragon's tail. Because it was hollow, Metal Dragon's tail was soon devoured. An uneasy growl rumbled in its throat.

"Don't be afraid. Fly upward— as high as you can."

Dawn stroked Metal Dragon's horns. It whimpered, then swam through the air toward the sky, the enormous crimson monster dangling from its tail. It was clearly struggling.

Notorious Big had been drawn away by Dawn, but the plane was still under too much strain and plunged toward the sea.

Dawn paid it little attention. He glanced back once, then turned his gaze upward. Higher and higher, without stopping.

The crimson flesh was about to cover Metal Dragon's entire body, but it continued to obey Dawn's commands, burning through its last bit of strength to climb.

At last, they reached an unprecedented height.

Dawn found it difficult to breathe. Ice crystals covered his body, and the air at this altitude was bitterly cold and thin.

"Now!"

Dawn canceled Dragon Tamer's ability. Before Metal Dragon could be completely devoured, it dispersed into specks of light.

The man and the monster hung in the air for a brief moment, then began to fall.

[Stand: Beyond Imagination: Dragon Tamer]

Dawn brought his hands together in prayer, then spread them apart. A brand-new Dragon Egg appeared, though the dragon's shadow inside looked listless and could barely be bothered to swim.

This was the side effect of using Dragon Tamer repeatedly.

It would take longer to absorb nutrients, but there was more than enough time.

Dawn released the Dragon Egg, letting it fall alongside him. As they descended, the egg absorbed large amounts of ice crystals and water vapor, temporarily forming a hollow area.

The hollow area grew larger. Scales made of mist and ice crystals gradually appeared on the Dragon Egg's surface, and the dragon's shadow inside grew more active, trying to break free.

"Wait a little longer."

Dawn reassured it. "Just a little longer."

The sensation of falling was terrifying, especially with a gigantic crimson monster beneath him, thrashing its tentacles as it tried to devour him alive.

"Now!"

The Dragon Egg broke open. A blackish mist emerged, and amid a deafening dragon's roar, a colossal figure slowly swam across the sky.

Dawn's pupils shrank slightly. It was that huge?!

How much cloud could a thousand kilograms of water make?

Dawn had never known before, but now he understood perfectly.

A thousand kilograms of water could produce roughly one million cubic meters of cloud.

If this cloud had no life, it would be just another ordinary cloud, perhaps an altocumulus, a stratus, or a thundercloud.

But what if it were a living creature shaped like a cloud?

Gathered together, the clouds formed a dragon-shaped being: a terrifying dragon fifty meters in diameter and hundreds of meters long!

This living dragon-shaped creature could freely regulate the mist and ice crystals inside itself by shifting and adjusting its clouds, allowing them to move at high speed within its body.

Given the right conditions, it could even command lightning!

Thunderclouds were clouds too.

The rapidly moving ice crystals would endlessly draw Notorious Big in, turning the cloud dragon into a prison it would never want to leave!

Any enemy swallowed by the cloud dragon would face the most terrifying nightmare imaginable: an immortal monster!