Erased Time

Diavolo did not move.

He was waiting, waiting for Li Qing to bring out his final trump card just as he had foreseen.

Then, at the most tense, most critical moment—when Li Qing was closest to success—he would strike and snuff out Li Qing's last hope in one blow.

The life of an invincible man was just this dull and tedious.

Li Qing had no idea what Diavolo was thinking. He merely muttered nonsense in front of him:

"Sir, my dear Mr. Diavolo, please show mercy."

"I swear before the Virgin Mary that I only stumbled in here by accident today. I bear no ill will toward you or your organization."

"Besides, you can trust me. I really know how to keep my mouth shut—"

"That girl across the building never liked wearing clothes at home during the summer. I watched her through binoculars for an entire summer and never told anyone."

"Aunt Liu next door likes kissing her dog. She'll never know that her dog eats shit around the neighborhood every afternoon."

"Oh, right, and—"

"And Old Wang from apartment 303 downstairs. I never reported him to property management for disturbing the neighbors with Mrs. Chen from apartment 304 downstairs."

Heh heh.

Was he saying all this nonsense to make me let down my guard?

How boring.

Diavolo said nothing. He merely counted the seconds silently in his heart:

One second, two seconds, three seconds. The eighth second had arrived.

Just as Diavolo had foreseen with "Epitaph," Li Qing seemed to think the timing was right—he abruptly stopped his ear-grating chatter and swung his fist toward where Diavolo's real body stood:

"Sonically Enhanced Wave!"

At that instant, a dazzling white sphere of light appeared around Li Qing's fist.

The glowing sphere enveloped his fist and concealed his hand, then flew from it with a howl at the height of its brilliance.

"Heh heh."

Diavolo sneered, tilted his head slightly, and easily dodged the tracking sphere's attack.

The Sonically Enhanced Wave brushed past Diavolo's head, then vanished uselessly into the air behind him.

Almost at the same moment, King Crimson struck back.

It tensed its bizarre arm covered in red-and-white patterns and slashed down with a hand chop capable of splitting mountains.

The next instant, King Crimson tore through Li Qing's shoulder and sliced across his chest with its hand chop as easily as a hot knife through butter.

Thanks to his digitized ability that ignored the rules of reality, Li Qing's torn flesh instantly healed as though he had never been injured.

However, his health plummeted from over half to 12%, like a stock just bought by an A-share market sucker taking a nosedive.

Twelve percent. To put it dramatically—

King Crimson could probably kill him with a sneeze right now.

Yet Li Qing's gaze instead became sharper:

The instant the sphere of Sonically Enhanced Wave left his hand, a gun suddenly appeared in it as though by magic.

He was still too weak to win in close combat. He had to rely on the power of firearms to fight back.

But King Crimson was extremely fast, so its dynamic vision could not possibly be poor.

If Li Qing directly raised his gun and aimed, he probably would not even have time to lift his arm before the enemy noticed his movement.

At that point, forget shooting someone dead. King Crimson would likely break the hand holding his gun.

Firing directly would never work.

So Li Qing chose to use Sonically Enhanced Wave as a distraction.

While pretending to ramble just now, he had secretly gripped the gun in his hand.

Then, Li Qing used the white glow of Sonically Enhanced Wave to envelop his hand, perfectly concealing the firearm clenched within it.

Diavolo could not see the gun in his hand. He could only see the white light flying toward him, and by the time he dodged the tracking sphere of Sonically Enhanced Wave and turned his attention back to Li Qing—

Li Qing had already used that opportunity to complete the crucial action of raising his gun and aiming.

All he had to do next was gently pull the trigger, and a supersonic bullet would blast through Diavolo's head.

"You shouldn't have underestimated me, Diavolo!"

Seizing that fleeting instant, Li Qing fired his desperate shot at Diavolo.

A flash of fire burst forth, thunder roared, and the bullet left the barrel.

King Crimson was fast, but not fast enough to catch bullets with its hands.

Not to mention that this powerful Stand had just moved in to slash Li Qing with a hand chop. It had no time to turn back and shield its master from the shot.

Diavolo seemed about to lose.

But—

"Muda muda!"

Diavolo laughed wildly. "All your tricks are useless!"

"Now."

The flash from the muzzle reflected in his pupils, making him look like an emperor with domineering flames burning in his eyes:

"Time shall begin engraving itself once more—"

"King Crimson!"

At that moment, Diavolo erased time.

This time, he still erased only a brief five seconds.

But the instant he entered the state of Time Erasure, he transcended the restraints of reality's rules and became an invincible existence independent of the timeline.

The first second:

The bullet passed through his insubstantial body, which existed outside the timeline, and caused no harm whatsoever.

The second second:

Li Qing was in an unconscious, frozen state.

He gripped the gun tightly and stared straight ahead, seemingly trying to confirm Diavolo's death.

Of course, Li Qing, whose time had been erased, could not see that Diavolo had not only passed through the bullet unscathed, but had also calmly taken two steps forward against its path.

The third second:

Li Qing unconsciously fired his second and third bullets.

Those bullets still passed uselessly through Diavolo's body, but Li Qing noticed nothing.

At the same time, Diavolo reached out and calmly took the gun from Li Qing's hand.

The fourth second:

Diavolo removed the gun's magazine.

Then, out of sheer malicious amusement, he painstakingly stuffed the empty gun, which was now no more than a toy, back into Li Qing's hand.

At the same time, he ordered his Stand, King Crimson, to adjust its movements and seize Li Qing's head in its palm in advance.

The fifth second:

Diavolo did nothing.

He simply watched Li Qing in silence, watched the ridiculous expression on his face as he still believed his counterattack had succeeded, and eagerly awaited his comical reaction when he realized something was wrong in the next second.

At last, the state of Time Erasure ended, and the timeline returned to normal.

"Huh?!"

Li Qing instinctively froze.

In Digitization Mode, he was blind. He could not look at a watch to count seconds, nor could he use dripping blood to keep time. Logically, he should have had no way to notice that Diavolo had activated Time Erasure.

However, he possessed extraordinarily sharp senses.

To Li Qing, the "sound-wave environment" he perceived each second was different.

Thus, the instant Time Erasure ended, Li Qing immediately sensed the change in auditory information:

"One second ago," he had been holding a gun and blasting Diavolo's head apart.

"The next second."

The gun had no bullets left, and pulling the trigger produced only dry clicking sounds.

Diavolo was alive and well, his face full of mockery.

King Crimson was gently stroking his perfectly bald head as though it were polishing walnuts.

"Time Erasure."

"He used Time Erasure again!"

Li Qing instantly understood the situation, and then—

Then came Diavolo's time to explain:

"Ha ha ha—"

"Well? Surprised?"

Diavolo laughed wantonly:

"While you were thrilled by your little cleverness, I, Diavolo, had already erased the time during which your 'counterattack succeeded'!"

"The original time has been erased. All that remains is the result I altered!"

"Only results will remain in this world!"

"And what you are witnessing and touching now is the future you. It is the future you seen by the you from several seconds in the future."

"This is the ability of my King Crimson!"

Standing on one leg, fists clenched and chest thrust back, he spoke to Li Qing with all the over-the-top flair of JoJo:

"Li Qing!"

"A completely ordinary Stand ability like yours can never defeat me, Diavolo!"

"Oh."

Li Qing replied coolly.

His expression was like that of an inn clerk watching a guest painstakingly lay out nine copper coins on the counter. Rather than feeling nervous or taking it seriously, he was so delighted he nearly laughed aloud.

"You're not afraid?!"

Diavolo sensed that something was wrong.

"When have I ever been afraid?"

Li Qing smiled calmly.

"I am a little nervous. After all, your power is simply too strong."

"But thanks to your arrogance."

"I survived."

PS: A possible point of contention, quoted from Moegirlpedia:

If one assumes that Diavolo cannot attack during time "skip," but can move people and objects, then certain possible logical bugs in the original work become easier to understand.

1. Trish was abducted after her hand was severed: While Bucciarati was watching the elevator's floor indicator, Diavolo secretly damaged the elevator and entered it. The instant he severed Trish's hand, he activated time "skip," then took Trish away during that interval.

2. Before Diavolo's true face could be seen by a janitor, he activated time "skip." During that period, he cleaned up, arranged the items, and escaped by jumping out the window.

3. After killing the fortune teller in the urban district of Sardinia, Diavolo was nearly discovered by a child, so he hurriedly activated time "skip." During that period, he hid the fortune teller's corpse and bloodstains, then took a taxi away.

4. Narancia was forcibly killed: Diavolo cut through the iron railing and threw Narancia, who had just raised a death flag, into the air. At that instant, he activated time "skip" and "erasure," hiding himself and waiting for the "result" to be achieved during that interval.