A Spacious Sidewalk

Inside the car.

Li Qing and the others were horrified to discover that they had stumbled into a living hell.

Pale green downy fur spread in all directions, scarlet bodily fluids flowed all over the ground, and screams and groans were heard incessantly, interspersed with many heartbreaking sobs of helplessness.

"These guys." Bucciarati's eyes blazed with fury.

"Indeed," Giorno's blond hair moved without wind.

"Enraged." Abbacchio and Narancia's faces were ashen.

"It's my turn!" Even the most cowardly Fugo and the youngest Mista couldn't help but let out an angry roar.

For them, Naples is their home.

They are familiar with every street here, and every nook and cranny holds their past memories.

And now, this hometown, which is famous worldwide for its beauty, has been ravaged into this state.

"They must be killed!"

Everyone reached a consensus.

"Li Qing."

Everyone turned their attention to the human radar in the team. "Find the enemy's whereabouts as soon as possible."

"Must."

Li Qing was equally outraged by this inhumane scene.

He closed his eyes tightly, concentrated his mind, and focused intently on perceiving all the sounds around him.

During this brief search, Giorno and his companions also seized the time to study the characteristics of those deadly fungi:

"True fungi should be spread through the air and can also absorb nutrients from flesh and blood to rapidly multiply and expand."

"Damn it."

Despite the excruciating pain of his feet being eaten away by fungi, Fugo gritted his teeth and said:

"This is not something that would exist in nature at all; it is the Stand ability of an enemy."

"If we don't find the enemy's main body quickly, we might be eaten up by the fungus before we can kill him!"

"That's right."

Giorno nodded, but quickly pointed out a detail that everyone had overlooked:

"However, have you noticed?"

"The fungal flora on our bodies multiplies more slowly than the fungus on Fugo's body?"

"Fugo's feet were devoured in seconds, while the bacteria on our bodies were still just a tiny bit."

"And the pedestrians on the street just now."

"I saw a driver who was still almost unharmed in his car, but after he got out and took a few steps, his legs were completely eaten off."

"Why is there such a large difference in the rate of fungal proliferation?"

"Why is that?"

Everyone fell into deep thought, and no one could answer the question.

Giorno had a sudden inspiration and immediately said to Fugo, "Fugo, try raising your foot a little higher."

"Um?"

Fugo was puzzled, but he still followed Giorno's instructions and slightly lifted his feet, which were almost completely eaten away by fungi.

It was just a slight lift.

The pale green fungal carpet, which had been rapidly multiplying at a rate visible to the naked eye, stopped expanding.

"Why is that?"

Fugo's eyes widened.

Just as he was puzzled, Giorno pressed down on his knees again, pushing his raised legs down.

"Ahhh!"

Fugo let out a piercing scream.

Although the sense of pain has become abnormally dulled due to fungal erosion, it can still be seen with the naked eye:

He simply lowered his leg slightly, and the green fungal carpet that had been clinging to his ankles spread rapidly up his calves like a surging tide.

In just a short moment, his calves were almost completely eaten away by the fungi.

"Just as I thought."

After conducting some minor experiments using Fugo's leg, Giorno arrived at his answer.

He ignored Fugo's deeply resentful gaze and calmly stated:

These fungi can sense the 'elevation' of a location.

"I once saw it in a miscellaneous book."

"It says that some fungi are always trying to move to 'lower places,' but they can't walk on their own."

"Therefore, they first parasitize insects, and when the insects move to 'lower places,' the fungi begin to multiply and kill the host!"

"This is how the so-called Cordyceps sinensis is born."

"The reason why Fugo's feet were eaten off so quickly was because he was moving his limbs up and down, which activated the fungus's ability to reproduce."

"I see."

After hearing this, Fugo, being a top student, immediately realized what was going on:

"Because of this inherent tendency, the host will only develop the disease and die after moving to a 'lower' location."

"And it is precisely through this that fungi, riding on mobile hosts, continuously expand their range of infection to more and more distant places."

Diseases that can cause death in a short period of time are less likely to become infectious diseases that people fear.

Viruses with incubation periods are the real demons that are difficult for humanity to stop.

At this very moment, this carnivorous fungus spreading throughout the city is precisely such a lurking killer.

"But it is ultimately just instinct."

"As long as we remember to move from the 'lower ground' to the 'higher ground,' we can curb the growth of fungi and slow down their erosion of the body."

Fugo explained as he struggled to lift his leg.

After raising my leg a little higher, the carnivorous fungi did indeed quickly subside.

At this time...

Li Qing suddenly opened his eyes and gave everyone the information they wanted:

"Found it!"

"I just carefully sensed all the sounds within a few kilometers of this area."

"Although the sounds from afar are difficult to distinguish clearly, the location of the screams makes it clear."

"The infection range of this fungus is as wide as two or three kilometers!"

At this point, he clenched his Riot Games tightly:

"And within this circle of death, which is several kilometers in diameter, screams could be heard continuously from the outer ring, indicating that those people had only recently been infected and were not yet all dead."

"But there was no sound at all in that inner circle."

"The people there had long been killed by the fungus. There were no screams or wails; it was as quiet as the dead of night."

This fungal outbreak clearly spread from the center of that enemy Stand User.

In other words

The center of that circle of death is where the enemy's true form is located.

"There are no living people left in the inner circle of that 'center'."

"But in that desolate wasteland, I heard a voice."

Li Qing stretched out his hand and pointed to a small black dot in the distant sky:

"That's a helicopter."

"Our enemy is on that helicopter!"

Everyone turned their gaze to the distant sky.

Fueled by burning rage, Mista slammed on the gas pedal.

"Etc."

"Don't drive on flat ground."

Giorno promptly instructed, "The fungus on our bodies has already begun to spread."

"Although the speed is still relatively slow, they will probably be able to tear us apart and make us unable to move before we even reach the enemy."

"Ah?"

Mista asked somewhat flusteredly, "What should we do? Should we evacuate first?"

"No."

"Every second we delay, countless innocent people will die."

"Keep driving forward, but please be careful to move the car to 'higher ground'."

"Just like Fugo's raised foot, by raising the height just a little bit, the fungus can temporarily stop spreading."

Giorno offered this suggestion.

But Mista was still completely baffled:

"The roads around here are all flat, how am I supposed to drive my car uphill?"

"Don't even mention raising it a little, you can't even raise it by one centimeter."

"This."

Giorno looked out the window:

Along the flat roadside, there is a sidewalk that is about ten centimeters higher than the road surface.

On the sidewalk.

The pedestrians were long gone, leaving only rotting corpses.

"Well"

Giorno sighed deeply, a hint of reluctance flickering in his emerald eyes:

"Go ahead, the sidewalk is quite spacious."

PS: Substitute panel.

Stand name: "Green Day"

Body—— Chocola

Destructive power: A

Speed: C

Range: A

Endurance: A

Motion precision: E

Growth potential: A

Ability: A Stand that attacks indiscriminately over a wide area.

It emits carnivorous fungi, which spread through the corpse and can expand indefinitely.

Because it causes the human body to decompose as it descends to lower places, the only way to avoid mold growth is to constantly move to higher places.