This Is My Escape Route

Diavolo felt humiliated.

He had killed so many people, yet never before had anyone remained as calm and composed before him as Li Qing.

It was as if his invincible ability, his supreme authority as the Dark Emperor, had been dismissed with utter disdain.

"Damn it!!"

Since narration and dialogue took no time, Diavolo had not actually paused at all after Time Erasure ended.

At the very first moment, he moved to kill Li Qing, whose health was down to only 12%:

"King Crimson, kill him!"

At that moment, Li Qing's head was only a hair's breadth away from King Crimson's palm.

All King Crimson had to do was squeeze lightly, ever so lightly, and his head would burst like a watermelon accidentally dropped onto the ground, becoming a sticky mass of bright red pulp.

But Li Qing moved even faster.

This was the most crucial moment of his escape plan. He had long prepared to act first:

"Golden Bell Shield!"

In that instant, a translucent barrier glowing faintly appeared around Li Qing.

Like a suddenly inflated giant bubble, it enveloped him from all sides.

This was the second skill he had learned after reaching level 2:

"Golden Bell Shield/Iron Cloth Shirt."

Golden Bell Shield: "Li Qing dashes to the side of an allied target, granting both himself and the target a shield that absorbs a small amount of damage for 2 seconds. For 3 seconds after casting Golden Bell Shield, Li Qing may cast Iron Cloth Shirt."

(Range: 100 meters)

(Cooldown: 12 seconds)

Iron Cloth Shirt: "Li Qing gains 25% life steal for 4 seconds."

Golden Bell Shield was Li Qing's second mobility skill, but there were no "allied targets" beside him right now. Naturally, he could not use this skill to dash away and escape.

So, he could only use Golden Bell Shield to grant himself a somewhat useful shield.

"This..."

"Another new Stand ability?"

Seeing the translucent barrier emerge around Li Qing, Diavolo could not help but feel surprised.

However, just one moment later—

That seemingly powerful, fantastical light membrane shattered.

King Crimson merely increased its strength a little in testing, and easily crushed the troublesome white shield.

"Hahaha."

Diavolo laughed.

"A useless bubble like that thinks it can stop my King Crimson?"

"You underestimate my strength too much, baldy."

He mocked Li Qing freely, but suddenly noticed something was wrong.

No...

That bald man had personally experienced King Crimson's power. If that was all he had up his sleeve, he could not possibly be this calm.

So, was he bluffing, or did he have another trump card?

What ability did he possess that would let him escape certain death before King Crimson?

Diavolo was filled with uncertainty.

And Li Qing immediately gave him an answer he had not expected:

"Echoes Act!"

With a loud shout—

Li Qing shot diagonally into the sky like a rocket launched after ignition.

He flew so fast that even King Crimson found it difficult to catch up.

The Golden Bell Shield around him, which had barely blocked one strike from King Crimson, had also bought him precious time to escape.

Just like that, Li Qing successfully took to the skies.

King Crimson's "range" was only two meters, which meant it could only move within two meters of Diavolo.

Diavolo himself was merely a physically fit mortal. He had no way to stop Li Qing from suddenly soaring into the sky.

"How is that possible..."

"How is that possible!!"

Diavolo was rarely so shocked.

"Why can he fly? Is this another new Stand ability of his?"

"No..."

"This isn't some new Stand ability."

Very quickly, Diavolo noticed something from Li Qing's excessively straight flight path.

"This is his original long-range dash ability, the one he called 'Sonically Enhanced Wave, Echoes Act.'"

"It's just that..."

He carefully recalled the intelligence regarding Li Qing's abilities.

"Doesn't this ability require him to first mark a location with a tracking orb before he can unleash the second-stage high-speed dash?"

"I was clearly on guard against him escaping the entire time..."

"When exactly did that bald man fire the tracking orb?"

"Could it be..."

A flash of realization struck Diavolo. "Was it then?!"

"Hahaha..."

Li Qing, who had not yet flown far away, imitated him and activated 'narration time stop' in midair.

"Diavolo, you guessed right:"

"That Sonically Enhanced Wave you dodged at the start of the battle was my real trump card!"

"Because that Sonically Enhanced Wave was never aimed at you—"

"It was aimed at a seagull perched on a rooftop roughly a hundred meters behind you!"

"I had already locked onto that seagull with Sonically Enhanced Wave. I was just waiting for it to fly higher and farther away, so it could carry me into the sky and help me escape."

"As for the later pistol ambush and the light shield protecting my body, those were all just distractions."

"I never expected the ambush to succeed, nor did I expect Golden Bell Shield to keep me safe. I only wanted to use those little tricks to divert your attention and make you think I'd already revealed all my trump cards!"

King Crimson was incredibly fast.

The only ability Li Qing possessed that could rival that speed was the second-stage dash of Echoes Act.

But the dangerous part was that his frail body simply could not withstand King Crimson's rapid iron fists.

So, not only did he need Sonically Enhanced Wave to pinpoint his target accurately, he also had to do everything he could to lower Diavolo's guard.

Fortunately, Li Qing had succeeded.

He had perfectly played the role of a man struggling desperately at the end of the road, using one little trick after another to make Diavolo relax his already limited vigilance.

"Damn it."

Hearing this, Diavolo's expression had already become somewhat twisted.

"I actually failed to see a future like this!"

The ability to foresee the future sounded invincible, but it actually had its limitations.

First, Diavolo's "Epitaph" could only read the future ten seconds ahead.

Second, as a Stand with an E in persistence, King Crimson's overbearing future-prediction ability could not be used continuously without limit.

There would always be a brief stretch of future that could not be predicted between two activations of Epitaph.

Finally, and most importantly, his "Epitaph" was like watching a movie. It could only show him "partial scenes" of the future centered on himself, viewed from a third-person perspective.

The information contained within a single scene was extremely limited, and could even easily mislead the observer.

So, when Diavolo had activated his ability earlier—

He had only seen Li Qing attack him with Sonically Enhanced Wave. He had not seen the Sonically Enhanced Wave orb fly past his head and strike a seagull over a hundred meters away.

"Damn it, damn it."

"My King Crimson's invincible Stand ability was actually cracked by that bald man through sheer dumb luck?!"

Diavolo was beside himself with rage, but there was nothing he could do.

At that moment, he could only watch helplessly as Li Qing used a seagull as a tracking coordinate and flew higher and higher into the sky.

Li Qing's escape was already a fact. Even his invincible ability, Time Erasure, could not stop it.

"Hahahaha."

Diavolo stood rooted to the ground, hopping mad with fury, while Li Qing, flying farther and farther away in the sky, continued adding fuel to the flames:

"Didn't expect that, did you—"

"This is my escape route, Diavolo!"