Impact

Squalo's Stand was called Impact. It looked like a shark clad in a hard, keratinous shell.

Unlike King Crimson, which Li Qing had encountered before and whose range was only two meters, this "shark" called Impact was a long-range remote-controlled Stand—it could fight enemies fifty meters away from Squalo's body under his mental control.

While Li Qing cautiously guarded against Squalo's body fifty meters away, the "shark" known as Impact had already used its bizarre Stand ability to silently appear in the puddled water near Li Qing's feet.

At Squalo's command, it finally attacked.

"Hahaha," Squalo secretly laughed to himself.

"An ordinary Stand User would definitely notice Impact at a glance and understand its Stand ability."

"But you..."

"Li Qing, you just had to be blind!"

"Information is the most important thing in Stand battles. You can't even see it, so how could you understand my Stand ability?"

For the sake of an indestructible, data-based body, Li Qing had chosen to sacrifice his eyesight.

His extraordinarily sharp hearing could make up for much of the disadvantage of being blind, but the sheer amount of information an image could convey was ultimately something sound could not replace.

Just like now:

Impact had silently lurked close to Li Qing, openly appearing beneath his feet, yet he had not noticed it at all.

Only when Impact bared its sharp, hard shark teeth and lunged out of the water on the deck did Li Qing belatedly sense the enemy's presence from the fierce current of air stirred up by its attack.

"Something is lunging at me?!"

"A human body couldn't stir up such a small gust of wind, and a human couldn't move that fast."

Though he could not see what was happening, he could still tell from the sound of the moving air:

"That's right."

"This is a Stand attack!"

He instinctively threw himself sideways with all his might, but it was already too late.

The little "shark" called Impact had erupted with such extreme speed that it left afterimages in its wake.

It first shot out of the puddled water on the deck, then, in an instant, bit through Li Qing's throat.

The health displayed on the system interface in Li Qing's mind instantly dropped from 100% to 88%.

He instinctively threw a punch, wanting to blast away the strange Stand that was madly tearing at his throat.

However, in the very next instant.

The enemy Stand that had just been clamped tightly onto his throat vanished without a sound.

It had not dodged, nor had it hidden. It had simply vanished into thin air as if it had evaporated from the world.

Li Qing threw his punch with all his strength, only to strike empty air.

"Where is it? Where did that thing go?"

He tensed his nerves and listened to everything around him as hard as he could.

"S-Sir."

"What are you doing?"

Andrew asked nervously.

Ordinary people could not see Stands, but they could see the bizarre phenomena caused by Stand attacks.

Thus, in poor Andrew's eyes, Li Qing had just looked like a madman who had suddenly lost his mind—

He had first twisted his neck back and lurched backward for no reason, then straightened up as if electrocuted, wearing an eerie expression as though he were battling the air.

"God!"

"I didn't run into a lunatic with a gun, did I?"

Andrew was so nervous that he barely dared to breathe, but Li Qing had no time to care about the hostage's emotions.

He was doing his utmost to analyze every clue that might be useful to the battle from the pitifully little information he had:

"No sound."

"Before that Stand attacked, I heard nothing at all."

"And when I counterattacked with my fist just now, it silently vanished from my senses."

"Could it have the ability to move at high speed?"

"No!"

"As long as a body moves, it will stir the air. As long as the air moves, it will make a faint sound."

"And at this distance, no sound can escape my ears."

"In that case, if its Stand ability isn't 'sound isolation,' then it must be—"

"Teleportation!"

Li Qing quickly reached a judgment and barely managed to deduce the enemy's Stand ability.

But the enemy that had vanished from his senses gave him no chance to catch his breath. Under Squalo's control, Impact soon launched its second attack.

Taking advantage of Li Qing's blindness, Squalo directly controlled Impact to appear from a small puddle right in front of him.

At such close range, and without having detected the enemy's movements beforehand, Li Qing had no way to fight back.

Impact leaped onto Li Qing's thigh and effortlessly tore through his flesh with its sharp, chilling shark teeth.

The wound instantly healed under the rules of his data-based ability, without even a trace of blood seeping out.

But the bright health bar floating above Li Qing's head truly lost more than 10% of its health from that strike.

Before he could react, Impact vanished into thin air again with its bizarre Stand ability, like a mischievous sprite toying with a child.

"Gone again."

"This guy is really crafty."

Li Qing sighed softly.

Including the attack that had hit his throat, a full thirty percent of his health had already been depleted.

And now he was like a heavy, sluggish stone. He could not keep up with the enemy's speed, could not see its movements, could not hear its sounds. The only thing he could do was stand there stupidly and take the beating.

His situation seemed perilous to the extreme. Yet—

After that mild sigh, a smile appeared on Li Qing's face instead.

It was the smile of someone who had seen the moon after the clouds had parted:

"Good. I have a lead now!"

"Judging by the sound of the air it stirred up when attacking, the first place it teleported to was about a dozen centimeters behind me."

"The second time it attacked, it was at my side, roughly several dozen centimeters away."

"And notably, it never appears directly in midair. Every time, it goes through the trouble of jumping up from the deck to attack."

"If the enemy's ability were simply 'teleportation,' why wouldn't it teleport directly onto my body and attack from the closest possible distance?"

"That would give me even less time to react."

"Instead of taking the optimal attack position, it always appears first on the deck at varying distances from me. That means..."

"The enemy's teleportation ability must have a restriction!"

"It most likely needs to use something on the deck, some special terrain, to teleport."

"And that thing is..."

Li Qing cautiously shifted his foot and stepped onto the spot where Impact had appeared moments ago.

Then, from the subtle sensation beneath his foot, he immediately identified what he had stepped on:

"Water!"

"The medium for the enemy's teleportation is water!"

"Then the enemy's Stand ability is..."

After taking two rounds of punishment for nothing, Li Qing had finally made up for the disadvantage of his blindness:

"Using water as a medium, it teleports between one body of water and another!"

P.S. Stand Profile

Stand Name—**Impact**

User—Squalo

Destructive Power: D

Speed: A

Range: B

Durability: A

Precision: A

Growth Potential: C

Ability: It can instantly teleport from "water" to another pool of "water," and can also bite off and transport the part of its target that it attacks.

It is a long-range remote-controlled Stand. Its attack power is not high, but it can at least bite through a human throat.

It cannot teleport into places sealed off by a lid, and its size varies depending on the amount of water.