The Stand's Not Needed Anymore

All of this happened almost without warning.

The moment the black toad opened its blood-red mouth to its widest extent, Moody Blues seemed to have been suddenly deleted from this world, disappearing silently from Abbacchio and Bucciarati's sight.

They both felt a blur before their eyes, and a living, breathing humanoid doppelganger vanished just like that.

"What happened?"

Upon seeing such a bizarre sight, Bucciarati instinctively took a step back:

"Abbacchio, are you alright?"

"I'm fine."

A deep sense of astonishment surged rapidly in Abbacchio's pupils:

"But the Moody Blues has completely disappeared!"

This is a truly baffling phenomenon.

There is a mysterious and close connection between the Stand and the user. The injuries suffered by the Stand are fed back to the user in real time, and the user can also confirm the location and status of the Stand through consciousness.

For Stand User, a Stand is like an arm or leg, a kind of "spiritual limb".

And now.

Abbacchio felt like he had returned to the time before he awakened his Stand, and he was completely unaware of his own Moody Blues.

His double was as if he were isolated in another world, completely severing his connection with his original self.

"Could it be..."

As he watched the large, black toad slowly close its mouth, and recalling the mysterious disappearance of Moody Blues, Abbacchio finally deduced some useful information amidst the shock:

"Was the Moody Blues 'swallowed' by that catfish?"

"Once the catfish accumulates three fish-shaped marks on its body, it can make the object 'disappear' from this world!"

Make objects disappear

Bucciarati frowned.

He instinctively realized that this Stand ability was very troublesome for him.

Accumulating three markers will make the object "disappear," which actually means that you absolutely cannot be attacked three times when fighting that black toad.

Otherwise, the fate awaiting him and Steel Chain Fingers would be to disappear from this world without any resistance.

Whether they live or die after they disappear, whether they are directly erased or sent elsewhere, and whether they can reappear in the world after disappearing—all of this is still unpredictable.

"You absolutely must not get close to it."

Bucciarati immediately made a judgment:

"That tongue's attack speed is in no way inferior to that of the Steel Chain Fingers."

"There is simply no way we can get close to the enemy without being attacked more than three times."

He made the right judgment.

The enemy, the boy named Anthony, was clearly well aware of his advantage in close combat.

While Bucciarati and Abbacchio were still reeling from the power of the Stand "King of Rivers," Anthony had already sent his Stand charging toward them.

The three-meter-tall black toad then took off on its two short legs and charged forward with a speed completely disproportionate to its enormous size, uprooting mountains and felling trees.

Because of the previous exchange and probing, the distance between the two sides had long since been reduced to only four or five meters.

The giant toad first took two steps with lightning speed, then its whiskers trembled wildly as it opened its blood-red maw, and a huge, thick, fleshy tongue shot out along with the powerful gust of air.

"So fast!"

Abbacchio was secretly alarmed.

As the primary target of the tongue's attack, he tried his best to back away, but the speed that humans can train has its limits.

He couldn't dodge the lightning-fast, flicking tongue; in this infinitely slowed-down time, he could only watch helplessly as the long, serpentine tongue licked his face.

"Abbacchio!"

In his instinctive tension, Bucciarati called out his companion's name.

The Steel Chain Fingers moved instantly; it was the only thing that could match the speed of that strange tongue.

A blue phantom suddenly appeared in the dim shade of the trees, confronting the rushing red whip head-on.

Bang!

Two high-speed objects collided in mid-air with a crisp, resounding clang.

Abbacchio successfully leaped backward under cover, while the tongue, which was incredibly fast but possessed strength comparable to that of a human, was unsurprisingly knocked away by Steel Chain Fingers' punch in a head-on collision.

The long tongue flew backward at lightning speed, slapping the black toad's own face with a loud crack.

Then it drooped limply from the toad's mouth, looking like a dying ribbonfish.

"Ooh ooh ooh ooh—"

Anthony immediately covered his mouth with a pained expression.

The injuries sustained by the Stand were reflected in the original body. As the "King of Rivers" had his tongue easily knocked away by the Steel Chain Fingers, his tongue also began to swell rapidly in his mouth at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"Ouch! Ouch! That hurts!"

Anthony's tongue was swollen from being hit, and he could barely speak.

Despite this, he still maintained a nonchalant demeanor, slurring his words with a thick tongue:

"Bo is indeed worthy of being called Bokalati."

"Ni's greasiness is indeed very strong."

"But."

As he spoke, Anthony finally managed to make his words somewhat coherent:

"How many more times do you dare to throw a Riot Games at my 'familiar' like that?"

Bucciarati fell silent for a moment.

Although Anthony's current appearance, with his swollen tongue and slurred speech, is quite ridiculous, he is actually right. The one who is truly at a disadvantage now is not the black toad whose tongue has been knocked away, but the seemingly powerful Steel Chain Fingers.

Because the moment the Steel Chain Fingers made contact with the enemy's tongue, that seemingly magical tongue had already branded a complete fish-shaped mark onto the Steel Chain Fingers.

If there were two more of these fish-shaped markers...

No matter how strong the Steel Chain Fingers are, they will vanish into thin air just like the Moody Blues from before.

"What to do?"

"If this continues, I will be the one who loses."

Bucciarati fell into deep thought as he struggled with his decision.

Anthony clearly had no intention of giving his opponent a chance to calm down and think. He didn't even care about his swollen and painful tongue, and instead urged the big black toad to launch another attack.

The long tongue, which had just been beaten and was hanging limply, wriggled and twisted for a moment, then sprang back to life and pounced straight at Bucciarati like a fierce and swift python.

"Steel Chain Fingers!"

In that split second, Bucciarati made a decision.

This time, Steel Chain Fingers didn't attack the tongue head-on. Instead, he unleashed a dazzling blue fist barrage, channeling all his power into the ground:

"Ali Ali Ali Ali Ali!"

A blue zipper opened immediately on the ground.

The solid ground was thus turned into a "hollow backpack," with a large hole opened up under the shadow of the Steel Chain Fingers' fists.

"Go in!"

"This is the only way!"

Bucciarati pulled Abbacchio along and instantly disappeared underground through the open zipper.

The Steel Chain Fingers then burrowed into the underground space it had created, and then casually zipped up the zipper once inside.

The ground was restored, but Bucciarati and Abbacchio had disappeared.

The enormous tongue, swift as the wind, came crashing down, but ultimately struck the ground in vain.

"This"

Anthony's expression was not very good:

He really didn't have any effective means against Bucciarati and his men who had burrowed into the ground.

While "King of Rivers" can swallow any object into its dimension, just like Gold Experience can't turn into the Earth by standing upside down, the actual effects of Stand abilities have their limits.

It can only swallow an object the size of a normal human at most, and it can't possibly dig up an entire patch of ground.

If Anthony wanted to find Bucciarati, who was hiding underground, by digging, he would have to watch this big black toad eat dirt bit by bit all night long.

"No, it's okay."

After a brief moment of embarrassment, Anthony suddenly calmed down:

"I had anticipated that he would adopt this tactic."

"Since he couldn't get close to my main body under the protection of the 'King of Rivers,' he must have been trying to move underground and then burst out from beneath my feet to launch an attack."

"That is indeed a good idea."

"But it won't be that easy to take me down."

After muttering to himself for a while, Anthony gradually developed a confident smile.

Then, he focused intently on the movement beneath his feet, waiting for Bucciarati to emerge from underground so he could launch a counterattack.

But

Three seconds passed, and there was no sound from underground.

Ten seconds passed, and there was no sound from underground.

Twenty seconds is enough time for Stand User to finish a battle and exchange a few sarcastic remarks, but Bucciarati still hasn't appeared.

"Etc."

A hint of hesitation suddenly appeared on Anthony's youthful face:

"These two guys, they didn't just run away like that, did they?"

"Hey, hey."

His voice suddenly became panicked:

Where are you?

"Don't even think about running, all of you, come out here!!"

The park remained quiet at night.

The only answer to Anthony was the soft rustling of the leaves in the night breeze.

"Damn it! Don't run!"

"I still have your stand-in, Moody Blues."

"Don't you want the Moody Blues anymore?!"

"No, I don't want it anymore—"

From the distant woods came the faint, relentless shouts of Abbacchio.

From the already very faint voice, it was clear that he and Bucciarati had long since run far away:

"Goodbye!"

The second update will be later.