Win or Lose

Fugo felt a chill run through his body.

His legs had been frozen into icicles by Ghiaccio's touch and were completely numb.

The chill continued to spread upwards from his legs.

Muscles stiffen like iron in the cold, nerves die extensively in the low temperature, blood congeals into ice, and even ruptures countless blood vessels after expanding in volume.

In just a moment, Fugo could no longer feel the existence of his lower body.

He could only feel the frost creeping upwards along his frozen thighs, driving the bone-chilling cold deep into his body.

But now, it is Fugo's soul that feels even colder than his body.

He looked down in disbelief at the man who was gripping his ankle tightly, his face ashen.

"Ghiaccio, you're a madman."

"You can actually do that."

Ghiaccio did indeed survive the virus.

Using ultra-low temperatures to kill all infected flesh and tissue sounds like a drastic and effective treatment.

But Fugo knew very well that Ghiaccio's current condition was actually a thousand times worse than his own, with his legs encased in frost.

Because this is not a heroic act of cutting off one's own arm, but an act of utter suicide—

You should know that Purple Haze just injected the virus into her chest.

Once the virus enters the vital chest and abdomen, where organs are clustered, its first step is to infect the heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys, which are crucial to the human body, affecting all imaginable life-sustaining systems.

If all these organs were frozen at extremely low temperatures, Ghiaccio would probably die even faster than from normal poisoning.

Normal poisoning can last for more than half a minute, but doing this will probably only allow you to live for a few seconds at most.

But Ghiaccio did exactly that.

In order to prevent the virus from reaching his brain and to maintain full consciousness, he actually froze his entire body below the chest with ultra-low temperatures.

With his blood flow cut off and his nerves severed, Ghiaccio is now essentially a dead man.

But in the last few seconds of his life, the dead man managed to maintain his consciousness and launched a final attack on Fugo.

"Prosciutto, don't worry."

"I will absolutely not let them take ice back."

A muffled groan echoed in Ghiaccio's throat.

He gripped Fugo tightly, the chill emanating from his hand showing no sign of abating.

Seeing that even with such severe injuries, Ghiaccio could still move and attack...

Just like seeing a seafood octopus that could still wave its tentacles even after its head was cut off, Fugo couldn't help but shudder. "Monster."

He saw in Ghiaccio a will that transcended the limitations of life.

The Stand's energy comes from the spirit, which relies on the body, yet can transcend the body in some incomprehensible way.

Just now, the dying Ghiaccio is unleashing a spiritual power that transcends the limitations of the physical body.

This spiritual power transformed into the Stand's driving force, and into the chilling aura emanating from Ghiaccio's hands.

"You'll die."

"If this continues, I will definitely die."

Fugo's heart sank to the bottom at that moment.

He realized that he had also underestimated his opponent.

At first, he thought that Ghiaccio was a smug little man who relied on his powerful Stand to show off, but he never expected that this man's will would be as hard as his armor.

"The freezing air is spreading too quickly."

"My lower body went numb in an instant, no, damn it."

Fugo discovered with despair that the enemy's desperate freezing vapor was even more terrifying than he had imagined.

In the brief moment he hesitated because of Ghiaccio's will, the cold air had already frozen his waist and abdomen.

Now he can only move his shoulders, arms, and head; he can't even bend over or take a step.

Worse still, the stiffness in her body was transmitted to her stand-in, and at this moment, Purple Haze also turned into an ice sculpture with no feeling in her legs, unable to move or attack.

The ice sculpture was frozen two or three meters away, completely out of reach, and there were no tools available to help it at that moment.

Stand abilities can't be canceled from a distance and then instantly summoned back to your side—if such a thing were possible, everyone's Stands would have learned to "teleport."

Therefore, during this brief but crucial period, Purple Haze was unable to help her main body at all and could only stand by and freeze.

"What to do."

"Am I really going to die with him like this?"

Fugo's face was deathly pale.

He couldn't even imagine how he, who could only wave his arms and turn his head, could get rid of Ghiaccio the cold air he was releasing.

He can't even bend over now, so how can he stop him?

Are we just going to wait for Ghiaccio to give up and die halfway through? Is it really possible for this monster to give up?

Fugo felt a growing sense of despair.

But in that instant, he saw Narancia, whom he was supporting, beside him.

Narancia was still unconscious, and because his body was too close to Fugo, he was now completely within the range of Ghiaccio's cold aura.

His body was already covered in ice crystals, and now the cold air made things even worse.

"We must not give up!"

Fugo realized that he was now carrying the burden of two lives.

Although he hadn't said it aloud before, the moment Narancia launched his attack with the resolve to die, Fugo had already sworn an oath in his heart:

He was determined, absolutely determined, to bring Narancia back alive.

This is a man's promise.

Although he had never liked fighting or risking his life before, now...

He had a reason to risk his life!

Fugo's heart burned with an unprecedented fire of will.

His mind was racing, reconstructing, reshaping, and examining the entire kitchen environment in his mind.

He saw Ghiaccio's hand, which was barely holding his ankle; he saw the fire on the ground that had not yet been extinguished; he saw the iron pipe by the wall that had been frozen and shrunken; he saw the extreme cold that had not yet dissipated.

Finally, in a flash of inspiration, a brilliant idea struck.

"So-called enlightenment."

In the face of life and death, Fugo couldn't help but recall something Giorno had casually remarked:

"It is in the midst of a dark wilderness that we must forge a path of light!"

With this awareness, Fugo raised his hand, which was already covered with a layer of ice crystals.

He couldn't move anything below his waist, so he lowered his head, the only two parts of his body he could move, and bit through his wrist.

The frozen skin on the outside of my wrist was instantly bitten off.

The teeth, like saws, ground through the frozen flesh and blood, and pierced down into the still-warm arteries.

Fugo then bit through his own artery, letting the still-hot, high-pressure blood gush out freely in the extreme cold.

Finally, before the cold air completely penetrated up to the chest and abdomen...

He raised his arm and splashed the gushing hot blood onto the metal pipes laid against the wall in the distance—

That's a gas pipe.

"That gas pipe was recently covered by extremely cold air, and its surface temperature is probably still very low."

"And my blood is 37 degrees Celsius, which is as hot as burning coals to the gas pipes at this moment."

"Just like pouring hot water on a car window while removing snow will cause it to shatter. The thermal shock resistance of materials is limited. When an object is suddenly heated and expands, the thermal stress generated by the mutual restraint of the deformation of each part exceeds the internal bonding force of the object, and the object will crack!"

This is the solution Fugo came up with in his desperate situation.

He wanted to use his own passion to "shatter" the gas pipe, which was still at an extremely low temperature, and release the natural gas inside.

The main component of natural gas, methane, has a boiling point as low as -161.6 degrees Celsius. The residual cold air that was previously blown onto the pipeline is probably not enough to liquefy the gas.

However, as long as the natural gas can be released, the flames on the ground that have not yet been extinguished can trigger another gas explosion.

"The shockwave from the explosion will definitely blow me and Narancia away."

"We can use this to escape the chill, and the explosion at that distance shouldn't kill us, it will only seriously injure us."

Having completed all these arrangements, Fugo looked down at Ghiaccio at his feet:

This terrifying enemy, who never gave up until his death, unknowingly taught him some principles that he had always known but never dared to put into practice, nor ever wanted to.

At this moment, the passion had already been poured into the gas pipeline.

The metal pipe wall, which had long been frozen and deformed, shattered instantly, and the ominous sound of gas leakage rang out immediately.

Almost visible to the naked eye

The "wind" blowing out of the pipe went straight to the flames burning on the ground.

Facing the sudden surge of flames, Fugo closed his eyes.

Half a minute later.

Fugo helped Narancia stagger out of the bar.

The bar was a complete mess, with flames caused by the gas explosion spreading rapidly.

The injuries sustained by Fugo and Narancia were even more horrific.

In fact, Fugo's ability to bring Narancia out of there alive was thanks to Ghiaccio.

Firstly, the thick layer of ice that Ghiaccio froze on their bodies with the cold air acted as a kind of frost armor, greatly reducing the damage caused by the explosive gas waves.

Secondly, after Ghiaccio's death, all of White Album's powers were removed.

All the ice blocks generated by their abilities disappeared, and Fugo and Narancia, who were almost covered in frost and built into ice sculptures, barely regained their ability to move.

Although the severe frostbite remained, they were at least able to move around with difficulty now that they were free from the frost.

That's why Fugo was able to bring the unconscious Narancia out before the fire escalated.

"Fugo."

At that moment, Narancia, whose body had thawed, also regained consciousness.

He opened his eyes and saw Fugo's disheveled face, and subconsciously asked, "How... is it?"

"It's alright, Narancia."

"We won! We defeated that invincible guy!"

Fugo said this to Narancia with such excitement.

"We won? That's great!"

Narancia sighed with relief.

He finally let go of his instinctive vigilance and relaxed to enjoy this hard-won victory.

Exhausted, the two just wanted to rest.

"Wait a minute." Narancia suddenly remembered something. "Fugo, where's the ice?"

"."

Fugo suddenly fell silent:

The ice blocks they had thrown away earlier had long been swallowed up by the explosion.

With flames spreading everywhere and their lives hanging by a thread, it was impossible for him to break through the fire to retrieve ice while so severely injured.

"Ice cubes."

I still didn't get it.

Fugo sighed deeply, his expression incredibly complex.

Looking at the bar that had been reduced to a sea of fire, he suddenly couldn't see anything anymore.

Did I win or lose?