A Path to Ruin

"The seat... turned into a bird?"

Sensing the small bird, which was breathing, had a heartbeat, and was constantly flapping its wings, Li Qing couldn't fathom how it had transformed from a lifeless seat.

"Wait... this ability to create life..."

"Could it be that you are...?"

He suddenly recalled the JOJO series he had only watched two episodes of, thinking of the protagonist Giorno Giovanna's Stand ability.

But now was not the time for Li Qing to reminisce about the plot.

At this moment, the meat chunk, which seemed to never stop moving, was drawn to Gold Experience's swift, wind-like punches.

Abandoning the innocent student beneath it, whose skin had already been peeled off, without any hesitation, it turned like a crazed wolf with red eyes and lunged towards Gold Experience, which was not far from Giorno.

And at this very moment...

Gold Experience suddenly stopped punching and entered a state of stillness.

Simultaneously, the small bird, transformed by Giorno's Stand ability and brought to life by Gold Experience, like an electric fan suddenly switched to fifth gear, began flapping its wings furiously.

The extremely rapid wing beats generated immense lift, and this small bird, no more than 10cm long, immediately soared into the air under this powerful force.

It flew out of the carriage, which no longer had a rear windshield, at a speed too fast for ordinary eyes to follow, then transformed into a swift, dark shadow.

And the meat chunk was clearly an "attention-seeking" entity.

After the small bird displayed such extreme speed, it quickly reacted.

"Rustle..."

With a strange sound of flesh squirming, the meat chunk, which had been lunging towards Gold Experience and Giorno, instantly twisted and deformed in mid-air.

It abruptly made a 90-degree turn, bouncing in the direction the small bird had flown.

Thus, as the bird flapped its wings and ascended into the sky, the twisted, horrifying, undying meat mass also followed its target and leaped out of the carriage.

"Brown Swallow."

"The fastest flying bird in the world."

"Its average speed is 110-190 kilometers per hour, with a maximum sprint speed of up to 352.5 kilometers per hour."

Only then did Giorno calmly explain:

"Birds are born with an instinct to sense and avoid danger."

"As long as there is a dangerous 'predator' nearby, they will always fly towards the sky with all their might."

"And in this process, this Brown Swallow naturally became a lure to draw the monster away from us..."

"..."

Before he could finish his explanation, Giorno's voice suddenly choked.

Because the Brown Swallow, upon which he had placed so much hope, was caught by the meat chunk that had risen into the air just one second after it flew out.

As it bounced up, it suddenly deformed, opening its flesh blanket like a net shot from a net gun, quickly and precisely enveloping its locked prey.

The next instant, the Brown Swallow was dead.

This swallow, born less than three seconds ago, became sustenance for the monster without a sound, before it even had a chance to experience the sight of the sky.

At this time, although the bus driver in front had realized something was wrong and braked, the school bus had still not come to a complete stop.

The bus was still moving rapidly.

This meant that in the eyes of the insatiable meat chunk, everyone on this bus was the prey it most desired to devour.

"Damn it!"

Looking at the monster that had turned back and lunged towards the carriage again, Giorno finally lost his initial composure:

"The Brown Swallow didn't even last a second before it was caught. Just how fast is this monster?!"

"That..."

Li Qing explained with some helplessness:

"From my observation, it adjusts its actions based on the prey's speed, always maintaining a speed slightly faster than the target."

"This means its speed likely has no upper limit."

"No upper limit?"

Hearing this terrible news, Giorno's face was filled with solemnity.

At this moment, the meat chunk had rapidly turned back and leaped out, tightly clinging to the tail and side exterior of the bus.

It writhed, extended, and spread across the carriage's exterior, looking like a disgusting pink flesh blanket draped over the bus.

"It's not attacking us? Wait..."

Li Qing's expression changed.

He swore that even the invincible Diavolo had never given him such a chilling sense of terror:

"It's devouring the car engine!"

"No, to be precise, it's devouring the engine's energy!"

"Damn it."

He said with difficulty:

"I thought this monster could only grow by devouring life, I didn't expect it could directly use 'energy' as its food!"

"This monster's size is still growing!"

The situation was just as Li Qing said, and even worse:

At this moment, the bus, having lost its engine power, had stopped motionlessly.

And after devouring the bus engine that contained energy, the rapidly expanding mass of flesh, not being picky at all, extended its twisted and grotesque tentacle arms to every corner it could currently reach.

Tires, chassis, seats, ceiling

Everywhere was the wildly growing pink flesh carpet.

The latter half of the entire bus had become a breeding ground for this evil flesh.

If the first attack was the flesh invading the bus, then looking at the current scene, Giorno felt more like he had fallen into the monster's lair.

And to make matters worse...

Beside him, besides Li Qing, there was also a group of burdens whom he couldn't even see as enemies:

"Ah!!"

"It's haunted, run!"

As soon as the bus stopped, the junior high school students who had already been scared senseless by all sorts of bizarre sights, along with the bus driver who had also broken out in a cold sweat, fled out of the bus as if they had gone mad.

"Hey, don't move around!"

Li Qing tried his best to stop their suicidal behavior, but these panicked ordinary people simply couldn't heed such advice.

The flesh quickly began to tremble "excitedly."

It rapidly writhed and deformed, extending its predatory fleshy tentacles towards the fleeing humans.

"There's no other way..."

"Gold Experience!"

Seeing that a massacre was about to occur before him, Giorno had no choice but to use his old trick to stall for time:

"Muda muda muda!"

Gold Experience attacked again, instantly unleashing a flurry of punches.

A second, third, and fourth Brown Swallow were born under Gold Experience's faintly golden fist wind.

They instinctively sensed the danger posed by the evil mass of flesh, and as soon as they appeared, they flapped their wings rapidly, fleeing towards the vast sky outside the carriage in three completely different directions.

But this still had no effect.

This indescribable mass of flesh could not be reasoned with by conventional means.

Facing the three targets fleeing in three different directions at roughly the same speed, it suddenly writhed and deformed violently, extending three slender and powerful tentacles in three directions respectively.

"Chirp chirp!"

The three Brown Swallows let out piercing cries simultaneously, and then quickly "melted" into the continuously expanding mass of flesh.

And after consuming these poor swallows, the twisted mass of flesh grew a little bit larger by an almost imperceptible margin.

"Muda muda muda muda!!"

Giorno once again directed Gold Experience to use its Stand ability, creating more Brown Swallow decoys.

But at the same time, he knew in his heart that this method could only alleviate the immediate danger.

He felt like he was feeding a starving tiger with scraps of meat; when he ran out of "scraps" to throw, the tiger would then go after the person feeding it.

"This isn't working!"

Giorno said to Li Qing with a look of anxiety:

"If I keep using my ability at such high intensity, I'll be worn out before long."

"If we can't think of another way to lure this monster away, we'll eventually..."

"No..."

His voice suddenly sharpened, and he said meaningfully:

"Mr. Bald."

"My Gold Experience and I have become bait to attract that monster."

"Its attention is entirely on me now, so if you want to leave, you can actually abandon me and escape."

"..."

Li Qing fell silent.

Then, he asked with a complicated tone, "Kid."

"You could have let ordinary people be bait and left on your own just now."

"So, why did you step forward to court death?"

"Well…"

Due to the immense strain from continuously using his ability, Giorno's voice was slightly weary:

"It's like how people sometimes unconsciously take things handed to them. Though it seems foolish in retrospect, I couldn't think that much at the time."

"Is that so?"

"You didn't choose the easy game mode and instead gave yourself hell difficulty."

"As expected, you're an utterly foolish guy."

"Since that's the case…"

Li Qing resolutely stayed by Giorno's side:

"Then I can't let a mere kid outdo me."