Courting Death

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

Sensing that tiny bird's breathing and heartbeat, seeing it constantly flap its wings, Li Qing simply could not imagine that it had been transformed from a lifeless seat.

"Wait. This ability to create life..."

"Could you be...?"

He suddenly recalled the mere two episodes of JOJO he had watched, and the Stand ability of Giorno Giovanna, the protagonist of that story.

But this was no time for Li Qing to reminisce about the plot.

At that moment, the Meat Chunk that seemed never to tire had been drawn in by Gold Experience's swift, wind-like barrage of fists.

Without the slightest hesitation, it abandoned the innocent student beneath it, whose skin it had already gnawed away, and turned like a starving mad wolf, pouncing fiercely at Gold Experience not far from Giorno.

And just then...

Gold Experience suddenly stopped punching and went still.

At the same time, the little bird created through Giorno's Stand ability, brought to life by Gold Experience, suddenly began frantically flapping its wings as if someone had abruptly cranked a fan up to fifth gear.

The incredibly rapid wingbeats generated immense lift, and the bird, barely ten centimeters long, immediately soared into the air on that powerful updraft.

Moving too fast for ordinary eyes to follow, it flew out through the bus's missing rear windshield and became a swift black blur.

And the Meat Chunk was clearly the sort that abandoned the old for the new.

Once that little bird displayed such extreme speed, it quickly reacted.

"Squirm, squirm."

Amid the strange sounds of flesh writhing, the Meat Chunk that had been pouncing toward Gold Experience and Giorno instantly twisted and deformed in midair.

It abruptly made a sharp ninety-degree turn and sprang after the bird's flight path.

Thus, as the bird flapped into the sky, the twisted, horrifying undead mass finally followed its target out of the bus.

"Brown Swallow."

"The fastest bird in the world."

"Its average flight speed is 110 to 190 kilometers per hour, and its top diving speed can reach 352.5 kilometers per hour."

Only then did Giorno calmly explain:

"Birds naturally possess the instinct to sense and avoid danger."

"As long as a dangerous 'predator' is nearby, they will certainly do everything they can to fly into the sky."

"And during that process, this Brown Swallow naturally becomes bait to lure the monster away for us."

"..."

Before he could finish explaining, Giorno's voice suddenly caught in his throat.

Because the Brown Swallow he had placed such high hopes on had been caught by the Meat Chunk less than a second after flying out.

While leaping into the air, it suddenly changed shape and spread open its flesh like a huge net fired from a net gun, swiftly and precisely wrapping around its chosen prey.

The next instant, the Brown Swallow died.

The swallow, born less than three seconds ago, had not even had the chance to witness the sky before silently becoming nourishment for the monster.

At that point, although the bus driver in front had realized something was wrong and hit the brakes, the school bus had not completely stopped.

The bus was still moving quickly.

That meant that, in the eyes of the forever-unsatisfied Meat Chunk, everyone on the bus was the prey it most wanted to devour.

"Damn it!"

Watching the monster turn back and pounce toward the bus again, Giorno finally lost his initial calm.

"The Brown Swallow got caught in less than a second. Just how fast is this monster?!"

"Well..."

Li Qing explained helplessly:

"From what I observed, it adjusts its movements according to the prey's speed, always remaining slightly faster than its target."

"That means its speed may have no upper limit."

"No upper limit?"

Upon hearing that utterly terrible news, Giorno's face filled with gravity.

At that moment, the Meat Chunk had already spun around and leapt at high speed, clinging tightly to the rear and side exterior of the bus.

It continuously wriggled, stretched, and spread across the bus's shell. At a glance, it looked as though the bus had been draped in a disgusting pink blanket of flesh.

"It isn't attacking us? Wait..."

Li Qing's expression changed completely.

He dared swear that not even the seemingly invincible Diavolo had ever given him such bone-chilling terror.

"It's devouring the car engine!"

"No, more precisely, it's devouring the engine's energy!"

"Damn."

He spoke with difficulty:

"I thought this monster could only grow by devouring living things. I never expected it could directly use 'energy' as food!"

"This monster is still getting bigger!"

The truth was exactly as Li Qing said, and even worse.

By then, the bus, deprived of its engine power, had feebly come to a stop.

After devouring the energy-containing bus engine, the rapidly swelling Meat Chunk showed no pickiness at all. Its twisted, evil tentacles spread into every corner it could currently reach.

The tires, the chassis, the seats, the ceiling...

Everywhere was covered in that crazily growing pink blanket of flesh.

The entire rear half of the bus had become a breeding ground for that evil flesh.

If the first attack had been the Meat Chunk invading the bus, then judging by the current scene, Giorno felt more like he had fallen into the monster's nest.

And to make matters worse...

Besides Li Qing, he was surrounded by a group of burdens who could not even see their enemy.

"Ahhh!!"

"It-it's haunted! Run!"

The moment the bus came to a stop, the middle school students, already terrified senseless by the bizarre sights, along with the bus driver drenched in cold sweat, fled outside like madmen.

"Hey, don't move around!"

Li Qing tried his best to stop them from courting death, but these panicked ordinary people simply could not listen to such warnings.

The Meat Chunk soon began trembling "excitedly."

It rapidly wriggled and transformed, extending its hunting flesh-tendrils toward the humans fleeing in all directions.

"No choice."

"Gold Experience!"

Seeing that a massacre was about to unfold before him, Giorno had no choice but to use the same trick again to buy time.

"Muda muda muda!"

Gold Experience struck again, instantly unleashing a skyful of fist shadows.

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

Instinctively sensing the danger posed by the evil Meat Chunk, the moment they appeared, they beat their wings at high speed and fled toward the vast sky outside the bus in three completely different directions.

But it still had no effect.

That indescribable mass of flesh simply could not be judged by ordinary logic.

Facing three targets fleeing in three different directions at roughly the same speed, it gave a violent wriggle and transformation, immediately extending three long, powerful tentacles in three separate directions.

"Chirp chirp!"

The three Brown Swallows cried out miserably at the same time, then swiftly "melted" into the endlessly expanding mass of flesh.

And after devouring those pitiful swallows, the twisted flesh mass suddenly grew a little larger again by an almost imperceptible degree.

"Muda muda muda muda!!"

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

But at the same time, he knew clearly that this method could only solve the immediate crisis.

He felt as though he were feeding scraps of meat to an extremely hungry tiger. Once he ran out of "scraps," the tiger would eat the person feeding it.

"This can't go on!"

Giorno said anxiously to Li Qing:

"If I keep using my ability continuously at this intensity, I'll collapse from exhaustion before long."

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

"No..."

His voice suddenly tightened, then he said meaningfully:

"Mr. Baldy."

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

"All its attention is on me now. If you want to leave, you can actually abandon me and run."

"..."

Li Qing fell silent for a moment.

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

"Just now, you could have used ordinary people as bait and left by yourself."

"So... why did you step forward to seek death?"

"Well..."

Exhausted from continuously using his ability, Giorno's voice sounded slightly weary:

"It's like how people sometimes unconsciously accept something another person hands them. Looking back now, it may seem foolish, but at the time, I couldn't think that much."

"Is that so?"

"You had an easy game mode available, but you deliberately chose hell difficulty for yourself."

"You really are an utterly foolish guy."

"In that case..."

Li Qing remained firmly at Giorno's side.

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