April 6, 1999, 18:08.

In the stunned and incomprehensible of Li Qing and the others, Diablo's figure first turned into a phantom and disappeared in just 1 second.

Then, barely at all, just the next moment, he strangely reappeared in the same place.

And when he reappeared, Diablo, who had been intact from top to bottom, had now turned into a bloody man with flesh and blood rotten and twisted bones.

As soon as he appeared, he sat limply on the ground, his bloodstain staining the silvery-gray undried cement beneath him red.

Look at Diablo's miserable appearance with no air in and out...

It seems that without everyone doing it again, he himself will die in pain.

"What the hell..."

Everyone was shocked by Diablo's unbelievable operation.

But Jotaro didn't hesitate.

His position was closest to Diablo, and the badly injured Diablo was right in front of him and the Platinum Star at the moment.

Although I was a little concerned about Diablo's performance just now, the moment Diablo reappeared in front of his eyes...

Jotaro still suppressed the hesitation in his heart for the first time and made the most correct choice:

"Attack, Platinum Star!"

The Platinum Star, which had been preparing for a long time, was once again storming at this moment.

The vast power contained in the knotted muscles poured out like a floodgate at this moment, as if it was about to swallow Diablo in the next moment.

The Platinum Star erupts in full force and attacks a fragile human who is close at hand and is badly wounded.

The outcome of this attack was almost unambiguous.

However, in the midst of everyone's shocked and suspicious eyes...

The fist of the platinum star actually passed directly through Diablo's body.

Diablo seemed to turn into a cloud of air, an illusion, and no amount of power from the platinum star could affect him.

"The attack penetrated again..."

"What happened last second repeats itself."

"The moment he returned, his body became 'nothing' again, and the Platinum Star's attack didn't work at all."

Jotaro frowned slightly, and a bad feeling quietly welled up in his heart.

He couldn't understand Diablo's abilities at all, and he didn't know why this guy would blur and disappear, reappear, and then disappear again.

The unknown is always nerve-wracking.

And what made Jotaro feel even more uneasy was Diablo's expression at the moment.

When he first disappeared a second ago, his face was still full of despair and confusion.

But now, after reappearing with a serious injury, Diablo's expression has become firm and confident:

"I see... I finally got it. ”

"There has never been a waste stand-in ability, only a waste stand-in messenger."

"I've wasted so much time out of despair and confusion, and I've never been able to tap into the potential of Ouroboros."

Diablo's eyes swelled with frenzy, and he said words to himself that no one could understand.

At the same time, his body was rapidly becoming blurred and transparent.

An invisible force of time and space was rapidly transforming his body, soon plunging him into the elusive river of time.

The current Diablo is "invincible", and no one can hurt him.

And with the Ouroboros that can refresh the cooldown indefinitely, he doesn't have to worry too much about his self-preservation after returning again.

"But..."

"The time stop of the Platinum Star is a problem after all."

Diablo has long realized that compared to Li Qing, who can only box, Jotaro, who can control time, is his real threat.

If the platinum star seized the opportunity to stop time, no matter how strong his ability was, he would not be able to show it.

"How the hell is this going to be solved?"

"Wait... I've got it! ”

A flash of inspiration flashed through Diablo's mind:

He seems to have discovered another use for Ouroboros in addition to "refreshing cooldowns".

"Jotaro Kujo."

At this moment, the flow of time seems to stand still.

In this almost still time, Diablo silently recited the name that had once frightened him in his mind.

Looking at Jotaro and the platinum star who had had two intimate encounters with him, his gaze was extremely calm.

"That's right... Although I spent a full hour on March 27th. ”

"But for this Jotaro who is now on April 6... He must have spent less than a second. ”

"And in such a short period of time, he had just used the ability to stop time once!"

Because conversation, thinking, and mental activity all become time-consuming under the influence of some mysterious rules of the world.

So, the timeline experienced by Jotaro and others is actually like this:

1.1 seconds ago, Diablo awakened in desperation, and the ability of the Ouroboros began to be activated.

0.8 seconds ago, Li Qing sensed the existence of the arrow and shouted to Jotaro to stop it.

0.5 seconds ago, Jotaro received the alert and reacted, quickly approaching Diablo in the time it stopped.

0.1 seconds ago, Diablo completely vanished.

0.1 seconds ago, Diablo returned with a serious injury and used Ouroboros again around the same time.

In other words, the last time Jotaro stopped using it was just 0.5 seconds ago.

"That ability to stop time should also have a 'cooldown', right?"

"Otherwise, if you could use it continuously, you should have used it a long time ago when you attacked."

Diablo suddenly said to Jotaro with a playful look:

"Well, since you can't use it continuously when stopping..."

"You just used this ability 0.5 seconds ago, can you use it again?"

He just smiled whimsily, as if he had discovered something interesting.

And the bad premonition in Jotaro's heart suddenly became rich:

It is true that the ability "Time Stop" cannot be used continuously.

"Time Stop" has a cooldown, but its cooldown is actually very short, so short that it only takes a breath of rest to be used again.

One breath, almost 1 second.

And now only 0.5 seconds have passed.

This means that Jotaro will not be able to use the time-stop ability for the remaining 0.5 seconds - there is no doubt that this short gap of 0.5 seconds will be the weakest time for his defense.

"But... Does Diablo have what it takes to beat me? ”

"It's only 0.5 seconds, how will he break through the Platinum Star's defenses?"

Jotaro still hasn't seen through Diablo's hole cards:

Even though he couldn't stop time as much as he wanted in those 0.5 seconds, he had a humanoid beast like the Platinum Star as his guard.

Want to finish out Platinum Stars in just 0.5 seconds?

Jotaro didn't think that the seriously injured Diablo would have this ability.

And Diablo did not give an answer to this.

He just glanced down at the watch he was wearing on his wrist in this near-stagnant time:

It was a rare luxury for him to buy a top-of-the-line watch as the boss of an organization, with extremely high accuracy and almost no errors.

And when Diablo looked down, the second hand of the dial pointed to the next scale at this moment:

"21st second."

"19:08:21."

He quickly calculated and thought in his mind:

"Subtracting the 1 hour I spent in the past, the exact time now should be..."

"18:08:21 sharp."

Diablo remembered this time firmly.

Then, a sneer appeared on the corner of his mouth, and he said the astonishing words like a prophet:

"Jotaro, tell you..."

"You're going to die in the 21st second of 18:08—"

"In one second, in the next."

Jotaro was silent.

He had no idea where Diablo's confidence came from.

But it was precisely because he didn't know that he felt nervous.

At this moment, Diablo's form has turned into nothingness, and he is now completely in a state of 'invincibility' that cannot be attacked.

The Platinum Star's time-stopping ability has not yet been restored.

Jotaro couldn't do anything, he could only do his best to prevent Diablo's attack that could come at any time, and I don't know what kind of attack it would be.

"What exactly will Diablo's hole cards be?"

"How is he going to defeat me in this short 0.5 second gap, and in which direction will the attack come from?"

Questions still linger in my mind.

And in the next moment...

Caught off guard, the ground under Jotaro's feet suddenly exploded into a wave of fire!

And this wave of fire is not just blooming under his feet.

This avenue, which had just been repaired and leveled, was drowning in flames at this moment!

The flames rose into the sky, and the avenue was wiped out again.

"It worked."

Diablo's ethereal body loomed in the waves of fire.

The impact of the explosion did not hurt him at all.

He will soon go back in time and do with his own hands what he has witnessed at this moment:

"Plant the seeds in the past and reap the rewards in the future."

"This is the true power of Ouroboros!"

................................

Rumble!

The blast swept in all directions.

The loud waves were like a tsunami.

In the distance, the road builders who had already evacuated the scene stopped because of the loud noise coming from behind them.

"Big brother, this business is done, right?"

Looking at the smoke of the explosion rising from the avenue in the distance, a road repairer asked the foreman with such a nervous expression.

The foreman did not answer directly, but first looked down at his watch:

"18:08:21 sharp."

"Not a second, the bomb exploded at the time the customer requested."

He let out a long sigh of relief, and then said to his younger brothers with relief:

"Our mission in Duwang Town is officially over."

"Now go back to the head of the house."

As he spoke, the foreman looked back at the place where they had worked all day with a complicated expression:

"This Duwang Town... It's better to stay less. ”

"Hmm!" The group of junior brothers all nodded in agreement.

This calm and peaceful suburban town seemed eerie to them from the start.

Because the task they received was itself full of evil spirits:

Two days ago, on April 4, a mystery customer placed an order from the dark web with the community they worked for.

The major customer offered a reward of up to 500 million yen for silently planting a large number of time bombs on a certain section of the road in the town of Tsuo.

This task is strange.

If it weren't for the fact that the club had been in a slump since the Great Bubble, and the economic situation was so bad that the members of the club needed to run a part-time construction company to subsidize it... They wouldn't have taken on such an obviously strange commission.

And just after these underworld members took the 500 million big order and came to Duwang Town, something even stranger happened:

They were still struggling with how to plant a bomb on a town road without telling anyone.

But it was like a sleepy pillow, and on April 5, a so-called "bald superman" appeared out of nowhere, and the road designated by the customer was broken to pieces.

When the road breaks down, these underworld members can pretend to be road builders to carry out their tasks.

This is certainly a good thing for them.

But when you think about it, it's as if the mystery customer had known that the road would be destroyed at this point, and it seems very strange.

Not to mention, what else is there here that can break a whole road to pieces "bald superman".

The foreman thought it was just a ridiculous urban legend.

But later, after the road repair work really began, he witnessed the huge fist prints deeply embedded in the ground in the shattered and powdered avenue.

"Evil Gate... This place is too wicked. ”

"Let's go!"

The foreman shuddered unconsciously.

He took one last look at the scene of the explosion in the distance, and left with his younger brothers without looking back.

........................................................

April 4, 1999, 17:01.

In Duwang Town, an ordinary convenience store.

Diablo is queuing in front of the cash register to check out.

He had just noticed that the blonde man in the suit who was lined up behind him had a faint smell of blood on him.

This, of course, caught the attention of Diablo.

But the temperament of the blonde man is too ordinary, ordinary like a stone on the side of the road, and no matter how many times you look at it, it will not make an impression.

He didn't look like a stand-in messenger at all, nor did he look like a fellow practitioner with blood on his hands.

Diablo hesitated and gave up on further exploration.

He began to wait intently in line to check out, while the blonde man behind him was boredly waiting for Diablo, who was in front of the line, to pay and leave.

The blonde man's name is Kira Yoshikage, and he just wants to hurry home with his "girlfriend" in his pocket now.

If nothing else, these two strangers who met in Pingshui will never have any intersection from now on.

But accidents always happen at the right time as fate has written:

"Swipe your card."

Diablo honestly handed over the card to check out like an ordinary person.

There is a huge sum of 500 million yen in this card, which is enough for him to continue to live the kind of affluent life that he didn't have to worry about money after fleeing to a foreign country.

However, in the eyes peculiar to the rich people of Diablona, dashing confident and calm and gentle...

The cashier suddenly looked up in embarrassment and said:

"Sir, you don't seem to have any money in your card."

"Huh?"

Diablo's face froze:

Just kidding, where's my money?