As time once again ground to a halt.
In the gray-white frozen world, Kars used The World to spot Chris's location.
Even though it looked like Chris was the only one there, Kars still didn't dare let his guard down.
After all, that suit of armor Chris wore was utterly absurd — and after the damage to his soul, The World's time-stop had been reduced to just two seconds. Not nearly enough.
Otherwise, he'd have already killed everyone, Kushida Kikyo included, leaving only a single person under his control.
No hesitation.
Using The World, Kars dove straight into the mouth of the nearest target — Kito Hayabusa!
Then, manipulating what remained of his fine nerve filaments, he reached out and stretched them toward the foreheads of Kushida Kikyo, Morishita Ai, and the others standing nearby.
Just as he finished, the two-second time-stop came to its end.
"Time — resume."
As color flooded back into the world.
Everyone watched in confusion as, mid-air, the laser cords that had originally been used to bind Kars somehow looped around in a bizarre arc — and instead trussed up Kito Hayabusa like a wrapped dumpling!
Not only was Kito Hayabusa — who'd reflexively swallowed hard — left with a stunned expression on his face, but Kushida Kikyo and Morishita Ai beside him were equally dumbstruck.
At that moment, Katsuragi Kohei, who had barely managed to extricate himself and double back, hurried over:
"What happened? What's going on?"
Kushida Kikyo's voice trembled as she pointed at Kito Hayabusa, now bound by the laser cords:
"Just now... something seemed to appear out of nowhere... a few of the classmates hiding in the back got drained dry by it!"
"And then it looked like it was going to launch a sneak attack? Kito-kun fired his gun, but in the blink of an eye... that monster vanished. And then the laser cords ended up tying Kito himself up."
Alarm bells started blaring inside Katsuragi Kohei's head.
He raised the Crimson Blade in his hand, expression grave:
"Kushida, take Morishita and the others and get out of here first..."
Kushida Kikyo's face screwed up in distress. She wanted to say her legs were already shaking so badly that the moment she moved, she'd probably drag the equally trembling Yotsuya Miko down with her and collapse on the spot.
But before she could open her mouth.
The bound Kito Hayabusa suddenly went rigid:
"I didn't give you permission to move."
"Be good little lambs and stay perfectly still. Take one more step... and you'll end up just like those humans from earlier — sucked completely dry on the spot!"
That familiar voice made every hair on Katsuragi Kohei's body stand on end.
Wasn't that the voice of the Pillar Men leader who'd been squaring off against Chris and the others moments ago?!
But why was he showing up here?
And where were Ayanokoji, Chris, and the rest now? Had they already been wiped out?!
Just as Katsuragi Kohei, frantic with worry, was preparing to find an opening to call out — to let Ichinose and the others know something had gone wrong here.
A flash of white light suddenly burst from Kito Hayabusa's mouth.
Followed immediately by a lump of brain matter, still trailing nerve filaments, flying out from between his lips!
Seeing this, Kito Hayabusa dropped straight to his knees, clawing at his throat and retching violently.
Katsuragi Kohei followed the trajectory of the airborne brain with his eyes.
Only to see it come to a stop right in front of Chris.
Bits of flesh and blood came hurtling in from who-knows-where, rapidly converging on the spot.
And Kars's flawless, sculpture-like form began reconstituting itself before everyone's eyes.
Before his body had even fully solidified.
Kars had already burst out laughing:
"Heh... how foolish."
"It seems even the heavens are on my side."
"Your recklessness has paved my path to rebirth perfectly!"
With that.
The World manifested.
But it didn't go straight for Chris — instead, it launched into a flurry of trading punches with Crazy Diamond, which had flashed into existence at the same moment!
"DORARARARARARARA!!!"
"MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA!!!"
The ferocious clash sent shockwaves rippling outward.
And Kars, taking advantage of The World's feint as cover.
Was in fact planning to trigger his time-stop again, then grab Kushida Kikyo and the others to use as meat shields.
At the end of the day, all he cared about was the final outcome.
No matter how pathetic or ugly the process — as long as he survived, he didn't care one bit.
But.
The very instant the thought crossed his mind.
He realized, to his absolute horror, that even though his condition was perfect and his consciousness clear, he had completely lost control of his own body?!
Like a marionette whose strings had been cut!
Seeing this, Chris — Soul-Release Blade in hand — spoke up coldly:
"Looks like my guess was right on the money."
"Crazy Diamond can repair matter, but it can't repair souls."
"Anywhere the Soul-Release Blade cuts — even if the flesh is restored to perfect condition, so long as the wound to the soul hasn't been healed, this patched-together body of yours... is nothing more than an empty shell."
Chris slowly raised the tip of the blade, pointing it straight at Kars's skull:
"So, Kars."
"This is where you die!"
"NANI?!"
Kars was horrified.
With death staring him in the face, he chose once again to put his trust in his Stand:
"ZA WARUDO!!!"
In an instant, the world drained back to black and white.
Watching Chris's sword-swing freeze mid-air, Kars finally let out a long breath of relief.
No time to hesitate.
Once again he abandoned his body, letting his still-living brain matter wriggle out from inside his skull.
This time, Kars had The World line up to unleash a furious barrage of punches against the Demon Possession on Chris's body!
Even if he could only open up the tiniest of cracks!
Then he could slip through that crack, dive into Chris's mouth, and take over his entire body!
That way, even without the perfect body of a Pillar Man.
He'd still possess a powerful shell — one that didn't fear sunlight, and that boasted absolutely monstrous defenses!
Once he'd wiped out every last one of these ants here, he could take his sweet time figuring out how to heal his damaged soul!
"DIE!!!" Kars roared.
However.
"BAM! BAM! POW! POW!"
The World's fists rained down on the silver-white armor like a hailstorm.
But Kars made a despairing discovery.
It was having absolutely no effect!
Not even the faint white marks he'd been able to leave at the start!
"How is this possible?! The World's power... it's weakened?!"
Only then did Kars remember — because his soul was incomplete, his Stand's abilities had been weakened in turn!
Kars panicked, and was just bracing himself to make one last desperate gambit in the remaining second-or-so.
When he suddenly noticed.
Inside the absolutely still time-stopped world.
Chris's finger... had actually twitched ever so slightly?!
"!!!"
Every alarm in Kars's head went off at once.
Without a second thought, he had The World carry his fragile brain matter and immediately pull back to a safe distance.
At the same time, he stretched out the nerve tendrils trailing from his brain once more, ready to use Kushida Kikyo and the others' lives as leverage.
But for the Kars of this moment, two seconds was simply far too short.
Before he could even touch Kushida Kikyo's forehead.
The time-stop came to an end.
"DORA!"
As color rushed back in.
Chris had already summoned Crazy Diamond again — and slammed a fist into Kars's empty shell!
Under that forced effect.
The brain that had already flown several meters away, along with the nerve tendrils about to pierce Kushida's forehead, were yanked uncontrollably back into the body — like iron filings sucked in by a magnet!
"No... impossible..."
Trapped inside his own shell, Kars groaned:
"How can there be... such a power in this world, one that can drive me into a corner like this..."
Chris raised the Soul-Release Blade, expression blank.
"Oh, there's plenty."
Setting aside the fact that you'll stop being able to think the moment you hit outer space.
Just take Made in Heaven's time acceleration — there's absolutely no way you'd dodge that either.
Kars knew his way out was sealed.
He simply gave up on any thoughts of escape:
"Since there's no way back..."
"Then right here, right now — I'll shatter everything to pieces!"
"This is... my final struggle! Take this, human!"
With that, the golden form of The World manifested once more, ready to trade life for life — to smash the descending Soul-Release Blade apart with a single punch!
But Chris's Crazy Diamond appeared in perfect sync.
"DORA!"
A single punch lashed out, striking The World's wrist with pinpoint precision — knocking its attack trajectory severely off course.
And this time.
Because Crazy Diamond wasn't holding back anymore.
"Crack..."
Fine fissures started spreading across The World, beginning from its fist!
Kars, whose senses were synced with his Stand's, let out an agonized scream.
Just as The World was about to fully shatter, in that very last moment.
Crazy Diamond reached out and pressed a hand against The World's body.
A flash of light.
And the golden Stand that had been about to dissipate was instead restored to its original form — a Stand Disc, landing in Chris's hand.
To be strictly accurate, Crazy Diamond wasn't actually capable of pulling this off on its own.
If a Stand truly got smashed apart, then it was smashed apart — and the user would die along with it.
But the thing was, Kars's The World had actually skipped the awakening step entirely. From its very inception, it had been manifested in the form of a Stand Disc.
Coupled with the fact that it was Chris doing the operating, the judgment conditions were naturally lenient.
And Kars, having lost his Stand and just gone through a full mental breakdown, was now in a state of utter collapse.
Chris had no intention of letting him off, though.
He swung the Soul-Release Blade once more.
"Schnk!"
One stroke, and most of Kars's head was lopped clean off.
Just enough brain tissue was left to keep him barely clinging to a flicker of life — leaving him in a half-dead, half-alive state.
It was only at this point.
That Kushida Kikyo and the others, drawn by the commotion, finally came back to themselves.
Looking at Kars frozen in front of Chris.
Kushida Kikyo's voice trembled, laced with a sliver of hope she didn't quite dare trust:
"Is — is it over?"
Katsuragi Kohei opened his mouth, uncertain:
"Maybe... yeah?"
Chris answered casually:
"He's still got a breath in him."
"If I really killed him outright, the exam would immediately end. We'd only get to stay in this exam zone for a few dozen more seconds at most — and then what would you all do?"
With that, Chris stepped forward.
He passed the Soul-Release Blade to Crazy Diamond, letting the Stand carry the weapon as it flew over to help Ichinose Honami and the others mop up the remaining vampire grunts.
Honestly speaking.
A Stand was basically like a ghost — capable of floating mid-air and ignoring terrain obstacles.
For ordinary vampires who couldn't even see a Stand, it really was a dimensional-tier curb-stomp.
Watching Chris's Stand cut a bloody swath through the vampire horde.
Yotsuya Miko clasped both hands to her chest, eyes brimming with envy:
"Sooo cool..."
"If only I had a guardian spirit like that too..."
"Guardian spirit?"
Hearing Yotsuya Miko's murmur, Hayasaka Ai was full of confusion.
Unlike Yotsuya Miko, who was born with spirit-sight, and the students who could see monsters thanks to the Black Sphere system's enhancement.
Hayasaka Ai was, through and through, just an ordinary human.
From her perspective, the scene just now had been utterly bizarre:
A lump of brain matter had suddenly flown out of Kito Hayabusa's mouth, then returned to Kars's body.
Next, Kars had inexplicably let out a horrible scream, only for Chris to slice off half his head, after which he went silent.
And now that big black sword was actually hovering in mid-air, hacking down vampires all on its own — as if it had a mind of its own?!
All she could say was, she was thoroughly shaken.jpg
Hearing Hayasaka Ai's confusion, Yotsuya Miko clapped both hands over her little mouth.
"Um... I'm not supposed to be able to see this, am I?"
She couldn't help feeling like she was on the verge of tears — had she just blown another secret she wasn't supposed to blow?!
At that, Kushida Kikyo — the first to recover her wits — offered an understanding explanation:
"It's okay. I can actually see it too. Going by the looks on Morishita and Shiraishi-san's faces, they can probably see it as well."
"But... I think that's because we got here using the Black Sphere's power. So the system probably granted us some kind of implicit assistance."
Chris jumped on the opportunity to play along:
"Yeah, she might simply be naturally gifted."
"Because if even an ordinary person couldn't see them, then it wouldn't really make sense that every one of us can see Stands without the Black Sphere actively providing aid."
Katsuragi Kohei nodded, then turned to look at Ichinose Honami and the others, who had mostly finished cleaning up the vampires and were now regrouping to head back.
He glanced at his wristwatch and asked:
"Less than twenty minutes left until the test ends."
"Ichinose, how many vampires are still unprocessed?"
Ichinose Honami glanced at the radar screen of her Y-GUN:
"Still got... 19... 15... 8..."
Watching the red dots vanish at an astonishing rate, her small mouth fell open in surprise:
"Only 3 left? That fast..."
Ichinose looked over at Chris, hoping to get an answer from him.
Chris withdrew Crazy Diamond:
"The reward Ryuuen Kakeru got from the midterm exam allows him to simulate something similar to sunlight."
"As for Ayanokoji and the others..."
Horikita Suzune, who had just stowed away her Black Key, picked up where he left off:
"Ayanokoji rolled the Super-Soldier Serum from the Black Sphere, plus the T-Virus he bought from me..."
"Given the setting that Ripple Breathing is tied to life energy — his Ripple Breathing now should already be at an absolutely terrifying level."
Ichinose Honami had a sudden moment of clarity.
She turned to look at Kars, slumped behind Chris with half a head missing:
"So then... we're now in a state where we can end the exam whenever we like?"
Chris gave an "Mm" in confirmation.
Standing off to the side, Karuizawa Kei spoke up at once with a reminder:
"Well, if we can wrap it up anytime, then while it's still safe, everyone should hurry up and collect some Stone Masks from the area first."
"If we don't bother converting them into item points, just turning them in to the Black Sphere — each mask is worth 4 S Points. Free money is free money — gotta take it!"
Ichinose thought it over and didn't object.
It really did make sense.
Refusing to take a freebie would be plain stupid — especially in a high-pressure environment where every resource was directly tied to your survival.
The more resources they stockpiled, the better their odds of staying alive down the line.
Seeing that everyone was on the same page, Chris spoke up:
"Ayanokoji and Ryuuen Kakeru will handle finishing off the remaining vampires. Sakayanagi Arisu and Amanatsu Kazuha have already gone to other corridors to collect Stone Masks."
"From the looks of it, they should be back soon. The rest of you can just search around in this immediate area — there shouldn't be too many left."
Horikita Suzune seemed to suddenly remember something, her gaze sliding toward the very back of the group — to Housen Kazutomi, Yagami Takuya, and Speedwagon.
"Weren't you all... off collecting Stone Masks earlier? How'd it go?"
Yagami Takuya let out an awkward, dry laugh:
"Uh... well, a huge swarm of vampires suddenly turned up..."
"Housen-kun and I were no match for them four-handed — we were too busy running for our lives, so we left the haul behind."
Housen Kazutomi clicked his tongue, sounding genuinely sore about it:
"If those masks haven't been picked up by Sakayanagi Arisu and her crew, then going back to look for them now, we should still be able to find them. There were at least twenty-plus masks — that's not a small number."
However.
Speedwagon's face went sheepish. He sighed and chimed in:
"I came across that pile of masks you're talking about."
"After you got dragged off by the vampires... just to be safe, to make sure these evil things didn't end up scattered out there hurting more people."
The old man's expression turned righteous: "I went ahead and smashed all of them — the ones in that pile, along with the Stone Masks I'd already collected myself..."
"And then... because the noise from smashing the masks was so loud, I ended up getting spotted by the vampires it attracted."
Hearing this.
Housen Kazutomi and Yagami Takuya exchanged a look — both seeing the exact same exasperation in each other's eyes.
"Tch..."
"So we risked our lives turning into vampires, and the whole trip was for nothing..."
Seeing this, Hirata Yousuke quickly stepped forward to offer comfort:
"It's alright. As long as we've achieved this round's main objective, that's what matters. Everyone making it out safe is more important than anything else. There's no need to dwell on what's already settled."
Of course, Housen Kazutomi understood that logic perfectly well in his head.
But the whole reason he'd actively chosen to turn into a vampire in the first place.
Was for the reward of an extra life that came from winning the special exam!
Now that reward still wasn't in his hands, and the "spoils of war" he'd finally managed to track down had been smashed to pieces by someone else.
Thinking about it that way, of course he still felt sour about it — a real shame.
At that moment.
Ayanokoji, Ryuuen Kakeru, and the others were filing back in one after another.
Each of them was carrying at least a few Stone Masks.
Of the bunch, Amanatsu Kazuha had the most impressive haul.
She'd even gone so far as to use her Parasyte, letting it punch through the inside of her left-hand Combat Suit to expand her carrying capacity — and lugged back a massive pile of Stone Masks by force.
When the group finally set their spoils down.
Horikita Suzune did a rough count.
There were at least forty or fifty masks here!
Converted into item points, that came to a whopping 45,000 points!
But this seemingly massive sum, once split across all of them, really wouldn't be enough to buy any decently high-tier items.
After thinking it over, Horikita Suzune looked up:
"These Stone Masks... were you all planning to exchange them straight for item points, each of you?"
Sakayanagi Arisu corrected her with a soft laugh:
"Horikita-san, just because we piled the stuff in front of you doesn't mean we plan on cashing it in right away."
"We already know the price the Black Sphere pays out for Stone Masks."
"If we're actually going to buy something from you, then converting S Points into item points right now is actually the choice that maximizes returns."
Amanatsu Kazuha added with a smile:
"But because we're not sure whether these Stone Masks can actually be brought back into the Black Sphere Space for settlement."
"So right now, we're also weighing whether or not we should gamble on it."
At those words.
Ichinose Honami stepped forward:
"In that case... let me be the one to test the waters."
"My Myriad Soaring Wings really is pretty restricted in indoor combat. I need to keep boosting my own strength so I can better protect everyone."
Horikita Suzune nodded.
Cooperatively, she brought up the shop interface and let Ichinose pick for herself.
Ichinose looked over the interface.
Now that Chris already had Crazy Diamond, the 10,000-point [Senzu Bean] had clearly lost its purchasing value.
On top of that, items like the Crimson Blade and Black Key — which only had special-effect bonuses against evil spirits and ghosts — were just too narrow in their utility.
The genuinely valuable picks left were just the T-Virus and the two random items.
But the T-Virus only boosted the body, and Ichinose had never been particularly confident in her close combat.
As for those two random items.
A random blind box, compared to a Devil Fruit which at least guaranteed you'd get some kind of superpower, just felt too much like a coin flip.
After mulling it over.
Ichinose ultimately decided to spend her S Points on a Devil Fruit.
Watching two cherry-like fruits appear out of thin air in Ichinose's hands.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka took the chance to pass the illustrated guide over to her.
Ichinose took the guide, but then suddenly seemed to remember something.
She turned to Amanatsu Kazuha, and asked a bit apologetically:
"Um... this Devil Fruit costs 80 S Points. I just used up the entire quota of Stone Masks you all gathered in one go..."
"What are you going to do?"
Amanatsu Kazuha waved a hand with a smile:
"It's fine, Class Rep."
"Since we're not sure whether the masks can be brought back, if they can't, then they're just a pile of useless rocks anyway. So as an experiment, the only way to actually maximize the returns is to concentrate the resources on you guys — the ones with the most S Points."
Ayanokoji and Kouenji nodded in agreement:
"Since you're a fixed participant on the team, any boost to your combat strength benefits everyone. It also means the points spent won't be wasted."
Chris chimed in at the right moment with some reassurance:
"Ichinose, if the masks can't be carried back, then the S Points you fronted are a straight loss. You're already shouldering a huge risk yourself, so there's no need to worry so much."
"Hurry up and scan it with the illustrated guide. Let's see what kind of ability this Devil Fruit of yours actually has."
Ichinose hesitated no longer.
She aimed the guide at the twin fruits in her hand.
"Beep——"
[Paramecia Type · Love-Love Fruit]
[Core Concept: Falling in love equals petrification.]
[As long as the target develops even a sliver of affection, infatuation, or impure thought toward the user, they will be affected by this ability — forcibly turned to stone, with their consciousness sealed away. Only the user herself can undo it. At the same time, the user can develop various derivative techniques from this (such as Fragrance Leg, Slave Arrow, etc.).]
[Immune Demographics: Those uninterested in women, those with hearts of still water, those of overwhelming willpower, or mindless dead objects.]
[Will be weakened upon contact with seawater containing Sea-Prism Stone.]
—— End of Chapter ——
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