Chapter 193 No More Substitutes

It all happened almost without warning.

At the moment when the black toad opened its bloody mouth as wide as possible, Melancholy Blues seemed to be suddenly deleted from this world, disappearing silently in front of Abbazia and Bucciarati.

They both felt a flash before their eyes, and a living human-shaped substitute disappeared.

"what happened?"

Seeing such a strange scene, Bucciarati subconsciously took a step back:

"Apache, are you okay?"

"I…I'm fine."

There was a strong sense of surprise surging in Apache's pupils:

“But, the Moody Blues…it’s completely gone!”

This is an incredible phenomenon.

There has always been a mysterious and close connection between the stand and the original body. The injuries suffered by the stand will be fed back to the original body in real time, and the original body can also confirm the position and status of the stand through consciousness.

To the Stand user, the Stand is like arms and legs, a kind of "spiritual limbs".

And now…

It was as if Abbaki had returned to the time before his stand awakened. He could not feel his own melancholy and blues at all.

His stand seemed to be isolated in another world, completely cut off from the original body.

"Could it be..."

Looking at the slowly closing mouth of the black-skinned toad and thinking of Melancholy Blues' mysterious disappearance just now, Apache finally deduced some useful information in this shock:

"Melancholy Blues, was it 'swallowed' by that catfish?"

"As long as there are three fish-shaped marks on its body, the catfish can make objects 'disappear' from this world!"

“Make an object disappear…”

Bucciarati frowned.

He instinctively realized that this Stand ability would be very tricky for him.

Accumulating three marks will make the object "disappear", which actually means that when fighting with the black-skinned toad, you must not be attacked more than three times.

Otherwise, the fate that awaits him and Steel Chain Fingers will be disappearing from this world without any resistance.

And whether they are dead or alive after disappearing, whether they are directly wiped out or sent to other places, whether there is any way for them to reappear in the world after disappearing... all this is still unpredictable.

"Don't go near it."

Bucciarati immediately made a judgment:

"The attack speed of that tongue is no less than that of the steel chain fingers."

"There is no way we can get close to the enemy without being attacked more than three times ."

He made the right call.

And the enemy, the young man named Anthony, was obviously very aware of his advantage in close combat.

While Bucciarati and Apacci were shocked by the Stand ability displayed by the River King, Anthony had already driven his Stand to pounce on them.

The black-skinned toad, which was more than three meters tall, spread out its two short legs and rushed forward at a speed that was completely disproportionate to its huge size.

Because of the test fight just now, the distance between the two sides had long been reduced to only four or five meters.

The big toad first took two steps forward at lightning speed, then opened its bloody mouth with its beard trembling, and a huge, thick and long fleshy tongue shot out along with a strong air wave.

“So fast!”

Apache couldn't help but be secretly shocked.

As the tongue's primary target, he tried his best to retreat backwards, but there is a limit to the speed that humans can train to achieve.

He had no way of avoiding the tongue tip that was shooting out at lightning speed, and could only watch helplessly as the long, flexible tongue, like a swimming snake, licked his face in this infinitely slowed-down time.

" Apache !"

In his nervousness, Bucciarati subconsciously called out his companion's name.

The steel chain finger moved in response. It was now the only thing that could match the speed of that strange tongue.

A blue phantom suddenly appeared in the dim shade of the woods, confronting the red whip that was flying towards them.

Bang!

The two high-speed objects collided in mid-air with a crisp sound.

Under cover, Apache successfully leaped backwards, and the tongue, which was extremely fast but had strength almost the same as that of a human, was unsurprisingly knocked away by a punch from the steel chain finger in a head-on collision.

The long tongue flew backwards quickly and hit the black toad's face with a "snap".

Then it drooped weakly from the toad's mouth, looking like a dying cutlassfish.

“Ohhhhh—”

Anthony immediately covered his mouth with a look of pain.

The injuries sustained by the substitute were restored to the original body. While the tongue of the River King was easily knocked away by the steel chain fingers, his tongue also swelled rapidly in his mouth at a speed visible to the naked eye.

“Ouch…Ouch…it hurts!”

Anthony's tongue was swollen from being hit, and he had trouble speaking clearly.

But despite this, he still insisted on pretending to be indifferent, and said in a vague voice with a big tongue:

"Po... As expected... The fourth one... is Pokalati."

"Damn... the amount of... it's really strong."

"but…"

As he spoke, Anthony finally managed to make his words more coherent:

"How many times do you dare to throw a punch like this at my 'familiar'?"

Bucciarati couldn't help but be silent.

Although Anthony looked very funny with his swollen tongue and slurred speech, what he said was actually correct. The one who was truly at a disadvantage was not the black-skinned toad whose tongue was knocked off, but the steel chain finger that seemed to be very powerful.

Because at the moment when the steel chain finger touched the enemy's tongue, the seemingly magical tongue had already imprinted a complete fish-shaped mark on the steel chain finger.

If there were two more fish-shaped signs like this...

No matter how strong the steel chain fingers are, they will disappear into thin air just like the previous melancholy blues.

"what to do?"

"If this continues, I will be the only one who loses."

Bucciarati was lost in thought.

Anthony obviously had no intention of giving his opponent a chance to think quietly. He didn't even care about the swollen and painful tongue in his mouth, and drove the big black toad forward to attack again.

The long tongue that had just been beaten and drooped limply began to wriggle and twist, then regained its strength in an instant and pounced towards Bucciarati like a ferocious and swift python.

"Steel Chain Fingers!"

In a split second, Bucciarati made his decision.

This time, the steel chain finger did not attack the tongue head-on, but suddenly burst out a dazzling blue fist shadow, pouring all the power onto the ground:

“Ali ali ali ali!”

A blue zipper opened on the ground.

The solid ground turned into a "hollow backpack" and a big hole was opened under the fist shadow of the steel chain fingers.

"Go in!"

"This is the only way!"

Bucciarati pulled Abbacchio and instantly escaped into the ground through the opened zipper.

The steel chain fingers then drilled into the underground space it created and zipped it up after entering.

The ground is restored, but Bucciarati and Abbacchio have disappeared.

The big tongue, as fast as the wind, came towards him on the head, but in the end it just hit the ground in vain.

"this…"

Anthony's face looked a little unhappy:

He really couldn't do anything about Bucciarati and the others who had burrowed into the ground.

Although [River King] can swallow any object into the different dimension in his stomach, just like Golden Experience cannot turn the earth upside down, the actual effect of the stand ability has its limits.

It can swallow up an object of normal human size at most at a time, but it cannot dig up the entire ground.

If Anthony wanted to find Bucciarati hiding underground by digging, he would have to watch the big black toad eat the soil mouthful by mouthful all night long.

"No, it's okay."

After a brief moment of embarrassment, Anthony suddenly calmed down:

"I had expected ."

"Since he couldn't get close to my main body under the protection of the [River King], he must have wanted to move underground and then break out from under my feet to attack."

“That’s a good idea indeed.”

"But it's not that easy to knock me down."

Anthony talked to himself for a while, and a confident smile gradually appeared on the corners of his mouth.

Then, he paid full attention to the movements under his feet, waiting to launch a counterattack as soon as Bucciarati emerged from the ground.

But…

Three seconds passed and there was no movement underground.

Ten seconds passed and there was no movement underground.

Twenty seconds was enough time for the Stand users to finish a battle and say a few dirty words, but Bucciarati still did not show up.

"etc…"

A hint of hesitation suddenly appeared on Anthony's young face:

"These two guys, they won't just run away like this, right?"

“Hello…”