"Your name... it's Zuke, right?"
In the void, a deep male voice slowly echoed out, and under Zuke's gaze, a devilish-looking head gradually emerged in midair ahead of him.
This head was part of Vanilla Ice's Stand, "Void Miasma." The lower half of the Stand's body was twisted, shoved into its own mouth.
The ability of Void Miasma lay in that gaping mouth, which connected spatial locations and could consume spherical areas of space through this mouth, resulting in a spherical deletion effect.
Within the mouth of Void Miasma, Vanilla Ice's face slowly emerged. He concealed his real body within the Stand's mouth-space, making it impossible for others to attack him.
Now he had poked his head out and was addressing Zuke, seemingly trying to apply pressure on him. But Zuke understood this was just Vanilla's way of observing his position.
Vanilla, hiding his true body in his Stand's mouth, couldn't see the outside world and had to stumble around like a headless fly.
So, if he wanted to launch a precise attack on a target, he had to first poke his head out, see his target's location, or anticipate their movements, and then command his Stand to rush over and delete the space in that area.
"Did you see that from the hotel register?"
Vanilla was confirming Zuke's position, but Zuke was likewise confirming Vanilla's. Vanilla's Stand was indeed troublesome, but if he seized the moment Vanilla's head poked out to attack, he could end it.
At this moment, Vanilla hadn't yet been transformed into a vampire by Dio's blood, so he could appear in sunlight.
But this also meant that if Zuke struck his head, Vanilla wouldn't survive.
Vanilla calling his name was actually Zuke's oversight. Just now, he instinctively signed his real name in the hotel register.
This had led to Vanilla now knowing his name. But it was no big deal; he only had to kill Vanilla here to prevent any report back. Next time, he'd learn his lesson and use a fake name.
"That's right. You bought the Arrow from Enya, so I came to check on you. If you're not a threat to Lord Dio, you can leave."
Vanilla's voice carried a trace of coldness, and his gaze at Zuke was filled with a flicker of anger.
"But the moment I saw you, I could tell—you harbor deep malice toward Lord Dio. I don't know if you're with the Joestar crew, but I must eliminate you!"
So that's it. Zuke now understood. Originally, Kira Yoshihiro had also bought an Arrow from Enya, and Vanilla had likely observed him from the shadows too.
But Kira Yoshihiro didn't know Dio or the Joestar family, so Vanilla deemed him harmless and let him leave Egypt.
But Zuke was different. Zuke knew Dio, and Dio was his target to kill—Vanilla, Dio's fanatical follower, had somehow sensed it.
To most, this might seem strange, but Vanilla Ice in the original story had displayed an unusual obsession with Dio, even to the point of willingly decapitating himself for Dio's sake.
For him to sense others' malice toward Dio wasn't entirely unbelievable; Zuke could even understand it.
"Zuke, I'll tear you apart and bring the Arrow back to Lord Dio!"
After uttering his threat, Vanilla locked his gaze on Zuke's position, then withdrew his head, and Void Miasma vanished from Zuke's sight.
But Zuke knew that Void Miasma had only disappeared in appearance. In reality, it was charging toward him from another space—if it struck him, his body would be deleted!
Moreover, Void Miasma wouldn't necessarily come at him in a straight line; it could strike from the left or right. So Zuke had to determine its trajectory to avoid its path of deletion.
For most, at this moment, it would be a gamble, choosing one of three directions: left, center, or right. But Zuke was different; he simply raised his hand and slammed a fierce punch into the ground below.
Boom!
The ground shattered under his terrifying punch, revealing a massive pit. Zuke's body fell into the pit as he looked upward.
Whoosh—!
Sure enough, the next instant, the sound of space being deleted came from directly above him, and Void Miasma's head appeared, with Vanilla's face emerging from its mouth, checking if it had struck Zuke.
However, Vanilla clearly hadn't noticed Zuke now lay beneath him.
"Black Bird!"
In an instant, the black Stand manifested before Zuke, delivering a brutal punch toward the Void Miasma above, aiming squarely for Vanilla's head in its mouth!
"What?!"
However, Vanilla had sensed it just in time. The moment Void Miasma appeared, he felt the empty space beneath him. Glancing down, he saw a massive pit.
From the pit's shape, it was clear it had been smashed open with brute force!
And within the pit, Zuke was visible, with his Stand, Black Bird, positioned directly beneath Void Miasma, its giant fist about to strike his face.
Fear surged through Vanilla; he knew that if struck by this Stand's punch, his head would be obliterated, much like the spaces deleted by Void Miasma.
Driven by sheer terror and his heightened awareness of danger, he quickly pulled his head back into Void Miasma's mouth. His real body was safe, but Void Miasma's body couldn't retreat back into the other dimension in time.
Thud!
Black Bird's punch landed squarely on Void Miasma's shoulder, instantly tearing the Stand's body apart, and Vanilla's scream echoed from its mouth:
"Argh—! You bastard!"
In the next moment, Vanilla, enduring the pain, commanded Void Miasma to self-consume again, disappearing from Zuke's sight, retreating back into the alternate dimension.
But lying at the bottom of the pit was an arm and a leg—not Vanilla's limbs, but fragments of Void Miasma, shattered by Black Bird.
"So the Stand's parts were broken… Since the Stand's injuries transfer to the user, Vanilla should now be missing an arm and a leg too."
Zuke glanced at the remnants of Void Miasma at his feet, frowning as he looked at where Void Miasma had disappeared. "Too bad I didn't finish him off in one punch. He escaped into the other dimension… No problem; the second punch will settle it."
To be continued…
Dear readers, this is a new piece of fiction, so please donate your power stones so it can reach the maximum audience. I will be grateful for your magnanimous acts.