The death of a high-ranking organization cadre was no small matter, so Diavolo immediately pulled up more detailed intelligence.
"Suspected death by gunfire. No eyewitnesses. All prison guards lost consciousness simultaneously for a period of time…"
To accomplish something like this, the killer clearly could not have been acting alone. At the very least, it had been a coordinated operation by multiple people—only then could Polpo be eliminated and the attackers escape from such a heavily guarded prison.
Of course, if that were all, Diavolo wouldn't have paid it much attention. After all, people died in the underworld all the time. Even with Passione's reach spanning all of Italy, there would always be fools unafraid of death.
If it were merely an ordinary cadre who had made enemies and been deliberately assassinated, that would be entirely normal. Diavolo didn't care about the lives of his subordinates—so long as those who dared to provoke the organization were later hunted down and killed.
But Polpo was different from an ordinary cadre.
Diavolo had personally entrusted him with the Arrow capable of creating Stand users, allowing him to mass-produce Stand users to serve the organization. Now that Polpo had died under mysterious circumstances, the cautious Diavolo's first thought was whether Polpo had accidentally leaked the secret of the Arrow and been targeted as a result.
If that were the case, then Polpo's death was not a simple act of revenge—it meant someone was attempting to shake Diavolo's position as king.
Moreover, Polpo himself was a Stand user. To kill him so easily inside a heavily guarded prison and then withdraw cleanly, the attackers were very likely Stand users as well.
At this thought, Diavolo let out a cold snort, his expression darkening.
"Trash hiding in the shadows… you think you're worthy of challenging a king?"
Speculation was still speculation, though. For now, the priority was to identify the attackers.
Since the enemy in the shadows had only killed Polpo and made no attempt to investigate Diavolo's identity as the organization's leader, Diavolo had no intention of investigating personally. Instead, he delegated the matter to his subordinates.
And so, under the command of the mysterious boss, Passione's cadres and their underlings began moving.
However, while Passione was investigating Polpo's killer, somewhere else—within a certain estate—the person they were hunting was currently entangled in a very different kind of "battle."
On a large bed, more than a dozen naked bodies were sprawled together in chaotic disarray. Around them lay all manner of clothing, torn to shreds—each in a different style.
Gothic dresses, sailor uniforms, eyepatches, wedding gowns, nurse outfits, policewoman uniforms…
Beautiful girls of every imaginable aesthetic gathered in one place, a paradise enough to intoxicate any man.
Looking closer, one would realize that every girl lying on the bed had the exact same face—the only differences were their hairstyles and the subtle variations in their temperament.
"Master, please replenish your fluids first."
The bedroom door opened, and Sakuya Izayoi entered carrying tea, addressing An Xora, who was still in the midst of battle at the center of the bed.
Seeing this, An Xora silently picked up the pace.
A short while later, accompanied by a girl's sharp, breathless cry, An Xora placed aside the pale, flawless body that had already gone slack with exhaustion—still twitching faintly and kicking now and then, yet clinging to him like an octopus. He finally withdrew from the battlefield and sat down at the edge of the bed.
Immediately, two clones who had recovered a bit of strength knelt down before him, obediently and attentively helping him clean up.
Sakuya's expression didn't change at the sight of all this. She maintained her gentle smile as she calmly poured tea for An Xora.
In fact, earlier she had already fought alongside Kurumi's original body against their master. The clones lying here now were nothing more than Kurumi's reinforcements, summoned after she herself had been overwhelmed by her master's terrifying physical prowess.
Yet An Xora—who had fused Kryptonian blood—possessed stamina that bordered on the absurd. Even with over a dozen clones taking turns in a rotational assault, they had still been subdued one by one, utterly defeated, no longer daring to harbor any rebellious thoughts.
After several months of growth, not to mention Kurumi's clones—even Jibril, An Xora was now confident he could defeat.
And An Xora had also deeply developed his abilities, especially the power of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit. By coating his body in faint electric currents—too weak to cause injury, yet enough to stimulate particularly sensitive areas—even Spirits with constitutions like Kurumi's couldn't help but collapse like cannon fodder, swiftly triggering their "defeat CGs."
"Thanks for that, Sakuya."
An Xora drained the tea in one gulp and let out a long breath.
"It's simply a maid's duty."
Sakuya replied, then glanced toward a corner of the bed where Kurumi's original body lay. She had been motionless since the battle began, only just now beginning to recover some strength.
"Miss Kurumi, would you like some as well?"
"Ara, then I'll trouble you, Miss Sakuya."
Having regained a bit of stamina, Kurumi lazily rolled over, crossing her long, slender legs as she propped herself on the bed. Her petite yet voluptuous figure was displayed to perfection, and a faint, teasing allure lingered in her heterochromatic red-and-gold eyes.
"The Stand Arrow has already been secured. What's your plan for obtaining the Beetle Arrow next?"
Now fully in post-battle clarity, An Xora asked about the next step.
"As for the Beetle Arrow, I've already dispatched clones to search around the Roman Colosseum from the original story, using it as the center to locate Polnareff's hideout. But finding him will likely take some time."
With Kurumi's abilities, obtaining the Beetle Arrow from Polnareff wouldn't be difficult. Given sufficient time, Zafkiel was exceptionally versatile—combat, reconnaissance, support, ambush—it excelled in all of them. Even its relatively weak frontal combat ability in the original work was no longer a weakness in the JOJO world, where Stand users were notoriously fragile. In fact, it became a major advantage.
As for the time-storage issue that often plagued Kurumi in the original story, that problem had long since been solved. Setting everything else aside, just in terms of lifespan, the fusion-warrior body's longevity was utterly absurd—so absurd it barely felt like something that should exist in the Honkai Third universe's technological framework.
In the neighboring Star Rail universe, the long-lived Xianzhou people averaged eight hundred to a thousand years of life. Fusion warriors, on the other hand, could casually boost an ordinary person's lifespan to tens of thousands of years, with no visible upper limit.
If anything, the increase in lifespan was even more outrageous than the boost in strength.
With such an effectively limitless lifespan as a foundation, An Xora naturally allowed Kurumi to absorb time from him as she pleased—though the method of absorption differed somewhat from her usual way.
And even if she didn't draw time from An Xora or his other incarnations, Kurumi could always head over to the Rhodes Island world and eat at the "buffet."
There was no shortage of long-lived beings there either—colossi, Beast Lords, or more commonly, the Sarkaz.
Even an ordinary Sarkaz had a natural lifespan of several hundred years. Figures like the Lord of the Feast had lived for over ten thousand.
And if An Xora remembered correctly, in the Rhodes Island lore of his previous life, there had never been a single Sarkaz shown to have died of old age.
◇ You can read 80+ chapter ahead on P@treon if you're interested: patreon.com/BlackDevil808
✨ Bonus Chapter Goals ✨
10 Reviews = 1 Bonus Chapter 100
Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter