In front of three people who played with time stops, no matter what anyone else's abilities were or how devastating their destructive power was, they would all be eclipsed. No matter how powerful a move was, it was useless if it couldn't hit the target.
Honestly, it felt like playing on a trash server and constantly disconnecting and reconnecting.
Zenith grumbled, but his hands didn't stop moving. Actually, he had a very simple method to bypass the time-stop abilities of these three: build a Nether Portal and return to the Overworld.
Once he broke the portal, no one would be able to enter, and Zenith could craft as many Time in a Bottles as he wanted.
But the problem was, where would it connect to after the portal was broken and rebuilt? Would it link back to Cairo, or would it send him straight back to Japan where the plot first started?
Furthermore, breaking the portal would be equivalent to severing the bridge between Zenith's Overworld and this JoJo's Bizarre Adventure world. Whether the flow of time would remain the same, or if reopening the door would even lead to the same timeline, were all unknowns.
The risks were too high, leaving Zenith with no choice but to craft the bottle right where he stood. This was just a lack of experience caused by opening the portal for the first time. When he found the next world, he would definitely test out these crucial details first.
"This is just bullying!"
The time stop ended, and Zenith took two consecutive barrages of heavy punches. To make matters worse, he could only watch himself get beaten up without being able to fight back.
He had to admit, those two Stands didn't have an A in Destructive Power for nothing. Zenith actually lost three whole hearts of health despite wearing a full set of Netherite armor.
He finally crafted it. Luckily, the materials needed for the Time in a Bottle were quite common, saving him a massive amount of time rummaging through his chests.
Next was waiting to collect time. The Time in a Bottle was a navy-blue glass bottle with a golden cap and exceptionally ornate textures around the rim. As time passed, one could see gray-white clouds continuously accumulating inside the bottle.
That was the physical manifestation of "time."
Here it comes again, time stop! An indescribable spherical space rapidly expanded from Dio, stretching beyond sight in an instant. At this moment, this was the world dominated by Dio.
"It looks like whatever you were trying to do is finished, but what use could it possibly be? Before my, Dio's, invincible Stand, and under this power that can dominate time, whatever you do is nothing but a futile struggle!"
Dio walked toward Zenith step by step. "As long as I kill you, Jotaro won't stand a chance in a two-on-one fight. And I, Dio—will ultimately ascend to Heaven!"
The golden Stand, The World, appeared beside him, and then threw a punch!
"Muda!"
"Muda Muda Muda Muda Muda!!!"
Zenith was sent flying up and down by the heavy punches, while recoil damage from the "Thorns" enchantment surfaced on Dio's body.
"For the frail body of a human, this kind of damage reflection ability is indeed very strong, but for an ultimate lifeform like me, it's merely a flesh wound. Zenith, I must admit I'm genuinely curious about your Stand ability. Whether it's The Hand or this creation and damage reflection method, none of them seem to be the true essence of your Stand."
Dio was very smart. Setting aside his absolute evil nature, this guy's intellect, strategy, and mentality were all top-tier, truly befitting a king.
Zenith kept his focus on the Time in a Bottle. Even in this time-stopped world, the bottle was still accumulating time. Right now, his extra time reserve was 8 seconds.
It wasn't enough. If he was going to stop time, he needed to do it big. Diego had 5 seconds, Jotaro had 5 seconds. Factoring in skill cooldowns and time spent trash-talking, it was just about enough for Zenith to scrape together the minimum single-use amount for the Time in a Bottle.
30 seconds!
A 30-second time acceleration looked no different from a time stop to the outside world. One stopped the time of the macro-environment, while the other accelerated one's own time.
In terms of status, the former was definitely stronger. To achieve that level, the only thing Zenith could think of was the "Watch of Flowing Time" from the Equivalent Exchange mod.
But Zenith had duration on his side! What good was 5 or 10 seconds? The longest he could accelerate with the Time in a Bottle in a single use was 480 seconds—a full 8 minutes!
For some fast-acting people, 8 minutes was enough to pass on their family line.
"Then you'll probably never understand it in this lifetime, Dio."
Although his body still couldn't move in the time-stopped world, having grasped the concept of time, Zenith could communicate through The Hand's internal Stand voice chat.
Time resumed its flow, and Diego's time stop followed immediately after. He had been tangled up by Jotaro during the last time stop and had no time to care about Zenith's side of things. Right now, he was busy trading "Ora!"s with Jotaro.
Glancing over, Zenith tried hard to squeeze out a facial expression. He had saved up enough time. Now, it was finally his turn.
"I'm a very vindictive person, Dio! Remember this, you filthy vampire: anyone with 'IO' in their name, whether it's your The World or the king of time ZI-O, cannot escape the fate of being time-stopped!"
Zenith swiftly flew into midair. "Time begins to accelerate! Za Warudo!"
He didn't know why, but if he didn't shout "Za Warudo!", his whole body just felt uncomfortable. Zenith rolled his wrists, laughing as he flew over to Dio.
"Ascending to Heaven, huh! Stopping time, huh! The path of The World is the path of human evolution, huh!"
With every sentence, Zenith slapped Dio hard across the face. After both sides of Dio's face were swollen high, he pulled out a Rokakaka fruit and stuffed it into Dio's mouth.
"I recall that one of the necessary conditions to ascend to Heaven is the Stand, The World. So, what happens if you don't have a Stand anymore?"
The golden Stand, The World, slowly dissipated. In that moment, Zenith turned Dio back into a vampire without a Stand, stripping him of his power to freely dominate time.
"And Diego... haven't you ever heard the saying 'don't hit a man in the face'?" He glanced at Dio out of the corner of his eye. "Vampires don't count."
Eliminating Diego's Stand as usual, Zenith looked at the five or six seconds he had left. Utterly bored, he casually slapped Diego's face until it was swollen too.
Stripped of his Stand ability, Diego was just an ordinary human. Zenith used a Lead to drag him all the way over to Dio. When the time acceleration effect ended, he conveniently tossed the two of them together.
"Impossible! Why can't I feel the presence of my Stand anymore?!"
Stopping Jotaro's urge to activate his time-stop ability again, Zenith patted Dio's swollen, handsome face with his Netherite Sword.
"Didn't your super intelligence-gathering ability detect that I have a way to erase other people's Stands? Also."
Zenith looked at Dio with a beaming smile. "Did you think time was like the little breads in your house? That you can just ravage it however you want, and stop it whenever you please? Those who play with time will ultimately be played by time."
Because their ability mechanisms were different, time-stoppers like Dio and Jotaro seemingly couldn't perceive what happened when Zenith accelerated time.
Perhaps Zenith's time acceleration shared a tiny bit of similarity with the Speed Force from the DC Universe.
None of that mattered. What mattered was that Dio and this Diego were definitely finished.
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