They traveled through time at the same time, but the villainous scientist

Chapter 302 Katz Arrives in Italy
"Holy crap~ Is this what time stop feels like?"

Katz observed the world around him with great interest. Had the thermal motion of the molecules in the outside world stopped? Or was it the time dilation effect caused by his acceleration to the speed of light?

Thinking this, Kaz walked to the table and looked at the hot coffee on it.

Even with his senses, he couldn't perceive the heat from this thing, meaning that the transfer of heat had also stopped.

The moment he touched the cup of coffee, the heat started flowing again...

I see……

Kaz nodded, meaning that anything he touched would be immune to the impression of time being stopped.

This is also why DIO's clothes can move with him, and why he can throw knives even while time is stopped.

Having figured this out, Katz began testing the duration of the time stop again.

Maintaining a state of pause feels similar to holding your breath; the longer you maintain this state, the greater the strain.

But for him, that wasn't a problem...

Despite it being his first time using his ability, Kars easily surpassed DIO's record of nine seconds of time stop, reaching a terrifying 20 seconds.

Even more incredibly, he can activate his ability again in just one second.

It’s really amazing…

Kars was once again amazed by the power of ultimate life forms, and at the same time, he roughly understood the principle behind his Stand.

In the fifth part of the original story, due to the power of "Silver Chariot Requiem", the souls of everyone in Rome were forcibly swapped, but the "Stands" possessed by Giorno and his group did not change and remained with their original souls.

In the sixth installment, "White Snake" further demonstrates how to transform "Stand" and "memories" into a disc, which can be extracted from one person and implanted into another, giving them a corresponding Stand.

All of these phenomena point to one thing.

The types and special abilities of Stands do not originate from the physical body, but from the unique "soul" form of each life.

The soul is the blueprint that determines the essence of a [stand].

The body, the host's vitality, is more like hardware. It determines the extent to which this software called "Substitute" can function, and determines the strength of its basic components such as power, speed, precision, and endurance.

The fact that the [substitute] also weakens when its life energy declines is the best proof of this.

The reason he is able to use other people's Stands is because his Stands grant him the ability to perfectly regulate his "sex and life"—that is, his mind and body.

He can adjust his soul state like the most sophisticated instrument to "simulate" and "reproduce" any soul quality he has analyzed.

When Kars adjusted his mental state to be in sync with DIO, the "software" called "THEworld" naturally started running.

His Stand itself has no fixed abilities, or rather, its ability is "everything".

This is a power that transcends the norm, evolved from the ultimate understanding of the concept of "life" by the ultimate life form.

With that thought in mind, Kaz's gaze fell on the "arrow" lying quietly on the floor.

Its surface has lost its original luster and become dull and lifeless.

In order to allow him to evolve, the arrow's power seems to have been exhausted.

He bent down, picked it up, and put it in his pocket.

This thing itself is still an excellent research subject.

……

The next day

Kars had already left the hotel because he had something else to do after awakening his Stand ability.

He quickly found his target among the students.

That's a boy named Josuke Higashikata, the protagonist of the fourth part, but he's just an elementary school student right now.

He raised his hand, and a small piece of his fingernail silently fell off. The moment it hit the ground, it transformed into an inconspicuous mosquito, its wings fluttering as it silently approached Josuke Higashikata.

His Stand ability requires physical contact to activate, and requires recording the other person's physical and mental information.

The next moment, the mosquito landed lightly on Josuke Higashikata's bare neck and inhaled through its sharp proboscis.

Josuke Higashikata just scratched his neck unconsciously, then continued fooling around with his friends as they headed towards school.

Kaz turned and walked into an empty alley. He picked up a brick that had been smashed to pieces by the roadside.

He reached out, and the enormous, dark blue [Stand] reappeared, activating its power. The fragments seemed to come alive; they vibrated and leaped, rapidly retracing, piecing together, and merging in a trajectory that defied the laws of physics.

With a crackling sound, in less than a second, a perfectly intact brick lay quietly in Katz's hand.

This can already be described as an effect of turning back time...

Kaz nodded in satisfaction and then left.

That afternoon, Katz boarded an international flight bound for Italy.

Ten thousand meters above the ground, he leaned back comfortably in his first-class seat, flipping through a document collected by his subordinates.

The "Passion" organization, a newly emerging force that has only recently gained prominence, has stirred up a bloodbath in Italy with an almost tyrannical attitude.

Their methods of expansion were extremely efficient and ruthless.

The document records several cases.

Gangs that oppose the "Passion" organization often suffer extremely bizarre deaths, with their leaders and core members frequently meeting with such circumstances.

The godfather of a family was found strangled to death with his own tie in a heavily guarded villa, his bones shattered, a gruesome death.

Another gang leader, while having a rendezvous with his mistress, suddenly melted like a wax figure, leaving only an unidentifiable oil stain on the bed.

Such incidents occurred frequently, and the methods used were so bizarre that they completely exceeded the scope of conventional gang warfare.

The entire Italian underworld was gripped by fear, and people turned pale at the mere mention of "passion."

"A Stand created using 'arrows'...?"

Kaz tapped the documents lightly with his fingertips, a knowing look in his eyes.

Without a doubt, it was all orchestrated behind the scenes by that man named Diablo.

He continued to peruse the documents, noting down the names and hideouts of several gang families that were still putting up a fierce resistance but had been designated as the next targets for elimination by the "Passion" organization.

His plan was simple: wait and see.

According to the original description of Diablo, he was an extremely cautious, even obsessive, man who would go to any lengths to erase his past and hide his identity.

However, behind this obsession lies absolute confidence in his own Stand ability.

He will personally take action when facing formidable enemies like Pollarev...

In other words, as long as he shows a certain threat, the "emperor" hiding in the shadows will most likely be unable to restrain himself and personally take action to confirm and eliminate this "variable".

But as soon as that guy appears in front of him, everything will be over.

Having finalized his plan, Katz picked up another separate folder of documents.

It contained only one photo and a few pages of simple background information.

The photo shows a boy with black hair and black eyes, who looks about five or six years old, with a melancholy and wariness in his eyes that are beyond his years.

His name is still Shioka Hatsuru.

DIO's son, the inheritor of the Joestar bloodline.

Katz had no interest in the boy's background; what interested him was the boy's Stand—Gold Experience.

A peculiar ability to transform inorganic matter into organic matter, directly infusing objects with "life".

This is completely different from Kars' own abilities.

Katz is the pinnacle of biology; he can modify and create life, but his method is based on perfect control over cells and DNA, involving editing and recombination at the material level.

The "Golden Experience," on the other hand, is more like giving the concept of "life" directly from a higher dimension.

This is the realm of "life" that he has not yet ventured into.

Initially, he intended to adopt the child through various means to facilitate his research.

But because of his awakened Stand, he doesn't need to go through that trouble...

The plane passed through the clouds, descended slowly, and finally came to a stop at Rome Airport.

As Katz stepped off the gangway, the warm, slightly salty Mediterranean air rushed towards him.

The first step of the plan was to visit the gang leader in the file who was about to be consumed by "passion"...

(End of this chapter)