stand-in creed

Nero knew little about the superpowers of this world, and he knew nothing about Dio in the mouth of the vampire.But even so, Nero could vaguely guess something.

"—Dio.

"Characteristic 1: A blond male with a muscular body about 195cm tall, with fair skin and red eyes.

"Trait 2: Confidence. Unrivaled confidence.

"Conjecture 1: Vampires, substitute messengers, have the ability to create vampires and substitute messengers.

"Conjecture 2: He who can make an extremely evil subordinate with superpowers worship him must have power over his subordinates."

write here.

Nero remembered the vampire's evaluation of Dio - a rainbow in the night, the savior.

"...?"

Thinking of this, Nero's expression became weird.

Immediately Nero got up and took out two vinyl records from the study.

Rainbow in the Dark - Rainbow in the Dark

"Holy Diver - Holy Savior"

Produced by the heavy metal rock band Dio in 1983, the lead singer is called Dio.

This is a legendary lead singer.

Although Nero felt that his guess was unreliable, he still wrote this in his notebook.

"Conjecture 3: Ronnie James Dior, the lead singer of the band Dio, is the Dior I'm looking for."

Is it reliable?

No matter how you look at it, it's not reliable.

Only five seconds later, Nero picked up a pen to obliterate this sentence, and wrote a line of red letters next to Dior's name.

"—the savior of the wicked."

Chapter 7 The Gray Tower Part [-]

The evening of March 1988, 11.

In Tokyo, Japan, a boy named Jotaro Kujo met the transfer student Noriaki Kakyoin. On the same day, Nero packed his bags and arrived at Rome Fiumicino Airport.

"Good day, Mr. Zeppelin."

"it's me."

Nero followed the stewardess and walked towards the private plane he had chartered.

Nero did not buy ordinary tickets like he used to when traveling abroad with his parents, but directly chartered a small airliner.In addition to the crew, there was only one guest, Nero, on the entire plane.

I have to admit that even if Nero left a rich legacy as a furniture merchant father, this is still a painful payment.But Nero would rather pay more than the tragedy of the [-] passengers and crew on his parents' flight.

Nero didn't want too many irrelevant people involved in his right and wrong.

So now on the entire flight, there are only four people, the captain, the co-pilot, a flight attendant, and the guest Nero.

In order to prevent accidents, he even brought a parachute backpack on the plane under the strange eyes of the security personnel.

Faster than water and requires fewer crews than water.

If it wasn't for Nero not knowing how to fly a boat or a plane, Nero would probably choose to drive a speedboat helicopter from the Mediterranean Sea into the Nile River by himself, and then go all the way south to Cairo.

Unlike Tokyo to Cairo, which spans half a small half of the world, the straight-line distance between Rome, Italy, and Cairo, Egypt, is only comparable to that between Beijing and Guangzhou.

Very close.

After a while, the flight stabilized under the clouds.

The captain and co-pilot were wearing their duties in the cab behind the door, and the only flight attendant didn't know where to rest after delivering the food for Nero.Nero sat in his seat and looked at the night sky outside the window for a while, then flipped through the magazines in the cabin.

"...It feels so quiet."

Thinking of this, Nero began to close his eyes and meditate.

But gradually, Nero was awakened by a buzzing sound.

Mosquito?

It seems to be outside the door?

Nero didn't take it seriously at first, but opened his eyes suddenly after only two seconds.

"I'm sitting in the "luxury" first class cabin, and this buzzing sound is not coming from the room, but from outside!There is "a door" between my first class cabin and the outside world!

"Even if mosquitoes are in the same room, as long as they are more than one meter away, normal people can't hear the disturbing buzzing sound at all, let alone the outside world separated by a door? This buzzing sound is absolutely It's not the sound that a mere mosquito can make, but the sound made by other "large insects"!

"Why is there such a thing on the plane?

"And it shouldn't be my auditory hallucination. This buzzing sound seems to be gradually approaching behind me. There is a wall behind my seat, which means that this unidentified bug "just happened" to fly on the other side of the wall. Right behind my head on one side?The plane has so much space, why did it fly here. "

If it was Nero in the past, he would definitely not take it seriously, and would only regard it as an insect that was mistakenly released into the plane due to a mistake by the ground crew.

But after seeing vampires, substitutes and magical divination, Nero gradually believes that no matter how outrageous things are in this world, it is possible to happen.

in short--

Suspicious.

While being suspicious, Nero subconsciously stayed away from the buzzing sound of insects like a normal person.

Nero stood up.

However, the second Nero left his seat, something unexpected happened.

Click!

A small hole was broken in the wall and the seat amidst a loud noise.

A white light struck, flashing across Nero's head when he was lying down.

"What, what is this?!

"This thing like a chain directly opened a hole in the wall and the seat! Not only that, but the shape of the tip of this thing is like something's "mouthparts" with two rows of ferocious fangs, and More importantly... it was still stained with blood.

"If I hadn't stood up just now, this thing would have punched a hole in my head! It's like sticking chopsticks into a watermelon!"

For a moment, such a thought flashed through Nero's mind.

Without further ado, when Nero grabbed a bottle of "mineral water" that he took a sip of and rushed out of the first-class cabin to the aisle, he saw the flying insect that only existed in his mind's imagination—

— stag beetle.

And not far from the stag beetle fluttering in the air, the only flight attendant on the plane was lying in a pool of blood, her eyes were wide open, and the tongue that was supposed to be in the gaping mouth was randomly thrown on the ground like garbage. next to the ground.

The carts stacked with various beverages were caught by the seat gaps on both sides of the aisle, and stopped quietly on the pool of blood.

There is no doubt that the flight attendant died on the way to deliver drinks to the two pilots in the cockpit.

Nero stared at the stag beetle.

Is it...

"BINGO! You guessed it!"

"I ripped out her tongue! Not only the stewardess, but also the tongues of the captain and co-pilot in the cockpit were ripped out by me!"

Human words spewed out of the stag beetle's disgusting mouthparts.

The attitude is extremely arrogant.

The tone was extremely arrogant.

Immediately afterwards, the stag beetle was flying in the air, saying leisurely.

"But the information doesn't seem right.

"Obviously you couldn't see the double when you fought that half-baked ghoul, why can you see my "Grey Tower" now?It seems that you have experienced something after that, and you became a stand-in messenger. If this is the case, I have to be a little more careful. "

Nero frowned.

Only the stand-in messenger could see the stand-in. He had heard that from the ghoul before, and now he got another testimony from the stag beetle in front of him.But even so, Nero was at a loss for such a speech.

Are you a stand-in messenger?

How did I never know about this?

Not only that, Nero noticed a word spoken by the stag beetle.

"...the gray tower."

"That's right, the gray tower! Unlike the ghoul whose stand-in doesn't even deserve a name, I'm the stand-in messenger who holds the Tarot card hint of "Tower", which symbolizes destruction, disaster, and the end of the journey.

"From the moment you saw me, your journey is over. This is an altitude of more than 8000 meters, the pilot has died, and your end is doomed!

"But how is that enough? I've decided! I'm going to rip your tongue out too, like your parents who don't even understand Ripple!"

"?!"

Hearing the stag beetle's speech, Nero's pupils shrank.

Immediately, Nero took a deep breath, clenched the mineral water bottle in his hand, and golden ripples enveloped his whole body.

"Well, this is really both Big and Great."

"Ok?"

The stag beetle tilted its head.

The next moment, the stag beetle saw Nero splashing the mineral water bottle violently, and the water splashed all over the sky turned into one after another high-speed rotating knives hovering beside Nero.

"The first enemy I encountered when I just embarked on a journey was you, is there anything more motivating than that——

"—Corrugated cutter."

Chapter 8 The Gray Tower Part [-]

When the speed of the water float reaches a certain level, and when the thickness of the edge becomes thinner to a certain extent, the water float is no longer a water float, but a cutting knife capable of killing people.This is the skill that Nero realized after years of floundering and the battle of ghouls——

Corrugated cutter.

The four corrugated knives cut across arcs with different paths like ninja shurikens in the air, attacking forward in all directions.

However, the stag beetle just tilted its head innocently. At first glance, it seemed that it was frightened by the corrugated knives all over the sky, but in the next second it was dancing in the air at high speed like a pianist's fingers. Youyouzai dodged all the incoming ripple cutters.

"Attack with ripples? Times have changed, you idiot!

"In my eyes, the cutting knife you made with the power of ripples is as slow as a spinning top drawn by a primary school student. It makes people want to yawn! Let alone your ripple attack, even if it is within one centimeter with ten Point the gun at me and shoot at the same time, and I can easily dodge!"

The moment the voice fell.

The ferocious mouthparts pierced out of the stag beetle's mouth, stabbing straight at Nero in front.

If Nero's life was a certain novel or a certain Lu Wen, probably facing such a fierce offensive, he only needs to sneer and turn sideways to avoid it, right?But it's a pity that although Nero has a strong body and knows some ripple tricks that he has figured out, in the eyes of the stand-in messenger, he is just an old man who has not kept up with the version.

The times have changed.

The days of Ripple are long gone.

The current world belongs to the stand-in messenger.

What's more, standing in front of Nero now is the gray tower that can even surpass the platinum star in terms of speed.

Pfft——! ! !

Just dodging to the side, Nero's outstretched right hand and his right shoulder were easily pierced. Drops of blood splashed in the air, making the bloodthirsty stag beetle even more excited.

However, the next moment, doubts flashed across the compound eyes of the stag beetle.

Nero's pierced right hand made a nesting motion, and he clenched the ferocious mouthpart that pierced through his right palm.

"Caught you."

"Caught me? What are you talking about?" Stag beetle said with some doubts, "Although I don't know why you haven't summoned your substitute until now, judging from your expression, you don't want to What kind of stand-in attack is launched, just to grab my mouthpart with your right hand?

"Do you want to break it just like that? Don't think too far! My mouthparts can easily pierce through metal. It's not something you can break with the strength of a Ripple Messenger who is several times stronger than ordinary people! "

"Indeed, you have a hard mouth, I admit—but what about your body?"

"……what?"