"JOJO, there's one thing I've learned from my short life..."
"The more people scheme and plot, the more likely those schemes will fail due to unexpected circumstances."
"Humans have their limits."
Forced into a desperate corner, Dio muttered to himself as if giving up resistance entirely.
"What are you even talking about, DIO?"
"So..." Dio pulled out the Stone Mask from his coat and fastened it onto his face. With his other hand, he drew a dagger and thrust it at Jonathan.
"I reject my humanity, JOJO!"
"I shall transcend humanity!"
"JOJO, I want your blood!"
Before JOJO could react, a figure stepped in front of him. The sharp dagger pierced into the body of that figure, blood spraying everywhere.
But the one stabbed wasn't Jonathan—it was his father, George Joestar.
He had shielded his son and taken the fatal blow himself.
At that moment, the Joestar family's once-in-a-lifetime teleportation technique activated (thick fog effect).
Dio smeared George's blood onto the Stone Mask. The blood activated the mask's power, causing sharp bone spikes to shoot out and stab into the back of Dio's head.
The pupils of the Stone Mask turned blood-red.
In that moment, Dio officially left the realm of humanity—he had become a vampire.
"JOJO, I hope you don't blame Dio. It was my fault." Even on the verge of death, George Joestar still guided his son, teaching him what it meant to be a true gentleman.
Though after Jonathan, no Joestar ever really lived up to the gentleman title again.
As Jonathan wept over his dying father, something unexpected occurred.
Dio's corpse, riddled with bullets, had vanished.
Only the Stone Mask remained on the floor.
Splat.
A guard standing by the window was killed, his head sliced in half like tofu. Blood sprayed like a fountain, soaking the carpet.
A figure leapt down from above the windowsill.
It was Dio, who should've been dead.
Golden eyes, sharp fangs.
He was back.
Dio had returned—he had crawled back from hell.
The hunt had begun.
Faced with this demon-like being, the guards drew their guns and opened fire.
But bullets only left temporary holes in Dio's body, which healed within moments. Human weaponry could no longer harm him.
His fingers, however, could easily pierce through a human body and drain a living person into nothing more than a husk of skin and bones in mere seconds.
To Dio, ordinary humans weren't even prey—they were bread.
Even Jonathan was just sturdier bread.
But that wasn't all. The corpses drained by Dio's bloodsucking became zombie-like monsters under his control.
Though not as strong as Dio himself, they were still far beyond normal human strength.
There was no hope of victory.
As Dio himself said, humans have limits—and he had surpassed them.
Everyone, including Dio, was caught up in this slaughterfest. No one noticed that the Stone Mask on the floor had vanished—along with George Joestar's body.
Standing beside George, who was slowly regaining color and breathing again, Yamcha quietly jotted notes into his little notebook.
"Hmm, the senzu beans still work even when dried."
Long before Dio entered the Joestar mansion, Yamcha had already been lurking there. He'd had the "Red Heretic" Stand disguised as Crazy Diamond secretly stay by George's side and save him at the crucial moment. After all, people without a Stand can't see them.
Had any Stand users been there at the time, they would've seen a creature with only Crazy Diamond's head wildly hammering on George's chest with its tiny arms, shouting "Dorarararara!" repeatedly—a very strange sight.
Since only a tenth of Crazy Diamond's power was used, it wasn't enough to fully heal George, so Yamcha gave him a senzu bean.
Yes… from that bag earlier.
"We've known each other for a while, and I don't want to see a kind-hearted man like you—someone who repays evil with virtue—die in front of me." Watching George gradually recover under the bean's effects, Yamcha muttered to himself.
"Even though I believe in repaying evil with justice and kindness with kindness, I still admire you."
"You kind-hearted fool."
"But I don't dislike you."
To be fair, if this situation had happened to him, Yamcha knew he couldn't be as selfless and open-hearted as George Joestar.
If he had an ungrateful adoptive son like Dio trying to kill him, he'd have quietly taken him out long ago.
Sacrificing himself to make the other person feel guilty and awaken their conscience?
Heh, not a chance.
After finishing his thoughts, Yamcha looked toward the Joestar mansion, now engulfed in flames. "His power has increased so much."
Dio, now a vampire, was several times—no, dozens of times—stronger than before.
He was already powerful, but now his strength was terrifying.
Compared to normal humans, at least.
If Dio went all-out, he could easily destroy an entire city.
Steel walls, fortified structures—they were no more than paper before him. With his insane regeneration, even if he lost limbs in battle, he could quickly recover. Aside from sunlight, he had no weaknesses.
And based on his performance, Dio was definitely stronger than other vampires of the same tier.
Even if the setting claimed they were all equal in power.
But everyone has different potential—why would vampires created by the same mask all be equally strong?
At best, they started from the same baseline. Other vampires couldn't figure out techniques like Vaporization Freezing and Space Ripper Stingy Eyes in such a short time like Dio did.
"If it weren't for that sunlight weakness being such a huge drawback, the Stone Mask would actually be a quick and effective power-up method."
Yamcha, hidden far away, continued analyzing while observing Dio.
"To be immune to sunlight, you'd need to become a perfect being like Kars."
"And becoming a Pillar Man? Who knows how long that would take. The worst part is, even the perfect being Kars couldn't survive space. He just drifted endlessly and gave up thinking."
"Might as well invest that time elsewhere. For now, the cost-benefit ratio just isn't worth it."
"But the Stone Mask is still valuable. I'll store it with the Bow and Arrow."
Saying that, Yamcha quietly stashed the Stone Mask away. He didn't need it, but maybe someone else would someday.
"I… wasn't I dead?" With a groan, the newly healed George Joestar rubbed his dizzy head and slowly rose from the floor.
"Welcome back to the world of the living, Sir Joestar."
"The world of the living…?"
Still in a fog, George Joestar looked completely bewildered, unable to grasp what was happening.
(End of Chapter)