No matter how slow the audience was, they still understood that what was happening now was definitely not part of the show, and they screamed as they fled toward the outside of the circus.
The fog suddenly spread, blurring vision. Granny Enya was about to blend into the crowd and escape along with them.
She had no intention of going head-on with Ryosuke. She needed to hurry and report to Lord Dio.
Right at this moment...
"Hey, hey, hey! Old hag, where do you think you're going?"
Hol Horse grabbed Granny Enya, spun her around once, and threw her back inside.
"Hol Horse, you won't die a good death!"
Granny Enya cursed loudly, and right after that, the sound of rapid horse hooves echoed.
She turned her head to look.
Steel balls and fingernails came howling through the air.
'Double Cavalry Spin!'
This was a combo move that even President Funny Valentine back then never got to experience, and now it smashed solidly into Granny Enya's old face.
"AAAAAAAH!!!!!!"
Amid the screams, Granny Enya was first torn into strips by Johnny's Cavalry Spin, then continuously folded again and again by Ryosuke's infinite folding.
Like Lanzhou hand-pulled noodles, she was torn apart, folded, torn again, folded again. The screams lasted for nearly thirty seconds before she completely collapsed at the cellular level, turning into ash and disappearing without a trace.
Tainted soul +1.
"Ptui!"
Johnny spat once, mixed with the rotten egg liquid at the corner of his mouth, spitting a mouthful of pitch-black will onto Granny Enya's ashes to vent the anger in his heart.
Ryosuke patted the well-behaved lion on the head and asked Johnny, "Where are Gyro and the others?"
"They, including the D'Arby brothers, are all at a casino in Manhattan."
The one who answered Ryosuke was Hol Horse.
Following the voice, they saw that this old guy had no idea when, but he was already standing very naturally among the group.
He had even picked up a jacket that an audience member dropped while fleeing and gently draped it over Lucy's shoulders. Then he took Lucy's small hand and lightly kissed the back of it.
"Miss Lucy, from here on, I, Hol Horse, will protect your safety."
Lucy gave a polite smile, pulled her hand back, and wiped it on her skirt.
When the group walked out of the circus, quite a few New York police officers had already gathered nearby.
Ryosuke didn't want to make things difficult for ordinary people. He waved his hand, and the ground rose up, forming walls that blocked the police and gang members outside.
"Call for backup, we..."
The local police shouted behind them, thought for a moment, saw Ryosuke's face through a gap, and added, "We've encountered Eastern magic!"
The people behind him were still looking confused when they heard a rumbling sound. The ground beneath their feet trembled, and then they felt a shadow hanging in the sky.
It was the risen earth.
Like an upside-down small mountain, a chunk of land hung in the air, with small stones occasionally falling off.
"OMG?!"
Police officers, gang members, and circus spectators who hadn't run far yet all cried out in shock.
'Real Eastern magic!'
With Ryosuke's Ripple resonance combined with the Dragon Pellet's control over the earth, in terms of effect, it was no different from legendary magic.
The group rose into the air and flew toward Manhattan.
A quarter of an hour later, in a villa district in Manhattan, Ryosuke raised his hand and pointed. The stone pavement shattered and gathered into two giant hands. Like taking apart Lego blocks, they dismantled a villa, revealing more than a dozen gamblers hiding inside.
The D'Arby brothers were clearly among them.
"Oh ho, Ryosuke, is it? I've been waiting for you."
Elder D'Arby sat at the gambling table, forcing a calm expression on his face.
In reality, when he saw Ryosuke and the others lined up in the air like heavenly soldiers and generals, he was so scared he almost pissed himself.
He hurriedly threw two chips onto the table.
On the chips were the faces of Gyro and Steven Steel.
Elder D'Arby didn't dare to slow down. He was afraid that if he was even a step late, before he could use their souls as a threat, Ryosuke would slap him to death, or Jotaro would beat him to death, or Johnny would shoot him dead…
Looking around, with so many people hanging in the air, every single one of them looked dangerous.
Even Lucy had Hol Horse, that lackey, standing behind her.
Elder D'Arby swallowed hard and continued shouting, "Ryosuke! I'm not afraid of you… uh, I mean, I respect you. Do you dare come down and gamble with me like a man?"
"If you win, their souls will be released."
"If you lose, you leave your soul behind."
Ryosuke stared at the two soul chips on the table for a moment, then slowly descended, walked over to Elder D'Arby, pulled out a chair, and sat down at the gambling table.
The gamblers inside the villa were already scared stiff. Anyone would go limp if, in the middle of a hot streak, someone suddenly tore open the wall and barged in.
A few guys who had already lost everything wanted to sneak away, but when they heard that Elder D'Arby was going to gamble with this man who descended from the sky, their gambler nature kicked in. Even knowing it might be dangerous, they couldn't help but stay one by one.
Madara Uchiha stood behind Ryosuke with a suspicious look and said, "Why even gamble with him? Just break his fingers one by one, or you could just have Whitesnake write a command."
With every word Madara said, Elder D'Arby's face turned a shade paler.
Ryosuke shook his head.
Elder D'Arby's Stand, Osiris, was a classic low-stat, high-mechanic Stand.
It could take an opponent's soul through gambling and turn it into a chip.
Both taking and releasing souls were based on the rules of "gambling." Even if Ryosuke beat Elder D'Arby to death, it would be useless.
As for purification plus disk extraction, before Dio repaired him, Elder D'Arby was a mentally broken madman.
If Ryosuke purified him, then even if he extracted disks or wrote commands, the gambling and Stand ability wouldn't function properly.
So the only option was to gamble with Elder D'Arby.
While they were talking, another man stood behind Elder D'Arby. Jotaro recognized him at a glance. It was the younger brother, Younger D'Arby.
Younger D'Arby's ability was similar to his brother's, also rule-based. By playing games and winning, he could take other people's souls. The difference was that Younger D'Arby also had another ability: mind reading.
But he could only read "YES" or "NO" answers.
The relationship between the D'Arby brothers wasn't very good. It was mixed with mutual disdain, stealing each other's girlfriends, and other trivial things that could keep gossiping aunties busy for half a lifetime.
But today was different.
They didn't want to be beaten to death by Ryosuke, and they didn't have the courage to betray Dio like Hol Horse did. So the brothers could only join forces and make a desperate gamble.
Ryosuke glanced at the two of them. Sitting in the chair, he hadn't even spoken yet. Just his gaze alone made the D'Arby brothers feel a chill down their spines.
"The two things I hate most in my life are gambling and drugs."
"You dragged me to the gambling table. When you lose, you know how this ends."
Elder D'Arby's eye twitched slightly as he stiffened his neck and said, "Don't get arrogant! Ryosuke, this is the field my brother and I are best at!"
He gave his brother a look.
A black cube, about the size of a palm, was placed on the table.
The box used a combination lock. With a click, the black light-blocking cloth covering the inside dropped down, revealing the three dice inside.
This was the perfect gambling setup Elder D'Arby had come up with after reviving, combining the lessons from his last failure and hearing that Jotaro had the ability to stop time.
"Once the game starts, the light-blocking cloth will close again, and I'll rotate the box once."
"Then we bet big or small."
"This box opens the cloth by entering a password. The password is different every time, and all of them..."
Elder D'Arby tilted his chin toward his brother.
"Are in his head."
With a fully sealed box, time stop was useless.
Not only time stop, but Hermit Purple's spirit photography was also useless on dice in complete darkness.
Elder D'Arby spread his arms and slowly showed a confident smile.
"This is an absolutely fair gamble."
For him.
In reality, given Elder D'Arby's nature of loving to cheat, how could he not have tricks?
There was a special mechanism designed inside the black box. As long as he secretly pressed a button hidden on him, the result would switch to big or small accordingly.
"Done talking?"
Ryosuke pointed at the box. "Mind if I check it?"
Elder D'Arby curled his lips into a smile. "Go ahead."
His design wasn't something that could be seen through casually, unless the whole box was smashed apart...
Crash!
Ryosuke just gave it a slight shake, and the sound of mechanical structures breaking came from inside the box.
The smiles on the D'Arby brothers' faces instantly froze.
Elder D'Arby reached into his clothes and pressed the button, only to find that the dice no longer responded.
A surge of anger shot up.
With one move, Ryosuke had ruined the mechanism box he had carefully designed.
"You..."
Younger D'Arby kicked his brother, signaling him to calm down.
The mechanism was broken, so at worst it just went from a guaranteed win to a fifty-fifty gamble. There was still a chance to win.
And they still had Younger D'Arby's mind reading.
Elder D'Arby steadied himself, nodded slightly to his brother, and felt that long-lost rush of brotherly unity.
Then, when he turned his head, he saw a half-transparent knife stuck into the back of his hand.
Tears of a Ticket.