Zenith had a better option.
The gentle morning sunlight spilled across the ground, illuminating the stone-paved streets where boys and girls walked to school in groups. A flock of schoolgirls in pinkish-purple uniforms swarmed around a burly young man in a black uniform, chattering away.
A chorus of "JoJo" echoed through the air.
This was the bizarre popularity of the Joestar family's current male heir, Jotaro Kujo. A massive crowd of schoolgirls surrounded him, endlessly chanting his nickname.
The scene fell dead silent for exactly one second after a sharp, "You're so damn annoying, shut the hell up!"—only for the girls to immediately erupt into even more passionate squealing.
"JoJo, I finally caught you again!!"
Stepping out from the street corner, Zenith made his appearance. He was wearing the exact same school uniform as Jotaro, though he lacked the signature hat.
Jotaro stopped in his tracks and glanced down at Zenith. "It's you. That armored shorty from a few days ago!"
Shorty????
So what if you're a hundred and ninety-five centimeters tall! You're only twenty centimeters taller than me at most, okay!
Zenith didn't actually care that much about his height; a hundred and seventy-five centimeters was perfectly fine for him. But being mocked to his face was absolutely intolerable.
"I was originally going to give you some free intel on Dio, but since you want to play it like that, I'll just have to change my approach."
Zenith turned sideways and pointed behind him at a long flight of stairs leading down the mountain.
"If you can beat me to the bottom of the hill, I'll tell you exactly where Dio is!"
Jotaro's eyes narrowed. He had only just learned about Dio over the past couple of days—an evil entity who had fought against his great-great-grandfather, and who had now hijacked his ancestor's body to plot something sinister in the shadows.
An evil vampire who treated humans like mere bread to consume, and a Stand user with unknown abilities!
"Dio! You actually know about him... Give me the answer!"
Still using that commanding tone. As expected of the man who had "invincible" written all over his face. But Zenith didn't think he would lose.
For daring to call him a shorty, he absolutely had to make Selling Fish Strong do a handstand and apologize before he would ever forgive him.
Zenith chose to throw martial arts ethics out the window. He instantly swapped his chestplate for an Elytra, lit a firework rocket in his hand, and launched himself straight into the air.
The sky was the limit. With the Elytra equipped, Zenith had long since conquered the heavens and gained the power of flight.
Dive-bombing from high in the sky was naturally much faster than running. But Jotaro didn't give up; he had to get that information on Dio today.
Maintaining his running posture, the invincible Star Platinum materialized behind him. The Stand then grabbed him and literally hurled him straight toward the bottom of the hill!
This was a Stand user, someone possessing the ability to summon a Stand for combat. The powers of Stands were incredibly bizarre and varied, formed from a mixture of the user's spiritual and life energy.
At this very moment, the ability of Jotaro's Stand, Star Platinum, was simply its incredibly powerful fists.
Well, right up until the final battle, Star Platinum was essentially a vanilla mob with no special skills. However, its absurdly high base stats made this vanilla Stand peerlessly strong.
No mechanics, just pure stats!
"Is this guy not worried about his own body? Smashing into the bottom of the hill at that speed will definitely shatter every bone in his body."
Zenith even had time to glance back and check on Jotaro's situation. That single glance also confirmed one thing for him: even though he wasn't a Stand user himself, he could still see Stands.
Or rather, the main reason ordinary people couldn't see Stands was due to a lack of spiritual energy. Zenith, who possessed the Minecraft system, obviously didn't fall into that category.
However, he had clearly forgotten one crucial detail. In the original plot, the Stand user controlled by Dio, Noriaki Kakyoin, was right here, preparing to assassinate Jotaro.
A green shadow abruptly appeared in midair. Compared to the original ambush while walking down the stairs, this timing was clearly much more opportune.
Jotaro was in midair with nowhere to leverage his weight. Faced with a sudden attack, his only option was to tank it head-on.
"Hierophant Green!"
This was Noriaki Kakyoin's Stand.
Zenith immediately shouted its name, cursing inwardly. If Jotaro got taken out early because of him, there wouldn't be a Stardust Crusaders group at all.
A Stardust Crusaders without Jotaro was like a Journey to the West without the Monkey King. What journey? They wouldn't even make it out of Asia, let alone face the Nine Egyptian Glory Gods later on!
With no time to overthink, Zenith quickly swapped to his ranged weapon: a fully enchanted bow.
Power, Punch, Infinity, Unbreaking, and Flame. He drew the bowstring back like a full moon and loosed an arrow like a shooting star. The strike pierced straight through Hierophant Green's body, forcing its attack trajectory to veer wildly off course.
Unfortunately, the Flame enchantment's ignition effect didn't trigger. The surface of Hierophant Green's body was covered in a massive amount of moisture, which completely negated the burning effect.
"I win. If you're a man, you'll keep your promise and tell me what you know about Dio!"
Right before hitting the ground, Jotaro had summoned Star Platinum to grab onto the tree branches on both sides of the hill, successfully landing. Zenith, on the other hand, had been delayed by Hierophant Green and ended up falling behind.
"Noriaki Kakyoin!!!"
Zenith had been careless. He didn't get to see Selling Fish Strong do a handstand and apologize, and he was not the type of guy who liked taking a loss.
The prison guards who attacked him before had all been sent to scrub toilets for a week. As for Kakyoin... heh heh!
I don't care if you're being controlled by Dio or not, eat this arrow!
He rapidly drew the bowstring over and over. The Infinity enchantment allowed the bow to fire an endless stream of arrows without consuming his inventory stock. A rain of arrows blanketed Hierophant Green's area, prompting the Stand to cross its palms together.
"Emerald Splash!!!"
Countless blasts of water shaped like emeralds erupted from between Hierophant Green's palms.
Damage taken by a Stand would reflect on its user, but even after suffering a piercing wound, Kakyoin's combat ability wasn't hindered in the slightest. The Stand users in the main cast were all as unkillable as cockroaches.
Zenith was suppressed by sheer numbers. His firing rate simply couldn't match the speed of a Stand ability, but he could always cheat.
"Ender Pearl!"
As long as he threw the pearl, he could instantly teleport to wherever it landed. Zenith threw it with all his might, appearing right in front of Kakyoin in the blink of an eye.
"I saw you from miles away up in the sky! You yelled 'Emerald Splash' way too loud!"
In close-quarters combat, Kakyoin wasn't a match for him at all. Zenith opened with a jump attack, followed immediately by a sweeping strike that flipped Kakyoin straight onto the ground.
Seeing Kakyoin still trying to struggle, Zenith didn't hesitate. He casually pulled out a block of gold and smashed it right into his handsome face.
A world where only Kakyoin got hurt had been achieved. Right at that moment, Jotaro walked over.
"Is he someone sent by Dio?"
Even without Kakyoin introducing himself, Jotaro's sharp mind quickly figured out the crux of the issue. There was no other explanation for a Stand user ambushing him on his way to school other than being one of Dio's men.
"His name is Noriaki Kakyoin. Dio implanted a flesh bud in his forehead, which is why he's following orders. If we can take care of the flesh bud problem, he'll naturally become our teammate."
That's right, the moment Zenith opened his mouth, he seamlessly integrated himself into the main cast. The Stardust Crusaders were just too cool; he also wanted to travel across Asia to Egypt to beat up a hundred-year-old man.
Jotaro looked at Zenith, then looked at the massive lump on Kakyoin's forehead caused by the gold block, and remained silent for a long time.