"Polnareff! Iggy! Look out!"
The second episode of the week had barely begun, and Alex was already hitting the audience with a savage emotional blow right from the opening. Without even knowing where the enemy was, perhaps acting on pure instinct, Avdol roared at the top of his lungs and threw himself forward, shoving Polnareff and Iggy out of the way.
In the very next instant, a heavy buzzing tore through the air, vibrating against the eardrums like death itself announcing its arrival.
And then Avdol was gone.
There was no drawn-out struggle, no time to react, no room for hope. All that remained were two bloodied arms dropping to the floor with a sickening, hollow thud.
"Ahhh!"
At the sight of it, several more sensitive female viewers screamed involuntarily at their screens. The men were not much better. One by one, they froze, eyes wide, unable to process what they had just seen.
Avdol… died?
Just like that?
So suddenly, so cleanly, so cruelly?
Only when Vanilla Ice finally appeared and began speaking on Dio's behalf did veteran fans manage to crawl out of that first stunned silence. Even then, the shock did not lessen. Anyone who had watched the previous two parts was already familiar with the emotional knives Alex liked to drive into his audience, but this time he had gone far too far.
At the very least, Caesar had been given a grand farewell.
Avdol had not even received that much.
"Avdol! I told you, you didn't need to save me!"
Polnareff cried out in despair, covering his face. But the moment he lowered his head, the wall behind him was ripped open, a massive hole appearing as though some invisible force had simply erased that part of the world.
At that moment, the viewers began to grasp, however faintly, the terrifying nature of the enemy Stand.
Polnareff's face changed too.
If he had not ducked his head by sheer chance, he would already be dead.
For a brief second, it almost felt as though Avdol's spirit was still pushing him onward, refusing to let him fall there. And Polnareff understood. There was no time to drown in grief. If he wanted to honor Avdol, there was only one path left: pull himself together, survive, defeat the enemy in front of him, and after that, Dio.
But reality was merciless.
Against an overwhelmingly powerful Stand whose ability he still did not fully understand, charging in head-on would be suicide. So Polnareff had no choice but to retreat, dragging Iggy with him through Dio's mansion as he tried to escape that murderous presence that seemed to appear from nowhere.
Many longtime fans were suddenly reminded of the fight against Hanged Man over a month ago, and they could not help noticing how much Polnareff had changed. The old Polnareff would have lost his temper instantly, rushed forward blindly, and let emotion rule him. Not anymore. Now he was bleeding, hurting, trembling even, but he was thinking.
In the end, he and Iggy came up with a plan. They would use sand to create a fake image of Dio, draw Vanilla Ice's attention, and then strike the fatal blow the moment an opening appeared.
When they saw that the enemy had taken the bait, both of them moved at once.
But at the very last second, Vanilla Ice realized he had been deceived.
"Sunlight reaches this room. Dio would never come down to the second floor at this hour."
His voice overflowed with fanatical devotion, a warped faith so extreme it bordered on madness.
"The true Lord Dio trusts me. He has left everything in my hands."
The instant he finished speaking, his gaze shifted toward Iggy.
And in that moment, the audience's hearts clenched.
It was over.
He had chosen Iggy.
Would the dog be swallowed by that black void too, erased from existence the same way Avdol had been?
But what came next was something no one expected. Instead of killing him immediately with his Stand, Vanilla Ice rushed forward in person and drove a brutal punch into Iggy, sending him crashing into the wall.
When viewers saw Iggy coughing blood and collapsing to the floor, many of them, strange as it was, actually let out a breath of relief. Even so, the question lingered: if he could have killed Iggy right away, why didn't he?
The answer came soon enough.
With his face twisting further and further with hatred, Vanilla Ice strode toward him, trembling with rage.
"You dared use sand to imitate Lord Dio. You made me strike at his image with my own hands."
His voice sank lower, uglier, more revolting and more insane with every word.
"To be swallowed by darkness would last only an instant. That is not enough to satisfy my anger. This is your fault, filthy dog. Die. Do you understand your sin? Do you understand? DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!"
At the sight of that, the fans clenched their fists.
At that moment, Polnareff and the audience were feeling exactly the same thing: it was not just Vanilla Ice's Stand that was a dark void. The true darkness lived inside his mind.
"Lord Dio himself said that human resolve possesses a power that must never be underestimated. But you, you mangy beast… you could never possess such a thing!"
"Die! Die!"
Beside Alex, watching the episode unfold, little assistant Nadia finally could not take it anymore. Her voice shook as she covered her mouth with both hands, on the verge of tears.
"B-boss… I can't watch this…"
Alex blinked twice, looking utterly unaffected. Then he picked up Iggy, who had been lying in his lap, and answered in the most casual tone imaginable,
"Want to hold him for a bit?"
That Iggy had been personally chosen by Alex when he was in the United States, bought because he had the perfect look and temperament for the role. Nadia immediately took him into her arms, eyes brimming with tears as she rubbed her fair cheek against his muzzle again and again.
"Uuuh… Iggy, you've suffered so much…"
Iggy wore the expression of someone enduring this with deeply offended dignity.
Annoying woman. Back when the boss first brought me home, you were always complaining that I smelled like a dog.
But on the screen, there was no room for tenderness.
"Stop this, Vanilla Ice!"
Gravely wounded, Polnareff forced his body past its limits and summoned Silver Chariot once again. The plan to assassinate the enemy with the sand decoy had failed, but the chase had revealed something precious: he had finally understood the weakness in the enemy's Stand.
Silver Chariot began spinning its sword, stirring up the sand scattered across the floor. The objective was simple - use the dust to trace the path of the invisible enemy, pinpoint his location, and at the right moment deliver the decisive strike.
And it worked.
The blow landed.
But Polnareff did not know one thing.
Vanilla Ice had received Dio's blood.
He was no longer merely human.
As a vampire, a strike that should have ended the battle was no longer enough to kill him. The moment he realized the secret of his Stand had been exposed, Vanilla Ice made an extreme choice: he abandoned his sight entirely and unleashed his Stand in a completely indiscriminate attack.
The black sphere began spinning through the room in continuous arcs, like a storm of nothingness, sweeping through the space around it with a violence no one could evade.
Polnareff, who had already lost part of his leg to that same power, could barely remain standing. Dodging it was impossible.
And then he understood.
This was the end.
With no chance of surviving, he gathered every last ounce of strength he had and hurled Iggy out of the attack's range. The dog, being lighter, still had a chance.
Watching Polnareff on the verge of being devoured by darkness, Iggy, who was himself already at death's door, still tried to force out his Stand.
"Stop it, you idiot!" Polnareff shouted. "Avdol already sacrificed himself for me! Don't do the same! In your condition, if you force your Stand out now, your broken ribs will pierce your lungs. You'll die for real! You have to live! You have to tell Mr. Joestar and the others how this thing works!"
By the time he finished speaking, the sphere of annihilation was already closing in behind him.
In his final seconds, the knight in white raised his hand and pointed toward Iggy, his eyes still carrying that proud sense of justice that had never once abandoned him.
"Goodbye… Iggy."
"Wuf?!"
Iggy's pupils suddenly contracted.
And at that moment, countless viewers no longer had the presence of mind to send comments, crack jokes, or make theories. All they could do was scream at their screens.
"No! Polnareff!"
"No, no, no!"
"Alex, you devil!"
"He's already suffered so much! And now you're going to take his life too?!"
In the next scene, Polnareff vanished.
And countless fans of his broke down in tears.
In a single episode, the main cast had lost two members.
But just when everything seemed over, several drops of blood fell to the floor.
One.
Two.
Three.
Vanilla Ice looked up.
Above him, Iggy's Stand, The Fool, was holding Polnareff aloft.
"How many times have I told you not to use your Stand anymore…" Polnareff said, his voice shaking. "Why are you trying to be the hero now?"
On the ground, covered in blood, Iggy gave him a smile that looked almost human.
It was one of those rare moments that needed no explanation at all.
Even a stray dog could possess a proud soul.
But immediately after that final smile, Iggy coughed up blood again. At the same instant, The Fool began to crumble away in the air, grain by grain, like sand caught in the wind.
As he fell, Polnareff lowered his head.
Down below, surrounded by the sand that had moments ago held him up, Iggy had already closed his eyes.
It was obvious.
That small, arrogant, stubborn, ferocious little creature had burned away the last of his life to save him.
"Iggy!!!"
Polnareff's desperate cry tore through the screen.
And then the audience understood.
Polnareff had not died.
But the noble The Fool, Iggy, had fallen into an eternal sleep beneath the golden sands of Egypt.
"Alex, you devil!"
Many of the newer fans, who had joined the fandom because of Alex's relentless promotion, could no longer hold back their anguish.
Damn it.
I actually believed your words and came to watch this.
I just got here, and you're already hitting me with a scene like this, one made for nothing but ripping tears out of people.
The mini-burst of chapters had come to an end, and Alex still had the nerve to ask everyone to keep supporting the work. He even complained that he was not some writing machine with dozens of arms, that he was already pushing himself to his limit, and that this pace had nearly cost him his life.
But after emotionally devastating so many people in succession, that kind of complaint inspired no sympathy at all.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Additionally, more chapters exclusive content are available on Patreon: https://patreon.com/ImmortalEmperor?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
- CHRONICLES OF THE ICE SOVEREIGN
-PLAYING ANIME LEGENDS
-THE OTHER WORLD'S ANIMATOR
Join now and help shape the future of the story while enjoying special rewards!