Critical Sniping and Untouchable

In Mock Town, Critical Point, dressed in a silver trench coat, stood inside a blood-soaked tavern, his brow tightly furrowed.

He had lost contact with his Stand. No, more precisely, his Untouchable seemed to have been shrouded by some special environment.

As a long-range remote-controlled Stand, Critical Point could deploy it nearly twenty kilometers away. After Critical Point obtained the Extremely Rare advanced trait Momo Amplification, that distance reached a terrifying two hundred kilometers.

Untouchable was a Stand Critical Point had obtained by accident after being pierced by an arrow in the initial trial world, the JOJO Derivative World. In a sense, it felt destined to be his.

It was an extremely difficult special Stand to control. For a long time, Critical Point had remained unknown because he could not properly control his greatest fortune—his Stand.

But once he gradually mastered it, Critical Point rose swiftly and became a renowned long-range hunter in the space.

Untouchable

Panel: Destructive Power E, Speed C, Range A, Durability D, Precision E, Growth E

It possessed almost no direct offensive abilities, and Critical Point had once believed his Stand was unsuited for combat. Then, during one incident, he accidentally discovered that his Stand could deflect bullets enemies inadvertently fired at it.

Not just bullets—sword light, flames, and rays could all be deflected to a certain extent. The strength of that ability was tied to his Mental Power.

From then on, he gradually came to understand and master his Stand. At first, he used it for defense, but he soon found a better application…

He would actively attack his own Stand, find the proper angle, and use Untouchable’s refraction ability to land sudden, fatal blows. At the same time, this special ability of the Stand practically eliminated the possibility of his body being harmed when the Stand took damage.

Moreover, because his attack target was always his own Stand, many Reincarnators’ abilities, such as danger intuition and Killing Intent Perception, could not effectively guard against it.

In a sense, it was the perfect Stand most suited to him.

Critical Point had become a shooting-type Reincarnator not because that style was best for hurting others or most convenient for killing other Reincarnators, but because he… was afraid of getting hurt.

Critical Point thus found his path of growth. He focused his abilities on sniping power and his own Mental Power, becoming a rare shooting-specialized Reincarnator with a Mental Extreme Value.

Unlike those Reincarnators who relied on reaction speed, dynamic vision, prediction, and similar methods to shoot, Critical Point only needed to pull far enough away and exploit the fact that non-Stand Users could not see Stands to carry out bizarre sniping kills.

He gradually grew into the renowned hunter he was now. Though a small number of people knew the foundations of his abilities, few could counter him.

Untouchable’s extreme range allowed the Stand to operate very far from Critical Point himself, making it nearly impossible to determine where the Stand was based on Critical Point’s location.

Only when Reincarnators who were also Stand Users appeared could they mount some form of countermeasure.

"Captain Lin, the Golden Emperor really has appeared. They say Garp is approaching too. That sea must have developed into a special large-scale event. Aren’t we joining in?"

"Yeah, Captain Lin. You didn’t successfully snipe that Mercenary Tao earlier, did you? Our current points are still zero. This is too risky. I heard both the Moon Demon and Flame Demon are there. If one of us gets hunted down, we’ll lose Singularity Points when it ends!"

Of the three Reincarnators beside Critical Point, the two women were somewhat impatient. One had voluminous red curls, black gloves on both hands, and brilliant rainbow-colored pupils.

The other wore a high ponytail and had a katana with a red sheath patterned in black at her waist. The joints of her right hand were long, far longer than an ordinary person’s palm. Her excessively long hand did not look slender or beautiful; it instead appeared strange, like a withered branch.

The woman with the voluminous curls had only recently joined the team, and she was clearly very concerned about Singularity Points. The fact that she had survived until now as a lone wolf proved she was no weakling. She had joined this team entirely because of Critical Point’s reputation.

Following such a notorious killer meant both more opportunities for kills and greater safety.

But after noticing this world’s abnormality, she wanted to become more deeply involved in such an unusual mission. At the very least, they needed to head to the outskirts. With her and Captain Lin’s long-range offensive abilities, they could easily gain something.

Before Critical Point could speak, the team’s final cornerstone—the silent giant—spoke. Nearly two and a half meters tall, he was still so broad while seated that he resembled a wall. Codenamed Obsidian, he was Critical Point’s earliest companion and the one who had survived all this time, the team’s Defense-Specialized Reincarnator.

"Don’t interfere with Lin’s judgment. Otherwise…"

"You’ll die."

Obsidian’s voice was low. Sitting on the ground, he silently gathered sand and dirt in his hand, then clenched his fist. Amid a terrifying grinding sound, the sand and gravel were forcibly crushed into a piece of rock.

Obsidian flicked his fingers, and the small rock was hurled away by tremendous force. It skipped several times across the sea before sinking.

In past missions, Obsidian had seen teammates die because of greed. He understood Critical Point best. The man was completely unlike the "cold, vicious sniper" described by outsiders. He cared deeply about staying alive.

Critical Point had previously used his Stand to observe Skuld Island and had even seen the battle between the Moon Demon and Mercenary Tao. He had cautiously refrained from shooting the Moon Demon because he was worried he could not kill him in one strike. Famous Reincarnators like that always had plenty of trump cards.

That was why he had wanted to kill Mercenary Tao. Yet even after blasting apart the man’s chest, he had failed to secure the kill.

Later, during the chase involving the Flame Demon, Moon Demon, and Enel, he had fired repeatedly and severely wounded the Moon Demon. His Stand had then pursued the Moon Demon, but after a bout of murmuring, he had become unable to sense his Stand’s condition.

He was not injured, which meant the Stand had not been harmed. But something had blocked it off…

"We’ll follow the Golden Emperor’s group over, but without my order, no one is allowed to enter the target sea area. This world’s Enel… is abnormally powerful."

The woman with the voluminous curls, Michelin, took out a capsule, walked to the shore, pressed its button, and tossed it out. After a great cloud of smoke, a rather cartoonish small speedboat appeared on the sea.

The four followed behind the Grand Fleet and headed toward the Skuld Sea. Every moment, large numbers of ships arrived at Mock Town. People from all over the world were still heading for this sea because of those uncertain rumors.

It could only be said that Eldorado’s appeal far exceeded Bai Cangshu’s expectations.

The Golden Emperor’s massive ship led the way, with vessels from various forces following behind. Everyone tacitly refrained from communicating. Critical Point remained far to the rear while continuing to sense his Stand’s condition.

Less than thirty minutes later, the unhurried Grand Fleet finally arrived at a peculiar sea area.

The sea here had turned pitch-black, and numerous corpses floated upon the water. Some wore Marine uniforms, while others wore all kinds of civilian clothing. It seemed that a brutal conflict had erupted between the two sides.

Golden Emperor Tesoro lowered his eyelids and merely waved a hand.

"Keep moving."

He wanted to confirm the truth of the so-called Eldorado before the World Government did. He knew very well that gold was his value, and if too much gold truly appeared, it would depreciate.

Compared to such value, the lives of ordinary people meant nothing. If necessary, he was willing to pay a great price to erase everything.

On Critical Point’s side, Michelin’s eyes turned white as her body floated slightly above the boat. The air instantly grew restless, and her Mental Power spread into the far distance.

She passed over the many floating corpses on the sea and finally saw Skuld Island and the surrounding waters, shrouded in something like black mist.

"That island seems to be concealed by something. There’s a layer of black mist…"

"I’ll go in and take a look."

She was a Reincarnator specialized in mental attributes, highly skilled in perception and spellcasting, and exceptionally adept at using Mental Power. In that instant, her senses rapidly closed in. That black mist was not some kind of barrier.

It could not stop her from entering.

Critical Point had already raised his gun, while the woman raised her hand at the same time. The Mental Link activated, and all of her perceptions would be shared with Critical Point. With their abilities working together, they could likewise perform beyond-visual-range sniping.

Obsidian silently moved to the bow, ready to face battle at any moment. Only the sword-wielding woman merely held the katana’s hilt strangely between her index and middle fingers.

Whether it was the Flame Demon or the Moon Demon, the Critical Sniping team feared neither when complete. They were a complementary team, extremely skilled at focused fire kills and hit-and-run maneuvering.

As the two men’s vision drew closer, enormous ruined human faces appeared in their sight. The entire island seemed covered in a layer of black material. It was impossible to tell whether it was charred residue left behind after something had been violently electrocuted, or whether it had always been the same thing as the black mist.

Bang!

The tremendous impact drew Michelin’s attention. Looking over, she saw only a gigantic bird more than a hundred meters tall violently stomping the ground, while another monster on the ground, wielding a black blade, swung terrifying sword light that bloomed like lotus flowers.

It was the Moon Demon…

Just as the two reached that conclusion, they heard a dragon’s roar.

Roar!

They turned and saw a red dragon being struck from the sky by a red lotus.

"Ha~ hahaha!"

A crazed laugh came from that figure’s mouth. Michelin focused her gaze and saw only a tattered pink robe swaying amid black lightning and purplish-black ripples. The character for "kill" was incomparably clear.

As though sensing someone watching, the figure turned to look into the sky.

It was Mercenary Tao!

Michelin’s mind shook violently as she saw Mercenary Tao’s twisted red face. Only then did she notice his left arm, burning like flames, as well as the black patterns constantly flowing across his body.

Buzz!

Black lightning shot through the air, crossing dozens of nautical miles in an instant and directly piercing Michelin’s body.

Pfft!

The Mental Link snapped at once. Critical Point felt faint, and before he had even fired, the black lightning had already wounded Michelin.

Michelin suffered a backlash, blood spilling from her mouth and nose. Her entire body trembled, and even as she lay collapsed on the speedboat, her muscles continued twitching.

Her face was uncontrollably pale as she said,

"It… it’s Conqueror’s… Haki…"

Conqueror’s Haki?!

Critical Point found it hard to believe. Could Mercenary Tao possess Conqueror’s Haki of such intensity?!

To accurately attack Michelin from so far away, whether it was Observation Haki or Conqueror’s Haki, its power had already reached the level of the Four Emperors, hadn’t it?

Whooo—

The long horn blast unique to a large warship sounded.

Obsidian immediately turned around. In an instant, he appeared before the others at the stern, but when he saw the sight before him, his pupils contracted as well.

A warship whose figurehead was a large dog holding a bone was flying in from the sky…