Pillar Men

The Pillar Men (柱の男) are four powerful humanoids that serve as the main antagonists of Battle Tendency.

Summary
The Pillar Men are ancient, humanoid, super-human beings; highly intelligent, and able to manipulate their bodies to a very fine degree. They are vulnerable only to the rays of the Sun, along with Ripple.

Each possess a differently shaped horn on their heads, reflecting a hierarchy; following Kars, Esidisi, Wamuu, and Santana, in descending order. For them, displaying their horns is a sign of honor.

Led by Kars, they awaken in 1938 to continue seeking out the Red Stone of Aja, which, combined with their technology of the Stone Mask, will convert them into "ultimate beings"; resistant even to the Sun and Ripple.

High-Level Body Manipulation
Pillar Men can freely change and manipulate their bodies to a greater degree and speed shown by any vampire created by the Stone Mask, being able to not only dislocated, but break and shatter bones as well as flatten organs in order to achieve whatever form they desire. This also applies to their immortality and powers of regeneration, allowing them to survive, endure and restore from a variety of attacks even so far as to be reduced to a brain. This ability improves with training, as Santana's proficiency was slower than Wamuu's.

Advanced Intelligence
The Pillar Men's most dangerous trait is their intelligence. They are all geniuses: able to analyze, perfectly memorize, and understand anything such as languages, machinery and people's minds and actions within a matter of seconds. Santana instantly learned how to dissemble a gun in a procedure that might have taken a human hours to learn; and Esidisi matched Joseph in wits.

Enhanced Senses
Pillar Men possess extremely enhanced senses. These are demonstrated a number of times, such as Santana smelling the area much like a dog, or Kars being able to discern the number of people in a room via heat signatures.

Absorption
The Pillar Men's main method of sustenance is absorbing living beings (including Vampires), which they accomplish upon the contact of any part of their bodies. Each one of their cells releases a digestive fluid that eats their prey's cells individually, creating the illusion that they appear to be merging. Wamuu demonstrates the ability to chain this effect, when after fusing multiple targets together, by simply touching one, he absorbs the entire group.

Elemental Battle Mode
The more experienced Pillar Men each have their own special fighting style, characterized by a specific "element" such as Fire, Wind or Light. When activating powers based around these elements, they are referred to as "Modes".

Along with their Body Manipulation, this ability appears to be only accessible for those associated with Kars and have presumably tested the Stone Mask. The Pillar Men race originally used primitive weapons such as spears before they were massacred.

Ultimate Thing
Obtained after a Pillar Man activates a Stone Mask affixed with the Red Stone of Aja; in Ultimate Thing, a Pillar Man becomes apparently unable to die. Aside from a massive boost in their previous abilities, new ones include: While only Kars has achieved this form, it may be assumed this boost would apply equally to other Pillar Men.
 * Being unaffected by sunlight
 * The inability to grow old
 * Dismantling one's body on a cellular level to take the shape of any kind of human, animal or plant.
 * The ability to use the Ripple, even if someone's body once had an adverse reaction to the Ripple.

History
The Pillar Men came from an ancient race of humanoids that had extraordinary strength, intelligence and lifespan. This race once ruled the Earth, living at the top of the food chain and consuming ordinary humans.

However, because of their great abilities and physique, the race followed the "rule of evolution" regarding the trophic level: the "higher" it "evolved", the fewer its population became. They remained unable to overcome its adversity to sunlight.

Hoping to overcome that one weakness, Kars invented the Stone Masks in order to bring out the race's full potential through acupuncture. He found that the mask worked on ordinary humans (which would turn them into vampires), and presumably unlocked the use of Elemental Battle Modes in their own bodies.

However, the race of Pillar Men, fearing Kars's genius, sought to execute him. Kars along with Esidisi massacred the opposing members of his race, including his parents. They along with two infant children (Wamuu and Santana) were the sole survivors of their race.

Kars found through his research that an unflawed Aja would be needed to completely pierce their brains and create an ultimate being invulnerable to the sun. To this end, he along with Esidisi and Wamuu travelled the world to find the Red Stone, and nearly wiped out the entire Ripple Clan in the process.

Reaching as far as imperial Rome, they were ultimately unable to find the Red Stone of Aja before they needed to hibernate, fusing themselves into a stone wall hidden within a Roman catacomb 2000 years prior to the events of Part II.

It was predicted that they would awake in the year 2852 of the Aztec calendar, the equivalent of the year Part II takes place; 1938.

Trivia

 * All remaining four Pillar Men were defeated by Joseph Joestar.
 * The Pillar Men's appearances consist of a combination of Roman sculptures, the Great Sphinx of Giza, and the Nio Buddhist guardians.
 * Each Pillar Man is named after a rock band (Carlos Santana, ACDC, Wham! and The Cars).
 * The concept of the Pillar Men bears similarities to Part 8's Rock Humans.