On the big screen, the final KO scene replayed in crystal clarity. Floor Master Menk Rin staggered toward player Liam, but was punched in the face by his opponent and sent flying hard into the ring.
If the director had time to edit, he'd definitely replay this bang KO scene with its strong sense of impact from various camera angles. Front. Side. Oblique. Bird's eye view. Each one increasing the muffled sound of fists clashing. It was really exciting!
The referee hurried to the stage and confirmed that Menk Rin, who'd been punched into the masonry crack, had passed out. He immediately announced loudly into the microphone, "The winner of this match is John Smith!"
"He will become the new Floor Master of the 244th floor of Heavens Arena!"
The referee and the female commentator in the venue shouted with practiced excitement.
The surrounding auditorium—packed in darkness—erupted. Enthusiastic applause and cheers boiled over. They suddenly hit like a tsunami, almost overturning the entire 244th floor ceiling.
In the ring, Liam circled around, raised his fist, and waved.
The cheers of the audience climbed even higher.
Many 200th-floor fighters were either envious or admiring, with different expressions. But they all looked at Liam being cheered and baptized in the ring with complicated feelings.
From today on, this young player was an official Floor Master of Heavens Arena!
He'd have transcendent fame and status!
Even if he did nothing in the future, overwhelming support would come in like a tide!
He only needed to twitch his fingers, and a large number of fans would learn from him, voluntarily becoming his cash cows. As long as he signed a few autographs, he could easily raise investment to open a martial arts school, directly establish a dojo, make money just by lying down every day, and become a master with both fame and fortune!
He already had a place at the top of this holy land for martial artists and fighters. He had the right to use the entire 244th floor. He no longer had to fight every 90 days. He didn't have to worry about losing too many times and being stripped of qualification to stay on the 200th floor. Even if other players qualified to challenge Floor Masters appeared, he might not be ranked to face challenges. Even if he was ranked or someone specifically challenged him, he still had the privilege of rejecting or delaying three times. In other words, even if Liam lost all his skills from now on, he could still comfortably be Floor Master for at least three years!
This was a future that countless 200th-floor fighters had come and gone, struggling through baptism and beatings to lifelong disability, desperately trying to earn.
How many people had rushed to become official Floor Masters, only to be beaten to death?
Under everyone's gaze, Liam jumped down from the broken ring. Under countless pairs of eyes, he got together with a black-haired girl wearing glasses walking from the sidelines, talking and laughing.
He's too young!
Tetsuro, like many others, left the audience area with the flow of people, filled with envy, jealousy, and hatred.
As for the loser—former Floor Master Menk Rin Zourlo, knocked out with one punch, half his body fallen into the ring with blood soaking into the cracks in the masonry—not many spectators paid attention. Only emergency personnel who hurriedly came on stage cautiously moved and pushed aside the rubble around him, cleaned up the scene, performed urgent treatment for serious injuries, then gently lifted him onto a stretcher and took him out of the venue. This was incompatible with the lively atmosphere of the entire venue.
Liam didn't go to see the Shadow Beast named Menk Rin again. After he came off the field, the referee came over and said a few words to him. The gist: he should go through the process of taking over as Floor Master when he'd rested. Such as moving into the 244th floor—even the competition venue where they were now could be used by Liam as his personal training ground in the future.
The privilege of Floor Masters was amazing. Even if there was a match, they had to give way and arrange to go to other empty venues first.
Liam nodded and left from the contestant tunnel with Shizuku.
Shizuku was originally one of the 200th-floor fighters. She hadn't played many matches, but her qualifications were still there. So she had unimpeded access backstage.
The sound of the competition venue gradually faded behind them. Liam and Shizuku came to the players' rest room.
Compared with the lively and noisy scene on the lower floor where many players gathered together, the lounge on this floor was much emptier. It was almost Liam's dedicated locker room.
"You're the Floor Master now," Shizuku said.
"Yeah!" Liam sighed with his hands on his hips. "After I got it, I always feel like it suddenly became boring!"
Shizuku tilted her head and looked at him. Seeing he was covered in dust and blood stains, his clothes somewhat damaged, she raised her hand to reveal Blinky and said, "There's a shower room here. Let's change some clothes."
Liam nodded.
He took a set of his own clean clothes that Blinky spat out from its big mouth, turned around, and went to the shower stall in the lounge. He quickly threw out the dirty clothes he'd changed. Shizuku also used Blinky to suck them away and dispose of them.
Cold water poured down from the nozzle into the basin. The water flowed over the rose-gold pentagram pattern on the back of Liam's neck, washing away the wisps of blood stained on his body, flowing around his feet with the water.
Purple Ape was lifted to the operating table. As his body was moved, one could vaguely see a rose-gold pentagram the size of half a fingernail flashing past the inside of his elbow.
However, Purple Ape, who was carried into the emergency room on a stretcher, didn't receive emergency surgery.
The medical staff were shocked to find that he was almost fine!
The doctors and nurses looked at each other speechlessly.
Thanks to their experience in Heavens Arena, they understood these superhuman monsters couldn't be treated with common sense. So they left silently one after another, leaving former Floor Master Menk Rin Zourlo to rest on his own.
Beep, beep, beep...
There was only a slight sound of instruments in the ward.
Purple Ape slowly opened his eyes and quietly sat up on the hospital bed.
Looking at his current hands, he quickly found the small Star Mark on the inside of his elbow.
It would be best to move the Star Mark to another location!
Move to a place where Purple Ape couldn't see normally. Even if he took off his clothes, it wouldn't be easy for others to find.
With bare feet on the ground, Purple Ape-Liam walked to the bathroom in the ward, held the sink with his hands, and approached the mirror to observe himself to see where he could put a new Star Mark and hide it effectively.
Liam had thought of many plans before.
For example, he'd once imagined he might be able to make a Star Mark mold from dissolvable material. Cut open the enemy's flesh and blood, stuff the thing inside, then trigger it with his own aura, injecting the mark into the opponent's flesh... but that obviously didn't work.
The Star Mark itself had a strong self-healing function.
Even if you could successfully put a Star Mark under the enemy's skin and flesh, the mark would inevitably be distorted, deformed, or even damaged during the healing process of the opponent's wounds.
One of the basic characteristics of the Star Mark: once the integrity of the five-pointed star pattern was destroyed—even a tiny bit—it would cause the entire mark to disintegrate and dissipate.
Purple Ape couldn't help but look at his chest in the mirror, aiming at the position of his heart.
Disembowel and mark the surface of internal organs?
Like, draw it on the heart?
The organs themselves were delicate. There was no way that if a star was painted on them, they'd be accidentally rubbed and destroyed.
But the problem was: he wasn't a professional doctor, nor was he a bloodthirsty murderer. To disembowel himself without changing expression was really a bit much.
Not only did he have to open his chest, but he also had to calmly put a five-pointed star on his heart regardless of blood flowing all over the floor.
No matter how strong my nerves are, I can't seem to handle this kind of thing.
Liam broke off a piece of thread, twisted it into the shape of a five-pointed star under the control of his aura, placed it on the top of his index finger, and put it into his mouth.
The top of the pentagram thread was on the soft flesh on the inside of the mouth. After the aura touched it, a rose-gold pentagram formed instantly.
If I hide it in his mouth, no one will find it, right?
And the angle was chosen so it wouldn't be scratched when brushing teeth. Unless this Shadow Beast liked eating fish when it had nothing to do, and especially liked getting fish bones stuck in its mouth.
The moment the star in his mouth formed, the star on the inside of his elbow suddenly disappeared.
Liam nodded secretly, as he'd expected.
It would be overpowered if multiple stars could be engraved on the same target. As long as you controlled the other person, you'd have enough time to mark every available space on the opponent's body, inside and outside. Densely packed five-pointed star marks everywhere. In this way, the control ability of the Star Mark would be directly unsolvable. What would be the use of breaking one or two marks? Unless the other party could destroy their entire physical body!
Obviously this was unrealistic.
Illumi could insert many Nen needles into the same target to control it because his control method was full of aggression and extremely destructive.
The puppets forcibly controlled by his Nen needles were dead the moment they were controlled and could only be reduced to disposable props.
Liam's Star Mark, on the other hand, was gentler. Moistened things silently. Had greater flexibility in operation. Not only would the target controlled by his Star Mark not die, they might not even be the enemy. And the Star Mark was so versatile—in exchange, there were corresponding disadvantages. Liam could only leave one Star Mark on the same target. If he tried to hit a second one, the previous one would be forcibly erased.
After updating the star position on Purple Ape, the possessed body nodded in front of the mirror and returned to the hospital bed to lie down.
Before his consciousness evacuated, he left an instruction in Purple Ape's mind for the Star Mark on his body: "Stop anyone—including yourself—from any attempt to destroy the Star Mark."
After changing into clean clothes, Liam and Shizuku left the lounge refreshed and prepared to leave Heavens Arena.
As a result, many cameras came rushing toward him. Camera flashes kept popping. These news crews seemed to have been squatting for a long time, then swarmed up.
Liam didn't become Floor Master because he wanted to be a star.
Naturally he felt impatient. He immediately released his aura a little.
The group of people were shocked. Liam took the opportunity to pull Shizuku away, wondering if this counted as Conqueror's Haki.
If the power gap between Nen users in Hunter World is as huge as a chasm, the effect might not be inferior to Conqueror's Haki. At most, Conqueror's can scare people to foaming at the mouth. But terrifying aura can even scare a person to death, make them go bald, and scare a wild and cunning alpha wolf so much his face shrinks and degenerates into a pug with wrinkles!
Liam was running around with random jokes in his mind. At the same time, he perfunctorily dealt with another group as if they were selling insurance.
"Do you want to open a Dojo?"
"You are already a Floor Master. Let's hold classes!"
"Master Smith is here! Please accept me as your student!"
"As long as you nod, I can get you more than 1,000 students with tuition of 10 million each... Do you really not want to consider it?"
"With your strength, it would be a pity not to establish a dojo! This is my business card..."
The whole journey was like going through a gauntlet. Liam's eyes almost rolled to the sky. He finally sent these people away.
Am I short of money?
There were over 2.5 billion Jenny on the card!
When Liam was complaining, his consciousness—which had been distracted dealing with Purple Ape's affairs—also came back. At the same time, he sensed he could clearly detect the position of a Star Mark in Heavens Arena.
It seems the strength of such an instruction is enough for me to grasp the location of this Shadow Beast at any time.
Liam nodded secretly. Before he left, he'd left a persistent control command for the Shadow Beast's Star Mark, so the mark on his body would always be kept activated.
As long as it was activated, he could sense it.
Lumos's Star Mark was activated. He could sense it across the ocean. What's more, the Shadow Beast's estimated activity range should be on the same continent?
In other words, as long as he was willing, he could make a house call at any time in the next few days with this Shadow Beast who'd dropped the loot and Floor Master qualifications.
"Congratulations." A familiar voice suddenly came from ahead.
Liam and Shizuku looked up. It was Wing, whom they hadn't seen in a while.
"Did you watch?" Liam asked in surprise.
"Of course. I originally had a plan to challenge Floor Masters, but it's a pity those Floor Masters are busy people. It's really hard to schedule." Wing smiled bitterly, but his eyes gradually brightened when he looked at Liam. "But now, Can I just challenge you?"
This reminded Liam of unlucky guys who filled vacancies and became Floor Masters. Before the seat was even warm, they were challenged on the spot and kicked out of the position.
Liam snorted. "You have the guts to speak out even though you're defeated by me already? Let's go to the venue now and see me beat you again."
Wing smiled and waved his hand. "Forget it."
He could feel that Liam's strength had improved significantly from the moment they'd parted ways at Sensui Mountain to today.
"Then stop talking. Let's go find a place and have a meal together." Liam gestured. "Been fighting for a long time. I'm hungry."
When it came to friends gathering for dinner, he naturally thought of it. It seems there's a good brother living abroad?
In the restaurant, Liam took out his phone and called Kurapika.
Haven't seen each other for several months. This guy hasn't taken the initiative to report any news. How can we build our Akatsuki organization properly?
Beep, beep, beep...
Beep, beep, beep...
Beep, beep, beep...
Liam called several times, but there was always a dial tone with no one answering. He couldn't help but frown.