"Congratulations to Fighter John Smith for winning ten matches out of ten and successfully qualifying to challenge a Floor Master!"
The referee's excited shout echoed through the massive fighting venue.
"Ten consecutive wins! Ten consecutive wins! Ten consecutive wins!"
The audience erupted. Applause and cheers became a roaring ocean of noise.
The scene was spectacular, awe-inspiring, and made every other fighter watching feel a complicated mixture of emotions. Who didn't long to be the one basking in applause and glory on that ring?
But after watching this match, nobody could feel resentful toward Liam.
Those ten consecutive victories were earned through sheer strength.
Forget Liam—even Wing, who'd lost to Liam, was someone none of these fighters dared claim they could last ten moves against. Anyone with working eyes could see Wing had more total aura than Liam. The gap in raw power was as absurd as a toddler trying to arm-wrestle an adult.
And yet Liam had won anyway.
Who could possibly complain?
Tetsuro was convinced, at least. He took a deep breath, turned around, and left amid the noisy cheers surrounding him.
"Smith! Ten consecutive wins! Smith! Ten consecutive wins!"
"Floor Master! Floor Master! Floor Master!"
In the ring, Liam waved to the overwhelming cheers around him.
He was waving with his severed hand.
The referee stared at this spectacle, completely baffled. "Fighter Smith, you should treat your injury as soon as possible. If you undergo surgery immediately, you might be able to reattach the limb—"
"Oh, no need for that. You should treat him first." Liam gestured toward Wing.
A group of medical staff had already rushed over with a stretcher. They loaded the unconscious, seriously injured Wing and prepared to transport him to the emergency center on the 200th floor.
"As for me..." Liam bit down on his severed hand, holding it between his teeth. With his remaining hand, he pulled off his blood-soaked shirt—tattered from battle—and casually pressed the severed arm against the stump of his right shoulder. He wrapped everything with the torn shirt. "It's just a minor injury."
Is this a minor injury?! The referee's brain short-circuited.
Shizuku tied a knot in the shirt wrapped around Liam's stump.
Aren't you worried about him? The referee looked at Shizuku, his confusion deepening. This girl seemed to be Liam's companion. Why wasn't there any concern on her face?
These experts are impossible to understand!
In truth, from the moment Liam's arm had been severed by Wing's punch, the limb had been wrapped in aura. In terms of Nen energy, it hadn't actually been separated from Liam's body at all. At this level, you couldn't even say Liam's arm was truly broken.
Even if Shizuku hadn't helped retrieve the arm, driven by the Star Mark's healing power, the limb would've moved toward Liam's body on its own.
At this moment, inside the shirt wrapping Liam's stump, the severed arm was being pulled back together by the healing force. The broken sections naturally rejoined. Blood vessels, nerves, bones—all reconnecting with perfect precision. Even minor defects were being filled in as flesh gradually grew, severed nerves bridged gaps, and fractured bone knitted itself whole.
Since everything was wrapped in a shirt, outsiders naturally couldn't see this miraculous recovery in action.
Liam held the cloth covering his arm with his good hand and asked the referee, "So does this mean I'm qualified to challenge a Floor Master now?"
The referee cleared his throat. "Actually, even now, you could already be considered a Floor Master yourself."
"What does that mean?" Liam asked, genuinely surprised.
The referee spoke politely. "After you recover from your injuries, Fighter Smith, you can apply to challenge any of the twenty-one Floor Masters on floors 230 through 250. You can inquire about the relevant details then."
"Alright then." Liam took the hint and didn't press further. He walked off the ring with Shizuku. Wing had already been carried away.
After leaving the ring and entering the side corridor for contestants, he found Kurapika standing there with a sullen expression.
"Are you being too reckless?" Kurapika stared at Liam's severed arm wrapped in the blood-soaked shirt. "It's just a ring match! Was it necessary to go this far? For an insignificant competition, you sacrificed an arm—huh?"
He froze as Liam tore off the bloody shirt covering his injury.
There was no severed arm. Liam's right arm was still attached.
Kurapika stood stunned for a moment. He looked at Liam, then at Shizuku. After calming down, he said to himself, "I see. You have treatment methods."
He exhaled in relief.
So it wasn't actually a permanent injury after all.
"I'm not that stupid," Liam said, patting Kurapika's shoulder with his right hand. "I'm not an Enhancer. Why would I be that straightforward?"
Kurapika couldn't help but give him a sidelong look. You're not an Enhancer, but your healing ability is more powerful than any Enhancement type I've seen.
Enhancement types had stronger recovery. That knowledge point had been taught to him by Liam himself.
It was based on that knowledge that Kurapika had developed his first book, "Redemption." Book One contained enhanced healing capabilities that could be fully utilized through Absolute Time in Scarlet Eyes mode. According to Kurapika's tests, even an arm severely fractured by a heavy blow could be healed within seconds.
But if your arm was severed completely, flew off, and landed on the ground—could you pick it up, reattach it, and have it work normally?
Most importantly, could severed muscles, blood vessels, and the nervous system still function properly after reconnection?
That was beyond the capabilities of Kurapika's "Redemption."
That really couldn't be redeemed.
But Liam had done it. And Shizuku hadn't seemed surprised at all by his powerful recovery. Kurapika realized belatedly that when Shizuku had immediately gone onto the ring to help Liam pick up his severed arm, the purpose had been to help him reconnect the limb faster.
"Hey. Hey. Stop overthinking." Liam waved his hand in front of Kurapika's face. "I still need your help with something. Let's go."
He led Kurapika and Shizuku out of Heavens Arena and headed straight for their rented apartment.
Kurapika didn't quite understand what kind of help Liam needed.
"Do you think that after defeating Wing, the Nen ball disappeared?" Shizuku asked.
"You mean..." Kurapika froze. "That ball is still there?!"
His vision and hearing were far superior to ordinary people's. He'd been able to clearly observe Liam and Wing's conversation during the match, as well as the changing numbers inside the sphere.
Now he suddenly understood what Shizuku meant.
It wasn't that Liam enjoyed prying into Kurapika's ability information, and it wasn't that Kurapika deliberately concealed what he'd developed. Rather, Kurapika had been so immersed in developing his six books over the past two or three months that he hadn't specifically inquired about the new ability Liam had created for the Wing match. In fact, Kurapika wasn't the type to pry into other people's abilities anyway.
If he remembered correctly, the final ball Liam had used to defeat Wing had a value of "6400."
"Yeah, here it is."
Liam flipped his hand. A Nen sphere appeared, but the number inside wasn't "6400" as Kurapika had expected.
And the number was decreasing.
The ball seemed to be feeding on the aura in Liam's hand. As the number inside continued dropping, the aura in Liam's body also weakened—as if his Nen energy was being continuously drained by the sphere.
"It's not that easy to get off scot-free."
Liam kicked off his shoes, jumped onto the sofa, and sat cross-legged. He looked at the parasitic, vampire-like thing in his hand with obvious pain as it continuously absorbed what little aura he had left. "Even if I'm the developer, I still have to obey my own ability's rules. This is probably what they call 'willing to gamble means accepting the outcome,' right? Huh? Or should it be 'willing to gamble means accepting victory'?"
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