As for why his face was like that, the simple answer was because of Wang Jian's punches.
But for an Embryo Soul Realm Expert, their body would heal most bruises quite easily so it wouldn't leave a mark. It was strange how much the face of this High Embryo Soul Realm Expert had swollen.
That was, if there wasn't something else that had caused it.
After Wang Jian had slapped and killed the ant that bit his face, he didn't throw it away. Rather he had been keeping that ant corpse in his pocket the entire time since he wanted to use it to confront Lin Fan later.
However, after he had seen what the poison of the ant could do, he chose to use it for his revenge.
The poison of the ant only needed to touch the skin of its target to affect it, so Wang Jian had crushed the corpse of the ant to extract the poison that was inside and spread it over a thin layer across his fist. With that fist, he had punched the face of the High Embryo Soul Realm Expert again and again, spreading that poison across his face.
With the poison on his face, naturally his face would swell from each punch and with over a hundred punches landing on his face, his face had completely swollen up like a pumpkin.
However, since Wang Jian had coated the ant's poison on his own fist as well, that meant that his fist had also turned red. It had turned red because of the swelling that came from beating this person's face again and again.
Still, it was worth it for Wang Jian to do this because he could vent the anger in his heart.
After all, punching him until he lost consciousness didn't threaten his life. While it looked quite ugly, this was considered holding back for Wang Jian since he didn't actually cut him at all, which meant that he wouldn't even die from blood loss.
After he had taken care of this person, he picked up the sword and put it into his Storage Ring before walking past him to where Lin Fan was standing and waiting for him.
Once he was in front of Lin Fan, Wang Jian asked, "Should we go and find the red balls for the two of you now?"
Lin Fan shook his head and said, "There's no need for that."
Wang Jian was confused when he heard this and he asked, "But don't you still need red balls to win this game? Or are you giving up on the game?"
Lin Fan pointed at Mo Ze Chen standing behind him without saying a word.
When Wang Jian looked over, he was surprised to find Mo Ze Chen standing there with two red balls in his hand. Then looking down, he saw that there were two small beasts that were unconscious at his feet. The look on their faces almost looked the same as girls who had lost their innocence and thought that they couldn't be a bride anymore…
Wang Jian couldn't help asking, "What did you do to them?"
Mo Ze Chen just revealed a smile and didn't say anything else, leaving it all up to the imagination.
Wang Jian then turned to Lin Fan and asked, "How did you know that they had these red balls on them?"
Lin Fan just said with a smile, "Does it really matter how I knew?"
Wang Jian thought about it before shaking his head with a bitter smile. He still couldn't see through Lin Fan after everything that he had gone through with him and that was why he was still afraid of him.
But since Lin Fan didn't want to tell him anything, there wasn't anything that he could say since he wanted to respect Lin Fan's privacy.
Then after another period of silence, Wang Jian asked, "What do we do now? Should we head back to where that old woman was and wait out the rest of this game?"
Lin Fan looked at him like he had just heard something strange before saying, "Why would we do that?"
Wang Jian was also confused as he asked, "Isn't the point of this game to get the red balls to that old woman? So why would we stay here?"
Lin Fan shook his head and said, "If it was to get the red balls to her, she would have told us that. The only thing she said was that whoever held these red balls in the end would receive a prize. So there's no point going back to where she was before since she most likely won't be there anymore."
Wang Jian thought about it and he realized that Lin Fan was right, the old woman had never said anything about getting the ball back to her. She had only said that it was their job to find and hold these red balls.
Then Lin Fan continued, "But then again, we know that this is a competitive game where we're trying to take red balls from each other. Since that's the case, what do you think will happen if there were less people who had the red balls at the end of the game or if certain people had more red balls than necessary at the end. Do you think they would get a special reward?"
After hearing this, Wang Jian was surprised as he fell into deep thought, but then he gave a nod.
That's right, this was a competitive game with ten different balls and they only currently had three of them. No one had ever said that they could only hold one red ball each, so what would happen if they had more than one red ball?
Wang Jian suddenly asked, "Brother Lin, do you know where the other red balls are?"
Lin Fan gave a shrug and said, "Of course not. It was already lucky enough that I knew where these two red balls were, do you really think that I would know where the rest are?"
Wang Jian then asked, "Then what do we do now?"
Lin Fan revealed a faint smile at this and said, "Even if we don't know where the red balls are, we at least know where the other people are. If we can't find the balls, can't we find them?"
Wang Jian also revealed a smile when he heard this and he said, "Then shall we start?"
With that, they left the room, leaving behind all the unconscious people lying on the ground.
Right after they left, the people in black came in with their carts. The last person they picked up was that High Embryo Soul Realm Expert who had lost his ear, tossing both him and his ear into the cart before wheeling it off.
…
A little over an hour later, there was an announcement that rang out through the airship announcing the end of this game of hide and seek.
The announcement brought all the people who were still awake to the room that they had all started in.
When the people who were still left and had red balls arrived, they saw that there was only the old woman waiting for them in that room.
The old woman looked in the direction of the people who had just come in and said, "So, it's just all of you who made it to the end?"
The ones who had just come in was Lin Fan's group.
They didn't look dusty at all, rather they looked like they had just gone for a walk even though they had hunted down every last person who was on the ship, including a few that had escaped them earlier.
In the room where they had fought all the people gathered together to take them down, there were a few Fragmented Soul Realm Experts who had been hiding among the unconscious people. The moment that Lin Fan's group had left, they ran out the other door and went off on their own.
It was just too bad that they never expected that it would all be part of Lin Fan's plan to let them leave so they could find red balls for him. After all, it would be too troublesome to find the red balls himself, so it was better to get some more people to do it for him.
Then afterwards, he had tracked them down and knocked them all out.
The old woman then asked, "Do you have your red balls?"
Lin Fan and his group all came forward with their hands raised and in them were three balls each. With the help of the remaining people, Lin Fan's group had been able to collect nine balls in the end.
But no matter how they had tried looking for the last one, they weren't able to find it in the end.
The old woman saw this and gave a nod before saying, "Three balls each, not bad, not bad. It's just too bad that they couldn't take the last red ball from you, right?"
Lin Fan's group didn't find anything strange with the first part of this old woman's words, but the second part surprised them.
It was clear that she wasn't talking to them, but was there anyone else still left on the airship?
Lin Fan had made sure to place a tracking ant on everyone who had been in the first room, so he was sure that there wasn't a single person that he missed. Since that was the case, they should have already taken care of everyone on the airship.
But then, there was a soft voice that said, "It was definitely hard enough hiding from them."