The elevator doors slid open with a ding.
The thick, icy Nen pressure in the corridor, steeped in pure malice, vanished without a trace like an ebbing tide.
Yet the impression it left was seared deep into everyone's senses.
A sickly sweet stench tinged with rust seemed to linger in the air-Hisoka's unmistakable presence.
The registration desk on the 200th Floor was deathly silent.
The receptionist was deathly pale, the loose strands of hair across her forehead soaked in cold sweat and plastered to her skin.
Having worked on the 200th Floor for so long, she was accustomed to the aura of Nen users, but the malice that had just erupted was far too pure, laced with an almost inhuman madness.
Only after several deep breaths did she barely manage to steady her trembling fingers. She tried to maintain her professional posture, though her normally polite smile had grown stiff.
She saw four people emerge from the elevator.
The black-haired young man at the front was even paler than she was, like a bloodless sheet of white paper.
His steps were unsteady, each one seeming like a struggle against some invisible gravity.
But the two boys behind him were in even worse shape. One silver-haired and one black-haired, they were practically holding each other up, their chests heaving as though they had just endured an enormous strain.
Only the bespectacled middle-aged man looked somewhat better, though his expression was grave and his entire body tense.
The receptionist's gaze flickered as she reached a conclusion:
These newcomers had terrible luck, running into that "Magician's" Baptism the moment they came up. Being able to walk out on their own feet already showed incredible willpower.
Lin Yan forced himself to keep going and reached the registration desk.
Pain surged through his sea of