"...After investigation, the organizers believe that the damage may have been caused by prolonged use of the venue. Please rest assured, the organizers have reinforced the venue, and similar situations will not happen again in future competitions!" Big Mouth Mobu wiped his sweat while reading the explanation sent from his superiors. But rather than an explanation, it was basically useless, wasn_t it?
After all, after that one sword strike, it was unclear who first shouted it in the arena, but the slogan "Shining Knight Reborn" was too loud. Perhaps before, these people had no concept of Maria, only knowing that she was Margaret Lin-guang's sister. But from this sword strike onward, Maria's name truly began to break free from the fixed impression of "Shining Knight's sister." The so-called Knight Arena is essentially an extreme worship of individual power.
It promotes individual martial prowess, creates star Knights, and uses thrilling battles to captivate people, who then remain restless long after the competition, choosing to buy official Knight Arena merchandise, including dolls, figures, posters, cheering sticks, and even fan clubs. A star Knight is a veritable cash cow. For example, Candle Knight, even if she herself did not intend it, has earned Noah a fortune all by herself.
There's no helping it; this is the advantage of having a star Knight. Strictly speaking, because Candle Knight is invested in by Noah, the San Hua Knight Order established by Candle Knight is essentially Candle Knight's fan club, except these fans are also Knights who compete. Candle Knight is a true popularity queen; incomplete statistics show that even the previous champion, Blood Knight, couldn't compare to Candle Knight in popularity.
Blood Knight certainly had many fans, but Candle Knight's popularity was on a completely different level—the reason was simple: compared to the burly Blood Knight, who was of the Fungi race,
the beautiful, handsome, elegant, and powerful Candle Knight was clearly more captivating. However, because of this, the fan wars between Candle Knight's fans and Blood Knight's fans never stopped.
—Incidentally, there was actually another group of fans who were neither Blood Knight fans nor Candle Knight fans.
They were fans of the champion from two seasons ago, Shining Knight.
It's no exaggeration to say that Shining Knight's popularity was incomparable to that of Blood Knight and Candle Knight combined. After all, in terms of strength, Shining Knight was the youngest champion. In terms of looks, Shining Knight was the dream lover of Kazimierz girls; even though she was a woman, this fact couldn't change. She possessed both strength and beauty, had a good personality, was courteous, never disdained opponents, and had excellent martial ethics. Although many people lost to Shining Knight, almost no one suffered severe injuries as a result.
Humility, Honor, Valor, Compassion, Spirituality, Justice, Honesty.
Among the eight classical Knightly virtues, this Shining Knight practiced almost all of them except sacrifice, and she did so perfectly. As for sacrifice—if it were truly practiced, then Shining Knight would probably be like a firework, a tragic hero who briefly illuminated Kazimierz before fading away.
However, no one would probably doubt that Shining Knight would also rush into a situation requiring her sacrifice without hesitation, like a moth to a flame, right?
After all, those are people from the Lingguang Family…
And now, these fans, who had become wandering spirits after Shining Knight's expulsion, glimpsed some shadows of that Shining Knight in Maria Nearl. Thus, overnight, organizations such as the Maria Nearl Fan Club and the Xia Guang Knight Fan Club instantly began to flourish.
These fans, who were originally moved by Shining Knight, now once again saw that glimmer of light in Maria. So, even before Noah had a chance to do public relations, Maria's popularity exploded instantly—
But in reality, it didn't have much to do with her… It was simply that these Shining Knight fans had been suppressed for too long, and upon suddenly discovering a glimmer, they retaliated without hesitation.
Although Shining Knight's fans had become like the Viet Cong, they were only silenced by Shining Knight's departure, not dead. This group was the largest since the establishment of the Kazimierz Knight Arena, and the energy contained within it was probably much greater than many people imagined.
"...Indeed, even Candle Knight herself is a fan of Margaret…" Noah listened to Kuro's words, feeling a headache. She truly hadn't expected that Maria could, by her own strength, successfully trigger such a degree of fan backlash. She had thought that some of Margaret's fans might also become enamored with Maria, as the two indeed shared some similarities.
But she hadn't expected Maria to directly reap the fan dividends left by Margaret—instantly skyrocketing to success.
Now it was over. The capital moguls who were originally hesitant about absorbing Maria were like piranhas smelling blood. For the visible, immense wealth, they aggressively threw money, benefits, and equipment at Maria, wishing they could press Maria's hand to sign a contract of servitude.
"Do you two have anything to explain…?" Noah asked Maria and Manner, who she had called to the company, helplessly. Both of them were awkwardly hanging their heads. Maria herself was fine; she was just under too much mental stress during training and instinctively used her full power after being threatened… and ended up splitting the arena.
Manner was the real culprit. To stimulate Maria's potential, Manner had indeed been quite ruthless these past few days, making Maria maintain her Stone source art while eating, sleeping, and training, ensuring that Maria would become a continuous glowing body, engraving this Stone source art into her body's instincts like breathing.
The result was that due to lack of sleep, she didn't even know the match had started when she went on stage. Seeing someone attack her, she instinctively unleashed a Lightblade, and one must know… this was the Stone source art Manner taught her, and with full power output, she split the arena in half in an instant.
The group of people who originally considered Maria an idol Knight were speechless. With this display, are you telling me she only has a pretty face?
Little Sister Nearl pulls up a willow, right?
And Plastic Knight, facing this sword strike, immediately cowered and surrendered on the spot.
Plastic Knight wasn't the only one scared; everyone in the audience at that time was terrified by this exaggerated visual effect. After all, they had never seen a situation where the venue itself was directly destroyed.
—Although strictly speaking, Margaret could also do it, it's just that… she acts with restraint. And she wouldn't let her power leak onto the ground.
However, control is control, and visual effect is visual effect…
In the eyes of these spectators… the current Maria truly was Shining Knight reborn.
"So… what should we do next…?" Noah shook her head, asking the two with a bitter smile.
---------------------------------
If you'd like to read the next 40 chapters in advance, you can support me on Patreon.
I regularly post chapter previews there, so you'll always be up-to-date and won't have to wait too long.
patreon.com/SolyuraMT
And if you enjoy the story, don't forget to give me a Power Stone. Your support really motivates me to continue translating!