Naked Sword Art

[ Quick Draw ]

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It all happened in the blink of an eye.

The beast didn't even realize it had been wounded—until it tried to run again.

Its limbs buckled beneath it. A sharp, searing pain erupted in all four legs as it crumpled to the ground, howling in agony. Its tendons had been severed by an enemy it never saw.

It barely had time to register the pain before another presence bore down on it like a falling star.

Li Lian.

Her body was wreathed in living flame, her eyes glowing with unshakable will. Her domineering aura descended on it like a divine judgment, searing and absolute.

The beast's instinct screamed.

But there was nowhere left to run.

The 9th-tier wolf skidded across the forest floor, its legs barely cooperating. Blood poured from its heels as it snarled in panic and rage. It tried to gather strength for one final escape—but the flames descending from above left it no such chance.

[ Divine Judgement ]

Li Lian's real body dove like a falling star, her whip glowing white-hot with compressed Heavenly Fire. Her clones flanked the beast on either side, mirroring her descent.

The silver wolf lifted its twin tails to defend, crossing them in front of its body like scythes.

But it underestimated her.

Li Lian's clones cracked their whips at the beast, the first, and second—blindingly fast. The first strike knocked one of the tails aside. The second coiled around the other, yanking it downward. All while the real Li Lian twisted her body midair, spinning in a beautiful yet devastating arc as she crashed her flaming heel down onto the beast's skull.

Boom.

The shockwave flattened the trees around them. Smoke and ash burst from the crater, and for a moment, everything went still.

Xiao Fang watched from a distance, his [ Solid Clone ] shielding Xiao Hei as debris rained down. As the dust settled, he saw it clearly:

The beast was down and it was no longer moving.

Its body smoldered in the dirt, its tails mangled, its skull cracked and charred beneath Li Lian's heel. Li Lian had won. But only a few moments later, Li Lian had a disappointing look on her face.

"Hmph, I wanted to defeat it alone," Li Lian complained.

"It was already defeated the moment it began to run, we were just making sure it couldn't find help," Xun Wei said as she stepped out of [ Stealth ], cleaning her sword of blood as she spoke.

Li Lian understood her intentions, this wasn't a place they could play around in, one wrong move could spell their deaths, so Xun Wei and Xiao Hei made the right call considering their circumstance.

Looking around for Xiao Fang, Li Lian's eyes finally lit up when she saw him coming their way.

"Fang! So, what do you think? Did you see all that?" Li Lian asked, her eyes shining with pride.

"You were incredible. You too, Wei'er," Xiao Fang said honestly.

Li Lian beamed at the praise, her smile radiant. Xun Wei smiled too but quickly looked away, clearly not expecting the compliment.

"There's one thing I haven't figured out yet," Xiao Fang continued. "How were you both able to use your spirit attributes with your clones?"

"Ah, that? It's actually pretty simple," Li Lian said. "We just created our clones using our spirit attribute Qi."

…

From their explanation, Xiao Fang began to understand. According to what they learned from their masters, the dantian functioned more like a gourd that contained all their Qi in the purest form. Whenever a cultivator performs a method technique like the [ Illusory Clone ] technique, it was as if that gourd was tilting into a funnel, converting their base Qi into Illusory Qi before manifesting the technique.

However, spirit attributes were stored in a separate gourd entirely—one containing spirit attribute Qi. So if he wanted to incorporate his spirit attribute into his [ Solid Clone ] or other techniques, he'd need to consciously draw from the correct "gourd."

Note: Consuming a Qi regeneration pill will only speed up the recovery of their base Qi, not their spirit attribute Qi.

…

"Our bodies are naturally used to drawing from the gourd containing our base Qi when performing techniques, so it'll take some time to get used to pulling from the spirit attribute gourd instead. You can practice it by activating your spirit attribute first, then forming an [ Illusory Clone ] while keeping that energy flowing."

"It took us a bit of time to get used to it, but it wasn't too difficult," Xun Wei said.

"Thank you," Xiao Fang nodded. "I'll definitely give that a try as soon as I can. In the meantime, work together to hunt tier beasts in the area. There's something I must do that requires more of my focus. If you need my assistance, just scream."

"What are you doing anyway? We're on the same floor now, couldn't we meet up with you?" Li Lian asked.

"I'm afraid I'm far too deep into this floor for you to quickly reach me, you'll have to pass many fearsome beasts just to get there, and I'd much rather you 3 stay close to the exit. As for what I'm doing…" Xiao Fang paused. "You'll just have to wait and see. I'll let you know as soon as I'm done."

Li Lian and Xun Wei were more curious than ever to find out what he was doing, as Xiao Fang made it seem as if he was doing more than just hunting beasts on this floor, but seeing him sit cross-legged now, they knew bugging him for answers would be useless so they did as he said.

"Hmph, why couldn't he just tell us. Always keeping secrets from me, I should smack him the next time I see him," Li Lian stormed off angrily.

Xun Wei smiled warily before following Li Lian away. Xiao Hei kept looking back and forth between Xiao Fang and Li Lian till Xun Wei eventually called out to her.

"Xiao Hei, aren't you coming?"

She knew Xiao Fang was just a clone, and since he seemed to be busy, she finally decided to follow after them.