Naked Sword Art

Almost 10 hours after Xiao Fang entered the cauldron, the inner court exam was coming to an end.

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In the 2nd level of the Ancestral Training Grounds, a few guys were still trying to pass the first test of the exam when an elder announced the conclusion of the exam. Upon hearing the announcement, the disciples dejectedly started making their way out of the cave.

The tiered beasts were still active, so the moment the exam ended, several elders entered.

The elders traveled in pairs, trying to find the disciples in case they needed help getting out.

Since each disciple participating in the exam was given a pendant, all of the outer court elders used a special compass to find the location of the pendants, while the inner court elders would keep an eye out in case a disciple had lost theirs during the exam.

One pair of elders were heading east when they discovered something strange.

The outer court elder paused as she stared down at her compass.

"Why did you stop?" The inner court elder asked.

"It looks like there are several disciples in that direction, but there's something strange about what I'm seeing," the outer court elder said without taking her eyes off her compass.

"Strange in what way?" The inner court elder asked.

"Here, take a look."

The outer court elder gave her the compass then slowly watched her face change from surprise to concern.

She saw what looked like 20 disciples clustered together only a few kilometers away. The strange thing about it was that they weren't moving, not even a little. If it were just 1 or 2 pendants flashing on the compass then she would've assume that someone must've dropped it, but for there to be so many of them clustered together like this didn't make sense, she assumed it had to be deliberate.

The lofty looking inner court elder stared at the compass for a few more seconds before she began to frown. She had never seen anything like this before, so she didn't know what to expect.

"Could the compass be broken?" The outer court elder asked.

"I don't think so. I suspect someone stole the pendants from the other disciples and just stashed them there. Let's go check it out first before we come up with any useless conclusions."

The inner court elder began heading towards the stash of pendant and the outer court elder followed close behind her.

On the way to the location, the outer court elder asked,

"Isn't it strange. Why would a disciple steal and stash away so many pendants? It's not like the qi accumulated within the pendants can be transferred to another pendant."

"I can't say I know either. He might've done it to make the other disciples fail, or maybe he simply wanted to cultivate them." the inner court elder replied.

"Ah, you think he used it to cultivate?"

Although it was possible, it was hard to believe that someone would spirit cultivate in the middle of the exam and under such dangerous circumstances.

Suddenly the inner court elder stopped.

"What's wrong?" The outer court elder asked.

"I smell blood..."

The outer court elder eventually picked up on the scent as well, but it was extremely faint. From there they proceeded with caution.

Upon reaching the site, they both froze in horror.

The lush green field was dyed in blood. Limbs, flesh, and visceral pieces were scattered around and across the open field. The whole thing looked as if it had come straight out of a nightmare.

The outer court elder started feeling nauseous, and the inner court elder just couldn't believe her eyes. They had never encountered such a gory scene in their entire lives. It was so brutal it made their skins crawl. They were almost convinced that it wasn't the doing of an ordinary tiered beast, but something far more terrifying.

The outer court elder subconsciously took a step back. There wasn't supposed to be anything within this level that could threaten her, but whatever was capable of creating such a horrible scene frightened her to her core.

"How could this happen. There's at least 20 disciples here, nothing in this level should have been able to defeat a group this big."

The bodies weren't dragged here or else there would be trails of blood, and there were no signs that a tiered beast was in the area either. If a beast was here it would have left some clues, but there were none, none at all.

The inner court elder closely examined the scene, eventually coming to a shocking discovery.

"These disciples weren't killed by tiered beasts, they were killed by another disciple."

Surprised by her words, the outer court elder looked back at the scene. Although it was extremely unlikely, she just assumed they were attacked by a horde of 4th tiered beasts, but the inner court elder's next words dispelled that thought.

"The natural qi in this area is too weak. There wouldn't even be a single tier 3 beast, let alone a horde of 4th tiered beasts."

"Now that you mentioned it, this does feel like a safe zone. Could a disciple really do something like this? This... this shouldn't be possible right?"

The inner court elder didn't respond because she couldn't believe it herself.

The 20 dead disciples all had a cultivation realm above the Refinement realm or else they wouldn't have been able to participate in the exam, but even with the 20 of them here, they were still no match against this mystery disciple.

Even if that one disciple was in the Spirit Core or Solid Body realm, he still wouldn't have a chance against 9 or 10 refinement realm cultivators, much less 20.

"But how could he win against 20 disciples?"

"I don't know, but whoever this guy is this certainly wasn't his first time."

Outer court disciples weren't capable of doing such ruthless acts of murder, they simply wouldn't be able to stomach it. However, this disciple had killed all 20 of them in the most gruesome way possible.

"I'm going to inform someone about this. You stay here and collect their pendants. If you find any more like them let me know."

The inner court elder quickly left, leaving the outer court elder alone with the corpse.