Naked Sword Art

"5 seconds left."

.

.

.

Gao Liwen's frown deepened when she heard those words. It almost seemed like Xiao Fang was trying to mock her.

The sky was dark, and the rain started to pour down on them even harder than before. Gao Liwen only had time for one more attack, so whatever she did next had to be good.

Xiao Fang ran towards the sword once again, and as soon as he did, Gao Liwen released all of her Qi without holding anything back.

Despite the heavy rain making it difficult to see. Once she let everything out, her golden whip began to glow with a golden blue-ish hue.

'If he dies from this, then he has no one else to blame but himself,' she thought.

Now when Gao Liwen moved the whip around, it hissed like a real snake. Although her underlings couldn't see it very well through the rain, they recognized the sound it made almost instantly. This was the 3rd level, and final level, of the [ Striking Snake ] technique. For her to resort to this meant she was desperate to end it.

"Devour him." Gao Liwen said.

In the next moment, the whip shot straight towards Xiao Fang faster than a speeding bullet. The whip wasn't even 2 inches thick, but the heavy aura surrounding it formed an intimidating image of a gigantic snake.

Xiao Fang couldn't mess around with that thing, so he reacted quickly.

[ Floating Leaf Rushing Tide ]

Xiao Fang dodged the head of the snake, but Gao Liwen immediately corrected it's path.

[ Illusory Clone ]

Wherever he moved, the snake quickly followed, so Xiao Fang quickly created 3 Illusory Clones to divert its attention as he ran. What he didn't expect was for the snake to suddenly split into 4 without losing its shape and size.

Despite everything that happened, not even a second had gone by. Xiao Fang knew he couldn't last like this, so he went for Ye Ming's sword one last time, but the moment he did, his clones were immediately devoured by the snakes.

Xiao Fang didn't stop as he was running to the sword, but when he got closer, he noticed some of Gao Liwen's Qi hiding within the sword.

Xiao Fang smirked as he realized what she wanted to do.

[ Solid Clone ]

"Does he think sending a single clone my way will distract me?" Gao Liwen said before creating a [ Golden Whip ] with her free hand. She quickly brought her whip down on the Clone, but to her surprise, the clone suddenly dodged the whip then caught it.

Gao Liwen's eyes widened when she saw his clone grab the end of her whip as it ran towards her.

Thinking his clone was the real Xiao Fang, she wasted no time in recalling her Snake Whip. However, Xiao Fang was too close for her whip to get back to her in time, so she relied on her own martial arts to subdue him.

Xiao Fang didn't put up much of a fight, almost as if he was letting her capture him. When she looked back up at the other Xiao Fang that was going after the sword earlier, he was no longer there, and Ye Ming's sword was still stuck in the ground where she left it.

Gao Liwen exhaled deeply.

"You put up quite a fight there, Long Wang. I'm impressed," she said in a calm tone.

Gao Liwen's underlings finally came out of hiding when they saw the fight was over.

"Time?" Gao Liwen asked.

"14 seconds, you just made it," one of them said.

"As good as you are, you still aren't as good as our big sister," another girl said to Xiao Fang, but Xiao Fang didn't reply.

"You only lasted this long because she didn't want to accidentally kill you. Even at the end, she was still holding back quite a bit, you know," another girl said to Xiao Fang, but again, Xiao Fang didn't reply.

Unlike her other teammates, Gao Zexian only stared at Xiao Fang. She wanted to interrogate him about her brother's death, but this wasn't the place to do it.

"It seems I won. As we agreed, I'll be taking Yan Mei with me now, but since you impressed me today, you can keep Ye Ming," Gao Liwen said.

"You're lucky our big sister is a good person. If it were me, I'd definitely hold you to the agreement," one of Gao Liwen's underlings said.

"Is that so?" Xiao Fang lightly smiled.

Seeing him smile suddenly made her heart skip. The girl that spoke didn't realize it before, but Xiao Fang was incredibly handsome. She knew if he wasn't wearing his blindfold, and if his hair wasn't covering most of his face, he'd definitely be the most handsome man she had ever seen.

"Well..." the girl considered changing her earlier words, but Xiao Fang didn't let her.

"In that case, please stay true to your words, and leave Yan Mei alone from now on," Xiao Fang replied.

"Huh?"

Suddenly, Xiao Fang's body began to glow white as the perimeter of his figure slowly evaporated back into Qi.

"This... but how can you be a clone?" the girl said as she curiously felt his body.

The other girls also curiously touched Xiao Fang's body as he slowly disintegrated. It felt like his clone was the real person, so they couldn't understand how he could be evaporating into Qi right in front of their eyes.

Xiao Fang ignored the girl's question as he turned to face Gao Liwen.

Although she was reluctant to give up chasing after Yan Mei, a deal was a deal.

"Even if we don't come after her, there will be others," Gao Liwen said.

"Let them come. We will be ready," Xiao Fang said before his clone completely vanished.

...

"Yan Mei and Ye Ming are gone!" one of the girls said in shock.

"Long Wang must've taken them!" another said in anger.

"We can't let him escape!" Gao Zexian said.

"Let's go get him. He couldn't have gotten far!" another girl said.

...

The girls were prepared to chase Xiao Fang down, but they waited on Gao Liwen's instructions since she was the one that made the bet with him.

Even if they wanted to chase him, Gao Liwen knew Xiao Fang would've been far gone by now. He stalled with his clone just in case she decided to go back on her word.

Gao Liwen smirked as she shook her head.

'Clever guy,' she thought.

However, there was one thing that confused her.

Without giving the girls any instructions, Gao Liwen walked over to Ye Ming's sword that was still stuck in the ground. She then hovered her hand over the handle, then a snake suddenly emerged from the subtle Qi that coated the blade.

Whether he really saw through her trap or not didn't really matter. This was still a reminder that she lost to him this day.

The girls watched Gao Liwen in confusion.

"Are... are we really going to let him get away?" one girl said her thoughts out loud.

Gao Zexian didn't want to let that happen, not before she could interrogate him, Gao Zexian didn't wait on Gao Liwen's instruction and took matters into her own hands.

"Weizhi, can you still feel the connection to the spirit rope you put on Yan Mei? I need you to lead the way" she said.

"Ah, good idea," Weizhi said before she concentrated on the rope she tripped and restrained Yan Mei with earlier. However, she suddenly became disturbed by what she discovered.

"I... I can't feel the rope. He must've done something to it."

"What?"

"M-My link has really been cut off. I can't feel it at all," Gao Weizhi replied.

Gao Zexian found that hard to believe, but she knew Gao Weizhi had no reason to lie to her.

"Girls, let's head back and get out of this rain. Drinks on me," Gao Liwen said after putting Ye Ming's sword into her spatial pouch.

The girls were surprised that she was going to let Xiao Fang get away, but since she called the hunt for Yan Mei off, there was nothing they could do about it.

As the girls were following Gao Liwen out of the forest, one of them noticed that Gao Zexian wasn't following them.

"Xianxian, aren't you coming?" Gao Weizi asked?

"You go on without. I'll see you there," she replied.

"Un, don't stay out too late," Gao Weizi said before following the other girls out of the forest.

Curious to find out what happened. Gao Zexian stayed behind to investigate, but soon after she started, she eventually found something strange.

"This..."