Naked Sword Art

"I'll see you tonight," he said before turning to leave, but the moment he did, he suddenly felt something he wasn't expecting. 

It was his real body, it was waking up.

.

.

.

Quickly sitting on the floor, he crossed his legs and focused on returning his consciousness back to its original body.

"What are you doing?" Chu Yan asked with a curious look on her face.

"I can't explain it right now, but if you want me to join your club, protect this clone till I return," Xiao Fang replied briefly before focusing on his real body.

'Clone?' Chu Yan thought, but the closer she looked at him the more she understood.

"I see."

Since no one was permitted to enter her private office quarters, she thought there wasn't anything she'd need to protect him from. The truth was, it wasn't really her office, it belonged to the Supreme Court Elder in charge of the club, but she was almost never here.

'Looks like we'll be having a new addition to our team,' she thought confidently as she looked at Xiao Fang's Solid Clone.

'Wait a minute, if he's really a clone, how was he able to wield my sword earlier?' she thought, but as soon as the thought crossed her mind, she suddenly heard the door begin to open.

A serious look appeared on her face when she heard it, but seeing who it was, her hostility quickly disappeared.

"Supreme Elder Song, you're back."

Supreme Elder Song almost always had a serious look on her face, but she only ever had a gentle gaze to Chu Yan and her daughter Bai Fan.

"Xiao Yan, I heard something interesting from some of the disciples today-" Supreme Elder Song suddenly stopped when she saw Xiao Fang sitting in a meditative position behind Chu Yan.

"Is that him? The one they call Long Wang?"

"Yeah, it's him, but-"

"Step aside, I would like to speak to him," Supreme Elder Song said abruptly.

"But it's just his clone," Chu Yan said.

"You think I don't know that?" Supreme Elder Song said before taking out a talisman paper. "I want to see what kind of man has claimed my Phoenix Jade Hairpin."

In the next moment, she flicked her wrist, shooting the talisman paper towards Xiao Fang, making it stop and hover over his head. However, the moment it did, it suddenly ignited into a red flame.

Supreme Elder Song was shocked to see that happen, but there was only a slightly serious look on her face which didn't tell Chu Yan much. Chu Yan knew her master was proficient with inscriptions, but it was rare to see her use it.

"What does that mean?" Chu Yan asked when she saw the talisman burning over Xiao Fang's head.

"Wherever his body is, there's a barrier protecting him," she explained.

Hearing that, Chu Yan started to suspect that Xiao Fang's original body might've been in the Black Paradise sect, but just as the thought crossed her mind, she saw Supreme Elder Song start to make a peculiar hand symbol.

"What are you doing now?"

"I'm breaking in. Barriers like that are only good for keeping people out. Since his real body is already inside, it's useless against me."

"Ah wait..."

Supreme Elder Song ignored Chu Yan's words as she focused on locating Xiao Fang's body.

The flame on the talisman began to die down as Xiao Fang's body glowed. The connection was being made.

It was happening too fast, so Chu Yan didn't know what to do. The only thing that came to mind was to destroy Xiao Fang's clone, but how suspicious would that look to her Master if she did.

Before she could think of something to do, the talisman suddenly burst into flames again, but this time it was black and disintegrating the talisman before their eyes. Not only that, the flame also seemed to be alive, as if there were a dangerous beast within it. What was worrisome was the fact that it seemed to be aware of their existence.

"This..." Chu Yan stepped back.

The sound of the flame was truly horrifying and bone chilling. It sounded as if anything that touched it would suffer a miserable fate.

Supreme Elder Song's face wrinkled when she saw it. As serious as she always was, Chu Yan had never seen her this serious before.

Only a few moments later, the talisman was completely disintegrated and the flame finally disappeared with it.

"What does that mean?" Chu Yan eventually turned to Supreme Elder Song and asked nervously, but it didn't take long for her to realize that she didn't have any clue what was going on either.

.

.

.

Meanwhile in Xiao Fang's real body, all his senses were still numb to the point of paralysation, but he could feel himself slowly begin to regain them again.

Waking up in shackles, Xiao Fang could feel the cold ground beneath his feet as the cuffs around his wrists drained him of all his Qi.

'Where am I?' he thought as he raised his head.

His body was still numb to the point of paralysis, but he could feel a slight pressure on his forehead which was supplying his body with Qi. Eventually he could sense someone standing in front of him, but he didn't immediately recognize who it was till he opened his eyes.

"Grandmother?" Xiao Fang said weakly.

The last time they spoke, she told him that she would be taking Yu An to the Chaos sect, but would need to kill her if Yu An couldn't find a way to fake her death once they got there. Of course, Xiao Fang asked Yu An if she knew a way to fake her death. She told him there was a way, but listening to her heartbeat, he knew she wasn't too confident in her plan.

"Is Yu An safe?" Xiao Fang asked.

He was neither optimistic nor sorrowful, almost as if he had already prepared for the worst.

"She's alive."

Hearing those words instantly made Xiao Fang's heart race.

"Alive? Then she successfully faked her death?"

Wu Yue shook her head.

"They intercepted us before we could reach their borders."

"You let her go? Have you told grandfather yet?"

"I didn't let her go, she was taken from me. As for your grandfather, I will tell him when he returns."

Wu Yue tried to explain what happened, but Xiao Fang was having a hard time keeping his consciousness in that body. What he understood was that his grandfather had sent someone to shadow Wu Yue in case she couldn't go through with his plan, but after they encountered the Patriarch of the Chaos sect, the assassin was only able to seriously injure Chun Hua before escaping with his life," Wu Yue explained.

The truth was, Wu Yue had an opportunity to kill her, but hesitated to do so.

'Chun Hua,' Xiao Fang thought. 

It had been a while since he had seen her, hearing that she was injured in an exchange she had no business being a part of made his heart bleed with vengeance.

"Break me free, I need to save them,' Xiao Fang said.

"You're not ready. This is not a restraint, these chains are your life support," Wu Yue explained.

"I don't understand."

"The curse energy you tried to use against your father is trying to devour your body. If it wasn't for your step-mother, you would've already been dead."

Xiao Fang recalled the battle, he remembered being covered in the curse tattoo to the point that he was unrecognizable, but he didn't think he would end up in this state.

"What do I do," Xiao Fang said with a defeated tone.

"Remain here, after a few more days the curse tribulation will be over."

"Curse tribulation?" 

"There will be a time when you'll need to challenge that Cursed Qi inside your body, but you're too weak to fight it right now."

Xiao Fang was only getting more questions than answers, but he was slowly losing the strength to ask them.

"Rest. You'll be set free soon enough," Wu Yue said before Xiao Fang lost all his senses again.

'Rest? How can I rest now knowing what I know,' Xiao Fang thought as the fire of revenge burned even more brightly inside of him. 

Returning his consciousness back to his Solid Clone's body back in the Black Paradise sect, he was welcomed with a sword to his neck from an Elderly woman wearing a Supreme Elder's robe, someone he was not yet familiar with.

Unable to hide his cold gaze, Xiao Fang looked up at the Supreme Elder through his and asked,

"What are you doing?"

"Ho ho... is that how you speak to your superiors. You might be a clone, but since you asked apprentice Chu Yan here to guard it, it must have some importance to you. Fix your tone boy, I won't say it again."

Swallowing his anger at the situation back home, he cupped his hands and said, 

"Disciple Long Wang, greets Supreme Elder..."

"So, you're the Long Wang everyone's been telling me about. I assume my Phoenix Jade Hairpin is with your real body somewhere. Tell me where your real body is and I'll spare your clone," Supreme Elder Song threatened.

Xiao Fang didn't understand why the Supreme Elder was acting this way, but he knew a good opportunity when he saw one.

"JadePeak City, you can find my real body there."