Naked Sword Art Chapter 140 - Strange Clones

Chapter 140 - Strange Clones

"I hope you had your fun, cause now it's my turn."
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Knowing Xiao Fang's intentions, the Divine Spirit Beast attacked him first. Xiao Fang didn't try to evade the attack, he simply raised his a hand and blocked it with his forearm.
In the next moment, the beast was shot through the air, only stopping when it hit the wall.
Xiao Fang opened and closed his hand curiously. He didn't think he could control his strength since he had never been this strong before, but he was still able to injure the divine spirit beast with a simple strike.
As far as Xiao Fang knew, the higher his cultivation realm got the greater the disparity between consecutive realms became.
A single Refinement realm cultivator had the strength of ~5 Foundation realm cultivators.
1 Core realm = ~8 Refinement realm
1 Profound realm = ~10 Core realm
1 Divine realm = ~13 Profound realm
Right now Xiao Fang felt as if he had the strength that was equal to a few Divine spirit realm cultivators, but he assumed it was due to his lack of experience fighting in this realm.
Just what kind of existence was someone in the heavenly realm? Heavenly realm practitioners were cultivators that could go anywhere unhindered. They were the idols of geniuses and the gods of men. Only those in the royal court were rumored to all be in Heavenly realm, but that was where all the strongest cultivators in the country were gathered.
While Xiao Fang was getting excited over his new found strength, the elder also had a look of shock in her eyes.
She couldn't believe that he was able to completely control his true immortal spirit attribute. As far as she knew, no one under the Heavenly realm had ever done such a thing before. Even if he was at the Heavenly realm, it still should've been extremely difficult to pull it off.
The Divine Spirit Beast pulled himself out of the wall, but it didn't seem nearly as injured as Xiao Fang expected. Seeing that Xiao Fang had gotten even stronger, the spirit beast suddenly got excited.
It roared again, but this time its ashy grey skin turned crimson red, metallic scales emerged out of his shoulders, chest, forearms, and tail, and it grew a bit taller. Its aura thickened as its battle power quickly rose. Xiao Fang didn't feel any killing intent coming from it, but its bloodlust became even stronger than before.
In front of such a powerful spirit beast, Xiao Fang didn't even show a sliver of fear, all he could feel was contempt. The spirit beast had been so keen on making Xiao Fang so miserable this whole time, whether it chose to run, fight, or hide really made no difference, the end result was going to be the same.
Xiao Fang and the Divine Spirit Beast both darted towards each other in unbelievable speeds, almost destroying the ground below their feet with every step they took.
Xiao Fang saw its fist coming, but he decided not to dodge it. He wanted to take it head on.
They went blow for blow, but since Xiao Fang was still new to this realm, his attack was still a bit weaker than he expected it to be, but as they continued to exchange blows Xiao Fang was quickly able to overpower it.
Even if he was still a long way from being comfortable fighting in this realm, he was still a realm above the spirit beast so the battle was heavily in his favour.
Xiao Fang created a perfect illusory clone whenever he needed to evade an attack or create a distraction to find an opening. Since the only form of martial arts he was proficient in was in swordsmanship, his illusory clones helped him get the edge he needed to compensate for his lack of hand to hand combat skills.
Suddenly, the spirit beast landed a strike with it's tail. Xiao Fang was pushed back several meters, but the attack didn't hurt him as much as he expected it to. After everything Xiao Fang went through and considering how much stronger he was now, the tail whip felt like nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
The spirit beast didn't have the same smug look on its face anymore. Not only was Xiao Fang's attacks much stronger, he was also landing 10 to 15 hits before the Divine Spirit Beast could even land 1.
With a serious look on its face, the Divine Spirit Beast created a clone of its own, then another, and then another. When it was done, there were 15 clones of the Divine Spirit Beast standing side by side with each other.
Xiao Fang was surprised, but considering the fact that it was in the Divine Spirit realm, it made sense that it was able to create so many Illusory clones. The only thing that worried him a bit was that its clones were even more perfect than Xiao Fang's. Xiao Fang could look at them for hours but still not distinguish the real one from the fakes, and since everything in the spirit pagoda was in spirit form, he couldn't rely on his ears to figure it out.
The Divine Spirit Beast made the first move. Xiao Fang couldn't tell whether the first one to reach him was real or fake so he decided to block it.
The fist hit his arm and it pushed him back a little.
'I found you,' Xiao Fang thought as he locked eyes with the Divine Spirit Beast that just hit him.
Ignoring all of the clones, Xiao Fang went straight for the one he was locked eyes with, but then his swordsman's instincts began to flare up. Xiao Fang dodged, but he didn't understand why. Suddenly the clone that missed him destroyed the ground on impact.
'What!? If this is the real one then-'
Suddenly, his swordsman's instincts warned him again, but it was coming from a different direction.
All of the clones were closing in on his position, so Xiao Fang dodged the attacks then retreated several meters away.
This was all too confusing for him. Was the Divine Spirit Beast somehow switching places with its clones or were the clones all real?
Xiao Fang then created 2 illusory clones of his own then made them rush into the group of spirit beasts from two different directions. They were immediately attacked by the group of spirit beasts and they both turned into a mist of qi at the same time when they were hit.
Xiao Fang slightly frowned.
'Those aren't illusory clones.'