Naked Sword Art

Xiao Fang's guild members were in trouble.

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[ A few minutes earlier ]

Deep in the forest, Ye Ming was in the middle of training when she heard quick footsteps coming her way.

'Again? First Li ChangYing, now this. Why are so many people coming to my part of the forest today?' Ye Ming thought.

Worried that it might be another Dragon-Class disciple, she quickly hid in the trees and waited for the intruders.

Eventually, she could see them coming from a distance.

'Isn't that Yan Mei?' Ye Ming thought.

Upon looking more closely at the girls chasing Yan Mei, she could see that they were all wearing White Jade Guild nameplates and Tiger-Class uniforms. Ye Ming didn't know what was going on, but she didn't have any time to think about it because they were coming her way.

"Ye Ming, help me!" Yan Mei shouted out.

Ye Ming had only talked to Yan Mei once since she joined the Nameless Guild, and it was only to tell her to never come into this part of the forest. What she didn't know was that Yan Mei was desperate. Only when they got a bit closer did Ye Ming finally see that she was badly injured.

"Ahh!" Yan Mei screamed as she was tripped.

When she looked down at what she tripped on she saw a glowing yellow rope tied tightly around her knees. However, it didn't stop there, in a single breath of time the strange rope quickly restrained the rest of her body, completely immobilizing her body from head to toe.

"Nice throw!" One of Yan Mei's pursuers complemented the other.

The robe was a cultivation tool, so no matter how hard Yan Mei tried, she was unable to break it.

The girls started to laugh when they saw Yan Mei struggling to break free.

"Don't you know what kind of rope that is? Try all you want, but the only way you're getting out of it is if I let you go," the girl said.

Although the rope was great for restraining criminals, their only flaw was that it was extremely difficult to use. It was too heavy and slow, so unless the person they were trying to capture wasn't paying attention. Restraining someone with it would be next to impossible.

Ye Ming, who had been watching from high up in the trees, had heard enough. She didn't know why they were chasing Yan Mei, but since they decided to enter her part of the forest, she wasn't going to let them go without s beating.

Suddenly, Ye Ming dropped down from the trees, landing directly on top of one of the girls that were chasing Yan Mei.

Boom!

The ground shook as the girl Ye Ming landed on fell flat on the ground.

Before the other girls could even react, 3 [ Illusory Clones ] immediately shot out of Ye Ming's body and rushed them with bright yellow spirit orbs hovering over their hands.

"Ahhh!!" The White Jade guild girls screamed as they were all knock back a powerful spirit attack.

Despite suffering a direct hit, the girls were still going to get up, but stopped when they saw Ye Ming's clones all threatening to deal a finishing blow.

"Y-Ye Ming!" one girl said in fear.

Hearing that name, the White Jade guild girls suddenly became terrified.

...

In the White Jade guild Chen Li had spread the rumor that Ye Ming had killed several girls in this forest, so they were advised not to enter it no matter what.

The reason why this rumor was so big was because this was the only case the Disciplinary Department wasn't able to solve last year. For that, some of the girls even started to refers to her as the 'Midnight Assassin'.

Contrary to what they believed, Ye Ming actually had nothing to do with those deaths. Despite her coming from a family of assasins, she hadn't killed anyone before, certainly not any of the girls that died in this forest. However, that didn't mean she didn't know the person that really did it.

...

"Y-Ye Ming, t-this is all just a misunderstanding," one girl tried to explain.

"A misunderstanding?" Ye Ming said as if she heard something amusing. "Do you know where you are?"

All but one of them knew about this forest, but they were too scared to say anything.

"Isn't this just some old forest?" The girl who didn't know finally said.

"This 'old forest' belongs to the Nameless Guild, but not only have you decided to trespass into our grounds, you also dared to attack one of my guildmates," Ye Ming replied.

"Bullshit, this forest is public property. And so what if we attacked your guildmate, do you not know who we are? We're from the White Ja- Gahh!!"

The girl Ye Ming was sitting on screamed as her head was suddenly stomped into the mud. It was clear from Ye Ming's actions that she didn't care who they were nor where they came from. Right now, the only thing they should be worried about is getting out of this forest alive.

"Hand me your spatial pouches. If you don't have anything good for me, I'll crush your hands and feet," Ye Ming said threateningly before taking the spatial pouch off the girl she was sitting on first.

Ye Ming opened the spatial pouch then her eyes shined greedily when she saw the contents inside.

"Whoa, look at you. Didn't anyone ever tell you not to carry so many valuables around? The White Jade guild must be paying you well to have so many good things in here," Ye Ming smirked.

It was an unspoken rule to never carry too many valuables, because you never knew when someone might rob you. Although the thief would eventually get caught by the disciplinary department, the things that were stolen would almost never be recovered.

However, since these girls were from the top guild in the Inner Court, they thought no one would ever be so daring to steal from them. Unfortunately, they had provoked the one person that would.

Ye Ming finally got up, then started walking around to collect the other girls' spatial pouches.

"This must be my lucky day," Ye Ming laughed.

The girl Ye Ming was earlier sitting on finally lifted her head from the mud, then pointed at Ye Ming in a fit of rage before saying,

"You crazy bitch! You're so fucking dead, you know that? No one messes with the White Jade guild and gets away with it!"

It was clear that this girl had never heard of Ye Ming before, so the other 3 were trying to signal for her to be quiet, but it was too late.

"You're annoying."