The Legend of the Condor Heroes: From Being Expelled from Peach Blossom Island

Chapter 553 Guo Jing vs. Yang Kang

Even now, Yang Kang still doesn't know his true identity, and Guo Jing doesn't want to reveal it here either, so he just shakes his head.

"Our duel is about the grudges and affections of the previous generation, and it is also something that my masters have been thinking about. You have no choice but to give up. There is no better time than now. Let's settle this right here and now."

My martial arts skills are quite diverse, and using some of them might be unfair to you. I shouldn't have used that palm technique just now. Next, I will use the martial arts of my seven masters.

Guo Jing was an upright and honest man. When the two sides agreed to fight, they should have used the martial arts of Qiu Chuji and the Seven Freaks of Jiangnan. Both Yang Kang and Guo Jing had been taught by Wu Chengyu. It was impossible for Yang Kang not to use the Innate Skill. Therefore, Guo Jing could also use the martial arts taught by Wu Chengyu.

However, the Eighteen Subduing Dragon Palms, passed down by A-Ku, is a unique skill of the Beggars' Sect, and Guo Jing believes it is inappropriate to use it here.

Yang Kang's face was rather unpleasant. He had only been passing by and casually flirting with a girl, but unexpectedly, the person he had challenged to a duel years ago came to his door.

He has become arrogant and domineering this year, and his status has risen accordingly. However, he is still very shrewd. He immediately realized that he was much weaker than Guo Jing in terms of strength when they first clashed, and that he would definitely suffer a loss if they fought hand to hand.

As a prince, he was never one to knowingly suffer a loss. Yang Kang held out his right hand, and his henchmen immediately understood and handed him a twelve-foot steel spear: "Since it's a duel, this prince is most skilled in spear fighting. I don't think you'll mind."

Yang Tiexin, who was standing nearby, was unaware of the cause and effect, but he was anxious for his nephew whom he had just met. He immediately picked up his iron spear, which he had carried with him for many years, and was about to hand it to Guo Jing, but Guo Jing shook his head and stopped him.

His eyes remained level with Yang Kang's: "Guo is most skilled in fist and foot techniques; today I will test your marksmanship."

In the middle of the bluestone path in the market square, two figures faced each other. The air was thick and heavy, and the hustle and bustle of the city seemed to be blocked by an invisible barrier several feet away.

Yang Kang still wore his brocade robe and had a handsome face, but his eyes no longer held any trace of his former carefree and dashing demeanor; only a cold sharpness remained.

He held a steel spear, pointing it diagonally at the ground. The spearhead flickered with a chilling light in the sunlight, making his upright posture appear even more sturdy and elegant, like a jade tree standing tall in the wind.

Guo Jing, dressed in coarse cloth, stood tall like a mountain, his composed demeanor perfectly natural.

He was unarmed, his aura was harmonious and restrained, only his eyes were clear as the sky deep in the desert, reflecting the figure of his opponent, without sorrow or joy.

Yang Kang's clear shout of "Kill!" shattered the deathly silence. His innate internal energy surged forth, instantly flowing throughout his body, making him appear to grow several inches taller.

With a light tap of his foot, his figure flashed forward like lightning. Before he even arrived, his steel-tipped spear had already transformed into a silver-white lightning bolt that tore through the air, aiming straight for Guo Jing's throat. The spear tip pierced the air with a sharp "whoosh," ruthless and precise—it was the Yang family's killing move, "Azure Dragon Probing the Sea."

Guo Jing neither dodged nor avoided, but a glint of light flashed in his eyes. The profound inner power of the Nine Yin Manual flowed silently within his body, and his qi was stirred. At the critical moment, his body slightly shifted to the side.

The spearhead, like a venomous dragon, grazed his neck, the sharp wind stinging his skin.

Just as Yang Kang was exhausted from using his old spear technique and had not yet generated new strength, Guo Jing's right palm was like a knife, and he used the Nanshan Knife Technique of Nanshan Woodcutter Nan Xiren with his palm.

This sword technique was created by Nan Xiren by combining wood-chopping techniques. It excels at chopping, and he suddenly slashes at the middle of the spear shaft! This slash, seemingly simple and unadorned, contains the immense and unstoppable power of the sixth level of the Dragon Elephant Prajna Skill, and is extremely fierce.

"Clang—!" With a deafening clang of metal striking metal, Guo Jing's palm struck the steel-forged spear shaft squarely.

Yang Kang felt an overwhelming force surging from the spear, so powerful and unstoppable that it far exceeded his expectations.

His hand was throbbing with excruciating pain, and his arms were numb and aching. The steel-tipped spear that he cherished flew out of his hand, spinning as it smashed into a large brass basin filled with water on the side of the street with a loud crash. The basin was deeply dented, and half of the dirty water was splashed all over the ground.

Yang Kang staggered back several steps before he could barely stand. His face was ashen. His innate internal strength, which he was so proud of, seemed so pale and powerless under Guo Jing's earth-shattering palm strike.

He stared intently at Guo Jing, the resentment in his eyes almost tangible. He assumed a fighting stance, wanting to pounce on him again, but he was still wary of Guo Jing's immense strength.

Suddenly, he abandoned his fist and palm stance, spun around, and reached his long arm to snatch a bronze cudgel from the hand of the hanger-in-waiting behind him.

The staff was eight feet long and as thick as a child's arm. Although it was not a sharp weapon, it was extremely powerful and heavy. His arm strength was far from enough to wield such a heavy weapon, so he had to use his innate internal energy to enhance it. With a slight swing, the wind immediately rose.

Yang Kang's idea was simple: since a long spear could not withstand Guo Jing's immense strength, he could only use heavy weapons to fight back. Generals who wield clubs and hammers are the most valiant on the battlefield.

"Again!" Yang Kang shouted, his aura suddenly changing. His previous agile spear skills disappeared, replaced by a fierce and ruthless demeanor as if he had a large army at his disposal.

Since ancient times, spears and staffs have been inseparable. Yang Kang, who was skilled with spears, was also adept with staffs. The bronze staff seemed to come alive in his hands, carrying the whistling wind generated by his innate skill. The staff shadow was like mountains and waves. With the move "Splitting Mount Hua", carrying the power to split stone tablets, he smashed down on Guo Jing from head to toe.

Before the staff even arrived, the fierce and unparalleled wind pressure had already scattered the dust beneath Guo Jing's feet.

Guo Jing's gaze was calm and composed. Facing this imposing mountain of sticks, he did not retreat but advanced instead.

The unparalleled movement technique "Snake Walk and Leaping Fox" recorded in the Nine Yin Manual was naturally executed. With a strange twist of his body, he slid along the edge of the extremely fierce staff wind, like a boneless fish.

The strong wind generated by the copper rod made his clothes flutter, but it didn't even touch a single strand of his hair.

Guo Jing seized the opportunity to strike Yang Kang's center, his left hand's five fingers curled like an eagle's claw, swiftly seizing the vital point on Yang Kang's wrist where he was holding the staff—this was the exquisite and delicate bone-dislocating grappling technique taught by the master scholar Zhu Cong, as precise as seizing a needle in a crack.

Yang Kang's heart skipped a beat. He quickly withdrew his staff, his wrist suddenly flicking and twisting. The copper staff, like a giant python turning over, lashed out at Guo Jing's abdomen like a venomous snake, narrowly avoiding capture.

He pressed his advantage relentlessly, unleashing his full power of innate skill. His staff flashed and crisscrossed, sometimes sweeping across the battlefield like a raging torrent, sometimes like a demon probing the sea, the tip of his staff stabbing like raindrops.

Moreover, with the spear-like thrust straight to the heart of the enemy, combined with exquisite footwork, he made a set of fierce and domineering staff techniques that combined the ruthlessness and cunning of a spear with the weight and power of a staff. In an instant, the staff shadows were so numerous that Guo Jing was enveloped in a howling storm.

Suddenly, a series of dense, crackling sounds, like raindrops hitting banana leaves, rang out on the bluestone slabs of the long street.

That was the sound of Guo Jing's steady, powerful punches, palm strikes, and elbow strikes colliding with the wildly swirling bronze staff.

Each collision inevitably leaves a clear, shallow crater in the hard ground, sending up a flurry of gravel and dust.

Guo Jing's moves may seem clumsy and simple, lacking the dazzling flair of Yang Kang's staff techniques, but each strike is as solid as a mountain and possesses immense power.

He activated the Dragon Elephant Prajna Skill, and his muscles and bones seemed to contain the divine power of ancient dragons and elephants. His fists and feet pierced the air, and the muffled wind they generated subtly suppressed the sharp whistling of the staff.

The external training method he learned from Zhang Asheng, combined with the Dragon Elephant Prajna Skill and the Nine Yin Manual, made him completely unafraid of being struck by blunt weapons.

Yang Kang grew increasingly alarmed as the fight progressed. His innate internal energy, born from his mastery of martial arts, should have been slightly superior to Guo Jing's; with each clash of their staffs, he could indeed feel a pure and sharp aura attempting to invade Guo Jing's meridians. However, Guo Jing's internal energy in his fists and feet was like a vast, boundless ocean, or an immovable, ancient mountain.

That invading force was instantly neutralized by the overwhelming and unstoppable power of the dragon and elephant and the supple and enduring nature of the Nine Yin Manual, like a clay ox sinking into the sea.

His exquisite staff techniques were always interrupted and suppressed by Guo Jing's seemingly clumsy but perfectly timed punch, palm strike, or collision just as he was about to achieve his goal.

Guo Jing remained as steady as a rock, as if rooted to the ground, while Guo Jing himself felt his blood churning and his arms growing heavier under the force of the violent backlash.

After fighting for dozens of rounds, Guo Jing spotted an opening. Yang Kang unleashed a powerful "Mount Tai Pressing Down" strike, exhausting all his momentum.

Guo Jing's eyes flashed with a sharp light. He activated the Nine Yin Manual to its fullest extent, and instead of retreating, he advanced, managing to force his way into the shadow of the staff.

He raised his left arm, his muscles bulging, and unleashed a tremendous force, like that of a dragon and an elephant. With a deafening clang, he managed to block the thunderous downward strike of the bronze staff with his forearm.

As the staffs clashed, Yang Kang felt an indescribable, immense force rebounding from him, causing excruciating pain in both arms and nearly breaking them; the bronze staff almost slipped from his grasp again.

In the blink of an eye, Guo Jing's right fist tore through the barrier of the staff shadows and struck straight at his chest without any fancy moves. He used his arm as a staff and was using the Demon-Subduing Staff Technique of Ke Zhen'e, the Flying Bat.

Before the fist even arrived, the terrifying, condensed wind pressure pressed Yang Kang's brocade robe tightly against his skin, bringing an overwhelming feeling of suffocation.

At the critical moment of life and death, Yang Kang's innate internal energy surged violently. He roared, abandoned all his moves, gripped both ends of the copper staff tightly with both hands, and used all his strength to hold the copper staff horizontally in front of his chest like a door bolt!
"BOOM—!!!" It was like a thunderclap exploding from the ground!
Guo Jing's fist, which combined the power of the sixth level of the Dragon Elephant Prajna Skill with the internal energy of the Nine Yin Manual, slammed solidly into the center of the horizontally blocking bronze staff.

A visible white shockwave exploded outwards from the two of them, kicking up dust and debris.

"Crack...bang!" First came the tooth-grinding metallic groan, then the thick bronze staff, as thick as a child's arm, was smashed in half by Guo Jing's punch.

The shattered copper pieces shot out in all directions like cannonballs, embedding themselves deeply into the walls and doors on both sides. The enormous impact of the breakage was irresistibly transmitted to Yang Kang.

"Ugh!" Yang Kang groaned, a sweet taste rising in his throat. He could no longer suppress the mouthful of blood and spat it out, scattering a blinding red mist in the air.

He was like a tattered kite with its string cut, his feet leaving the ground as he was violently thrown backward by an overwhelming force.

"Thump! Thump!" Two heavy, muffled sounds.

Yang Kang stomped heavily on the bluestone slab more than ten feet away, as if two giant rocks had crashed down.

The immense impact forced him to bend his knees to absorb the force, but the hard bluestone slab beneath his feet shattered instantly, spiderweb-like cracks spreading across a radius of about a foot, sending up dust and debris.

He barely managed to stay upright by using the only remaining half of the broken stick in his hand to support himself and avoid falling down in a sorry state.

The front of his brocade robe was stained red with his own blood, and the tiger's mouths of his hands gripping the stick were split open, with blood meandering down the broken stick and dripping into the cracks in the broken stones.

He was panting heavily, his chest heaving violently, each breath causing excruciating pain in his internal organs. His face was as pale as paper, and beads of cold sweat appeared on his forehead. His eyes, as he looked at Guo Jing, were filled with shock, resentment, and a deep-seated bewilderment.

Guo Jing slowly withdrew his fist, and the overwhelming aura that had made the air seem to freeze receded like a tide.

He stood there, breathing heavily, and his coarse cloth clothes, apart from being stained with some dust, seemed completely unharmed.

He looked at Yang Kang, who was a few steps away, looking disheveled and with blood still wet at the corner of his mouth. His gaze was still clear, but there was a hint of a sigh that was hard to detect.

"No matter how skillful or varied the spear and staff techniques may be, they are ultimately external things." Guo Jing's voice was deep and resonant, clearly piercing the silence of the long street, as if striking Yang Kang's heart.

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the deep, shattered stone pit at Yang Kang's feet, then landing on the still-bleeding tiger's mouth. "Without a solid foundation and pure inner strength, it's like building a tower on sand... it will never be stable."

After a brief exchange, Guo Jing pointed out the fatal flaw in Yang Kang's martial arts, but he was even more puzzled. He had practiced the Quanzhen Martial Arts and had also heard Wu Chengyu mention the Xiantian Gong.

Martial arts like the Innate Skill, which directly targets the innate, require an extremely high foundation; if the foundation is not solid, it is impossible to even begin to learn it.

When Yang Kang made his move, his innate internal energy was indeed pure, and every move he made had great power. However, when he fought against a master who also had pure internal energy, he always felt that he could not continue in a head-on collision.

In the previous exchanges of blows, the bronze staff was clearly more powerful. However, the innate internal energy infused into the bronze staff, after repeated clashes with Guo Jing's Nine Yin Manual and Dragon Elephant Prajna Skill, initially evenly matched, quickly shrank like a punctured balloon and could not be sustained.

With Guo Jing's current knowledge of martial arts, he immediately understood that this was due to an unstable foundation. But if the foundation was really unstable, how could he have even begun to learn the Innate Skill? This contradiction left Guo Jing puzzled.

Little did he know that this was yet another masterpiece of his own master, who neither helped Yang Kang lay a solid foundation nor allowed him to comprehend the true meaning of the technique and begin his own cultivation. Instead, he forcibly used his own internal energy to help Yang Kang circulate the Innate Skill throughout his body.

This kind of innate skill, which is used to start out, progresses very quickly at first and its power far exceeds that of ordinary skills. However, it lacks staying power and its upper limit is locked. When it encounters an internal martial arts master of equal or higher skill, it will immediately reveal its true nature.

Guo Jing, on the other hand, was completely different. The foundation that Wu Chengyu had laid for him was such that, apart from Wu Chengyu himself and A-Ku who had cultivated the Bear's Creed, no one else in the world could compare to him.

Although Yang Kang kowtowed to become a disciple, he was apprenticing to Tian Boguang, not Wu Chengyu, while Guo Jing was a true direct disciple, so their treatment was naturally completely different.

Yang Kang's knuckles, gripping the broken stick, were clenched so tightly they turned pale, and his fingers trembled violently from the excessive force.

The sharp pain from the tiger's mouth felt like cold needles; his jaw clenched, and he tasted an even stronger, more intense flavor of blood between his lips and teeth.

He stared intently at the broken bluestone beneath his feet, a symbol of exhaustion and utter defeat, its cracks twisting and spreading as if mocking all his pride.

The wind swept through the long street, carrying the rusty, bloody smell and the scent of dust.

Yang Kang raised his head and looked at Guo Jing, who was as calm and composed as a mountain. The composure and strength in Guo Jing's clear eyes were like a silent declaration.

Guo Jing said, word by word, "The outcome of our battle is decided. The eighteen-year agreement we made back then has ultimately been won by the disciples of the Seven Heroes of Jiangnan."

Yang Kang gave a bitter laugh: "This is Zhongdu, take it down for me."

(End of this chapter)