The Return of the Condor Heroes: Starting with a Suicide Note and Conquering All Realms

Zhongnan Mountain.

The ancient road was lined with towering pines, their branches like halberds. The night wind whistled through the pine needles, producing a sharp, mournful sound like the weeping of a vengeful ghost. After the awning boat docked at the Wei River ferry, the three disembarked and traveled north along the bluestone official road.

Guo Jing walked in front, carrying a heavy bag, his steps as steady as a mountain. Yang Guo followed closely behind, clutching a twig he had picked up as a walking stick. Lin Yuan, wrapped in an old cotton robe, shrank to the very back, panting after every three steps, perfectly portraying a terminally ill cripple.

Guo Jing suddenly stopped.

"No." He looked up abruptly, his gaze hard and unwavering.

On the northern horizon, a thick, dark red hue was firmly embedded in the mountain ridgeline. That was not the glow of dawn, but fire—smoke billowed from the direction of Chongyang Palace!

"Guo'er, support Brother Lin and stay close to me!" Guo Jing's voice suddenly deepened, and he suddenly exerted force with his feet, his body bursting up like a roc spreading its wings, stepping on pine branches to move quickly.

Yang Guo grabbed Lin Yuan's arm and rushed forward. Lin Yuan staggered, breathing heavily, and let Yang Guo drag him along.

The three of them had just turned a bend in the mountainside.

"Clang!"

A sudden, deafening metallic clang ripped through the night sky!

On the open ground in front of the bluestone official road, more than ninety Quanzhen Taoist priests dressed in gray Taoist robes formed small formations of seven people each. The fourteen small formations meshed together like precise gears, transforming into a giant sword formation.

Sword light flashed like a net. Ninety-eight longswords were drawn simultaneously, their continuous, cold gleaming weaving into a silver net like a meat grinder under the moonlight, completely sealing off the entire official road.

"Stop!"

A Taoist priest in his forties stood in the center, sword held horizontally to his chest, and shouted sternly: "The Mongol hounds have invaded my Chongyang Palace! The entire mountain is now sealed off. No one is allowed to ascend! Anyone who takes another step will be killed without mercy!"

Guo Jing's face darkened, but he suppressed his anxiety and bowed, announcing, "I am Guo Jing, a disciple of an old friend of the Daoist Wang Chongyang. I have brought two children here today to become his disciples; they are by no means enemies!"

"Guo Jing?" The Taoists in the formation whispered among themselves, hesitant and uncertain.

The leading Taoist priest gritted his teeth: "No matter who you are, tonight that fiend Huo Du led a hundred skilled fighters in a night raid on Chongyang Palace, and a bloody battle is raging beneath the city walls! Our Master Uncle has ordered that all outsiders be apprehended first and interrogated later!"

He swung his longsword sharply: "Form the formation!"

Ninety-eight people stepped forward simultaneously. The moment their feet touched the ground, the bluestone road trembled violently, as if a giant beast had awakened from the earth.

Twenty-eight longswords thrust out first, each tip containing a wisp of Quanzhen internal energy, twisting in mid-air to form an impenetrable spiral wall of sword energy, which descended upon Guo Jing and his companions!

The Big Dipper Formation!

Guo Jing's expression changed drastically. He pushed forward with both palms, and an extremely powerful Dragon Subduing True Qi crashed into the sword wall.

"clang!"

The true energy exploded, creating a surging shockwave. The seven Taoists who were at the forefront were all forced back two steps, their tiger's mouths split open and blood spilled out. But the second and third sword formations followed closely behind, filling in the gaps like a tidal wave, without any pause.

The Big Dipper, with its seven stars, waxes and wanes.

The terrifying aspect of this formation lies in the fact that if anyone in the sword formation is repelled, an adjacent formation will instantly fill the gap, while simultaneously re-incorporating the retreating Taoist into the reserve echelon. This cycle repeats endlessly, like a tireless meat grinder.

Guo Jing pushed seven people away with one palm, only to be met with fourteen deadly cold blades. Unwilling to harm the Quanzhen disciples, he could only use his Dragon Subduing True Qi to construct a protective aura around his body and focus solely on defense.

The palm strikes were like a raging tide, the sword light like a torrential rain. Guo Jing was trapped firmly in the center of the formation.

Outside the formation, Lin Yuan was half-supported and half-dragged by Yang Guo, retreating to an old pine tree ten zhang away.

"Brother Lin, will Uncle Guo be alright?!" Yang Guo gripped the tree branch tightly, his forehead dripping with cold sweat.

Lin Yuan did not answer.

He lowered his head, his hunched body leaning weakly against the tree trunk, looking like a sick ghost terrified by the scene before him.

But in the shadows, unnoticed by anyone, a pair of golden eyes with dark gold vertical stripes silently ignited!

Dragon Blood Talent, fully activated.

The image on his retina was instantly and violently reconstructed. The Heavenly Dipper Formation, which appeared perfectly natural and flawless to mortals, was instantly stripped away into a transparent three-dimensional wireframe in his inhuman eyes.

The coordinates of each Taoist's position, the frequency of their steps, the angle of their sword strikes, and even the direction of the flow of their internal energy—all of these were transformed into a clear data stream, undergoing ultra-high-frequency, frantic calculations in Lin Yuan's brain.

In just three breaths, his gaze was fixed on the core of the sword formation.

The rotation axis of the fourteen small formations is not a fixed person, but a set of internal energy circulation routes! Only when the true energy in the bodies of all Taoists circulates at the same frequency can the formations mesh perfectly like precision gears.

Quanzhen Internal Energy. This is the authentic and profound mental cultivation method of the Quanzhen School.

Lin Yuan's pupils suddenly contracted, and his heart skipped a beat.

He completed the cross-comparison in a very short time.

The Qi circulation route of Quanzhen internal energy cultivation is 70% identical to the Qi circulation diagram of the Nine Yin Manual that he deciphered from Huang Rong's fragments!

They share the same origin!

After Wang Chongyang comprehended the Nine Yin Manual, he founded the Quanzhen Sect, transforming the core principles of the manual into the foundation of Quanzhen internal energy cultivation. This is why Quanzhen internal energy cultivation is known for its "purity and non-action"—the Nine Yin Manual emphasizes "the way of Heaven is to diminish the excess and supplement the deficiency," and the Quanzhen internal energy cultivation principles simplify this principle of diminishing and supplementing into the daily internal energy cultivation cycle.

Lin Yuan's dragon blood was as domineering as magma, and the essence of his sovereign flames was ultimate destruction and explosion. The Nine Yin Manual gave him the framework of "loss"—teaching him how to restrain and compress excess power. But he lacked the path of "replenishment"—how to allow his consumed internal energy to naturally replenish itself and be endlessly regenerated.

The Complete True Internal Skill is the final piece of this system!

Once you obtain its complete energy circulation route, the circulation of dragon blood within his body can be completely closed.

Output relies on Junyan, recovery relies on Jiuyin, and neutralization relies on Quanzhen.

A perfect perpetual motion machine that transcends dimensions!

Lin Yuan licked his chapped lips, and the dark golden light deep in his pupils became extremely intense and greedy.

Good stuff, since it's been delivered to my door, I might as well take it.

In the center of the sword formation, Guo Jing's situation became increasingly difficult.

He unleashed three consecutive "Dragon Appears in the Field" strikes, repelling more than twenty Taoist priests, but the vacated positions were instantly filled by the reserve team. The Eighteen Subduing Dragon Palms were incredibly powerful, but fearing he might kill someone, he forcibly withdrew half the power from each strike.

His inner energy was being rapidly depleted, while the Quanzhen Formation continued its relentless cycle. If this continued, even a man of iron like Guo Jing would be worn down to exhaustion.

Lin Yuan's gaze, sharp as a hawk's, locked onto the third array eye in the southwest direction.

This group of seven stood on a huge bluestone slab, positioned at the "Tianquan" star point of the entire formation. Tianquan is the pivot of the Big Dipper.

Once this point breaks, the rotation axes of the fourteen small arrays will instantly lose their calibration points!

Lin Yuan's right hand was hidden in the wide sleeve of his robe, his index finger slightly bent.

Deep within his dantian, a wisp of dark red inner flame was forcibly compressed to its limit by his spiritual power, like a red-hot steel needle, silently sliding along the Hand Yangming Large Intestine Meridian towards his fingertips.

There was no outward emission of true energy, nor any visible light.

He simply placed his fingertips lightly against the pine roots behind him.

A terrifying heat flowed down the tree roots and into the ground, spreading silently through the gravel layer, like a lurking underground fire dragon, precisely reaching the bottom structure of the bluestone slab twenty feet away.

The bluestone slabs are six inches thick, with rammed loess and gravel underneath.

The extreme heat of the Lord's Flame was like an invisible microwave, instantly vaporizing the remaining moisture in the layer of rubble! The underlying structure, now devoid of moisture, collapsed silently, instantly creating a fatal hole beneath the bluestone slab.

"Click."

A very faint, crisp sound was perfectly masked by the cacophony of sword cries.

The Taoist priest leading the formation at the Tianquan position suddenly sank his right foot, causing the bluestone slab below to collapse two inches without warning!

It's only two inches. But in the ultimate battle formations where life and death clash, those two inches are an insurmountable chasm!

His rhythm was instantly disrupted, forcing him to deviate his sword angle by a third. In that instant, the resonance frequency of his inner energy with that of his two companions on either side completely broke down!

The small formation of seven people has crumbled.

Having immersed himself in martial arts for decades, Guo Jing possessed an exceptionally keen sense of the battlefield. The instant an opening appeared in the Tianquan position, his eyes snapped open, his right palm blazed with golden light, and his long-suppressed true energy erupted!

"The dragon that soars too high will regret it!"

With a single palm strike, a dragon's roar shook the heavens, like the Yellow River bursting its banks, its momentum unstoppable!