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

Lin Yuan stopped in his tracks, and Yang Guo stood beside him, carrying a heavy sword.

Xiangyang City is just ahead.

Ten miles outside the city, camps stretched as far as the eye could see. The dark tents stretched to the horizon, seemingly endless.

"This is an army of 100,000?" Yang Guo gripped the hilt of his heavy sword, the veins on the back of his hand bulging. This was the first time he had ever seen a real battlefield army formation. The overwhelming murderous aura was completely different from the brawls of dozens or hundreds of people in the martial arts world.

Lin Yuan glanced at the camp in the distance.

"A hundred thousand farts." Lin Yuan said calmly, "Only ten thousand elite Kheshig troops, the rest are just auxiliary soldiers and laborers to make up the numbers. It's all just bluffing."

He regarded this army of ten thousand men as a sheepfold waiting to be slaughtered.

Ouyang Feng squatted on the ground, digging at the mud, muttering, "Sheep... so many sheep... Old beggar, roast lamb leg!"

Xiaolongnu held Yang Guo's hand, her expression aloof.

"Let's go into the city." Lin Yuan started walking.

The gates of Xiangyang were tightly shut. Sparse soldiers stood on the city walls, all of them emaciated and pale, clutching rusty spears.

"Who goes there! The Mongol Tartars have besieged the city! Xiangyang is under lockdown! Get out of here!" The captain on the city wall shouted at the top of his lungs.

Lin Yuan was too lazy to waste words.

He walked to the city gate. The heavy iron gate was jammed shut from the inside by a bolt as thick as a child's arm.

Lin Yuan raised his right hand and pointed with his index finger.

The energy from the One-Finger Divine Skill burst forth from his body, piercing directly through the thick wooden planks of the city gate and accurately striking the bolt inside.

"Click."

The sound of the bolt breaking echoed through the city gate.

Lin Yuan reached out and pushed. The two heavy city gates, each weighing a thousand pounds, slowly opened to both sides with a tooth-grinding creak.

The soldiers guarding the city wall were terrified and immediately raised their bows and arrows.

Lin Yuan didn't even glance at them, stepping directly through the city gate. Yang Guo followed behind, dragging his heavy Xuan Tie sword, the tip scraping against the bluestone slabs with a harsh, grating sound.

The city was devastated.

The streets were lined with wounded soldiers and refugees. Cries of pain and coughs mingled together. A soldier with a broken leg leaned against a wall, numbly watching the four men walk by.

The air was filled with the pungent smell of wound medicine and the stench of rotting corpses.

Yang Guo frowned. While the high-ranking officials and nobles in Lin'an were still enjoying music and flowers, the soldiers at the front lines couldn't even get a decent meal. The corruption of the Southern Song court and the carnage at the front lines shattered his understanding of the world.

Lin Yuan followed the horse path and walked straight up the city wall.

The setting sun was like blood. The autumn wind whipped up a tattered banner with the character "Guo," which fluttered wildly in the wind.

The atmosphere on the city wall was extremely oppressive.

Yang Guo stopped in his tracks.

He saw Guo Jing.

In the battle of Dasheng Pass, Guo Jing was directly blasted into the ruins by Lin Yuan's Monarch Flame True Essence. Now, Guo Jing's chest is wrapped in a thick white cloth, with large patches of dark red blood seeping through it.

Unable to stand upright, he leaned heavily on a long spear, struggling to stand in front of the battlements, directing the soldiers to move logs and stones.

Not far behind Guo Jing, there was a large iron pot.

Huang Rong sat on a low stool, holding a wooden stick in her hand, stirring the herbs boiling in the pot.

Half of her hair had turned white, her eyes were sunken, and she looked emaciated. After Lin Yuan destroyed her Qi Sea and the foundation of her fetus at Dasheng Pass, she became an ordinary woman with no strength to even kill a chicken.

Seeing this, Yang Guo loosened his grip on the heavy sword.

He thought he would feel good.

But no.

He hated the Guo family's hypocrisy, Huang Rong's scheming, and Guo Jing's sense of justice. But now, looking at this man who was seriously injured and dying yet still stubbornly stuck on the city wall, Yang Guo's resentment suddenly lost its footing.

This is not sympathy.

This is a powerful person looking down on the weak, mixed with a sense of awe at this foolish yet tragic act.

"ah--!"

A piercing scream broke the silence on the city wall.

Guo Fu rushed out of the arrow tower next to her. Her right sleeve was empty, swinging wildly in the wind as she ran.

"What are you doing here!" Guo Fu roared hysterically, pointing her left hand intently at Lin Yuan and Yang Guo. "Did you come here to laugh at us?! You bunch of demons!"

The surrounding guards were startled by the sound and turned around.

Yang Guo turned his head and looked at Guo Fu.

He neither drew his sword nor retaliated with insults.

He simply looked down at this once high and mighty Miss Guo.

It was the expression of someone looking at a stray dog ​​on the roadside. There was no hatred, only pure indifference and disregard.

Guo Fu was stung by that expression. She was about to continue her tirade when she was met with the murderous aura emanating from Yang Guo, aura that seemed to have rolled out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

The murderous aura of the Xuan Tie Heavy Sword, combined with the bloody smell of Yang Guo slaughtering dozens of Western Region masters in the back mountains of Zhongnan Mountain.

Guo Fu's throat tightened.

Her legs gave way and she collapsed onto the rough city bricks, her mouth agape, but she could no longer utter a single syllable.

Huang Rong threw down the wooden stick she was holding and stumbled over, shielding Guo Fu behind her. She stared intently at Lin Yuan, her body trembling uncontrollably.

Guo Jing turned around.

He pulled the spear from the ground, dragged his battered body, and walked step by step to Lin Yuan.

With each step he took, the white cloth on his chest became a shade redder.

Guo Jing did not mention the old grudges at Dasheng Pass. He did not mention Huang Rong's crippled martial arts, nor Guo Fu's severed arm.

"Lin Yuan." Guo Jing's voice was hoarse, as if he were sawing wood.

He clasped his hands together and bent his body down.

"I know you possess unparalleled martial arts skills," Guo Jing said, bowing his head. "The Mongol army is besieging the city, and Xiangyang is about to fall. I beg you, for the sake of the 100,000 people in the city, please intervene and repel the enemy."

He humbled himself completely. For the sake of the people of Xiangyang, he was willing to bow down to the enemy who had crippled his wife and severed his daughter's arm.

Yang Guo turned his face away.

Lin Yuan stood still and accepted Guo Jing's bow.

He looked at Guo Jing.

"Master Guo, you still don't understand." Lin Yuan said calmly.

Guo Jing raised his head, his face full of hope.

"I will not save Song," Lin Yuan uttered.

Guo Jing was stunned. Huang Rong was stunned too.

"This court is rotten to the core." Lin Yuan pointed to the wounded soldiers waiting to die in the city. "Can you hold Xiangyang for even a day, let alone ten? While you bleed here, what is the emperor in Lin'an doing?"

Guo Jing's lips trembled: "But the people of this city are innocent!"

"That's why I only kill the enemy," Lin Yuan interrupted him.

He turned his head and looked at the ten-mile stretch of camps outside the city.

"When we reached Dasheng Pass, I had that good-for-nothing from the Western Regions deliver a message to Kublai Khan." Lin Yuan cracked his neck, his knuckles making a crisp sound.

"The three-day agreement has been reached. Tonight I will go to the Mongol camp and take Kublai Khan's head."

There was a deathly silence on the city wall.

To take the enemy general's head amidst a vast army? That was ten thousand elite Kheshig troops!

Guo Jing stared wide-eyed, unsure of what to say.

Just then.

A muffled, loud noise suddenly came from outside the city.

"Thump! Thump! Thump!"

The war drums thundered.

The sounds blended together, causing dust to fall from the city walls.

Lin Yuan raised an eyebrow.

Kublai Khan had no intention of waiting for Lin Yuan to raid the camp. He chose to take the initiative and strike first.

Under the cover of night, 10,000 elite Mongol troops launched an early siege.

"Waaah—"

The mournful sound of horns tore through the twilight sky.

In the distance, countless torches lit up the Mongol camp. A dark mass of troops surged toward Xiangyang like a tidal wave.

"Release the arrows!"

A deafening roar erupted from the Mongol army ranks.

Rockets soared into the sky.

Dense bursts of fire pierced the night sky, like a meteor shower, crashing down upon the ruined city walls of Xiangyang.

Guo Jing looked at the sky full of rockets, his chest heaving violently.

"puff!"

He tilted his head back and spat out a mouthful of black blood, which splattered onto the city bricks.

Guo Jing pushed away Huang Rong, who rushed over to help him, and drew his long sword from his waist.

"All troops prepare for battle! Defend Xiangyang to the death!" Guo Jing roared hoarsely.

Lin Yuan looked at the overwhelming barrage of rockets and twitched the corner of his mouth.

"It saves me the trouble of making a trip."