The Return of the Condor Heroes

Chapter 13 – Leader of the wulin alliance, Part 11

Da’erba called out, “I’m the victor!” He pulled back his rod and placed it on the ground vertically, his arms folded and bowed to him. Though he won, he didn’t dare to lose his manners in front of his senior apprentice brother.

Yang Guo also used Tibetan to say, “I’m the victor!” He shot the broken sword towards him.

Da’erba moved his body to avoid it, he was alarmed, “How did senior apprentice brother win? Could it be that stance was a decoy, a trap?

He saw Yang Guo dashing forward empty handed moving his hands; Da’erba didn’t dare to hesitate and quickly used his golden rod to protect his body.

In the ancient tomb, Yang Guo learned palm techniques from Xiao Longnu; he reached a state where his two palms could keep eighty one sparrows within his control, not letting one fly away. This “Force of Nets Above and Snares Below” is a secret skill of Lin Chaoying’s; it had never left Mount Zhongnan one-step. Now as it was used, indeed it was extremely soft, continuous and unyielding, though he was empty handed, the power of it was not inferior to the power he had when he was equipped with a sword. Da’erba’s golden rod created gusts of winds as he used it, but Yang Guo used extremely high lightness kung fu to move around within the spaces of the rod. Though danger was always within a hair’s breadth, the golden rod was not able to touch him at all. He clawed, hacked, slashed and chopped, within his little trapping hand stances as he used the “Force of Nets Above and Snares Below” for attack after attack.

After another while, Da’erba’s strength increased, Yang Guo too got quicker and nimbler. During his time in the ancient tomb, he had refined his internal energy on the chilled jade bed, now in the middle of battle, the internal energy he spent years refining surged forward and showed itself.

Xiao Longnu sat on the stone rock next to the pillar with a slight smile on her face as she watched the two fight. She saw that Yang Guo had fought for a long time without losing, from her pockets, she took out a pair of snow white gloves and called out, “Guo Er, catch them!” Her right hand waved out and shot the gloves towards Yang Guo.

The pair of white gloves was made from very fine and very strong white gold silk, though it was thin, no type of precious blades or sharp swords could harm it.

When Hao Datong saw the white gloves in the air, his face changed slightly. Years ago at Chongyang Palace, Xiao Longnu wore these gloves to break his sword, forcing him to almost commit suicide. When he saw them again, he couldn’t stop himself from being disturbed.

Yang Guo caught the gloves, retreated a step, and he quickly put them on. He used the Ancient Tomb’s sect most ingenious and exquisite kung fu the “Beautiful Maiden Fist”. He had used a few stances from this fist technique before to help Lu Wushuang against her enemies; forcing the Beggar Clan members to retreat. Every stance of this technique is meant to take the aura and impression of a famous beautiful women of the past. Originally, when a male uses it, the stances do not look elegant at all. But when Yang Guo was studying this technique he had changed some of the appearance of the stances; the names and fist techniques were the same, but in the interval between palms and kicks, he changed its delicate and enchanting air into something graceful and stylish.

The heroes who were watching became even more perplexed; they saw him suddenly move and then suddenly stop; his expression and aura changing, it was extremely mystifying.

A woman’s state of mind goes through many things, many changes. Along with the different extraordinary characters of each of the famous historic woman, came laughter, as brows were knitted, joy with worry; it was even more difficult to understand and surmise. Incorporating the hundreds and thousand year old feelings of these beautiful woman into martial arts, and then adding stances that reflect the beauty of goddesses, the mystery surrounding angels; how could ordinary people understand it?

Yang Guo used a stance of “Hong Yu Beats the Drum” his two arms attacking one after the other; Da’erba raised his rod and attacked. Yang Guo changed into “Hong Fu Hurries in the Night”, unexpectedly he charged forward. Da’erba pushed his rod down vertically to block it. Yang Guo suddenly used “Luu Zhu’s Falling Building”; he threw himself onto the ground and attacked his lower body.

Da’erba was shocked and thought, “How come senior apprentice brother’s stances are so hard to comprehend?” He quickly leapt up and avoided his left palm’s hack. Yang Guo’s palms kept on attacking downwards without stop; it was the stance of “Wen Ji Returns to Her Man”, in total there were eighteen palms.

Every stance of his had a background to it; Da’erba is a Tibetan monk, so how could he know about these histories of the central plains? In a flash he was forced to suddenly go high and then low, east and then west, his arms and legs were all over the place. With the Golden Silk Gloves, whenever Yang Guo had the chance he would use the stances “Hong Xian Steals the Box”, “Mu Lan Curved Bow”, “Ban Ji’s Poem” and “Chang E Steals Medicine” to snatch away Da’erba’s golden rod, forcing him to roar incessantly, looking embarrassed. The heroes were delighted and called out and cheered to support him.

Jinlun Fawang saw that his disciple’s martial arts were definitely better than this young man’s, but because he was afraid, he kept on allowing the opponent to attack and was forced back embarrassingly. He shouted with a stern tone, “Quickly use the “Supreme Strength Rod Technique”!”

Da’erba replied, “Yes!” He held the rod’s handle with one hand and started to move it around. Using one hand to move the rod was already frightening, now he used the strength in his two hands and the strength in his waist at the same time; the gusts of winds created by the rod were even louder.

The “Supreme Strength Rod Technique” does not have many variations; there are only eight sweeping stances, and eight thrusting stances, sixteen stances in total, but when the sixteen stances were used repeatedly, sweeping and thrusting, it forced Yang Guo farther away as he avoided it. He didn’t dare to meet the gusts of wind created by the rod let alone meeting the rod itself.

After Diancang Yuyin’s oar broke, he had refused to accept his defeat, but when he saw the power of the “Supreme Strength Rod Technique”, he pondered on the fact that his oar stances did not contain anything as fierce and wild as this, he couldn’t help but give his respect to him.

After another period of fighting, several candles in the main hall were extinguished by the wind created by Da’erba’s rod. Yang Guo just used his lightness kung fu to leap and jump around all over the place, just dodging and evading, but now that he was concentrating on avoiding the rod attacks, how could he attack? All of the heroes of the central plains were afraid and didn’t make a sound, the Mongolian warriors all cheered thunderously.

Yang Guo was faced with no other choice but to keep on retreating, in a short time he was forced into the corner of the hall. He wanted to change his stances but there was no way for him to do so.

This “Supreme Strength Rod Technique” causes one to carry some degree of blind fury, once this became evident in Da’erba, he forgot that he was fighting his reincarnated senior apprentice brother. He saw that Yang Guo had nowhere else to retreat, and then shouted out, “Die!” The golden rod swept across, a ferocious explosion noise was heard, smoke and dust filled the air, and a large hole was made in the wall of hall.

In this extremely perilous situation, Yang Guo managed to leap over his head and even in this extreme situation he did not forget to repeat what he said in Tibetan, “Die!” That leap was a technique from the “Nine Yin Manual”. He and Xiao Longnu had studied the markings of the manual left by Wang Chongyang on the ceiling of the stone chamber in the ancient tomb. They had learned some of the fist, kick and sword techniques but there was no one to advise them on practicing the internal aspect. They practiced it but they did not know if they practiced properly, right now he was facing a formidable enemy, how could he dare use it? He would never have thought that in the face of such a danger, he would use it naturally, saving his life in the process.

The crowd all thought that Da’erba would definitely hit his target with this stance; Guo Jing did not wait for the sweep to hit its target and dashed out, wanting to grab his back. He saw a red flash in front of his eyes; Jinlun Fawang’s palm was coming towards him. Guo Jing saw that the palm was coming in extremely fast so he quickly used a stance of “Seeing the Dragon in the Field”. The two of them did not make a sound as the palms clashed; two flashes were seen as the two separated.