Wuxia: Starting Off With 60 Years of Inner Strength

The portly Tie Cheng resembled a giant meatball.

After being sent flying, he bounced once on the ground and sprang back up, intending to use the momentum from Jiang Ran’s blow to turn and flee.

”Don’t you want your weapon anymore?”

Jiang Ran’s voice came from behind him.

’This is bad,’ Tie Cheng thought. Sure enough, the words were followed by an unstoppable, whistling roar.

Without even looking back, Tie Cheng knew Jiang Ran had thrown his own iron hammer at him.

Although the iron hammer was hollow, it was still extremely heavy.

Combined with the force of Jiang Ran’s throw, getting hit by it meant either death or serious injury.

Tie Cheng’s heart tightened. Gritting his teeth, he finally spun around, intending to block it directly.

But as he turned, he saw the iron hammer fly past him, missing him by about a foot.

It smashed violently into a nearby wall, blasting a huge hole right through it.

Tie Cheng looked at Jiang Ran in bewilderment.

But Jiang Ran’s footwork had already changed. He became a blur of afterimages and was suddenly right in front of him. Five fingers shot out like a claw, their tips holding a faint, dark glint—impossibly sharp, yet immensely heavy.

Tie Cheng retreated and twisted to the side to evade the claw, but with a flick of his hand, Jiang Ran shifted his attack horizontally, aiming for the vital acupoints on Tie Cheng’s chest and abdomen.

Jiang Ran’s fingers were lethally sharp. Tie Cheng felt several acupoints on his chest—Shenfeng, Qimen, Zhongfu—pulse violently, as if Jiang Ran’s claw could gouge his heart out with the slightest mistake.

He instantly shook his arms and swayed his shoulders—his arms lashing like whips, his fists striking like hammers.

He was taking the path of offense as the best defense.

Tie Cheng’s martial arts were a combination of brute strength and exquisite technique.

Once he unleashed his hammer-fist style, it became a blur of motion, a mix of feints and real blows in an endless series of transformations.

Even Jiang Ran was taken aback for a moment. Tie Cheng’s ’hammer’ was executed with razor-thin timing. To be able to make such a change in an instant proved that the man had extremely rich combat experience.

His martial arts mastery was far beyond ordinary.

Jiang Ran immediately gave his arm a slight shake, altering the path of his claw. He no longer aimed for the vital points of the chest but instead went to grab the ’hammer-fist’.

As his five fingers closed, Tie Cheng felt his own wrist tighten, followed by excruciating pain.

Jiang Ran’s grab had easily bypassed the brunt of the ’hammer-fist’; his five fingers plunged directly into Tie Cheng’s forearm, digging deep into his flesh!

Tie Cheng couldn’t suppress a muffled groan. Jiang Ran seized the moment and ripped. In an instant, Tie Cheng’s forearm was shredded into a bloody mess, like a strip of rotten cloth.

When he looked up again, Jiang Ran’s other hand was already before his face.

Forcing himself to endure the agony, he shot his arm out like a dragon soaring to the heavens, trying to knock Jiang Ran’s claw upward and avert this life-or-death crisis.

But before he could, his wrist was caught—Jiang Ran had already seized that arm with his other hand.

The next moment, a colossal force surged through him—it was the Barbaric Dragon Strength.

This technique, obtained from Zuo Kuangge, had few flourishes. Its only commendable quality was its pure, brute force.

This power was completely unreasonable, like a rampaging barbaric dragon. No matter what fancy moves or clever techniques you possessed, they were all useless before the principle of ”one force to break ten skills.”

Tie Cheng’s body was no longer his own to command; he was violently yanked forward, stumbling toward Jiang Ran.

Immediately after, his neck was seized, caught within Jiang Ran’s five fingers. At that, the battle was decided!

The exchange between the two, while complex to describe, had in reality only been a few moves.

From the moment he attacked, Jiang Ran first snatched the great hammer from Tie Cheng’s hands, then repelled him with the Art of Fortune’s Righteous Heart.

By that point, Tie Cheng was already injured.

After that, it took only two more moves to defeat him.

Now, Tie Cheng’s life depended on Jiang Ran’s whim. With a mere exertion of force, Jiang Ran could kill him without a doubt.

”Spare me!!”

Tie Cheng scrambled to speak in that instant, afraid that if he was a second too late, he would be a dead man.

Jiang Ran smiled at his words.

”Your skills are too weak. You can only handle run-of-the-mill martial artists.

”When you run into a true master, all you can do is pathetically beg for your life.”

”...”

The words sounded familiar to Tie Cheng. His face turned ashen.

Jiang Ran suddenly released his grip on his throat. In the instant Tie Cheng was stunned, he heard a sharp SNAP.

The arm Jiang Ran was still holding had been broken.

Before he could scream, Jiang Ran struck his shoulder, forcing him to turn his back to him.

The next moment, he felt a sharp pressure on his shoulder blades, followed by a series of sickening CRACKS.

Tie Cheng’s arms immediately fell limp at his sides.

Jiang Ran had shattered both of his shoulder blades.

With that done, Jiang Ran tapped his shoulder again, spinning Tie Cheng back around to face him. Jiang Ran’s hand came to rest on his Dantian, his Qi Sea.

As a pulse of power flowed from Jiang Ran’s palm, Tie Cheng instantly spat out a mouthful of blood.

His body collapsed to the ground. He looked up at Jiang Ran, his eyes completely bloodshot.

”You... you’ve crippled my cultivation?!”

”I just learned this technique. It’s my first time using it, so my apologies if it wasn’t done cleanly enough.”

As Jiang Ran spoke, his tone actually carried a genuine-sounding trace of apology.

Tie Cheng, however, was beside himself with fury. But with his shoulder blades shattered, his injuries were so severe he couldn’t even stand.

And even if he could stand, his Dantian and Qi Sea had been destroyed. With his Inner Strength scattered like mist, what harm could he possibly do to Jiang Ran?

For the moment, all he could do was sit there, seething in impotent rage.

Jiang Ran ignored him and turned to look at Master Ma.

”Can you get up?”

Master Ma tried and found it difficult, but he still gritted his teeth and slowly pushed himself up from the ground, offering Jiang Ran a strained, cupped-fist salute.