When Patriarch Bodhidharma created the Seventy-Two Supreme Skills, it sparked a contest of martial arts between the lands beyond the passes and the Central Plains.
The martial artists of the Central Plains believed Patriarch Bodhidharma was beyond surpassing. Those beyond the passes thought otherwise.
More than a thousand years later, during the Ming dynasty, martial artists from beyond the passes posed a grave threat to the Central Plains.
As if that weren't enough, Qi Jiguang was ordered north to fight the invaders, while Japanese pirates seized the opportunity to invade the Ming Empire from three directions.
An extraordinary crisis calls for extraordinary measures.
Dugu Yan, leader of the Central Plains Martial Alliance, believes that "real combat is the best way to learn martial arts." He has a group of senior martial artists frame him as a public enemy of the martial world, wanted by all, so he can roam the jianghu as Song Letian, the "madman who seeks defeat." He travels with wine and sword in hand, seeking defeat in combat and challenging the heroes of the Central Plains, launching one thrilling fight after another.
After disguising herself as a man, Ouyang Yulan, the "greatest beauty south of the Yangtze," invites her four senior disciples, whom she hasn't seen in years, to a feast at the Xia Ke Tower, out of kindness. Little does she expect the world to have grown so corrupt: the four treat her to every kind of humiliation.
Unable to stand by and watch, Song Letian steps in to reason with them. His identity as a public enemy of the martial world is exposed, and he is besieged by numerous sects.
As Song Letian and Ouyang Yulan pass through one thrilling battle after another, they face the trials of "climbing a mountain of blades," "descending into a sea of fire," and "the seas drying up and the rocks crumbling."
