Chapter 1 The Battle Begins

By the side of Yao Lake, a thunderclap exploded from nowhere.

Whirlwinds of spiritual energy were gradually coalescing and swirling, stirring the atmosphere, emitting a howling sound, and tearing apart the surrounding lakeside clouds and mist.

Even from kilometers away, one could see these whirlwinds of spiritual energy that had already begun to churn hundreds of meters into the sky.

"Has the battle begun?"

Bai Canglang, who had been following behind Su Zhou, narrowed his eyes, seriously observing the distant changes: "Judging from this phenomenon, it's a battle between two extraordinary mid-level existences or above."

The so-called phenomenon is the phenomenon formed by the cultivator's spiritual power naturally causing changes to the world, just like in ancient times, the powerful divine beasts that could cause various droughts, rain, blizzards, and even great fires and thunderstorms just by walking. They never restrained their power, so their mere existence could cause drastic changes in the weather.

Later generations, because humans formed civilizations, abnormal spiritual power fluctuations would cause instability, and in addition, it would indeed affect their control over spiritual power, so various cultivators would restrain their spiritual power, only releasing their spiritual power completely during battle or when they needed to intimidate others.

Just like now, Su Zhou and the transcendent powerhouse of unknown identity in the distance were fighting.

Bai Canglang didn't waste time. He climbed a mountain, then took out his special anti-material sniper rifle, seriously loaded the bullets, and used the long-range scope to observe the direction of the spiritual energy fluctuations, preparing to find a good sniping opportunity to help Su Zhou.

Then, looking into the distance, he was stunned.

Because Bai Canglang saw that Su Zhou was in a group of tumbling beasts, fiercely beating a delicate golden-haired girl - at least the first impression was that she was delicate.

But soon, Bai Canglang changed this wrong idea.

"My god, her face didn't even break after that punch, so tough!"

The power of Su Zhou's punch even created shockwaves in the air, and semi-transparent air waves churned non-stop, but the golden-haired girl's face took the blow head-on, without any dent at all, and she just flew out.

Seeing this scene, Bai Canglang was dumbfounded, but soon understood: "Golden hair, demonic energy, humanoid, but such a solid body... it should be the speculated Golden-Winged Garuda? No wonder she's so tough!"

But then, he saw that facing the Golden-Winged Garuda who had been knocked away, Su Zhou unhesitatingly exerted force with his feet, chased after her, and was actually going to continue the pursuit, pressing the opponent directly into the ground!

"This head is really hard, almost like mine."

At this time, Su Zhou was unleashing his power, catching up with Garuda, who had been knocked away. He was preparing to take advantage of the victory and chase, grabbing the other party's head and rubbing it into the dirt.

"Ha!"

But obviously, the Golden-Winged Garuda was not weak to this point. Even if it didn't react to Su Zhou's burst of lightning speed for a while, and was hit on the head, Garuda quickly reacted after entering the battle.

It let out a sharp shout, and then kicked out, bringing a whistling sound that tore through the air. After slightly forcing Su Zhou back, Garuda took advantage of the situation to flip back upright, confronting Su Zhou across a hundred meters.

"What heavy fists, if I hadn't prepared in advance and protected my brain with spiritual power, even if the physical structure was not damaged, my brain would probably have suffered a concussion."

Garuda was not annoyed by Su Zhou's sudden attack. If it had found the opportunity, it would have attacked. The divine bird looked at Su Zhou, who had no expression, and thought: "Want to gain the right to speak with strength? It is indeed a good choice to defeat the enemy but not kill them. This should be an expression of goodwill."

Garuda, whose bloodline inheritance was too ancient, did not know what modern values were, but this question was not very important.

Because Su Zhou had already attacked again.

Boom! With a blast, the bottoms of Su Zhou's legs and back exploded with lightning, causing the debris of his clothes and shoes to fly. He gathered spiritual power under his feet and behind him, accelerating with the explosive force, and instantly crossed a distance of nearly two hundred meters. In that instant, he transformed into a rapidly speeding armored train. Even a collision could collapse a building!

But how could Garuda allow the enemy to attack at will? Facing Su Zhou, who was rushing towards it, it was not afraid, and even gave up its defense, directly clenched its fists, and frantically gathered violent winds on its fists, condensing into a huge spiral drill.

In the next instant, its body moved, and it blasted a full-force punch towards Su Zhou!

The two human figures overlapped, and then a huge roar was produced. Lightning and violent winds intertwined, forming a violent explosion.

Boom! A thunderous roar sounded, and the surging spiritual storm blew the surrounding beasts, who were waiting to besiege, tumbling on the ground in a mess.

At the center of the roar, Su Zhou held a spear in his right hand, directly deflecting Garuda's punch that had gathered a spiral gale - he was not the kind of person who would not use weapons just because he saw the enemy was empty-handed, but rather, the ability to obtain good weapons was itself part of his strength.

Then, Su Zhou's left hand grabbed at Garuda's face, and his fingers also condensed a lightning storm. Judging from the momentum, it seemed that his fingers would turn into electric drills, directly piercing Garuda's skull.

"Good!"

Garuda was not afraid of this. It was surrounded by violent winds, like a natural armor. Facing Su Zhou's claw, it even stretched its head out and actively bumped into it, using a headbutt that condensed thick spiritual power to forcefully hammer away Su Zhou's fingers, and even a crack could be heard, with a slight fracture in his finger bones - at the same time, it also gathered strength, and a palm turned into a hand knife, like an axe splitting a mountain, slashing towards the top of Su Zhou's head, seemingly to split him in half from the middle.

"Really tough."

But in the next instant, Su Zhou's fingers had already regenerated. Facing Garuda, who had begun to counterattack and was slashing at him with a palm, he even smiled: "As expected of the Golden-Winged Garuda, a synonym for strength, even in human form, it is unimaginably solid."

"Zhou Shen Lan Jia (Surrounding Storm Armor)!"

Without hesitation, Su Zhou activated his long-cultivated, a total of seventy-eight *lan zhong* (storm seeds)!

A minor success of the Zhou Shen Lan Jia only requires sixty-four *lan zhong*, and Su Zhou had already cultivated it to a minor success before cultivating the Heart of Thunder Swamp. After adjusting the spiritual power cycle after the Heart of Thunder Swamp, he quickly cultivated the subsequent fourteen *lan zhong*.

Now, seventy-eight *lan zhong* were activated in an instant, and pieces of storm armor surged out, instantly turning into a set of semi-transparent storm armor, covering Su Zhou's entire body, making him seem like the master of the storm!

And in the next instant, all the power gathered, combined with the power of the minor storm armor, more than a hundred tons of power was condensed in Su Zhou's arm, turning into a punch, and Garuda's previous palm was slipped away by the force that erupted when the surrounding storm armor took shape. After the force was unloaded, it was hit in the collarbone by Su Zhou's punch!

Bang! A muffled sound of flesh collision rang out. The force of a hundred tons set off a violent storm, and this force could dent a bank vault door, but this blow did not dent the golden-haired girl's collarbone, but only knocked her body flying!

Bang bang! Seeing Garuda being knocked away, Su Zhou didn't hesitate. Taking advantage of the advantage gained by the erupting storm armor, he stepped on the ground with all his strength, and the solid rock ground beside Yao Lake was trampled into spider web cracks, and even rock fragments splashed out, hitting the surrounding beasts, piercing the flesh, and red splashed everywhere.

"Interesting, do you also have wind assistance?"

At this time, Garuda, who had suffered a hundred tons of Su Zhou's blow, was only knocked back and seemed not to have suffered any injuries, was also aroused. It took a deep breath, and thick violent winds also blew around it, raging around.

The Golden-Winged Garuda is a demon beast representing strength and solidity. It does not have obvious attributes. The only thing that is praised is its defense that even the God-King cannot break and its great strength.

The body of the golden-winged bird is so heavy that it cannot move freely in its infancy, and even breathing is difficult - but the wind will help them, allowing them to spread their wings and soar, and breathe freely.

Therefore, even if the Golden-Winged Bird has different special powers depending on the region of growth and the method of birth, there is only one thing that is the same - that is, the power to control violent winds.

At this time, seeing Su Zhou, who was clearly a thunder dragon, but also had wind assistance, Garuda really felt extremely interesting: "What exactly is your true form? I'm really looking forward to it!"

Saying that, its golden hair danced wildly behind it. Facing Su Zhou's charge, its whole body began to stir up violent spiritual power. This explosive force pushed it to exert force under its feet and charge towards the enemy - and this force even blasted the surrounding rocks, causing them to bombard a beast on the side.

Immediately, one could see that the beast's chest and abdomen that were hit had completely broken ribs, blood gushing out, and flesh, skin, and bones were all sunken and shattered!

Bang bang bang! The two of them charged at each other on the ground, and each step was like a bomb exploding in the ground. This was the most ordinary physical battle of the extraordinary level. Even the rocks around Yao Lake, which were soaked in spiritual power and as hard as steel, were crushed and turned into flying dust.

And their mutual bombardment was far more intense than ordinary cultivators.

Su Zhou pushed out a palm, blocking Garuda's violent wind claw that was grabbing towards his throat, and the other hand turned into a fist and blasted towards the other's defenseless side abdomen, while Garuda immediately kicked out at Su Zhou's lower abdomen after its attack was blocked by Su Zhou, forcing Su Zhou to block, and at the same time, the whole person borrowed strength to fly upside down into the air. After dodging Su Zhou's pursuit, it also activated pieces of crescent-like violent wind blades, flying towards Su Zhou.

However, the Zhou Shen Lan Jia easily offset and deflected these violent wind blades that were enough to cut steel - it was just a pity for the beasts next to them, which were cut to pieces by the wind blades that overflowed from the two's fight.

The distance between the two was widened again.

"This guy is very methodical and proficient in battle. Has he been practicing with the local *yao zu* (demon clans), or does he have inherited skills? No, it should be both."

Regarding Garuda's indeed quite methodical combat level, Su Zhou's mind turned, and then, he locked on to Garuda, who was now in mid-air, and began to activate the Thunder Swamp Dao and the Divine Thunder True Art without hesitation.

Dong, dong! A violent heartbeat came, and the spiritual blood passed through the Heart of Thunder Swamp, bursting out with violent cyan-blue thunder light. Visible dazzling electric arcs were conducted along the blood vessels and meridians, directly gathering in Su Zhou's hands, and condensing into a thunder spear!

Swoosh! With a light sound of the air being pierced, Su Zhou directly threw the thunder spear, which had condensed at least a hundred cycles of spiritual power, at Garuda. Thunder snakes danced wildly, raging in mid-air - anyway, he had a lot of spiritual power, so he didn't feel extravagant to use big moves as normal attacks.

"Here it comes!"

Just by seeing Su Zhou's heart beat and the prelude to gathering thunder power, Garuda's heart sank, knowing that the previous probing period was over, and the real battle was coming!

Fortunately, it had already thought about how to deal with long-range lightning strikes - it could be seen that several strands of Garuda's long hair behind it had broken, and golden down feathers were flying in mid-air, turning into strands of shields, accurately blocking Su Zhou's thunder spear!

Bang! Immediately, one could see that the originally solid thunder spear directly merged into the golden down feathers the moment it touched them, and then a bright light like a light bulb filament lit up - then, a spreading fire burst out, forming a large fireball with a radius of more than ten meters!

The down feathers of the golden-winged bird are a high-level extraordinary material that is extremely easy to conduct energy. After a lightning strike hits it, it is like water hitting a high-speed pipe, which will be directly deflected. Even if it exceeds its energy conduction range for a while, it will only start to burn.

The big fire in mid-air was burning fiercely, instantly turning Garuda's down feathers into coke.

However, when the flames went out, Garuda saw that Su Zhou had already taken off his longbow from his back. He solemnly took out the armor-piercing long arrow engraved with layers of runes and nocked it, and vast spiritual power began to gather!

The Art of Firm Shooting!