The echoes of their taunts hadn’t yet faded when man and beast unleashed their power, closing in on each other with ferocious intent.

BOOM! The Demon Emperor’s humanoid form stood over four meters tall, its two hands formed from countless converging tree roots. It swung its arms like two impossibly thick long whips, one lashing high and one low, viciously striking at Su Zhou’s lower body and throat!

At the same time, countless sharp, knife-like wooden thorns erupted from the Demon Emperor’s body as it charged forward, shrouded in a suffocating, poisonous miasma!

’Long-Sleeved Whip’ and ’Iron Mountain Lean!’

The Demon Emperor rarely fought personally, and its combat awareness was inferior to even the National Preceptor or some of its Demon Generals. But as the ruler of a nation, it had access to every Extraordinary Inheritance and Martial Arts Inheritance imaginable. Nearly a century of practice was enough for it to master these techniques to perfection!

"Close-quarters combat?"

In that instant, Su Zhou revealed a ferocious smile. The pores on his skin and the hairs on his head all stood on end—a result of the Gale, a result of the rapidly howling Gale!

BOOM! The Gale Shield activated! Four Gale Seeds—on his forehead, throat, chest, and lower abdomen—lit up one by one. Under a powerful infusion of Spiritual Power, an unprecedented Gale ripped apart the clothes on Su Zhou’s upper body before solidifying into translucent armor!

Mustering all his strength to fuel the Gale Armor, Su Zhou faced the Demon Emperor’s mountain-like charge without dodging. He opened his arms and embraced the attack head-on, raising his left arm to block one whip and his right leg to parry the other. For a moment, he looked like a one-legged bronze statue!

CRACK! WHAP!

In an instant, Su Zhou’s left arm and right leg were beaten red and swollen by the Demon Emperor’s high-speed lashes. Large chunks of his skin were flayed open, and the muscle tissue underneath was beaten to a purplish-red pulp.

"AAAAH!"

But at the same time, the Demon Emperor also roared in pain. Su Zhou, now pressed against its body, was wreathed in the raging Gale Armor. The wooden thorns on its body, far from injuring Su Zhou, were all sliced off. An intense pain, like the cuts of a thousand tiny knives, coursed through its Spiritual Energy. In that instant, a full three inches of its wooden body were scraped away, sending a cloud of sawdust into the air!

BOOM! A surging, immense force rippled out from their collision. The air crackled with explosive reports, and a gale forceful enough to tear the flesh from an ordinary person’s bones swept past, carving fissures into the floor of the Celestial Palace.

For a moment, man and beast separated after the brief exchange, both having sustained significant injuries. Su Zhou’s arm and leg were still trembling, while a human-shaped groove had been gouged into the Demon Emperor’s torso and lower body—the very tissue Su Zhou had scoured away with his body as a chainsaw! 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

But in the next instant, they both roared and lunged at each other once more!

BOOM! This time, the Demon Emperor no longer tried to harm Su Zhou with its body. From the previous exchange, it had realized that Su Zhou’s physical durability was no less than its own, a member of the Innate Level Divine Wood Clan... ’Could this be the Talent of the Dragon Vein? How infuriatingly jealous it makes me!’

This jealousy morphed into power. The Demon Emperor straightened its arms, converging its five fingers into sharp points. No longer whips, they transformed into two ironwood Long Spears, stabbing down from above toward Su Zhou’s head and heart. This time, it had specifically enhanced the hardness of its arms so they wouldn’t be cut by the Gale Armor!

But Su Zhou let out a sharp cry of his own. He clenched his hands into fists, flexed his arms, and took a large step forward, turning them into hammers for a hard strike! He first raised his right hand to meet the Long Spear aiming for his heart, while his left hand swung upward in a low arc. Ignoring the attack aimed at his head, he struck directly at the middle of the Demon Emperor’s arm!

BANG BANG BANG BANG! Their speeds were nearly identical, and their attacks landed at the same time. The instant spear-tip met iron hammer-fist, it was like thunder erupting on level ground. The piercing shockwave caused immense pain in both of their eardrums!

"Ah! That hurts!" "AAAGH, you worthless fleshbag!"

After the exchange, man and beast cried out in unison and retreated ten steps.

Dizzy, Su Zhou gritted his teeth and raised his right fist. Blood streamed down his forehead from a wound so deep the bone was visible. In the center of that same hammer-fist, a sizable bloody hole had appeared! The Demon Emperor’s spear had snapped his ring finger, and the immense force had knocked the bones of his entire palm out of alignment!

The Demon Emperor’s face was also contorted in a snarl, its arms trembling. The spear-arm that had met Su Zhou’s hammer-fist now had its fingers bent askew, twisted together like a pretzel. As for the spear that had aimed for Su Zhou’s head, it had been snapped in half by his upward-swinging hammer-fist, the broken limb sent flying to who knows where!

If both combatants had been ordinary people, they would have lost their ability to fight then and there. But unfortunately for them, neither was ordinary. So, with two cold snorts, the deep gash on a forehead squirmed and sealed shut. A severed finger was pressed back into its wound, muscles and blood vessels writhing like tiny worms to reconnect and become whole again. On the other side, fingers twisted like a pretzel and a broken left arm were restored as if Time itself were flowing backward, accompanied by the KAKA sound of shifting bones!

BOOM! This time, it was Su Zhou who seized the initiative. He stomped down, his feet creating craters and cracks in the ground, and closed the distance to the Demon Emperor in a flash, as if shrinking the earth with each step. Activating the Gale Armor again, he seemed to want a repeat of their first clash!

But the Demon Emperor’s reaction was just as fast. How could it not see through Su Zhou’s plan? It immediately erupted with Wood Qi, using its full power to stomp on the floor of the Celestial Palace. The ground shook, and countless gnarled roots and wooden burls erupted to obstruct Su Zhou’s path, while the Demon Emperor itself took several quick steps forward and launched a kick at him!