I just became the Pirate King, and you're telling me I also time-traveled at the same time.

Chapter 1105 The Monkey King Who Wreaked Havoc in Heaven

"Let's give it a try," said Sun Wukong.

Then he made his move.

This time he didn't test the waters, held nothing back, or suppress his strength.

The moment he activated his power, he blasted a three-foot-deep crater into the mud beneath his feet. He transformed into a golden streak of light, raising his golden cudgel high above his head and smashing it down on the man's head at a speed several times faster than when he fought Master Chifeng three days ago.

The golden light emanating from the staff was brighter than ever before, so bright that the surrounding ground was dyed gold, and the golden light reflected in the pool was dazzling.

That person didn't dodge.

He raised his left hand, extended his index finger, and met the golden cudgel.

The sound of the fingers hitting each other is neither the crisp sound of metal clashing nor the dull thud of force colliding.

It was a stranger sound, like someone tapping a glass full of water with their finger, crisp and clear with a lingering resonance.

The golden cudgel struck the index finger, and all the golden light on the cudgel exploded at the point of contact. The shockwave spread in all directions, the surface of the pool was lifted three feet high, and the waterfall was shaken and rolled back in the opposite direction for a moment.

But the person didn't move an inch.

His index finger firmly held the shaft of the golden cudgel, without any scratches on his knuckles or even a change in skin color.

His feet remained planted firmly on the ground, which sank an inch from him, but only an inch—the power of the golden cudgel was absorbed by his body and then evenly distributed into the ground beneath his feet.

Sun Wukong's eyes widened for a moment.

He only used 70% of his strength in that strike, but 70% of his strength was enough to smash a small mountain into a pile of pebbles.

The other person caught it with one finger.

The man flicked his index finger to the side, and the golden cudgel was deflected.

Sun Wukong's tiger's mouth was numb from the shock, and he used the force of being thrown back to tumble backward three times, landing on the edge of the pool, his feet leaving two deep drag marks on the muddy ground.

"13,500 jin, plus your strength, the total is about 20,000 jin."

"Not bad." The man withdrew his hand; there were no scratches on his fingers. "But not enough."

Chu Yang saw it all clearly from the side.

If the force of that shot had hit Sun Wukong directly, he would have been knocked back at least a dozen steps.

However, Sun Wukong dissipated most of the force, turning the rest into the momentum of his backflip, which required extremely precise control of force and absolute confidence in his body.

But the problem is—the other party only used one finger.

Sun Wukong steadied himself and moved his wrist, which had been numb from the shock.

With a soft "click" from the joints of his wrist, he switched the golden cudgel to his other hand. The curve of his lips changed from the previous ferocity to a more complex expression—not a smile, but rather the beginning of a long-suppressed excitement.

"I, Old Sun, roughly know who you are." He held his golden cudgel horizontally in front of him. "The Heavenly Gang Sect has several ancient monsters who have lived for thousands of years. Which generation are you?"

That person did not answer the question.

"Will you hand over that golden elixir or not?"

"We won't hand it over," Sun Wukong and Chu Yang said at the same time.

Sun Wukong said "I won't hand it over," and Chu Yang said it a beat later than Sun Wukong, but his tone was just as resolute.

The person nodded, as if they had expected this answer.

He took the folding fan from his waist and swung it open with a "snap".

The fan is painted with a traditional Chinese ink landscape painting. It's not painted on, but real—the clouds and mist on the fan are flowing, the mountain peaks are appearing and disappearing in the clouds and mist, and occasionally you can see a tiny bird flying over the mountainside.

That wasn't an illusion created by a magical artifact, but rather a space of its own.

"My name is Lu Yuanzhou," he said, then glanced at Sun Wukong and Chu Yang. "I am the Supreme Elder of the Tiangang Sect, ranked ninth."

He flipped the folding fan over; the other side was blank, without any image.

He held a fan in his right hand and put his left hand behind his back, standing as casually as if he were admiring flowers in his own backyard.

Then he fanned himself gently.

The breeze from that fan was not strong, it could even be described as very gentle—like someone gently waving a palm-leaf fan in a room.

But with that slight fan, all the water in the pool was pumped up in an instant.

It wasn't blown up, nor was it sucked up; rather, the water level rose as a whole, like a giant mirror being lifted from the bottom.

The entire pool of water was suspended in the air, exposing all the pebbles at the bottom. Fish swam frantically in the water, their tails whipping out sprays that hit the edge of the pool and bounced back.

Then the water ball was thrown at Sun Wukong.

That wasn't an ordinary water mass; the power contained within Lu Yuanzhou's fan altered the water's density and speed.

Every drop of water became heavier than an iron bead and faster than an arrow.

The entire pool of water crashed down, its weight exceeding the scope of any magic; it was simply using a lake as a weapon.

Sun Wukong did not take the hit head-on.

He tapped his back with his golden cudgel before the water ball hit him, and his body flew out at an incredible angle, grazing the edge of the water ball.

The water ball crashed into the spot where he had just been standing, creating a crater five zhang in diameter. Mud and water mixed together and exploded in all directions, splashing all over Sun Wukong.

But this was not the end. After the water bursts, the scattered water droplets regrouped in the air, turning into dozens of fist-sized water spheres that hovered in the air, surrounding Sun Wukong from all directions.

Lu Yuanzhou gently fanned the folding fan to the left, and dozens of water balls simultaneously crashed into Sun Wukong.

Sun Wukong wielded his golden cudgel in a circle, and the shadow of the cudgel formed a golden barrier around his body.

The water balloon struck the shadow of the stick, shattering into splashes, each splash accompanied by a dull thud.

But there were too many water spheres—if one broke, two would immediately condense and replace it, one after another, in an endless stream.

The continuous impacts of the water ball caused Sun Wukong's feet to leave two furrows in the ground, and he was pushed backward by five or six zhang.

He suddenly steadied himself in a horse stance, and his golden cudgel changed from a circle to a sweeping motion, smashing all the water spheres in front of him with one blow, the water splashing out in the sunlight to create a rainbow.

But just as Sun Wukong shattered all the water balloons, Lu Yuanzhou was already in front of him.

It wasn't teleportation; it was so fast that Lu Yuanzhou had already passed through the gaps between the water droplets before they even hit the ground.

His folding fan closed, its ribs made of iron, the tip aimed at Sun Wukong's chest, thrusting out in a stabbing motion.

Sun Wukong didn't have time to use his golden cudgel to block, so he could only turn to the side.

The iron fan grazed his ribs, slashed his clothes, and left a bloody mark on his skin.

Sun Wukong seized the fan ribs, intending to pull Lu Yuanzhou closer to fight, but as soon as his hand touched the fan ribs, Lu Yuanzhou's left hand was already imprinted on his chest.

There was no sound when that palm strike landed.

There was no explosion, no shockwave.

But Sun Wukong's expression changed in that instant.

He flew backward for a full twenty feet, crashing through three peach trees before finally stopping when he landed on the fourth one.

The peach tree broke in half, its canopy falling down and covering him, with peaches and leaves scattered all over the ground.

Chu Yang made his move before Lu Yuanzhou could strike.

He didn't go to save Sun Wukong—he couldn't get involved in a battle of that level—he circled around to Lu Yuanzhou's side and launched an attack at the same instant Lu Yuanzhou struck Sun Wukong with his palm.

This is what he learned in the desert: to hit someone stronger than himself, he could only strike the moment when the opponent's attention was focused elsewhere.

Only for that brief moment will the opponent's protective power be temporarily unbalanced due to the attack.

The dagger was aimed at Lu Yuanzhou's right rib, which was the weak point of all cultivators' protective power and the point where blood and qi converged. Three days ago, Master Chifeng was attacked in that spot by Chu Yang, but Master Chifeng was wearing armor at the time, so Chu Yang could not penetrate it.

Lu Yuanzhou was not wearing armor.

The dagger pierced Lu Yuanzhou's robe.

Then it stopped.

The deep blue robe, flowing like seawater, tightened automatically the moment it was stabbed by the dagger. The folds on the surface of the robe overlapped layer by layer on the tip of the blade. Each layer was extremely thin, but when stacked together, they formed a soft wall.

The dagger pierced through three layers and stopped before the fourth layer, the tip of the blade just a sheet of paper away from Lu Yuanzhou's skin.

But it just wouldn't go in.

Lu Yuanzhou turned his head and glanced at Chu Yang, a faint hint of surprise in his eyes. He hadn't expected this person to dare to make a move.

"Interesting." His shoulders slumped, and a burst of energy exploded from his ribs.

Chu Yang was blasted away along with his dagger, crashing onto a gravel slope. His back struck the knife mark left by Master Chifeng three days ago, and rubble from the rock wall cascaded down, burying half of his body.

He crawled out of the rubble, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.

His ribs were fine, but his back was cut in several places by the gravel.

He spat out the blood and foam from his mouth, stood up again, still gripping the dagger tightly.

Sun Wukong also stood up from under the peach tree.

He brushed the peach branches off his body and stretched his shoulders.

There was a palm print on his chest—deep red, with the edges starting to turn purple. The skin in the very center of the palm print was sunken by half an inch, and the surrounding muscles were twitching slightly.

He pressed his hand on the palm print and rubbed it, then twisted his neck, making two crisp cracking sounds as his bones moved.

"Lu Yuanzhou." Sun Wukong gripped his golden cudgel tightly again. "I'll remember you."

Lu Yuanzhou did not respond.

He reopened the folding fan, and the ink-wash landscape on the fan surface was still flowing slowly.

He glanced at Sun Wukong, then at Chu Yang, and then flipped the folding fan over, revealing the blank back of the fan.

"The Golden Cudgel is a naturally formed magical object, and its power is not limited to this."

"Your power is sealed and suppressed; you can only use up 30% of it at most right now." He turned the blank fan back toward Sun Wukong and Chu Yang, "and I only used 20% of my power." There was nothing on the blank fan, but Sun Wukong and Chu Yang simultaneously felt a huge gravitational force surging from the fan.

It's not the kind of attraction that pulls people in, but rather it draws the air itself into the fan-shaped surface—the surrounding air pressure drops sharply, causing eardrums to sting from the sudden drop in air pressure, and then the surrounding air is completely sucked away.

It's not a vacuum; it's something far more terrifying than a vacuum. What's being sucked away isn't just air, but also the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

Sun Wukong and Chu Yang simultaneously felt their power draining away, not being absorbed, but rather losing their connection with the spiritual energy of the outside world.

No matter how strong a cultivator is, they still need to draw spiritual energy from heaven and earth to replenish their energy. Lu Yuanzhou's folding fan directly severed this connection.

"The Tiangang Sect has a divine power called Guixu," Lu Yuanzhou explained unhurriedly, as if giving a lecture. "This technique is not a method of killing, but a technique of sealing."

Once unleashed, everything within a hundred feet radius vanishes into nothingness, and all the spiritual energy of heaven and earth returns to the fan.

Even the strongest person, in this void, is no different from an ordinary person, unable to rely on any external force.

"How much power do you have left in your bodies? Thirty percent? Twenty percent?"

Sun Wukong's face darkened.

He raised the golden cudgel, circulating his internal energy to its fullest extent, and the golden light on the cudgel shone again—but much weaker than before.

The light flickered on the stick, like a lamp that was almost out of oil.

"What I hate most in my life is being locked up." Sun Wukong gritted his teeth and raised his golden cudgel above his head. "One Five Elements Mountain is enough. If you bring another one, I can't take it."

He took a step forward, and with all the remaining power in his body, he slammed the golden cudgel towards Lu Yuanzhou.

This strike was unpretentious, devoid of any technique; it was pure, compressed power.

As the golden cudgel traced its path, a vacuum gap was torn open in the air, and air rushed in from the edge of the gap, emitting a sharp hiss.

Lu Yuanzhou closed the folding fan and used the fan ribs to block the golden cudgel.

The golden cudgel struck the fan ribs with a crisp, clear sound. The fan ribs remained unmoved, but blood splattered from Sun Wukong's tiger's mouth.

But he didn't stop—when the first strike was blocked, he immediately pulled back the bat and struck again, the second, the third, the fourth, continuously striking the same spot.

He wasn't smashing the fan ribs; he was smashing the rules, the restrictions, things he had never obeyed in his life.

Lu Yuanzhou finally took a half step back.

They weren't pushed back by the impact.

Sun Wukong struck the fan with his staff over a hundred times in one go, each blow hitting the same spot on the fan ribs. Although the fan ribs didn't break, Lu Yuanzhou could feel an extremely weak recoil force traveling along the fan ribs to his fingers.

The recoil force wasn't strong, but it was there—within the sealed void of Guixu, with the spiritual energy of heaven and earth completely cut off, this monkey was still able to generate enough force to make the folding fan recoil by relying solely on its physical strength.

A serious look finally appeared in Lu Yuanzhou's eyes.

"The Great Sage Equal to Heaven," he suddenly said.

Sun Wukong paused for a moment.

"Sun Wukong," Lu Yuanzhou continued, "the monkey who wreaked havoc in the Heavenly Palace five hundred years ago."

He was imprisoned under the Five Elements Mountain by the Buddha for five hundred years. Later, he followed Tang Sanzang on his journey to the West to obtain Buddhist scriptures, attained enlightenment, and was named the Victorious Fighting Buddha. He moved his folding fan aside, deflecting the force of Sun Wukong's staff, and at the same time took a step back, creating distance between himself and Sun Wukong.

"You were mentioned in the intelligence reports of the Tiangang Sect."

We thought you were no longer in Dongsheng Shenzhou.

Sun Wukong slung his golden cudgel over his shoulder and grinned.

"Now you know."