King of the eternal tomb

Yao Jun's ghastly grey eyes remained eerily calm as he gazed upon the thrashing Dragonfish, the scaleless black body writhing furiously beneath the surface of the ocean. The entire ocean raged along with the Dragonfish, who used all nine pairs of its eyes to glare furiously at Yao Jun, who looked like no more than a tiny raft ready to capsize amongst the furious waves.

The Dragonfish was a Divine Beast that had half a foot into the Heavenly Deity realm, it was an existence that most early-stage Heavenly Deities would have to view extremely serious, much less the middle-stage Earthly Deity Yao Jun. But even so, even as it caused the entire ocean to rise up around him, Yao Jun remained calm and looked at the Dragonfish as if it was nothing, infuriating it to no end.

The several kilometre tall waves descended on Yao Jun from all directions, the Dragonfish vanishing into the water. Each wave was filled with the energy from the Dragonfish, so if someone tried to think of them as normal waves then they would be in for a painful wake-up call. But looking at the waves coming at him and comparing them to some of the people he had faced, especially the Divine Emperor who he faced just recently, they fell so far short that it was sad.

The layer of ice beneath Yao Jun's feet spread out in the blink of an eye, swallowing up all the waves and turning them into solid blocks of ice. The Dragonfish resurfaced just as the waves froze, crashing through the ice directly beneath Yao Jun with its maw wide open in an attempt to swallow him whole.

But the ice beneath Yao Jun's feet only grew out again the moment it was shattered, forming a platform that forced the maw of the beast to remain open. The Dragonfish continued to rise into the sky, its several tens of kilometres long body slowly revealing itself as its head, and Yao Jun along with it, rose into the sky.

Yao Jun lowered his head to gaze down upon the open maw of the beast, his arm moving as he swept out with his sword. The Dragonfish immediately sensed a horrid amount of danger, its tongue shooting forward and launching both the platform of ice and Yao Jun out of its mouth.

It also moved its body to the side at the same time, but even with all that, one of the eyes on the right side of its head was still sliced in half in a strange manner. The part of the eye that bulged out simply froze solid and then slid off of its body, revealing that the rest of the eye was still normal and moist, not even an ice crystal in sight.

The Dragonfish let out a sharp hiss due to the chilly pain that now came from its eye, but it was forced to continue moving its body. The frozen waves started to twist and distort, charging at the massive body of the Dragonfish like ferocious snakes. Even the ice that covered the water right around the area where the Dragonfish had broken through the surface moved against it, tightening around its body and starting to cut through its flesh.

The Dragonfish was left with no choice but to fully break out of the water, quickly retracting its lower body before the tightening ice cut through its body. The 20-kilometre long body of the Dragonfish was fully revealed, its body nearly completely smooth except for some dark blue frills that grew out of the last two kilometres of the beast's body.

Yao Jun landed on the frozen surface of the ocean again as the beast revealed its entire body, keeping itself adrift in the sky by using its powerful Qi. Having lost an eye already, the beast glared at Yao Jun with even more fury than before, its scaleless black body writhing somewhat as its veins bulged. But Yao Jun didn't even look at the beast, his gaze drifting around as he observed the ice that was spreading across the ocean.

"...It's not quite right... that one felt a bit too weak."

His quiet mutter reached the ears of the Dragonfish, its brain almost short-circuiting from the anger it felt. Here it was, taking Yao Jun as one of its most dangerous enemies, yet he seemed to not even be paying proper attention to it, focusing more on the power output of his law. It's blue eyes flashed with a tinge of red, a loud roar causing the ice to tremble and crack open.

"DO NOT DISREGARD ME, HUMAN!"

The ocean all around Yao Jun rose up once more, thick pillars of water bursting through the layer of ice and sending pulverized shards of it everywhere. Yao Jun's gaze drifted towards the Dragonfish, that descended upon him with a wide-open maw as the surrounding pillars all split up into thousands of smaller pillars that shot at him from every angle. He stretched out his left arm as if he wanted to use his palm to stop the charging beast, a contemplative light flashing through his eyes as he muttered to himself.

"No, ice is far much more than just that, it should be a chill greater than any other, a frozen world, an eternal tomb."

Yao Jun had only used the law of ice during this battle for a single reason, he had taken the words of the Divine Emperor to heart, with some alteration. Rather than just fuse and merge his laws all the time, he should give each of them a good look to truly understand them. He had to find a path for himself among all the elemental laws, one that wasn't just him following in the same footsteps as his Demonic beasts. When he had found that path and taken the laws to a suitable peak, then he could work more on merging them.

An unearthly chill scattered throughout the surrounding area when he finished his words, infesting everything within a 10-kilometre area as Yao Jun poured all of his strength into the law. And as that chill spread out, the thousands of pillars and even the Dragonfish itself halted in their tracks. The backend of the Dragonfish still wriggled somewhat, but the front half had completely halted, even the blood flowing within the veins seeming to have stopped.

The strange frozen state lasted for an entire three seconds before the incoming pillars of water and the Dragonfish started to move again. But there was now an additional trace of horror in the eyes of the Dragonfish, its forward momentum vanishing as it quickly turned to flee. Yao Jun pulled back his left arm and gazed at his hand, which had a faint and nearly transparent chilly vapour circling around it.

"That's satisfactory, I'll keep working on you."

He raised his gaze again and locked onto the fleeing Dragonfish. He took a step forward and vanished, space between him and the Dragonfish shrinking so that he arrived directly above it. The Dragonfish quickly summoned the might of the ocean beneath it and redirected the thousands of water pillars, but Yao Jun simply swept out with his sword. The law of slicing rushed out and cut apart the incoming attacks, Yao Jun's left fist smashing down upon the head of the Dragonfish.

The beast was smashed into the ice that had started to spread across the ocean again, Yao Jun's fist continuing to press against its head until a crunching sound rang out. His fist passed through its head and made contact with its brain, his law of fire gushing forth and turning the brain of the beast into no more than a pile of ash.

Since he had found a path for himself within the law of ice, and possibly within the law of fire, there was no longer any point in dragging things out any longer. He still had more Divine Beasts to hunt down for Du Xiao and the others, there would be plenty more opportunities for him to work on his other laws.

He placed his hand on the corpse and threw it into his God Gate, depositing it directly into the ocean where Yong Bo lived. Yong Bo was a Hydra, and while they were indeed special in that they could evolve and grow without end, they weren't Divine Beasts. Completely devouring the body and blood of this Dragonfish would allow Yong Bo to evolve into a true Divine Beast, a spectacle Yao Jun was greatly looking forward to.

Yao Jun gave the slowly freezing ocean one last look before he turned around and walked away, heading over to the shore were Guo Luo and Yao Xuelian were waiting for him. He picked up his daughter, whose grey eyes sparkled with incomparable excitement, and held her high in the air while smiling.

"Well, what do you think, did Papa look cool?"

It was almost as if Yao Xuelian had been waiting for him to say that, her excited voice quickly gushing forth as she swung her fists around so fiercely that her rainbow-coloured hair was blown around.

"Papa looked the coolest! The Little Eely didn't even have a chance, he was just beaten around like BAM and BOOM while screaming in that dumbly loud voice! But Papa, you ended it too fast, we didn't get to watch for long enough!"

Yao Jun could only smile in the face of his daughter's complaint, she was probably the only person in existence who complained that someone killed a powerful Divine Beast too quickly. He lowered her and supported her with one arm, using his other hand to pinch and pull on her nose.

"Well, if you're good to Mama then Papa will spend a bit more time with the others, but only if you're good."

Guo Luo smiled faintly at the scene from the side, her enchanting pink eyes filled with an endless amount of care. She knew how much Yao Jun had fought over the years, how much pain and blood he had gone through to reach his current position. So seeing him like this with their daughter, as if none of those things had ever happened, it always warmed her heart.

As for Yao Xuelian, she hurriedly nodded her head upon hearing Yao Jun's deal. She stretched out one of her hands and held out her little finger in front of Yao Jun, bubbling with excitement.

"I'll be good, I'll be the bestest! I promise!"

Yao Jun smiled warmly and let go of her nose, wrapping his own little finger around Yao Xuelian's and sealing the promise. He held Yao Xuelian with one arm and grabbed onto Guo Luo's hand with his free arm, interlocking their fingers and pulling her close. No matter how strong he got, no matter how much he had to fight, no matter how much blood he had to shed, it was all worth it whenever he was with them, whenever he was in the one place where he could just put down everything else and breathe.

Space around them bent and distorted for a short second before they vanished, leaving behind the ocean that was slowly freezing over as they headed for their next target.