Yao Jun stretched out his arm and placed his hand on the shoulder of Yong Bo, absorbing him into his new God Gate and repeating the process with Siwang and the others. After only a short few moments he had once again absorbed all the beast's present, only missing Little Gray, Sirius, Ba-Shei, Zhuyin, Zhuanxu, and Du Xiao. They had all been patiently waiting here during the year and a half where Yao Jun was experiencing his rebirth so they hadn't experienced any great changes in their strengths, Yama being the sole exception.

Yama had recklessly sucked in any sliver of lifeforce that he could find in the area to aid Yao Jun, his roots had stretched further and further to seek out new lives to feed to his god. He dug his roots deeper and deeper into the land while strengthening his absorbing force, not caring one bit about the strain he experienced from stretching himself so far. And in the end, he even took advantage of the land within the God Gate, sucking in as much of the Qi in the air as he could before his connection with Yao Jun was severed.

The strain, the massive influx of Qi, the desperation, the vast amount of lifeforce, all of it gathered together and pushed Yama to new heights. His previously crimson rose turning black, the land all around them turning into a barren wasteland, the fact that he could exist in a humanoid shape beside the body of the rose, all of it was because of one simple reason, he had evolved.

Yama was no longer a Devil Vine, sucking in the lifeforce of the living beings around him, he had become a Calamity Vine capable of absorbing even the lifeforce of the land itself, a plant-type Demonic beast infinitely close to the realm of Divine Beasts. If he managed to evolve one step further he would turn into an Apocalypse Vine and gain the ability to suck in not just lifeforce but energy as well, he would become a true plant-type Divine Beast that could turn entire planets and stretches of space into areas devoid of Qi.

But such an evolution would need more than just a large amount of energy, it was far from easy for Demonic beasts to reach the realm of Divine Beasts. As such, Yao Jun temporarily threw the thoughts to the back of his mind and surveyed the barren land around him. He stretched out his right arm and moved his hand as if he wanted to grasp the air, mobilizing his Qi for a few minutes before he pulled back his arm and gave a repentant shake of his head.

"I really have been wasting one treasure after another. I've had so many laws at my disposal but not once have I tried to learn them for myself, I'm a disgrace."

Yao Jun had just been checking if he could use his knowledge of the various laws he used in the past to utilize them even without Sirius and the others around. But without fail, each and every one of them failed, he couldn't even produce a small spark using the law of flame, a very basic law that countless cultivators within the multiverse had acquired. In the past, even when he fused his various laws within his attacks, he had been relying on his beast's ability to control that law.

As long as they were absorbed by his God Gate, he could use their laws as easily as he could move his arm, it didn't really take much thought or understanding from his part. As a result, his own understanding of the various laws, especially their basest forms and utilizations, was beneath even cultivators at the Immortal Rebirth realm, it might even be so low as to be within the 3 Houtian Skies. Realizing that he had to put in far more effort in the future, Yao Jun once again shook his head, his gaze piercing into the distance as he rummaged through his memories.

"I'll have to study the base concept of the laws much more in the future, knowing about Disintegration doesn't matter in the slightest if I can't even utilize the base form of darkness. But for now, how was it that he used that law again?"

Yao Jun searched through his memories until he found the particular memory he was looking for, one involving a battle that now felt like it had taken place several lifetimes ago. He went over the memory several times, continuously thinking back to the first Earthly Deity that he had ever killed, Meridius.

Meridius had used the law of wood, but his main law had been the law of piercing, he had even been able to pierce through space to teleport. And right now, Yao Jun was going over the memory several times to glean just how Meridius had done so, taking in the information for himself. He remained standing in place for half a day while going over the memory with closed eyes, eventually opening his eyes and stretching out a finger, slowly pushing it forward.

A soft strumming sound screeched through the surrounding area as Yao Jun's finger vanished and appeared a few metres to his left, piercing a hole clean through the surrounding space. A normal person using the law of piercing would need far more practice and experience, but since Yao Jun now had the Sword God's Gate, or the core of the Supreme Law of Attack, it was the same as having a massive shortcut when it came to any law related to it.

He tested it a few more times just to get a better feel for it, increasing the size of the hole he pierced through space with each attempt. He spent another hour on this before finally stepping forward and vanishing from the area by piercing directly through space to teleport. Compared to normal teleporting, where he either folded space or switched his own position within the surrounding space, this type of teleporting felt a bit more violent and bumpy.

But it more than did the trick, Yao Jun swiftly moving through the barren wasteland after simply picking a random direction. Neither he nor his beasts knew just where they were right now so there wasn't much point in thinking about what direction he headed in. But as he was piercing through space at a rapid pace, he encountered another slightly uncomfortable feeling, the drastically shortened range of his senses.

Usually, he could merge his mind into the surrounding space to cover several tens of thousands of kilometres with his senses, but now he could barely cover close to 1000 kilometres. While he was thoroughly experiencing what sort of range cultivators at his realm usually had, he spotted a white-capped mountain peak far in the distance. The peak was so distant that it looked like no more than a small white smudge, but Yao Jun was still able to make out that it wasn't just a cloud but rather the peak of a mountain.

Having a goal was better than not having one so he altered his direction and headed for the mountain, he could possibly use the height of the mountain to check the surrounding area for signs of civilization. The barren wasteland vanished after he pierced through space a few more times and got a little over ten thousand kilometres away from where Yama had covered him in roots, a verdant forest of mixed trees replacing the arid wasteland.

As Yao Jun got closer to the snow-capped mountain, which towered an entire five thousand kilometres into the sky, he realized that the mountain was actually covered in a fortress-like city from the halfway point and down. The buildings in the city were square in shape and made from solid metal, the grooves and extensions on some of them making the entire city look like it was made from building blocks that could be freely moved around and placed together.

With how tall the mountain was, there was no need to speak of how thick it was at the base to support itself, and yet the metallic city surrounded the entire mountain. Yao Jun couldn't help but wonder what sort of fortress it would become if the buildings actually could be placed together into a single whole. Yao Jun kept a bit of distance from the city as he swept his gaze over the part of the city that he could see, his heart skipping a beat as he did so.

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He could see the emblem of the Lin clan, a fanged-bat covered in lightning, spread throughout the entire city. The people within the city were also all members of the Lin clan, nearly all of them wearing metal or crystal armour engraved with the Lin clan emblem. Yao Jun had heard that each clan that could control a city would also have several villages beneath them, but the city in front of him seemed to be too small to be one of these villages. Looking at how sturdy it was, and how many soldiers marched around within it, he guessed that it was more likely to be an army outpost than a village. It was also located directly within this massive forest that was filled with Demonic beast, it might be a place where they trained their soldiers for actual combat.

But it didn't really matter to Yao Jun exactly what sort of place this outpost was, just looking at the Lin clan emblem caused his blood to boil as his vision was dyed red. A year and a half might have passed since he was at the Lin clan, but he was in a rather peculiar state during that time so to him, it only felt like a day or two had passed since Yun Yantian's death. The memory was fresh in his mind, the pain and resentment still burned strongly within his entire body, if it wasn't for his strong mental stability he might have already started massacring this outpost.

Yao Jun sucked in a deep breath and then exhaled slowly, his eyes bloodshot as the trees around him withered and died, his law of death running slightly rampant due to his emotions. He closed his eyes and continued to breathe heavily for a bit, his gaze calm yet icily cold when he opened his eyes again. He swept his gaze through the part of the outpost he could see, his eyes quickly settling on the sole circular building in the outpost, one that coiled around the entire mountain at the highest point of the city.

Within this building, he spotted three women at the middle-stage of the Earthly Deity realm who seemed to be engaging in a meeting. There would occasionally be other soldiers entering the room where they were having a meeting, the three women waving their hands nonchalantly while responding and dismissing the solider. Yao Jun focused his gaze on these three women, who should be the leaders of this outpost, noticing something rather peculiar as he studied them.

The Lin clan bloodline within their bodies, it was practically the exact same as the one within the ring that he had received when they made the deal. It was a bit weaker since it had mixed with their own blood but otherwise, it was the exact same in terms of aura and strength. Yao Jun's thoughts drifted back to the reaction of the previous Lin clan patriarch when Yao Jun insisted on keeping the blood, as well as his reaction when Yao Jun tossed the ring back and called the blood worthless.

Back then he didn't think much of it due to the situation, but now that he saw that three entirely different people had a bloodline not much different from the 'pure' bloodline that he should have received, he couldn't help but start thinking. Could it be that there was something wrong with the blood of the Lin clan?

It wasn't entirely out of the question, all bloodlines were bound to deteriorate over time as they became thinner and thinner. No child could perfectly inherit the bloodline of their parent, especially when it came to a transplanted bloodline, it was inevitable that it would thin out over the years. And no matter how much clans associated with their bloodline wished to avoid it, Divine Beast bloodlines could not escape this inevitability. Could that have been the reason that the previous Lin clan patriarch reacted so strongly back then, even going as far as to try to eradicate all witnesses?

When the thought struck him, Yao Jun nearly felt his blood boil once more. Yun Yantian had been killed for such a dumb reason? Just to hide the fact that their bloodline had deteriorated over the years as most bloodlines would? The Lin clan might consider such reasoning more than enough and worth any bloodshed, but to Yao Jun it was nothing more than petty and dumb.

Yao Jun's icy gaze turned sharp as he looked at the three women, his eyes narrowing slightly. If his guess was correct and the Lin clan really wanted to hide this fact as well as possible, then he would throw a wrench into their plans with all his might. He sucked in another deep breath to calm down his boiling blood and then stepped forward, piercing through space and heading directly for the building with the three women.

But just as he started to pierce through space, a deafening alarm rang out from within the outpost, the screeching sound blaring and echoing throughout the area. The entire outpost lit up as rune after rune appeared on the buildings and the area around the mountain, a translucent shell forming around the entire outpost. The three women also sprung up from their seats and halted their meetings, donning serious expressions as the thunderous voice of one of them echoed throughout the entire city.

"Space within the outpost just moved in an unnatural manner, the target might have appeared! Prepare the grand array and flatten the surrounding area, don't give him a chance to escape!"

Yao Jun halted his step before his foot could lower, his brows sinking slightly. It seemed like the patriarch of the Lin clan had taken appropriate counter-measures after he noticed that Yao Jun could teleport through space, he might even have placed space-monitoring arrays within each and every village and outpost that they had. Yao Jun looked at the outpost in front of him, at the hundreds of thousands of soldiers that were gathering in pre-planned positions to form a large attacking array. His expression remained calm as he looked at the scene, his mouth opening as he spoke out, his voice augmented by Qi and reaching every inch of the city.

"I only want the three leaders, I can't be bothered to move against the rest of you if you just fuck off. If you try to attack, you will have no one but yourself to blame for your fate."

It was a barefaced threat with no pretence or niceties, the sheer coldness of his voice alone was enough to send a chill up the spines of the soldiers. But the voice of the woman who spoke out earlier boomed throughout the city once more, easing the fears of the soldiers.

"He's bluffing. The protective array can block even early-stage Heavenly Deities for a few minutes, you'll be safe as long as you remain within it and focus on attacking."

The soldiers calmed down slightly upon being reminded of the protective array, it had protected their outpost for several thousand years, only activating a few times when they faced a catastrophe. Some soldiers struggled for a few seconds longer, but in the end, they all hardened their expressions and focused on providing the grand array with power to launch their attacks. Yao Jun saw a few eyes glint with the light of greed so he guessed that the Lin clan had probably promised quite a few rewards to the people who brought him down.

Energy burst forth within the outpost within a few short seconds, bubbling up and gathering together into an incandescent sun within the translucent shell that was the protective array. But Yao Jun simply looked at the sun and the protective shell with a cold and apathetic expression, his right arm reaching out with his palm facing down.

Since they were insistent on attacking him, then he would just use this as a chance to test his strength. It wasn't just Yama that had evolved while Yao Jun went through his ordeal, he too had grown stronger after practically being reborn. He had been stuck at the early stage of the Earthly Deity realm for a little while already and had expected to remain there for about three or four more years, but the merging of the God Gates had pushed him into the middle-stage of the Earthly Deity realm, right now he was infinitely close to the late-stage of the Earthly Deity realm.

The incandescent sun rose up through the translucent shell, blazing with terrifying energy as it split up into several hundred smaller suns. But just as these smaller suns were starting to move, Yao Jun pushed his hand down in a gentle manner, a single word escaping his mouth.

"Crush."

That single word was accompanied by a cataclysmic amount of energy as Yao Jun burst forth with all three types of energy within his body, utilizing the law of crushing he acquired from the Sword God's Gate. The small suns of energy, the protective shell, the entire mountain, the outpost around it, and even parts of the forest around the mountain, all were crushed into the ground without mercy.

The protective array only lasted for half a second before shattering like glass, the entire mountain crumbling as the buildings were reduced to rice-sized rubble. What was once a towering mountain and strong outpost had been reduced to a large crater in a single move, the blood from hundreds of thousands of soldiers splashing the crater and seeping into the earth. Even the three leaders had been squashed flat, just barely retaining their lives as Yao Jun had momentarily spared them to make use of them.

Yao Jun pulled back his arm, still wearing his apathetic expression as he stepped forward and pierced through space, appearing within the crater. He walked through the bloody rubble and headed for the three women, who were now so terrified that one of them had fainted while frothing at the mouth. He had laid low for a while, but now the man who received the title of Nine Heavens Demon God had made his move, and the deathly silence filling this crater was the announcement of his presence, his declaration of war.