Rumble rumble——
The previously frozen droplets turned into hail, resembling cannonballs as they continuously bombarded the massive body of the Deep Sea Demon Whale King, creating a spectacular scene.
However, these attacks were unable to harm the Deep Sea Demon Whale King. The blue energy field condensed on its body surface had extremely strong defensive power, far beyond what these hailstones could break through.
But after coming into contact with Articuno's attack, the Deep Sea Demon Whale King did not relax in the slightest. Although those hailstones were ineffective, the storm and snow carried a strange, almost mystical power that began to erode his protective barrier.
In just this short moment, a considerable portion of the blue protective layer he had condensed had already turned into ice, and bone-chilling coldness slowly seeped into his body through his skin.
"Brat, you're asking for death!"
The Deep Sea Demon Whale King was enraged. How long had it been since any creature had injured him? The last one was that guy Poseidon, the Sea God.
With a furious roar, the surrounding domain of the Deep Sea Demon Whale King was compressed into a blue sphere, which then charged straight toward Shui Wuhen while enduring the storm's damage.
Seeing this, Shui Wuhen's expression changed drastically. The Blizzard was indeed effective against the Deep Sea Demon Whale King, but its sheer vitality and terrifying defense had completely refreshed his understanding.
This was a move specifically designed to counter water-type abilities, yet the Deep Sea Demon Whale King could still charge through the Blizzard as if it were nothing. If it were another attack of the same level, would it even be able to break his defense at all?
In the blink of an eye, the Deep Sea Demon Whale King closed in to within a hundred meters of Articuno. This time, it did not launch an energy attack, but instead twisted its body and swung its enormous whale tail toward Articuno.
As the tail descended, faint blue-purple electric arcs began to appear on its surface, growing denser and denser until the entire whale tail was covered in a dense web of electricity.
Seeing this, Articuno immediately stopped releasing Blizzard and, in perfect mental sync with Shui Wuhen, assumed the stance for Ice Slash.
When the whale tail entered attack range, Articuno moved!
Its wings transformed into two ice blades, slashing rapidly. In an instant, countless dazzling ice-blue arcs of light appeared in the space.
These ice-blue arcs formed a giant net, sealing off nearly all directions, continuously stacking and intensifying until reaching their limit—then collided with the Deep Sea Demon Whale King's electrically charged tail.
"!!!?"
At the moment of contact, the Deep Sea Demon Whale King, sensing something was wrong, immediately retreated over a hundred meters. On its tail, numerous deep wounds had appeared.
The Deep Sea Demon Whale King looked at Shui Wuhen and Articuno with uncertainty. His proud defense had been broken again—were they truly not some peerless Douluo? Otherwise, how could they injure him again and again?
"It actually forced him back!"
On the other side, Shui Wuhen was also somewhat shocked. He hadn't expected his current strength to have reached such a level, capable of directly confronting such a terrifying beast.
Although he did not know exactly how many tens of thousands of years the Deep Sea Demon Whale King had cultivated, Shui Wuhen was certain that beings of this level were extremely rare across the entire world; otherwise, there would have been more records about it.
So did that mean his current strength had already reached the peak level, at least in the absence of any hidden realms?
However, despite being surprised by his own growth, Shui Wuhen did not let his guard down. Against such a terrifying beast, his current strength was still far from enough to relax.
"So the so-called Deep Sea Demon Whale King is only this much? No wonder it once had one of its eyes blinded."
Unlike the still-cautious Shui Wuhen, Articuno, after injuring the Deep Sea Demon Whale King, looked at it again with disdain.
A creature with cultivation of tens of thousands of years only had this level of strength. It was merely bullying them because their levels were still low. Once Shui Wuhen reached the rank of Titled Douluo, such an opponent could be destroyed with a wave of the hand.
As for now, although they could not defeat it, based on the Deep Sea Demon Whale King's performance, escaping should not be a problem.
Articuno's words undoubtedly touched the Deep Sea Demon Whale King's reverse scale. His defeat to Sea God Poseidon two hundred thousand years ago, and the loss of one eye, was an eternal pain.
Now that Articuno had brought it up, his rage instantly surged to its peak.
"Arrogant! Do you really think this is all I have? With nearly a hundred thousand years of accumulation, how can you narrow-minded fools possibly imagine it?"
As his words fell, an overwhelming surge of energy erupted from the Deep Sea Demon Whale King's head. Beneath the sea, massive amounts of deep-blue light emerged, while thick dark clouds gathered above Shui Wuhen, Articuno, and the Deep Sea Demon Whale King.
Rumble rumble——
Nine massive bolts of lightning, each as thick as a water vat, descended from the clouds and struck the Deep Sea Demon Whale King.
Articuno watched in confusion. Why would a water-type soul beast summon lightning to strike itself? Was it tired of living?
Although this was not the Pokémon world, the principle that lightning counters water still applied here.
Shui Wuhen, however, narrowed his eyes and said in a low voice, "This guy is likely a water–thunder dual-attribute soul beast."
No wonder the Deep Sea Demon Whale King could become the overlord of the ocean. In an environment dominated by water, possessing thunder as well was practically a massacre.
Moreover, the Deep Sea Demon Whale race itself was already among the strongest sea soul beasts, with very few rivals.
A strong blue-purple glow enveloped its massive body. Whether it was the blue energy below or the purple lightning above, both were gradually infused with a faint golden light after striking it.
Then, the Deep Sea Demon Whale King's skin began to crystallize into a blue-purple crystal-like armor. At the same time, its enormous body rapidly began to shrink at an unimaginable speed.
Next, the crystalline armor on its surface suddenly shattered, forming a massive swirling vortex of blue-purple energy in midair.
Those shattered crystals were like countless blades—compressed water and lightning energy condensed to the extreme, possessing terrifying destructive power. Even a Titled Douluo trapped within would be lucky to escape with only minor injuries.
As the vortex spun rapidly, the Deep Sea Demon Whale King's energy continued to compress. Eventually, its two-hundred-meter-long body disappeared, replaced by a figure over three meters tall—a middle-aged man with a simple, ancient aura.
The man had long deep-blue hair and wore a strange armor formed of deep-purple crystals. The armor consisted of a chest plate, shoulder guards, abdominal armor, battle skirt, and limb armor, seamlessly connected without any visible joints, like a perfect creation.
All surrounding energy seemed to converge at the moment he appeared. A massive deep-purple vortex formed in front of him, compressing all energy into a fist-sized gem embedded at the center of his armor.
Seeing this, Shui Wuhen's expression grew even more solemn.
"What a terrifying energy armor!"
He was not admiring its technique. For someone who had already grasped a portion of the Ice Law's authority, compressing energy to this degree was not difficult. If he wanted, he could replicate it immediately after witnessing the transformation.
What truly shocked him was the Deep Sea Demon Whale King's boundless, ocean-like energy.
By Shui Wuhen's rough estimation, the energy controlled by the Deep Sea Demon Whale King was hundreds of times greater than his own soul power. Even when adding Articuno's inner core energy, it was still over a hundred times higher.
This was already considering that Shui Wuhen's soul power far exceeded ordinary soul masters. For an average soul master of the same level, the gap would be at least a thousand times.
An armor formed from such immense energy naturally possessed astonishing defensive power. The fact that they had been able to break through it earlier was now impossible after its completion.
"Hahaha, good eye!"
The middle-aged man transformed from the Deep Sea Demon Whale King laughed after hearing Shui Wuhen's words, patting the blue-purple armor on his body.
"This is a divine technique I spent two hundred thousand years developing. Being forced to use it means you can be proud!"
Hearing this, both Shui Wuhen and Articuno couldn't help but twitch their mouths.
Was this something worth being proud of?
It was nothing more than forcibly compressing energy into armor. If not for the sheer volume of energy behind it, it wouldn't even be as effective as an ordinary defensive soul skill.
At this moment, the Deep Sea Demon Whale King looked at Shui Wuhen and said unhappily, "What's that expression? You're looking down on my energy armor? If you can do it too, I'll grant you one small wish."
Thinking that he would soon devour Shui Wuhen and break the shackles that had bound him for two hundred thousand years, the Deep Sea Demon Whale King was in a very good mood. Granting a small wish to a dying man was nothing.
After all, Shui Wuhen was already prey at the edge of his mouth—there was no way he could escape.
"I'll show you right now!"
Shui Wuhen sneered and began to control ice-attributed energy to gather around his body.
During this process, the ice-blue inner core within him also began to spin rapidly, absorbing surrounding energy to replenish his previously consumed soul power.
While forming the energy armor, Shui Wuhen transmitted a message to Articuno:
"Articuno, can you still use Absolute Zero?"
In their current situation, the only thing that could threaten the Deep Sea Demon Whale King was Absolute Zero.
As Articuno's strongest ultimate move, it carried a death effect. Once successfully executed and landed, any opponent would be instantly killed.
After all, the essence of Absolute Zero was to completely stop atomic motion. In this world, it meant stopping elemental activity.
All beings and objects are fundamentally composed of elements. Their movement and thought exist because of elemental motion. When temperature drops to absolute zero, all elemental particles cease movement—everything stops. That is equivalent to death.
Even defensive soul skills were useless against it, because the energy composing them would also freeze.
Articuno replied, "Not enough energy. Even if I force it, I can only complete half."
"Not even with the inner core as backup energy?"
Shui Wuhen frowned.
Articuno shook her head. "Still far from enough. Don't forget, last time I used Absolute Zero, I consumed energy equivalent to forty-two Ten Thousand-Year Ice Marrows. Your current soul power plus the inner core is only equivalent to a dozen at most."
In truth, if Articuno's mastery of Absolute Zero were higher, she could execute it with the current energy—but her proficiency was still too low. She had only barely reached the threshold of understanding it.
At the same time, Articuno thought inwardly: If only I had Extreme Speed… with that, I could escape this big guy instantly.
Extreme Speed was the strongest acceleration move in the Pokémon world. If mastered, its speed boost had no upper limit.
But Articuno's inheritance memory did not include that move.
Hearing this, Shui Wuhen's heart sank. It seemed their only option now was to recover and look for an opportunity to escape.
A short while later, when his soul power was fully restored, an ice-blue energy armor finally formed around him.
Compared to the Deep Sea Demon Whale King's armor, Shui Wuhen's was far more refined, with faint rainbow-colored light flowing across its surface.
This came from Articuno's Light Screen, Light Orb, and Reflect enhancements. With them, his armor possessed fifty percent physical and magical resistance by nature. Aside from being thin due to insufficient energy, it was in no way inferior.
This was expected. Soul beasts were inherently less intelligent than humans, and the Deep Sea Demon Whale King, being a brute-type, had already done well enough by creating this technique after learning from Poseidon's armor.
After all, even among soul beasts known for intelligence, even those with extraordinary wisdom, there were few who surpassed him.