Chapter 408: Heart of the Blazing Fire

Finding a cave in the forest and confirming via exploration that there were no signs of life nearby, Ye Feng activated the Purgatory Realm and stepped inside. Time flowed at a rate of one thousand to one here; even if he secluded himself for a thousand years, only a year would pass outside, so there was no need to worry about the secret realm closing after ten years.
He set the environment within the realm to a desert, chose a large rock to sit on, and then slowly took out the ancient-looking black box from his storage ring.
“Extreme fire attribute material…” Ye Feng narrowed his eyes slightly as he slowly lifted the lid.
The moment the lid was opened, a fierce blaze erupted, instantly coloring half the sky red. The flames gradually coalesced into a giant python in mid-air, hundreds of meters long, which now raised its head to gaze down at Ye Feng.
“This thing actually has consciousness!!!” Ye Feng was shocked. The moment he opened the box, he was pushed back by the force of the flame energy. The black box also slipped from his hands and landed on the sand.
“So powerful! Its energy level far exceeds that of a Supreme God-tier warrior.” Ye Feng could tell this clearly without even checking the detector. “It’s at least at the Imperial God tier. With its extreme fire attribute, even a Progenitor God-tier warrior might find it hard to subdue.”
At this point, Ye Feng regretted releasing this thing so recklessly. If he had known it had developed consciousness, he would never have done so now; instead, he would have waited until he was more confident.
The giant python glanced warily at the black box not far from it, then turned its head to focus on Ye Feng in front of it. Although Ye Feng seemed weak to it, the python instinctively sensed danger.
After a brief standoff, the fire python, which had only just developed consciousness, couldn’t resist attacking. It opened its massive mouth and bit at Ye Feng, who was dozens of times smaller than it. Its instinct told it that only by killing this man could it ensure its safety.
“So fast!” Before Ye Feng could even react to the python’s move, an intense sense of danger surged through his body, prompting him to dodge immediately.
“Boom!” A loud explosion erupted. Where Ye Feng had stood before now had a giant crater hundreds of meters in diameter. Failing to succeed with its first attack, the fire python launched a second wave of attacks, with several flames forming whips that lashed at Ye Feng.

In the third-level Purgatory, the stability of space is only comparable to that of the Heavenly Realm. How could it possibly withstand an energy impact on par with that of an Imperial God, let alone the scorching flames from the Divine Realm? Wherever that whip passed, space seemed to tear open like a fractured glacier, creating long gaps.

Ye Feng frowned deeply. With that whip swinging down, not to mention the extremely scorching flames that could burn him, even just the energy impact on par with an Imperial God could severely injure him. He could only try his best to dodge using his movement skills, in a desperate situation…

“This thing is pure flame. No matter how I attack, it won’t work…” As he fled, Ye Feng pondered a strategy. “Attribute attacks? Lightning probably won’t have any effect on it. As for ice attribute energy, I can only utilize less than one percent of it—utterly insufficient and useless at all…”

“Black devouring energy…” As he thought this through, a spark of insight appeared before his eyes. “Since I planned to use black energy to absorb you from the start, it should also work during the battle now.”

With this thought, Ye Feng activated the black crystals within his body. In an instant, a black mist enveloped his entire body, obscuring his figure.

“My strength may not be as great as yours, but my skills are a hundred times superior to yours, you little creature with just budding intelligence…” As soon as Ye Feng spoke, several strands of mist, like thin ropes, rushed toward the fiery red whip. Upon approaching it, instead of colliding head-on, they wrapped around the whip. “Since it’s hard to swallow your true form now, I’ll just take something as a snack first!” Ye Feng, covered in black mist, smirked slightly.

Although the fiery red energy was clearly much stronger than the black energy, it was tightly bound by it, like a stubborn plaster that couldn’t be shaken off, causing its strength to gradually weaken. On the contrary, the rope-like black energy grew thicker and thicker.

“Squeak~!” The fiery python seemed angry. After a shriek, nearly a hundred whips surged forth, attacking Ye Feng like a tide. Clearly, it thought that with enough numbers, Ye Feng would be unable to resist.

However, this move was a grave mistake—completely within Ye Feng’s expectations.

With just a gesture, hundreds of rope-like strands of black mist rushed forward. A few strands wrapped around a whip, and in an instant, the flame dimmed.

“Hehe… This is exactly what I wanted. It speeds up my absorption!” Ye Feng chuckled inwardly.

“Squeak~” The fire python was utterly enraged by what it saw. Its fiery red tail slammed against the ground several times, clearly at the extreme of anger. This time, it learned its lesson and didn’t unleash flames again; instead, it swung its massive tail at Ye Feng.

“Hmph, do you really think you can succeed?” Ye Feng sneered coldly. Although he couldn’t see the python’s fast attacks, he could sense from which direction they came and roughly predict their pattern. The black mist instantly transformed into a giant hand, reaching out to grab the python’s tail.

The python let out a fierce roar. Contact with the black mist almost stripped off a layer of its skin. It rolled violently in the sand before barely managing to break free from that giant hand. Its overall size had shrunk by one-tenth.

At that moment, the rope-like black mist wrapped around the whip also silently climbed up the fire python’s body. What terrified the python was that the black energy seemed capable of completely suppressing it—not only did it suffer no damage, but it grew stronger instead.

“Come here!” With a slight movement of his fingers, Ye Feng used the black rope to pull the python toward him. At the same time, he threw a huge net made of black mist at the fire python, encasing it firmly.

A sharp, shrill roar immediately came from within the net. The fire python struggled violently, trying to escape the black net, but it became increasingly trapped. In just a few breaths, its size shrank by another one-tenth.

Ye Feng felt a scorching energy release from the black crystal within his dantian, filling it entirely. Inside the black net, the fire python’s struggles grew weaker, and its size continued to shrink. After a short while, the fire python disintegrated, yet not a trace of its energy leaked out—everything was absorbed by the black net. After the python vanished, a fist-sized crimson crystal appeared before Ye Feng’s eyes.

Under the black energy absorbing its power, Ye Feng placed the crystal in his palm. The crystal was entirely fiery red and pulsed rhythmically, like a heart.

“No wonder it’s called the Heart of Fire—it really does beat like a heart…” Ye Feng smiled and shook his head before injecting some black energy into it.

The red energy that once filled his dantian ignited as the black crystal released more energy, burning like gasoline. Ye Feng was shocked. “What’s going on?”

However, he soon felt at ease, as the energy coming from his dantian, though scorching, was relatively mild and did not cause him pain. As the size of the Heart of Molten Fire in his palm gradually decreased, the red energy in his dantian also diminished. Ye Feng had no idea what was happening and could only wait patiently for the black energy to completely consume the Heart of Molten Fire. It took a full hour for the Heart of Molten Fire to vanish from Ye Feng’s palm. Only then did he focus all his mental energy on his dantian to understand what had happened. By then, the burning inside his dantian had finally stopped, and the once fiery red energy had turned into a fist-sized mass of red, magma-like substance, resembling volcanic lava. “It didn’t form a crystal…” Ye Feng was puzzled, feeling weak at the same time. He sent his mental energy along his meridians and realized that his vital energy had been completely exhausted. He immediately understood what had happened. “It must be that the energy was used up, so it can no longer be compressed…” Thinking of this, he immediately directed some of his mental energy into his storage ring and took out two top-grade divine crystals to help with the breakthrough. Given his peak divine realm physique, he might not even be able to absorb a single top-grade divine crystal, so bringing two was purely to have one as a backup in case of emergencies. He summoned another stream of black energy to guide the energy from the divine crystals into his dantian. The red flames reignited, and the magma-like substance burned again. After three hours, the energy of one top-grade divine crystal was finally absorbed, and the flames in his dantian ceased burning. A fiery red crystal appeared before Ye Feng’s eyes. A few moments after the crystal took shape, it developed four edges. The other four crystals also each developed an edge. “It’s finally done!” Ye Feng finally breathed a sigh of relief. This day had truly exhausted him. “I’ll rest for a day first, then start hunting magical beasts tomorrow!” Pulling his mental energy back from his body, Ye Feng let out a long sigh before slowly closing his eyes…