Chapter 578: Refining the Secret Pattern

In just a moment, a human-shaped giant beast strode swiftly toward Ye Feng’s location.

Ye Feng moved his fingers rapidly, sending out ten bursts of finger energy infused with the destruction law of the tenth level of perfection. These energies spun like arrows, accompanied by terrifying purple lightning, leaving no doubt about their destructive power.

The giant beast swung its massive hammer, annihilating eight of Ye Feng’s attacks with a single strike. The remaining two bursts of energy, guided by Ye Feng, bypassed the huge black hammer and struck the beast’s body. Yet these attacks seemed to cause no harm—there wasn’t a single wound on the beast, and they didn’t even seem to slow it down. With one step, it reached Ye Feng and swung its hammer again, aiming straight at his head.

Ye Feng shifted his feet slightly and instantly appeared behind the giant beast. His right hand emitted five more bursts of energy, this time with red flames intertwined with purple lightning—resulting from his fusion of the fire element’s destruction law and the lightning element’s destruction law. After firing those five bursts, Ye Feng slammed his hands together and shouted, “Combine!”

The five bursts of energy suddenly changed course and merged into one, forming a pillar of flames and lightning that struck the beast’s back, causing loud explosions—“Boom, boom…”

Hit by this assault, the beast finally couldn’t withstand the force and fell forward.

Ye Feng narrowed his eyes. Through the smoke, he saw a wound on the beast’s back—less than three centimeters deep. The bright red blood seeped out for only a moment before coagulating.

“Can’t even seriously injure it? What thick skin!” Ye Feng frowned. The combined-law attack he used earlier would have severely wounded even a star-cloud-level warrior, but this creature, no matter what it was made of, seemed to have only suffered minor injuries. Clearly, its fall earlier wasn’t due to serious damage but rather the impact that sent it tumbling.

The beast quickly got back on its feet and charged at Ye Feng again.

“Since double stacking doesn’t work, I’ll have to use triple stacking.” Ye Feng flashed again, appearing behind the giant beast once more—but this time extremely close to it. His left hand pierced like an arrow into the heart area on the left side of the beast’s body. “Space annihilation technique, lightning destruction law, fire incineration law—triple stacking!!!” His left hand easily penetrated the flesh and bones of the humanoid beast. The beast let out a shrill scream, struggling to turn around, but couldn’t see Ye Feng, who was hidden by its back. “I don’t believe you won’t die like this!” Ye Feng muttered. Then, a surge of energy shot out from his palm, aiming straight at the heart. Without flesh to block it, no matter how strong the beast was, its heart remained vulnerable. The beast spat out a mouthful of blood and then collapsed to its knees. Knowing he had won, Ye Feng pulled his hand back. Looking around, everything had changed completely. Even that humanoid beast was just another human—now a corpse. Judging by its size, it must have been a physical cultivator, and based on its cultivation level, it likely came from the main plane, at least a mid-stage nebula-level warrior. It must have gotten trapped here after coming to investigate. If Ye Feng’s cultivation level had still been at the previous Starlight level, he might not have won this fight. Triple stacking was already his limit, and that move was his most powerful attack. Ye Feng didn’t intend to spare the fallen corpse either. He stripped it of its weapons, equipment, and storage ring before leaving. As for those skeletons with broken bones, they were indeed there, and as Ye Feng had seen, their equipment had already been taken. Ye Feng checked his loot. Inside that storage ring, there were indeed over twenty more storage rings. He didn’t examine them all, but there were already many pills in this ring—mostly pills from the main plane that Ye Feng had never seen before. Without further investigating their uses, he withdrew his soul power from the ring and continued onward. Although there was no strange mist surrounding him, Ye Feng’s soul power was still heavily suppressed, allowing him to detect only a distance of a few hundred meters. In terms of direct detection, it was far less effective than using his eyes. So, he couldn’t be sure what would happen ahead.

After about half a quarter of an hour, he finally discovered a large gate and immediately understood the content of this test. Numerous secret patterns were carved on the gate, but they were all incomplete. Seeing this, Ye Feng realized that completing these patterns would allow him to open the gate.

Ye Feng traced the incomplete patterns with his fingers, filling in each one. When the last pattern was completed, the gate finally swung open. Stepping inside, he found himself in a strange space, where another square, peculiar gate appeared before him. This gate had nine layers, with the innermost layer being the smallest at just three meters tall, the second layer at four meters, the third at five meters, and so on, with the ninth layer reaching eleven meters high. Each layer fit tightly together.

Looking at the incomplete patterns on the nine gates was almost dizzying. The enormous square gate, covering 121 square meters, resembled a wall blocking his path. Ye Feng roughly counted and found there were nearly 5,000 patterns on it, including some composite patterns formed by multiple individual patterns. The sheer density made his scalp tingle.

Calming his mind, Ye Feng took a deep breath. He had no choice but to go ahead. Although he had only learned 3,000 secret patterns formally from the Heavenly Dao, his understanding of them had become much deeper after mastering certain divine powers. Unlike the rule cultivation at the Great Perfection level, once a divine power was mastered, its corresponding secret patterns would be automatically etched deeply into the soul, making it easier to control.

Staring at the gate before him, Ye Feng pondered for a while before deciding to ignore the rest and start improving the patterns on the smallest gate first.