Chapter 700: Inheritance Received
It was a giant humanoid puppet beast, nearly a thousand feet tall, holding a massive long sword in its right hand. Ye Feng guessed that this creature likely possessed mastery over sword techniques. The secret patterns contained countless techniques; although he had learned thirty thousand such patterns so far and had yet to encounter any related to martial arts powers, he believed they must exist.
The secret patterns on the humanoid puppet beast were quickly completed, and its long-closed eyes finally opened. After scanning the surroundings, it spotted Ye Feng and Jin Wen. The moment it saw them, the puppet beast moved. With just one step, it reached Ye Feng and Jin Wen, swinging its huge sword down with tremendous force. Wherever the sword passed, space was split in two.
Ye Feng knew he couldn’t withstand this attack head-on and quickly retreated with Jin Wen.
“Jin Wen, I’ll try to handle this first. If I fail, I’ll ask you for help,” Ye Feng said, pushing Jin Wen aside. He intended to turn this confrontation into a proper competition.
Jin Wen didn’t object and instantly retreated far away.
Seeing someone escape, the humanoid puppet beast naturally refused to let them go easily and chased after Jin Wen. But Ye Feng appeared in front of it in a flash, blocking its path.
The beast waved its hand, trying to blow Ye Feng away, but the back of its left hand suddenly stopped the moment it touched Ye Feng. A force no less powerful than its own had halted its attack, causing it to stagger. It quickly looked down to see what was happening and found that the person it wanted to fling away was blocking its attack with just one arm. And that face was still smiling at it…
In terms of physical strength, Ye Feng might be slightly inferior to this puppet beast, but he at least shared the same peak True Breakthrough realm strength. If the beast attacked with full force, its power would surely break through his defenses. But a casual slap like before could be easily blocked by him.
With that slap blocked by Ye Feng, the puppet beast immediately responded with another attack, swinging its sword again. This time, Ye Feng didn’t dodge. Instead, he unleashed the Imperial Extreme Demon Thorn, which also transformed into a long sword to meet the attack. Though the combined power of the eight sword techniques hadn’t reached perfection, it still possessed the strength of a level-10 divine technique.
Two long blades cutting through the sky collided with each other, producing a loud roar as the space at the point of impact instantly collapsed and spread outward. The puppet beast stepped back under the impact, while Ye Feng was flung backward. From that single collision, he felt as though all his internal organs had been displaced by the shock. “Pfft…” Ye Feng spat out a mouthful of blood stuck in his throat and began to gasp heavily. “Damn it, this guy’s blade technique has reached perfection. Although I’m just one type of blade technique away, the gap in effectiveness after integration is irreparable.” Jin Wen frowned slightly and flashed into position between Ye Feng and the puppet beast, ready to act, but was stopped by Ye Feng. “Jin Wen, let me handle it. I was a bit careless earlier. His blade technique is at perfection, comparable to an eleventh-level divine technique. I can use a twelfth-level spatial divine technique, plus the tenfold power boost from my twelve-grade divine skill—so I won’t lose to him.” In just a few breaths, Ye Feng’s injuries had mostly healed. Jin Wen hesitated for a moment before stepping back. Ye Feng retracted the long blade formed from the Imperial Demon Pearl, spread his fingers wide, with each finger imbued with terrifying spatial energy. The puppet beast lunged forward, gripping its blade and swinging down from above. Almost simultaneously, Ye Feng sent out ten fierce finger attacks. The puppet beast immediately raised its blade to block, but Ye Feng smirked, adjusted his fingers slightly, and redirected all ten attacks, catching the puppet beast off guard. In his haste, it only managed to block three of them, while the other seven struck true. Those attacks were extremely powerful, piercing through the puppet beast’s thick body without pause and creating seven large holes. However, since the puppet beast wasn’t human, it couldn’t feel pain. Those seven holes only caused slight inconvenience to its movement. “I forgot—this thing can’t feel pain…” Ye Feng slapped his head. He had targeted vital human areas, but for a puppet beast, any attack was the same. “If that’s the case, I’ll have to tear you apart completely!” Ye Feng saw no better solution—the only way was to disassemble the opponent into pieces.
Filled with spatial power, Ye Feng flashed behind the puppet beast and delivered a punch infused with his spatial abilities, amplified by ten thousand times the normal attack power. This time, he opted for close combat. He retreated after each strike, appearing in another direction for the next attack, then another direction after that…
In just the time it took to drink tea, Ye Feng launched hundreds of attacks, leaving the bulky puppet beast with no chance to retaliate. With each punch carrying destructive spatial power, nearly one-fifth of the puppet beast’s body was destroyed. Yet Ye Feng wasn’t satisfied. He continued to strike relentlessly. After another period of time, almost half of the puppet beast’s body was gone, and its long sword fell to the ground along with its severed arm.
“I’ll blow you up!” Ye Feng shouted as he attacked. “Let’s see what reward I can get!”
After a while, the puppet beast finally stopped moving, and the voice of the Heavenly Dao sounded again, “The challenge is successful. You will be granted the ultimate reward.”
“What is it?” Ye Feng asked immediately.
“You’ll find out soon,” replied the projection of the Heavenly Dao with a smile, waving his finger. The puppet beast, which had been shattered by Ye Feng, began to reassemble itself, leaving not even a crack behind. It picked up the long sword from the ground.
Ye Feng watched warily.
“Don’t worry. It will be given to you by it shortly.”
Ye Feng was stunned. The puppet beast grasped the hilt in one hand and the blade tip in the other, then exerted force—breaking the sword in two. As Ye Feng was puzzled, the broken sword slowly turned into powder, revealing a stone tablet.
The tablet was covered entirely with unfamiliar secret runes.
“This…”
Before Ye Feng could ask, the projection of the Heavenly Dao spoke directly, “These are the 50,001st to the 80,000th secret runes. I placed them here specifically because I learned that your strength has grown so rapidly that you’ve now reached the Truth-Shattering Realm. With your current level, you’re ready to master the 80,000th secret rune.”
“So, I still need to overcome more challenges to get the remaining runes?” Ye Feng asked.
“Originally, nine challenges were set for you, but for you now, the remaining ones are not very meaningful. So, you only need to complete the final challenge,” said the Heavenly Dao with a smile.
Before Ye Feng could ask what the final challenge was, he found himself transported elsewhere. The stairs ahead had disappeared, and he now stood at the gate at the end of the stairs. The gate was tightly closed, covered in countless tiny secret runes.
“This challenge tests your mastery of secret runes. There are a total of 30,000 secret runes on this gate. You need to rearrange them to form at least 10,000 runes together, creating a massive explosive force. Only when this gate collapses can you obtain the inheritance of the secret runes,” came the voice of the Heavenly Dao once again.
Ye Feng frowned slightly. Combining over 10,000 secret runes into a single effect was something he had never even considered before. Previously, he had at most combined hundreds of similar runes, and that already yielded astonishing power. But now, with 10,000 runes, the power would be unimaginable.
Ye Feng slowly sat down and continuously simulated various combinations in his mind, trying out different schemes that might yield good results before applying them to the gate.
Days passed. After hundreds of attempts, he still hadn’t achieved a satisfactory result.
He knew this kind of attempt couldn’t be solved easily. With no other choice, he resorted to a quasi-cheating method, using his epiphany privilege once.
In a state of epiphany, Ye Feng solved the problem in less than three minutes.
Once the correct arrangement was completed, the gate finally collapsed, revealing the secret rune stele inside.
Taking advantage of the remaining three days of epiphany, Ye Feng immediately began deciphering the secret runes on the stele.
Two days later, he had finished deciphering the 50,000th rune and started working on the new secret runes related to the special rewards.
By the end of the three days of epiphany, Ye Feng’s understanding of the divine secret runes had reached 60,000. However, he didn’t plan to continue, as the projection of the Heavenly Dao had already waited for him for three days.
“I’m sorry, Master. I cheated again…” Ye Feng said helplessly.
“Everyone has their own opportunities. You merely used epiphany to speed up your thinking process. It can’t be considered cheating, as the results came from your own efforts,” explained the Heavenly Dao. “Normally, every time you receive new inheritance, I should give you some other rewards. But I’ve already given you my greatest reward last time. So, there’s nothing special this time—just a storage ring. It contains the bones and relics of powerful beings who accidentally entered here. I’ll give it all to you…”
“Haha, Master, then thank you very much…” Ye Feng took the ring without hesitation.
The next moment, Ye Feng found himself standing in a void; the original Desolate Land had disappeared, and aside from the storage ring in his hand, it seemed as if nothing had happened…