Chapter 501 - 357: Assaulting Level Four (3)

After mapping out the entire process, he opened his eyes. A golden flame flashed and vanished in their depths.

"Let’s begin."

Ian placed both hands on the alloy floor and began to construct the Witch Array.

The moment his palms touched the Metal, the silver-white patterns on his skin flared to life.

Light flowed along the patterns, spilling across the floor like quicksilver, and swiftly covered the entire secret chamber.

The silver designs originally carved into the alloy plates were instantly activated.

They shifted from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, from inanimate objects to living things.

Silver threads rose from the floor, weaving and intertwining in the air, forming a complex, three-dimensional structure.

It looked like an inverted silver tree, its roots embedded in the floor, its trunk extending upward, and its branches spreading out in all directions.

At the end of each branch bloomed a silver flower, with a golden Source Crystal suspended at its center.

Four thousand eight hundred Source Crystals, four thousand eight hundred silver flowers.

The Witch Array activated, contracting and expanding in time with Ian’s heartbeat, like a living, beating heart.

Once all the Source Crystals were absorbed and the Gravity and Thermal Energy Rules reached 100%, the next step would be the condensation of the Star Core.

This was a long process. The closer a Rule got to its Late Stage, the slower the progression became.

And this was with the help of his panel. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to achieve this speed without several hundred years of effort.

Ian took a deep breath, and the "Star Core" in his chest began to accelerate its rotation.

One hundred thousand rotations, two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand...

The temperature soared rapidly: five hundred thousand degrees, one million degrees, two million degrees...

The terrifying high-temperature radiation was tightly bound within his body by the Gravity and Thermal Energy Rules, but a faint trace of its aura inevitably leaked out.

Any ordinary material would have vaporized by now, but this was a specially modified secret chamber.

The alloy walls began to glow red. The silver patterns on their surface lit up, frantically drawing Energy from the Source Crystals and converting it into layer upon layer of Shields, securely containing the intense heat within.

Outside the secret chamber, Wei Song shot to his feet, feeling the floor beneath him tremble.

Gaga flew up from his shoulder and hovered in mid-air, all its feathers puffed out.

The little creature stared at the Metal door, a low cry rumbling in its throat.

"It’s starting..." Wei Song muttered.

Within Ian’s Sea of Spirit, the panel silently appeared.

The Gravity Orbit began to climb from 63%: 64%, 65%, 66%...

The Thermal Energy Orbit followed close behind, while the three secondary orbits—Purification, Time, and Earth—grew in sync.

The Energy of the Source Crystals was extracted by the Witch Array, converted into the purest Power of Origin, and infused into Ian’s body through the silver "branches."

The golden crystals gradually dimmed. The first Source Crystal shattered, turning into fine golden dust that drifted down from its silver flower.

Then the second, the third, the fourth... The sounds were dense, like a torrential downpour on a tin roof.

Ian’s body began to change. The silver-white patterns on his skin gradually took on a golden hue.

Starting from his chest, the gold spread to cover his limbs, and finally, golden veins appeared even on his cheeks.

When the Gravity Orbit broke through 70%, the Miniature Star at the center of his Sea of Spirit abruptly expanded.

It grew from the size of a fist to the size of a basketball. The golden flames on its surface were no longer gentle, but violent and scorching.

Flames erupted, spreading through the Void and igniting everything around them.

The Gravity Orbit was ignited. The Thermal Energy Orbit was ignited. Purification, Time, and Earth—all of them were set ablaze.

The five Star Orbits melted and underwent Reorganization in the flames, finally transforming into five golden rings that encircled the Fixed Star.

The rings rotated, causing the Fixed Star to accelerate its own spin.

With each rotation, they drew some kind of invisible "fuel" from the Void, making the flames burn even brighter.

In the real world, the space within a ten-meter radius of Ian began to distort.

Gravity vanished. The air ceased to flow.

When sound reached the edge of this area, it was as if it had hit an invisible wall and was completely absorbed.

Even light became strange here. The originally faint golden glow was elongated and stretched, like chromatic aberration seen through a prism.

This was the prototype of a Rule Domain, far beyond what a Domain formed by Level Two Witchcraft could compare to.

But it was currently incomplete, a Rule Domain that had not yet taken its final form, yet it was already terrifying enough.

The alloy walls of the secret chamber let out a groaning CREAK as the silver patterns began to crack.

When the Thermal Energy Orbit surpassed 75%, Ian’s body completely transformed into a source of light.

He was not merely glowing; he himself was now composed of light.

Bones, muscles, organs, blood vessels... all his flesh and tissue were breaking down and undergoing Reorganization in the extreme heat.

He was making the leap from a carbon-based lifeform to one of pure Energy.

The process was excruciating, countless times more painful than death by a thousand cuts.

Every inch of his skin was burning, every bone was melting, and every wisp of his Soul was being seared by the flames.

But Ian’s expression remained calm. He even opened his eyes to watch his own hands turn transparent in the light.

He watched the blood vessels beneath his skin turn to light, and saw the golden streams of light flowing within them.

He watched the streams of light converge in his heart—an organ that had already become a Miniature Star—to complete their final circuit.

His flesh was being reborn, but the new "flesh" was no longer made of proteins and cells.

It was highly compressed Energy, a manifestation of the Rules themselves.

It was stellar matter projected into a living form.

「Outside the secret chamber.」

The vibrations grew stronger, and the entire underground chamber began to shake.

Outside, strange celestial phenomena began to appear.

At first, they went unnoticed, but the anomalies became more and more frequent, their scope growing ever larger...