Wreckage

Jingtian's body left a nearly invisible trail of faint light through the dim seawater. At the speed of a thousand-year soul beast, the journey back to his old nest was not long. Yet his heart felt heavier than the sea itself.

The appearance of humans, the power of Soul Emperors and Soul Saints, the Silver-Veined Thunder Eel's miserable death... those scenes had branded themselves into his mind, scorching his consciousness. The little complacency and comfort brought by a thousand years of cultivation had been utterly crushed.

He had to seize every opportunity and grow stronger at any cost!

The Silver-Veined Thunder Eel's remains... Although that group of soul masters had taken the most valuable horn, scales, and Soul Bone, plenty of flesh and bone fragments were still scattered across the site. They might not have been worth much to human soul masters, but to Jingtian, a soul beast with Devouring abilities, they remained an energy source that could not be ignored.

A powerful soul beast nearing two thousand years of cultivation possessed an immense amount of life essence. Even its scraps were far superior to an ordinary soul beast that had cultivated for only a few hundred years!

He returned after leaving.

Jingtian once again arrived at the devastated battlefield in the Black Stone Forest. The water was still filled with the scorched stench of lightning and the smell of blood, mixed with the strange lingering aura of human Soul Power. It instinctively made him feel disgusted and wary.

He did not act immediately. Instead, he pushed his senses to their limit and carefully scanned a radius of a thousand meters. Only after confirming that the group of soul masters had long since left and that no other danger lurked nearby did he slip into the heart of the battlefield like a ghost.

The Silver-Veined Thunder Eel's enormous body was gone. All that remained were fragments cut apart by soul skills, scorched by lightning, and frozen by ice crystals. The dark-blue flesh had lost its luster, becoming dull and shriveled. Broken bones lay blackened and shattered. Pieces of internal organs were even scattered among reef crevices and seabed sand.

The lightning-aspect energy within these remains was rapidly dissipating, but the vast life essence and foundation of thousand-year Soul Power they contained were still considerable.

Jingtian showed no disgust. Having struggled for survival at the very bottom and long grown accustomed to devouring all kinds of prey, he saw this as nothing more than another efficient meal.

His eight tentacles became nimble tools for digging and gathering, swiftly and silently collecting the larger chunks of flesh and bone that contained relatively concentrated energy. He did not even overlook the tiny scraps lodged in reef cracks or mixed into the sand, drawing them together with his suckers or washing them free with currents.

Before long, a small mound of dark-blue meat, blackened bones, and a few fragments of organs had piled up before him. The energy fluctuations were mixed and chaotic, carrying the aura of death, but the sheer quantity still made Jingtian's heart tremble.

He extended a tentacle and gently pressed it against the small mound.

Devouring began.

Unlike devouring living soul beasts, the energy in these remains was far more dead and violent. The life essence had long lost its vitality, while the Soul Power had become difficult to refine after the Silver-Veined Thunder Eel's death and the damage caused by soul skills. The lightning attribute within it was even filled with a destructive residual will.

The instant the energy entered his body, Jingtian felt an intense rejection and piercing pain. Violent fragments of lightning energy rampaged through his meridians, trying to tear everything apart. The dead life essence clogged his energy channels like heavy silt. Meanwhile, the Silver-Veined Thunder Eel's lingering fragments of consciousness, filled with resentment and unwillingness, clung to his mind like maggots on bone, attempting to disrupt his focus.

Hmph! Jingtian snorted inwardly as his thousand-year Soul Power roared into motion.

His Soul Power was no longer as soft and lingering as it had once been. It had been tempered through countless devourings and killings until it was like repeatedly forged steel—unyielding and domineering. As he drove it at full force, it became an invisible millstone that ruthlessly crushed the foreign energies invading his body.

At the same time, his Poison Source silently activated. The properties of the Neurotoxin could not only be used outwardly, but also to cleanse and suppress from within. Threads of dark-blue toxic power seeped into the energy flow, precisely catching and dissolving the chaotic lightning fragments and lingering consciousness, reducing them into the most fundamental, attribute-less particles of energy.

The Water-Condensing Pearl continuously released gentle, peaceful energy, stabilizing his mental core and resisting the impact of resentment.

It was a brutal and painful process. Jingtian's body trembled slightly, while the dark-blue rings along his surface flickered erratically—at times bright as stars, at times dark as an abyss. Yet his gaze, or rather his will, remained firm. He did not retreat in the slightest.

The efficiency was far lower than devouring living soul beasts, and the consumption was greater as well. But he had no other choice, nor could he afford to waste it.

Time passed little by little.

The small mound gradually shrank before finally vanishing completely, transformed into pure energy that Jingtian absorbed and refined.

When he slowly withdrew his tentacles and opened his eyes, his focused senses revealed that the Soul Power coursing through his body had clearly become a little more abundant, and the foundation of his thousand-year cultivation had grown more solid. Though it had not directly brought a massive leap in cultivation years, this kind of steady accumulation was equally precious.

It increased my cultivation foundation by roughly... fifty years. Jingtian silently estimated. Absorbing the remains of a soul beast close to two thousand years old had yielded only this much improvement. It seemed small, but considering that this was practically free loot and had further stabilized his newly broken-through thousand-year realm, it was already an unexpected gain.

More importantly, while refining that violent lightning energy, his resistance to lightning seemed to have improved by an almost imperceptible amount. His Poison Source also seemed to have faintly captured traces of lightning's swiftness and explosive nature. Though it was far from taking shape, perhaps he could one day incorporate it into his venom, increasing its speed and the instantaneous destructive force of its Penetration.

After finishing everything, Jingtian cleaned up the site once more, making sure not to leave any obvious trace of his devouring. Then, without lingering, he sped toward his nest.

The familiar fissure. The familiar underwater stone grotto.

After passing through layers of camouflage and venom-film defenses and entering this long-absent home once more, he found that little had changed since he left. Only his own scent had faded considerably, replaced by the stale, silent air unique to the Deep Sea. The spot where the Water-Condensing Pearl had originally rested was empty, making the ancient, heavy aura emanating from the fissure more obvious. It even seemed... more active than before he had left.

Jingtian had no time to think deeply about it. He returned the Water-Condensing Pearl he carried with him to its original place. Its soft blue glow once again lit one corner of the grotto, easing his tightly wound mind slightly.

His gaze, or rather his senses, immediately locked onto the deep vertical fissure in the grotto's side wall.

Back then, his cultivation had been weak. He could only absorb the gentle aura naturally leaking from it, and the slightest attempt to go deeper had filled him with dread and danger. Now, he was already a thousand-year soul beast, and neither his Soul Power nor Spirit Energy could compare to what they once were. More importantly, external pressure—the threat of human soul masters—made him desperately need greater strength, even if it meant taking risks.

He slowly swam closer to the fissure. The venom film he had placed over the entrance remained intact, isolating the auras on either side. But now, he could clearly feel that the ancient, heavy, domineering energy fluctuation from beyond the film, carrying a strange attraction, was several times stronger than he remembered.

It was as though... whatever lay in the depths of the fissure had also undergone some kind of change while he was gone. Or perhaps his increased cultivation had made his senses sharper?

Jingtian did not immediately break the venom film. First, he raised his sensory power to its limit and cautiously sent it through the film, probing into the depths of the fissure.

It was still that narrow passage winding downward toward an unknown destination. But this time, his senses could reach farther. After descending roughly a hundred meters along the fissure passage, the space ahead suddenly opened up, seemingly connected to a much larger underground chamber. The source of that ancient, heavy energy was within that space, and it faintly emitted a rhythmic pulse, like the slow heartbeat of a sleeping beast!

What made Jingtian's mind tighten even more was that within that pulse, he sensed an extremely obscure yet inherently elevated... toxicity! It shared the same origin as his own Neurotoxin, yet was older and more domineering, carrying a will of poison that seemed capable of corroding the laws themselves!

There truly was a great secret hidden in the depths of this fissure! And it was very likely connected to poison!

Opportunity often existed alongside risk. Whatever was deep within the fissure was clearly extremely dangerous, but the fortune it contained might also far exceed his imagination. Perhaps this was the key that would allow him to quickly catch up to—and even surpass—those powerful human soul masters!

Jingtian drew in a breath of seawater, and the dark-blue light in his eyes blazed.

He extended his tentacles and began slowly adjusting and reinforcing the venom-film defense at the entrance, transforming it into a more complex access barrier marked with a specific Soul Power imprint. He had to ensure the safety of the nest's outer perimeter while he explored.

At the same time, he began adjusting his own condition, bringing his Soul Power and Poison Source to their peak while keeping his Spirit Energy senses on high alert.

He decided to enter the depths of the fissure and investigate it thoroughly!

Not for its gentle nourishment, but to confront that ancient source directly and seize whatever greater power might exist there!

The Deep Sea was filled with dangers on all sides. Ahead were human soul masters watching like tigers, while behind lay the unfathomable mystery of the fissure.

But Jingtian, this Blue-Ringed Octopus that had struggled up from the very lowest depths, had long grown accustomed to walking along a blade's edge.

His tentacles lightly touched the venom film he had modified.

The exploration began.