Silence

Absolute darkness, eternal cold.

Time lost all meaning within Jingtian's nearly frozen state of life. His consciousness had sunk into the abyss of nothingness. No dreams, no pain, no sensation—only the most primal obsession with "existing," like a dying star at the edge of the universe, sustaining the faintest, nearly nonexistent pull of gravity.

The Western Silent Sea Abyss's nest returned to dead silence. Only the faint sound of seawater slowly flowing remained, along with... deep within that crack, the Scorpion Tail Soul Bone, whose glow had dimmed but which still emanated a uniquely heavy, condensed aura.

The Soul Bone lay quietly beside the skeleton. Its vitality had been greatly depleted by the previous energy storm, and its energy level had fallen to the equivalent of merely a twenty- or thirty-thousand-year Soul Bone. Yet it was, after all, an External Soul Bone, a condensation of rules and immense energy. Within it still lay vast, pure source Soul Power from an ancient master of the poison path. That Soul Power had merely fallen silent, like a frozen ocean; it had not vanished.

No one knew how long passed. Perhaps days, perhaps months.

Within Jingtian's absolutely dormant, cold, rigid body, at the deepest point of the Poison Source, that core spark of spirituality—which had briefly resonated with the Soul Bone and had likewise fallen into Silence after being drained by Dan-Devour—suddenly pulsed, ever so faintly.

No consciousness drove it. It was more like a final struggle born from life's instincts in the face of absolute desperation, or perhaps a hungry pull from the depths of that spark of spirituality toward energy of the same origin.

Not long ago, that spark of spirituality and the Scorpion Tail Soul Bone had formed a brief yet profound "connection" through the sacrificed tentacle. Though that connection had nearly broken due to the tentacle's destruction and the energy impact, at the deepest level of energy and rules, a barely perceptible lingering trace of an "imprint" or "resonance" still remained.

Now, with Jingtian's life functions nearly halted and every defense and barrier of will reduced to nothing, that faint pulse of spirituality was like a nearly rotten drum struck in absolute silence.

Thump...

That imperceptible lingering resonance seemed to have been activated by the sound of that "drum."

It was not that the Soul Bone actively did anything. It was more like an unconscious "seepage" and "filling" on a purely energetic level, just as a highly concentrated solution naturally diffused toward an area of lower concentration, just as a vacuum naturally tended to be filled by matter.

Within the Soul Bone, that silent, vast, pure Soul Power began to follow the nearly nonexistent "trace of resonance," flowing toward Jingtian's nearly empty, dying body in wisps and threads, with extreme slowness and subtlety, like water molecules passing through a semipermeable membrane.

There was no violent infusion, no agonizing impact.

Only silent, cold, deathly "nourishment."

As this Soul Power entered Jingtian's body, it was not immediately absorbed or refined. His body was already "dead"; his meridians were blocked, and his Soul Power circulation had stagnated. The energy merely settled within him, accumulating in his cold blood, between his rigid muscle fibers, and across the ruins of his withered meridians and Soul Power core.

Like a riverbed dried up for countless ages, it had begun to receive exceedingly thin drops of rain from the sky. The rain could not immediately restore life to the riverbed; it merely slowly dampened the sand on its surface.

But this "rain" was the source Soul Power of the Scorpion Tail External Soul Bone, energy refined through countless trials by its former owner and containing a trace of the Poison Rule. Its quality was exceptionally high. Moreover, it possessed a natural affinity with Jingtian's poison-attributed origin.

As this Soul Power settled and accumulated bit by bit, quantitative change began to produce an exceedingly slow qualitative transformation.

The first thing to "come alive" was that spark of spirituality at the deepest point of Jingtian's Poison Source. Like an ember about to go out, it had received the purest "fuel" of the same attribute. The supply was agonizingly slow, but it was continuous, stable, and of extraordinary quality.

The spark's "burning" became slightly more stable, and its "perception" of the outside world—not consciousness, but more like an energetic sense of touch—recovered by the faintest degree.

It "sensed" the path through which the Soul Power flowed in.

Instinctively, it began trying to guide the incoming Soul Power. Not toward striking or repairing his grievously wounded body—that would require vast amounts of Soul Power and active control, neither of which it possessed—but toward nourishing and connecting itself, stabilizing that undying ember.

This process was even slower and more difficult than the natural seepage of Soul Power. Yet it continued.

The Soul Power within the Soul Bone continued, even in Silence, to slowly "flow" outward without end. It was like a tireless, cold water pump, unconsciously providing another dying existence with the "water" needed to preserve its final thread of life.

Jingtian's condition did not immediately improve because of this. He remained in absolute dormancy, his body cold and rigid, his injuries unchanged. But on the most fundamental energy level, he had stopped sliding toward the abyss of complete death. That spark of spirituality was like an insect sealed in amber at absolute zero; because threads of external energy from the same origin seeped into it, the final signs of life stopped dissipating.

It was a strange balance:

Unconsciously, the Soul Bone continuously depleted its own dormant Soul Power, and its vitality slowly declined.

Unconsciously, Jingtian passively received that Soul Power, maintaining his final spark of life.

Between them, a one-sided, silent relationship of "parasitism" or "nourishment" formed, based on their energy levels. Jingtian was the dying, oblivious "parasite," while the Soul Bone was the silent, passive "host."

Time continued to pass at the nearly frozen pace unique to the Deep Sea.

Perhaps half a year passed. Perhaps a year.

The Soul Bone's Soul Power accumulated within Jingtian's body until it reached a critical point. That nourished spark of spirituality seemed to have grown slightly stronger, and its ability to "guide" the flow of Soul Power had increased by an almost negligible amount.

It began attempting to use this feeble strength to "touch" the closest thing to it—the ruins of the Poison Source, Jingtian's core of life.

The Poison Source had long since run dry and shattered, like a demolished furnace. The spark of spirituality guided threads of Soul Power into those ruins like the tiniest streams, not to repair them, but merely to moisten them.

Miraculously—or rather, naturally—because this Soul Power itself contained the rule of "poison" and shared the same origin as Jingtian's Poison Source. After flowing into the ruins of the Poison Source, it did not cause conflict or disperse. Instead, like wanderers returning home, it naturally combined with and settled into the most fundamental residual particles of poison power within the ruins.

At the center of the Poison Source's ruins, where that spark of spirituality resided, a tiny yet exceptionally pure and condensed dark-purple point of light began to gather. This point of light was formed through the natural fusion and settling of the Soul Bone's Soul Power and the remnants of Jingtian's own Poison Source during the long Silence.

It was weak. It was slow. But it was "growing."

Jingtian's vital signs still showed no indication of "coming back to life." Yet if an expert proficient in life and energy detection were here and examined him with the utmost precision, they would discover an exceedingly faint, cold, slowly beating "pulse" within the energy core of this "corpse," which should have been utterly silent.

It was the pulse of spirituality, a sign that energy was gathering anew amid Silence.

He was no longer "about to die." Instead, he had entered an even deeper state of "energetic suspended death," sustained by external Soul Power. Awakening remained far away, but complete death had been temporarily delayed as well.

Until one day, when the Soul Power within the Soul Bone had been depleted by "seepage" to a certain extent, or some drastic change in the outside world shattered this silent balance.

The Deep Sea was soundless, the crack dim and shadowed.

In this unknown corner, the ancient Soul Bone and the even more ancient Poison Hunter maintained a silent, one-sided symbiosis in a strange manner.

The hunt continued in the quietest way possible.

Only this time, the prey was the dormant Soul Power within the Soul Bone, while the hunter was the Poison Beast that had itself fallen into eternal slumber, feeding only through its last remaining instinct.