Awakening

The icy "slumber" lasted for an unknown number of years.

Within that absolute deathly silence and darkness, the only thing clear was the slow, constant "nourishment" of the Soul Bone's Soul Power, like an undercurrent in the Deep Sea. It silently seeped into Jingtian's parched meridians, repairing his shattered Poison Source and nurturing that indestructible spark of spirit.

One year, two years... ten years, twenty years...

The nest in the Western Silent Sea Abyss had long been tightly enveloped by high-level surveillance formations set up by Sea God Island. Yet these formations detected "life fluctuations," "Soul Power reactions," and "abnormal energy eruptions." At this moment, Jingtian's vital signs were nearly nonexistent, his Soul Power fluctuations almost completely merged with the silent Soul Bone, and his energy was restrained to the utmost degree. To the formations' senses, this place was merely a slightly more energy-active "fossil," or the natural dissipation of residual energy from a Soul Bone. It was not worth special attention.

Within Sea God Island, the upper ranks argued endlessly due to Sea Horse Douluo's grave injuries and Luo Kes's unhealed old wounds. The radicals advocated forcibly breaking through the formation to investigate, but the cautious faction led by Sea Dragon Douluo ultimately prevailed. They believed the Poison Beast had most likely perished together with Sea Horse Douluo during their clash, or had been gravely wounded and left dying from the Soul Bone's backlash. Forcing their way in might trigger unforeseeable dangers, such as the Soul Bone destroying itself or unknown traps, and would also expose the formation's existence. The final decision was to maintain the highest level of surveillance without entering proactively, reassessing the situation every ten years.

This gave Jingtian the most precious thing of all: undisturbed time to recover.

In the twenty-eighth year.

Jingtian's "Spirit Core," which had long grown stronger and more solid under the Soul Bone's Soul Power, like a deep black crystal, suddenly trembled lightly.

It was not external stimulation, but a natural sense of fullness rising from within. Like a sleeping seed that had absorbed enough water and pushed through the last sliver of its hard shell.

"Buzz..."

An imperceptible ripple spread through Jingtian's body. His enormous, cold body, which had lain silent for twenty-eight years, seemed to contain a rusted ancient machine in its deepest recesses. It had received its first drop of lubricant and let out, after an eternity, an incomparably labored... first "start."

The first thing to return was his inner vision.

Jingtian "saw" the state of his body. His meridians were still covered in cracks, but they had been filled and bonded together by dense, dark-purple, refined Soul Power like gelatin. His once-shattered Poison Source had been reformed into a slowly rotating vortex as profound as a black hole. At its center lay his ink-black Spirit Core. And from a special region within the Poison Source vortex extended a brand-new energy channel that had never existed before. At the end of that channel was the Scorpion Tail Soul Bone, whose vitality had greatly diminished but which still resonated with him on the deepest level of energy.

The Soul Bone had changed as well. It was no longer the original, complete, ferocious scorpion-tail shape. Instead, it had softened, lengthened, and deformed, its overall outline becoming closer to... a tentacle. Yet this "tentacle" was matte black throughout, neither bone nor flesh in texture, gleaming with a cold, restrained luster. Extremely faint spiral patterns, seemingly formed by nature itself, covered its surface. It floated quietly beside the skeleton, waiting to "connect."

Immediately afterward, an exceedingly faint sense of perception began to return, like the slightest current beneath ice. He "felt" the coldness and pressure of the seawater, "felt" the roughness of the rock beneath him, and "felt"... the presence of a new, additional "limb," originating from that black tentacle awaiting connection. It carried a desire for energy, extension, and control.

Last came the complete return of consciousness.

There was no violent headache, no chaos of memories. There was only clarity and indifference slowly thawing after an eternal freeze. Twenty-eight years of silence felt like nothing more than a long, cold dream. In that dream, the only thing he had done was "devour" the Soul Bone's Soul Power. Now that the dream had ended, the instincts of a predator and the cold will tempered through life and death instantly took command. The newborn urge to control that ninth limb was equally clear.

Slowly and with immense difficulty, he tried to mobilize that new black tentacle.

He failed. The connection had not yet been fully established. It was like a tool placed at his side: though it "belonged" to him, it had not yet been "installed."

He was not anxious. Twenty-eight years of "feeding" and recovery had brought his patience to an inhuman level. Like the most precise craftsman, he used the Spirit Core as his control center and guided a newly born strand of refined Soul Power from the Poison Source along that new energy channel, slowly toward the black tentacle formed from the Soul Bone.

The instant the Soul Power touched the tentacle, it was as if a key had entered a lock.

"Hiss..."

A faint sound, like flesh growing, rang out on the spiritual level. The "root" of the black tentacle began to melt and deform, growing into and merging with a specific location on Jingtian's back near the roots of his original eight tentacles. The corresponding area on Jingtian's body also underwent adaptive changes, opening new control nerves, Soul Power circuits, and muscle connection points.

This was not a crude graft, but a slow, two-way fusion and reconstruction on the level of life itself. The Soul Bone was becoming a true part of Jingtian's body, a brand-new and independent Ninth Tentacle. Meanwhile, Jingtian's Poison Source, Spirit Energy, and bloodline were thoroughly transforming and defining every detail of this new limb, imprinting it with a mark belonging solely to "Jingtian."

The process came with persistent numb itching and stabbing pain that sank into his bones. But for Jingtian, who had endured countless hardships, it was entirely bearable and even carried a kind of pleasure of rebirth.

Five days later.

The fusion was initially complete.

Slightly above the roots of Jingtian's original eight thick, powerful tentacles, dark with purple ring patterns, there was now a new tentacle. It was somewhat slimmer, but its lines were smooth, its entire body pitch-black, and it glimmered with a cold matte sheen. Like the other tentacles, it extended naturally from his torso and possessed a complete tentacle structure: base, main body, and suckers. Yet its texture was clearly different, tougher, as though woven from some kind of living black metal and bone. Within it, complex energy channels and neural networks were no different from those of the other tentacles, yet more efficient and precise. Its tip in particular had a more complex structure, with faint nodes where energy gathered.

This was the Ninth Tentacle formed from the initially refined Scorpion Tail Soul Bone. It had become an inseparable part of Jingtian's body, capable of being flexibly controlled like his other tentacles, sensing contact and transmitting force. But it had also retained some of the Soul Bone's traits: greater energy conductivity, physical defense, and an innate affinity for the laws of "poison" and "Silence."

The instant the "Ninth Tentacle" fully took shape, the silent Poison Source vortex within Jingtian seemed to receive intense stimulation and suddenly accelerated! An energy far more refined and tyrannical than what he had absorbed from the Soul Bone before flowed back from the root of the Ninth Tentacle, rushing in reverse through the energy channel into the Poison Source! This was the final and most essential power of origin released after the Soul Bone had completely merged into his life system.

Boom—!

Driven by this high-quality energy of the same origin, Jingtian's cultivation violently broke through the eighty-thousand-year threshold! Though he had only just entered that realm and his foundation was unstable, he had truly reached the level of an Eighty-Thousand-Year Soul Beast! The color of his Poison Source became deeper, while the spark of spirit at the vortex's center grew stronger and more solid, radiating more powerful Spirit Energy fluctuations.

At the same time, an entirely new and powerful "limb sense" filled Jingtian's mind. With a thought from him.

That black Ninth Tentacle shot out like the most agile venomous snake, carving an almost invisible afterimage through the water. It precisely "touched" a tiny protrusion on a distant rock wall, then snapped back like lightning. Its speed was astonishing, and its control exquisitely precise, far surpassing his other tentacles!

With another thought, he infused a trace of weak venomous power into the Ninth Tentacle.

At its tip, a point of profound darkness that reflected almost no light began to gather, emitting a heart-pounding "pull," as though it could devour even the surrounding light. This was the result of the Soul Bone's Silence trait merging with his own venomous power.

He then tried using the Ninth Tentacle to coil and exert force. Its toughness and strength were clearly superior to those of his other tentacles, and it transmitted Soul Power with almost no loss.

"Perfect..." A ripple of satisfaction surfaced within Jingtian's cold consciousness. This Ninth Tentacle was not merely an additional limb for attacking and moving. It was also a natural, powerful amplifier, controller, and launching platform for energy and venomous power. It provided an exceptional, innate physical foundation for guiding and even firing them.

More importantly, as his cultivation broke through and the Ninth Tentacle was forged, his perception, silent for twenty-eight years, seemed to break free of its final shackle and abruptly expanded outward!

Ten li... fifty li... one hundred li!

The structure inside the nest, the faint energy nodes of the surveillance formation set up by Sea God Island, the low-level Sea Soul Beasts wandering outside the nest, and even subtle energy disturbances in the distant seawater... all were clearly reflected in his "heart."

He "saw" it. About three hundred meters outside the nest entrance, embedded in an inconspicuous crack in the reef, was a fist-sized dark-blue crystal that emitted continuous, concealed detection pulses. It was precisely one of the surveillance formation nodes of Sea God Island.

He also "sensed" that farther out in the sea, dozens of li away, several relatively powerful Soul Power fluctuations were slowly patrolling. The strongest among them was roughly equivalent to a human Soul Saint. They should be Sea God Island's regular patrol team.

"Surveillance... patrols..." Jingtian's thoughts were cold. In his current state, he had recovered only ten percent of his Soul Power, had just entered the eighty-thousand-year realm, and had forged the Ninth Tentacle. Yet his body remained heavy, and his combat power was likely only twenty or thirty percent of its prime. Forget a Title Douluo—even if a peak Soul Douluo came, he would only be able to flee for his life.

He could not force his way out, and he could not expose himself.

His perception locked onto that surveillance formation node. The detection pulses emitted by the node were sensitive to life and Soul Power reactions. He needed to test whether his newly acquired Ninth Tentacle, along with the concealment ability gained after integrating the Soul Bone's Silence trait, could deceive it.

With a slight movement of Jingtian's thoughts, the black Ninth Tentacle moved as if it possessed an independent life. Soundlessly, it crept along the shadows of the seabed, pressed against the rock wall, "spreading" toward the node at an extremely slow speed that barely stirred the water. He suppressed his own Soul Power and venomous power to their lowest levels while activating Guixu Assimilation, perfectly simulating the Ninth Tentacle's aura and energy fluctuations as a slowly moving patch of "Deep Sea mud" carrying faint sedimented Soul Power, or decaying seaweed.

The Ninth Tentacle moved as slowly as a snail, taking nearly two hours to travel less than a hundred meters and enter the node's detection range.

The node's detection pulse swept over the black tentacle.

There was no reaction. The pulse remained as steady as before, apparently identifying it as part of the environmental background.

The Ninth Tentacle continued to approach slowly. At last, it stopped roughly ten meters from the node. The tip of the tentacle lifted slightly and aimed at the node. Then it released a strand of exceedingly faint Spirit Energy fluctuation, nearly identical in frequency to the node's detection pulses.

This was a probing "resonance" and "analysis." The precise energy structure within the Ninth Tentacle gave it the ability to finely imitate and analyze energy fluctuations.

A few breaths later, Jingtian received the feedback: the node had a single function, a fixed detection pattern, and was insensitive to low-intensity, slow-moving objects simulating the environment. There was also an information delay between nodes.

"It can be done." Jingtian's mind settled. This meant that as long as he controlled his speed, maintained perfect concealment and energy simulation, and made use of complex terrain, he could possibly deceive this surveillance network and leave without a sound.

Of course, the risk remained. But he had to leave. This place was no longer safe, and the Soul Bone had been completely refined into part of his body. He needed a broader space and richer "prey" to rapidly recover his strength and begin the revenge and plans he had been brewing for centuries.

Jingtian cast one final "look" at the nest that carried too many of his memories. Then, slowly, he began compressing his massive body at a speed even slower than a Sea Cucumber Douluo's wriggle. At the same time, he pushed Guixu Assimilation to its limit and relied mainly on the newly born Ninth Tentacle—with its more exquisite control over energy—as his guide and scout. It parted the faint currents, corrected his path, and led him bit by bit toward the gap at the nest entrance watched by the surveillance node.

His other eight tentacles, like cumbersome dependents, were drawn along and coordinated by the Ninth Tentacle's deft power.

At this moment, that black Ninth Tentacle was not only a weapon or a detector. It was also the vanguard and helmsman leading him out of his cage.

The awakened Poison Beast, carrying his newborn, deadly "ninth limb," returned to the hunting grounds of the Deep Sea.

And this time, every inch of his body was steeped in the poison of vengeance and the Silence waiting to erupt.