Awakening

His cold "slumber" had lasted for untold years.

In that absolute stillness and darkness, the only clear sensation 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, repaired his shattered poison source, and nurtured that undying spark of spirit.

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

The lair in the Western Silent Sea Abyss had long since been enveloped by high-level surveillance arrays laid down by Sea God Island. But those arrays detected "signs of life," "Soul Power reactions," and "abnormal energy eruptions." At this moment, Jingtian's vital signs were almost nonexistent, his Soul Power fluctuations had all but merged with the dormant Soul Bone, and his energy was drawn inward to the utmost. To the arrays, this place resembled a "fossil" with slightly active energy, or the natural dissipation of a Soul Bone's residual energy, nothing worthy of particular attention.

Within Sea God Island, the leadership argued incessantly over Sea Horse Douluo's severe injuries and Luo Kes's lingering ailment. The hardliners advocated forcibly breaking through the array to investigate, but the cautious faction led by Sea Dragon Douluo ultimately prevailed. They believed the poison beast had most likely perished along with his opponent in the clash with Haima, or had been gravely wounded and brought to death's door by the Soul Bone's backlash. Forcing their way inside could trigger unpredictable dangers, such as the Soul Bone destroying itself or unknown traps, and would expose the array's presence. Their final decision was to maintain surveillance at the highest level without actively entering, reassessing the situation once every ten years.

This gave Jingtian what he needed most: uninterrupted time to recover.

In the twenty-eighth year.

Jingtian's "spirit core," which had long since grown stronger and denser under the nourishment of the Soul Bone's Soul Power, resembling a profound black crystal, suddenly trembled.

It was not an external stimulus, but a sense of "fullness" rising from within, as natural as water flowing into a channel. Like a sleeping seed that had drunk its fill and pushed through the last hard layer of its shell.

"Hmm..."

An almost imperceptible ripple spread through Jingtian's body. In the deepest recesses of that enormous, icy body that had lain dormant for twenty-eight years, an ancient, rusted machine seemed to receive its first drop of oil, making its first agonizingly sluggish... "start" after an eternity.

The first thing to return was his inner sight.

Jingtian "saw" the state of his body: his meridians were still riddled with cracks, but a dense, dark-purple, pure Soul Power filled and bound them like adhesive; his once-shattered poison source had now reformed into a slowly revolving vortex, as unfathomable as a black hole, with his ink-black spirit core at its center; from a particular region of that vortex extended a wholly new energy channel, one he had never possessed before, whose far end connected to the Scorpion Tail Soul Bone, its vitality greatly diminished but still resonating with him on the deepest energetic level.

The Soul Bone's appearance had changed as well. It no longer possessed its original, savage, intact scorpion-tail form. Instead, it had softened, lengthened, and deformed, its overall outline becoming more like... a tentacle. Yet this "tentacle" was matte black from end to end, its substance neither bone nor flesh, bearing a cold, subdued sheen. Its surface held exceedingly fine spiral patterns that seemed naturally formed, and it floated quietly beside his skeletal remains, waiting to be "connected."

Next, exceedingly faint sensations began to return, like the slightest trickles of water beneath a layer of ice. He "felt" the cold and pressure of the seawater, "felt" the roughness of the rock beneath him, and "felt"... the presence of an entirely new, additional "limb," coming from the black tentacle awaiting connection. It carried a yearning for energy, for extension, for control.

Finally, his consciousness returned in full.

There was no splitting headache, no confusion of memories, only the clarity and indifference of ice slowly thawing after an eternity. Twenty-eight years of dormancy seemed no 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 he had awakened, his predatory instincts and the ruthless will tempered through life and death instantly took command. And his newfound desire to control that ninth limb was just as clear.

Slowly, with immense difficulty, he tried to move the new black tentacle.

He failed. The connection had not yet fully formed. It was like a tool lying beside him: although it "belonged" to him, it had not yet been "installed."

He was not anxious. Twenty-eight years of "feeding" and repair had brought his patience to an inhuman level. Like the most meticulous craftsman, he used his spirit core as a control center and guided a newly born strand of pure Soul Power from his poison source along the new energy channel, slowly toward the black tentacle formed from the Soul Bone.

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

"Hiss..."

A faint sound, like flesh growing, rang out on the level of his soul. The "root" of the black tentacle began to melt and reshape, growing into and merging with a specific spot on Jingtian's back near the roots of his original eight tentacles. The corresponding region of his body also underwent adaptive changes in flesh and bone, developing new control nerves, Soul Power circuits, and muscular attachment points.

This was no crude graft, but a slow, reciprocal fusion and reconstruction at the level of life itself. The Soul Bone was becoming a true part of Jingtian's body, a wholly new, independent ninth tentacle. Meanwhile, Jingtian's poison source, spirit energy, and bloodline were thoroughly transforming and defining every detail of this new limb, stamping it with a mark belonging to "Jingtian" alone.

The process came with constant tingling and stabbing pain that reached deep into his marrow, but for Jingtian, who had weathered so many ordeals, it was entirely bearable. It even carried a sense of joy at being born anew.

Five days later.

The initial fusion was complete.

Slightly above the roots of Jingtian's original eight thick, powerful, dark tentacles with their purple rings, a new tentacle had appeared. It was somewhat slender, but its contours were sleek, its entire length jet-black with a cold, matte sheen. Like his other tentacles, it extended naturally from his torso and possessed a complete tentacle structure—base, main body, and suckers—but its substance was distinctly different, tougher, as though woven from some living black metal and bone. Within it, intricate energy channels and neural networks resembled those of his other tentacles, yet were more efficient and precise. Its tip was especially complex, with faintly discernible nodes where energy gathered.

This was the ninth tentacle, formed from the initially refined Scorpion Tail Soul Bone. It was already an inseparable part of Jingtian's body, capable of moving as flexibly as his other tentacles, sensing touch, and transmitting force. Yet it retained some of the Soul Bone's traits: superior energy conductivity, physical defense, and a natural affinity for the laws of "poison" and "stillness."

The instant the "Ninth Tentacle" fully took shape, the dormant poison-source vortex within Jingtian seemed to receive some powerful stimulus and abruptly spun faster! A surge of energy far purer and more domineering than the Soul Power he had previously absorbed from the Soul Bone fed back from the root of the "Ninth Tentacle," rushing backward along the energy channel into his poison source! It was the final and most fundamental power of origin released after the Soul Bone fully merged into his living system.

Boom—!

Driven by this high-quality energy of the same origin, Jingtian's cultivation forcefully broke through the eighty-thousand-year threshold! Although he had only just entered it and his realm remained unstable, he had unquestionably reached the level of an Eighty-Thousand-Year Soul Beast! His poison source grew deeper in color, and the spark of spirit at the vortex's center became much stronger and denser, emitting more powerful spirit-energy fluctuations.

At the same time, a new and powerful "sense of a limb" filled Jingtian's awareness. With a slight shift of his intent.

The black ninth tentacle shot out like the most agile venomous snake, tracing an almost invisible afterimage through the water. It precisely "touched" a tiny protrusion on a distant rock wall, then withdrew like lightning. Its speed was astonishing, its control exquisite, far surpassing his other tentacles!

With another thought, he injected a faint thread of poisonous power into the Ninth Tentacle.

At the tip of the Ninth Tentacle, a speck of profound darkness that reflected almost no light began to gather, exuding a heart-stopping "pull," as though it would devour even the surrounding light. This was the manifestation of the Soul Bone's "stillness" trait combining with his own poisonous power.

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

Perfect... A faint ripple of satisfaction passed through Jingtian's icy thoughts. This Ninth Tentacle was not merely an additional limb for attacking and moving. It was also a natural, powerful amplifier of energy and poisonous power, a controller, and a launching platform. It provided an exceptional, innate physical foundation for guiding and even firing them.

More importantly, with his breakthrough in cultivation and the refinement of the "Ninth Tentacle," his perception, dormant for twenty-eight years, seemed to shed its final shackle and surged outward!

A radius of ten li... fifty li... a hundred li!

The lair's internal structure, the faint energy nodes of Sea God Island's surveillance arrays, the low-level sea soul beasts roaming outside, and even minute energy disturbances in more distant waters... all were clearly reflected in his "mind."

He "saw" a fist-sized, deep-blue crystal embedded in an inconspicuous crevice among the reefs roughly three hundred meters outside the lair's entrance. It emitted continuous, concealed probing fluctuations—one of the nodes of Sea God Island's surveillance array.

He also "sensed" several relatively powerful Soul Power fluctuations slowly patrolling waters several dozen li farther away. The strongest was roughly equivalent to a human Soul Saint. It was probably one of Sea God Island's regular patrols.

Surveillance... patrols... Jingtian's thoughts were cold. In his current condition, he had recovered a tenth of his Soul Power, just entered the eighty-thousand-year realm, and refined the Ninth Tentacle, but his body remained heavy. His combat strength was probably only twenty or thirty percent of what it had been at his peak. Never mind a Titled Douluo—even against a Peak Soul Douluo, his only option would be to flee for his life.

I cannot force my way out. I cannot expose myself.

His perception locked onto that surveillance-array node. The probing fluctuations it emitted were sensitive to life and Soul Power reactions. He needed to test whether his newly acquired Ninth Tentacle and his concealment abilities, now infused with the Soul Bone's stillness trait, could deceive it.

With a slight shift of Jingtian's intent, the black ninth tentacle silently "crept" toward the node as though it possessed a life of its own, following the shadows along the seabed and hugging the rock wall at an exceedingly slow speed that barely disturbed the water. He suppressed his Soul Power and poisonous power to the minimum while activating Guixu Assimilation, perfectly mimicking the aura and energy fluctuations of a slowly moving patch of "deep-sea sludge" or "rotting seaweed" containing faint deposits of Soul Power.

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

The node's probing fluctuations swept across the black tentacle.

There was no reaction. The fluctuations remained steady, seemingly identifying it as part of the environmental background.

The Ninth Tentacle continued its slow approach, finally stopping roughly ten meters from the node. Its tip rose slightly and aimed at the node, then released an exceedingly faint strand of spirit-energy fluctuations at a frequency almost identical to the node's probing waves.

This was an exploratory attempt at "resonance" and "analysis." The precise energy structures within the Ninth Tentacle granted it the ability to imitate and analyze energy fluctuations in such fine detail.

A few breaths later, Jingtian received feedback: the node served a single function, its detection pattern was fixed, and it was insensitive to low-intensity, slow-moving objects that mimicked the environment. Information transmission between nodes was delayed.

It will work. Jingtian steadied his mind. This meant that, provided he controlled his speed, maintained perfect concealment and energy mimicry, and took advantage of the complex terrain, he might deceive this surveillance network and leave without a sound.

Of course, risks remained. But he had to leave. This place was no longer safe, and the Soul Bone had been fully refined into part of his body. He needed broader territory and more abundant "prey" to restore his strength swiftly and begin the... vengeance and schemes he had been brewing for centuries.

Jingtian took one final "look" at the lair that held so many of his memories. Then, slowly, at a pace even slower than a sea cucumber's crawl, he began compressing his enormous body while driving Guixu Assimilation to its limit. Relying primarily on his newly born ninth tentacle, with its finer control over energy, as his guide and scout, he parted the faintest currents and corrected his course, "sliding" little by little toward the crevice at the lair's entrance under the surveillance node's "gaze."

His other eight tentacles followed like cumbersome attendants, guided and coordinated by the Ninth Tentacle's delicate strength.

At this moment, the black Ninth Tentacle was not only a weapon and a detector, but also the vanguard and helmsman of his escape from this cage.

The awakened poison beast returned to the hunting grounds of the deep sea, bearing his newly born, lethal "ninth limb."

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