I Can Absorb Nine More Soul Rings, Shocking the Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts!

"I can," Xiao Shenghe said.

His voice was quiet, yet it was like a smooth jade hammer tapping gently against a crack in an icy shell.

He looked at no one. Instead, he slowly lowered his gaze to his open right palm.

His fingers were long and slender, their joints well defined. In the valley's faint light, his hand had the healthy color of youth.

Then those five fingers began to curl inward, one by one, with excruciating slowness.

His thumb touched his palm first, followed by his forefinger, his middle finger... His ring finger and little finger closed last.

The movement was light and slow. It was as though he were not making a fist, but carefully cupping an invisible pool of mercury in the air, one that weighed a thousand jun.

Every bend of every knuckle drew the eyes of all those present.

Only when that loosely closed fist had settled steadily at his side did he look up again, across the short distance between them, at the Clouded Deer matriarch.

There was no edge of youthful triumph in his eyes, nor any feigned humility. There was only a heavy sincerity, almost like a confession laid bare.

He spoke clearly, each word landing with weight:

"I can absorb nine more Soul Rings."

"What!"

The dozens of Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts around them froze in shock.

"Nine..."

For the first time, a crack appeared in the matriarch's ethereal voice.

It was not a complete word, but the lingering echo of a lovely note abruptly cut short.

Her elegant human form, which she had maintained throughout, suddenly trembled.

It was no great sway, but a minute, uncontrollable tremor from her shoulders to her waist. It was as if the spiritual ground beneath her feet, which had nourished the Clouded Deer for ten thousand years, had turned to quicksand in an instant and was slowly swallowing her.

The faint glow around her, a symbol of auspiciousness and wisdom, flickered wildly like starlight scattered by a gale.

Her eyes, always filled with quiet grace and gentle wisdom, widened to their limit. Xiao Shenghe's calm face was clearly reflected in her lucid pupils, but deep within them, waves of horror surged and crashed with unprecedented fury, as though a boulder had been hurled into a deep pool.

She even drifted half a step forward without realizing it.

That instinctive movement, almost a loss of her matriarchal composure, abruptly narrowed the distance between her and Xiao Shenghe.

She tried to speak again, but her voice seemed to pass through a trembling curtain of water:

"You... you mean... nine?"

She stared fixedly into Xiao Shenghe's eyes, as though she could dig the truth of his words out of them. She spoke one word at a time, each syllable heavy with disbelief and a tremor from the depths of her soul that even she had not noticed:

"Nine... whole... additional Soul Ring slots?"

"This... how can this be possible..."

Her voice fell, as though she were speaking to herself—or questioning the ancient laws themselves.

"Since records began in ancient times, the foundation of a Soul Master, the limit of Soul Rings... never... never..."

"Clouded Deer matriarch."

A deep, steady voice took hold of the silence before it could shatter.

Sword Douluo Chen Xin stepped forward half a pace, his silver hair stirring without wind.

He released no pressure from his Soul Power. Yet the calm presence of a man who had weathered the years and witnessed countless rises and falls naturally became an anchor amid the turmoil.

His gaze swept slowly around them. Among those Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts, some were as steady as mountains, others as swift as the wind.

Yet without exception, their Soul Power fluctuated erratically to varying degrees—some surging heavily, some turning sluggish, others spilling outward in uncertainty and alarm.

The scrutiny and curiosity that had first filled their eyes had long since given way to the shock of witnessing something akin to a miracle—or a calamity.

Chen Xin's gaze finally returned to the matriarch. His voice echoed through the valley, carrying the weight of history:

"It seems our vague perception earlier was no illusion."

He paused. He spoke each word clearly and slowly, as though carving an inscription destined for the annals of history:

"The depth and breadth of this child's soul... far exceed even our most optimistic initial estimate."

The matriarch closed her eyes.

She drew a deep, deep breath. It seemed to come not from the air, but from the earth's veins beneath Spirit Creek Valley, from the roots of ancient trees, from the source of the flowing spirit spring. It was clear and cold, carrying the earth's most primal power to steady her.

That breath coursed through her body. When she opened her eyes again, she had forced down the raging waves within them, leaving a deeper, almost grave solemnity in their place.

The disordered glow around her steadied as well, though its light seemed more restrained and weightier than before.

She looked at Xiao Shenghe again, her eyes like two bottomless, icy pools.

"Child."

Her voice had regained the composure befitting a matriarch, but every word seemed forged by a thousand blows, unbearably heavy.

"Do you know what this means?"

She did not wait for an answer. Instead, she slowly recited the iron law acknowledged across the continent, as though revisiting a foundation on the verge of being overturned:

"On the Douluo Continent, the number of Soul Ring slots a Soul Master has is fixed at birth and corresponds strictly to their Soul Power Level. That is an inviolable law of heaven, the boundary no Soul Master can cross. Innate Full Soul Power is already a miracle found in less than one in a hundred million, a mark of heaven's favor."

Her gaze sharpened, as though she meant to pierce Xiao Shenghe's body and look straight into the origins of his soul:

"But you... 'genius' and 'miracle' can no longer describe this. You are..."

"An anomaly beyond the rules."

Bone Douluo Gu Rong's low voice sounded beside them, rough as metal scraping against metal. He stood with his arms folded, his tall figure casting a long shadow in the faint light. His eyes were complicated. Unlike Chen Xin's, they held no wonder, but rather an appraisal of some unknown power and a trace of barely perceptible wariness.

Chen Xin nodded faintly and took up Gu Rong's words, his sigh long and laden with mixed feelings:

"Yes, an anomaly. We have spent our lives peering into the rules and using them, yet never imagined... that a living being could be born carrying the 'possibility' of breaking them."

Xiao Shenghe quietly listened to the judgments of the two Titled Douluo and the matriarch. There was no pride on his face, nor any fear. Only when every voice had faded and the valley had returned to an even tenser silence did he look at the Clouded Deer matriarch again.

His eyes were as clear as ever, but his resolve was now like tempered steel, impossible to shake.

He adjusted his breathing slightly and spoke in a steady voice:

"So, Auntie Matriarch."

He had chosen a warmer form of address, but it did nothing to lessen the weight of his words.

"As for the 'Secret of Symbiosis,' and the future of your people that you wish to entrust to me... perhaps we needn't wait until that so-called 'level twenty.'"

He raised the right hand that had loosely held those "nine spaces" and rested it gently over his heart. At that moment, the simple gesture seemed almost ceremonial.

"My 'vessel'..."

His gaze passed over Chen Xin and Gu Rong. After receiving nearly imperceptible nods from the two elders, he focused once more on the matriarch's deep eyes.

"Even now, it has room to bear your weight and hear your secret."

The matriarch fell silent.

This silence was longer and heavier than any before it.

The glow around her no longer merely flowed. It began to brighten and dim in a mysterious rhythm, at times slow as breathing, at times quick as a heartbeat. Its light illuminated her beautiful profile—and the earth-shaking struggle and deliberation taking place within her.

The shock of "nine Soul Ring slots" had struck like a falling star, and its aftershocks had yet to subside. Yet this boy now wanted to turn that world-upending "possibility" into a real "contract" at once...

She slowly raised her eyes, sweeping them over Xiao Shenghe's entire body as precisely as a Soul Tool. At last, her gaze settled on his shoulders, still slender but already showing the faint outline of a certain toughness. Her voice was soft, yet it carried the power to probe through every outward appearance:

"Your Soul Power Level..."

She paused deliberately, leaving the question suspended in the silent air.

"You said earlier that you were only level fifteen?"