By the time Tang San pressed the slender blade into his right shoulder, Oscar had already held the first clean cloth beneath the wound.
The blade followed the outermost glowing patterns of the Soul Bone, cutting through flesh. As soon as blood welled up, the Mysterious Heaven Skill tightened along two main meridians, but his fingers went numb with it. Tang San did not cut any deeper. Supporting his right arm with his left hand, he drew the familiar trace of presence within the bone outward.
Red light emerged from his shoulder wound, and every tiny channel it tugged at throbbed with pain.
Dai Mubai supported his back. Ning Rongrong kept her defense and Soul Power boosts focused on his chest and abdomen, without extending her Nine Treasures True Body toward Xiao Wu. The Blue Silver Emperor vines between the bedposts straightened one by one, supporting Tang San at one end and Xiao Wu's right hand at the other, their palms resting together.
That Soul Bone had once grown into Tang San's flesh and blood. After all these years of cultivation, even its original edges had fused into his arm bone. As he extracted it, the bone's light first broke away at his elbow. Then his entire arm drooped, and a deeper wound split open at his shoulder.
Tang San pitched forward. Dai Mubai immediately eased him back onto the bed, while Oscar replaced the blood-soaked cloth.
"Little San, stop for a moment."
"I can't stop here." Tang San raised his left hand, blocking Oscar's attempt to press the bone's light back into him. "Her presence has already emerged."
Through his Purple Demon Eye, he saw a finer thread of life within the red light, stretching from his shoulder wound toward Xiao Wu. As that thread approached the bedside, it