Within Blade Ghost's domain.
"Ugh... tsk, tsk, tsk..."
Covered in wounds for who knew how many times now, Xu Taiping braced a hand against the ground, then leaned on his blade and slowly climbed to his feet.
"Since you can still stand, take another strike from me."
Across the sacrificial platform within the blade domain, Blade Ghost had been standing quietly with his arms folded. The moment he saw Xu Taiping rise, he drew his saber E Lai from the ground.
"Perhaps not, Senior Blade Ghost. Tomorrow morning is... the seventh round of the Golden Scale Assembly. If I don't rest soon, there's no way I can recover the Divine Soul Power I've exhausted."
Xu Taiping gave a wry smile.
Starting from the night the list was announced, Blade Ghost had forcibly dragged him into the blade domain for three days straight.
Xu Taiping was deeply grateful that Blade Ghost would expend his own Soul Power to help him cultivate.
But his mind truly had been stretched to its limit.
Blade Ghost's blade domain was extremely unusual: one night outside was a year within.
Those three nights had been three years.
Ordinary cultivation would have been bearable. The problem was that, over those three years, Xu Taiping had been little different from a prisoner undergoing torture. His body had not been whole for even a moment.
"Oh, I forgot about that."
Blade Ghost slapped his forehead, then nodded and said:
"I'll heal your injuries."
With that, he merely raised a hand toward Xu Taiping, and all the horrific wounds covering his body healed.
If someone awoke without having the injuries sustained within Blade Ghost's blade domain healed, they would appear unharmed, but the wounded areas would still suffer phantom pain. If left unhealed, that pain would spread throughout the body