Chapter 246: Sinking in Anguish

The 'Feng Soaring Junk' was getting deeper and deeper into the Ocean of Turbid Anguish. Because of the damage caused by the Wheel of Life, the hull was partially destroyed. And even though the True Fiery Fenghuang Qi Manifestation had greatly strengthened the Wei Qi of the ship, it was not able to prevent the black water from completely infiltrating the lower parts of the ship. Thus, it was sinking at an alarming rate.

Even inside the sealed room, Cao Yun was able to feel the increasing speed at which they were falling down. He could also hear cracks all around him. The black water was exerting an immense pressure on the Wei Qi. As much as it tried to resist, it still got contracted and in turn pushed against the Enlightened Sandalwood. Thankfully, as this wood was almost a perfect conduit for Qi and soul, it was robust enough to resist this pressure. In fact, the Qi pressing against it strengthened it further. But this was a precarious balance. If the pressure became too high or if the strain lasted too long, no matter how robust this wood was, it would eventually break.

Although Cao Yun had no idea how deep he was right now, he could imagine the pressure outside. Moreover, this black water seemed to be way denser than normal water. Any crack in the wood would spell his death.

But right now, Cao Yun was not worried about this. He was not worried neither about his death nor his future. The only thing on his mind was the woman who had given her life for his. However, he wasn't thinking about her death either. Indeed, right now, she shouldn't be dead, she should be unconscious and sinking down with the ship.

Hopefully, she was still on the deck, protected by the Wei Qi she had risked everything to create.

The main problem was that Cao Yun could not exit the sealed room. To protect him, Huang Liyue had used a small array formation to keep the doors tightly shut. During the fight, Cao Yun had not tried to leave because he knew that the only thing he would have managed would have been to disturb Huang Liyue. Unfortunately, he had to admit that he was way too weak to even help her during the chase. However, he could maybe save her now. Although he was not as knowledgeable about souls as Xiao Xuefeng, and even less so about Soul Embryos, he had some attainment. Besides, his mind cultivation had even shocked Xiao Xuefeng herself.

Even if he could not restore her Soul Embryo, he may be able to save her soul and keep her alive. As long as she was alive, there was hope!

With this conviction in mind, Cao Yun analyzed the array formation on the door. It was etched within the wood itself. In a way, this array formation was very similar to an array formation plate. Apparently, it was supposed to prevent someone from entering within the room, hence the reason why it was inside. Since Cao Yun did not know what this array formation was, in theory, he shouldn't have been able to force it very fast.

After watching it just an instant, Cao Yun realized that this was at least a 3-star Human array formation. Solving it would take several hours at least, or even days. And those were the nicest estimates he could make if he stayed hopeful. Thankfully, the room had enough food and water for him to survive. Instead of trying to solve the array formation fast, he could rest first and think of a plan to survive just like Huang Liyue had told him to. But he refused to do nothing while the woman who had sacrificed her life was slowly dying outside of this door.

Although Huang Liyue had been clear that she could not forgive what he had done to a branch of the Huang family, she had been sincere and trustworthy. Besides, many people had already sacrificed themselves for him. It was time for things to change. In this moment, Cao Yun also remembered his parents who had asked him to live and to not throw away his life. Maybe the safest thing to do was to wait for a while, but he was just sick of tragedy. Huang Liyue had risked everything to keep him alive so he was not going to waste her efforts. But that didn't mean he was not going to try everything to save her either.

Mobilizing all of his strength, Cao Yun pushed his mind cultivation, his Qi, the intent of the Drop of Wrath and his blood to their limit. Then, he pushed some more by activating 'Dragon's Heart'. All of his strength was focused on his hands and feet. With everything he had, he pushed on the wooden door.

Although he was underwater, he could clearly feel the Wei Qi all around him. Although he was not a Mortal Warrior yet, as a 9th-grade Mortal, he was able to feel Qi a bit farther than before thanks to his open acupoints. Thus, he could tell that this Wei Qi spread at least a dozen of chi beyond the door. This meant that he could open the door without fearing that the water would completely invade the room. As long as he closed the door fast enough, the Wei Qi would not get weakened. Indeed, it was using the Enlightened Sandalwood as support. So opening the door would still create a small weakness, but it wasn't too much of a problem if the door didn't stay open for long.

The wood both under his feet and in front of his hands started to creak. Finally, while all of his muscles were bulging and his skin was reddened with blood, the door began to bulge a little. On it, the array formation started to shine and Cao Yun forced even harder. In that moment, his strength was almost equal to the strength of a middle Mortal Warrior. As most of his blood was in his limbs, Cao Yun was feeling very lightheaded. Without his mind cultivation to prevent him from doing so, he would have fainted already.

Finally, the array formation gave way and the door opened on the outside world. Immediately, what shocked Cao Yun was the intense light. The ship was surrounded by the colorful fires of the True Fiery Fenghuang Qi Manifestation. But beyond these lively colors, there was a darkness as intense as the one he had crossed through to get in this dead world. Moreover, this darkness was slowly dissolving the Wei Qi. However, the real problem was something else entirely. Huang Liyue was nowhere to be seen.

At some point, she had probably fallen from the ship while unconscious. If it had happened too long ago or even while they were still in the air, finding her would now be almost impossible. Since this black water was made of Evil Qi, it would be extremely corrosive. Without her own Wei Qi, even her superior body would end up being consumed and she would completely disappear. Something worse came to Cao Yun's mind, it could even be possible for the Evil Qi at such a concentration to corrode her very soul, especially because it should already be extremely weakened. Not only would she die without a body, she may even be erased from the cycle of reincarnation. Although Cao Yun was not sure whether to believe this tradition or not, he felt anxious about the fate of Huang Liyue's soul.

In this darkness, the only way to find her would be to detect her feeble Qi. Without spiritual senses, this was the only way. But Cao Yun was not a Mortal Warrior either. Although he was very close to becoming one, he was still lacking a bit.

But he had to try something. Now that his acupoints were fully open, he could send way more Qi outside and he was able to control its trajectory a bit better. The only thing was that he could not control it once outside of his body. It would be like shooting an arrow in a tornado. Although he could control the initial trajectory, he had no hold on what would happen after.

Thinking about this conundrum, Cao Yun had already thought of something while healing Huang Liyue earlier. Although his own intent could not control his Qi outside of his body, the Drop of Wrath's intent seemed to have no problem at all. Besides, it was very sensitive to Evil Qi. This time, he needed the opposite of what he had done while treating Huang Liyue's wounds. He didn't want to detect Evil Qi in pure Qi, he wanted to detect the faintest traces of pure Qi in an ocean of concentrated Evil Qi.

After all the efforts he had made and all the risks he had taken to finally control the Drop of Wrath, hopefully he could use it for something other than just keeping it calm.

In his sea of consciousness, the Po character inside the Drop of Wrath started to resonate with the other Po character. Both of them were in the Perfect stage and a strong connection was thus established between them. Although Cao Yun could not use the Drop of Wrath as though it was his, he had now some control over it. Not only was he able to keep it calm under extreme emotions, both thanks to this connection and the chambers of his Upper Dantian that could literally calm his emotions. But he was also able to command more of its intent and even some of its abilities.

For now, he had not really tried to use the intent to detect anything. However, the idea had popped up in his mind. Cao Yun knew of animals and demonic beasts using sound to detect anything in their environment. What he wanted to do was very similar. The intent from the Drop of Wrath would probably be able to endure the terrifying corrosiveness of the Evil Qi in this black water. As such, he would be able to send it very far. Then, where that intent would detect either less Evil Qi or pure Qi, that would be where Huang Liyue would be.

In fact, that was something that even Huang Liyue would have trouble with. Indeed, even spiritual senses were corroded by the Evil Qi considering how concentrated it was down there.

After concentrating all of his mind cultivation, Cao Yun focused everything on the Drop of Wrath. Then, he injected it into his Qi and sent a surge of it in all directions. Since he wasn't a Mortal Warrior, it was almost impossible to manipulate his Qi outside of his body. But through his double Po characters and the intent from the Drop of Wrath, he was still able to keep the contact with the Qi he had projected. It was very faint but since all his acupoints were open, the sensation was stronger than when he was a 7th-grade Mortal. When all his cells would be transparent to Qi, the sensation would be so intense that he would finally be able to control his Qi outside.

But for now, Cao Yun had to push his mind cultivation to the limit. As his Five Agents were rotating around the Drop of Wrath, the Five Echoes Pearl started to form faster and faster. However, Cao Yun did not care at all, his focus was solely on the Drop of Wrath.

Even with this, the sensation from his Qi was extremely weak. He wasn't a Mortal Warrior after all. Not even his mind cultivation could make up for such a difference. Still, he had to try as much as he could!

Cao Yun had to locate Huang Liyue. He had not even thought about how he would retrieve her yet. Right now, all his attention was on finding her first. And the Drop of Wrath really seemed to obey his commands. It was extremely compliant albeit somehow rigid. For the time being, it still felt like a foreign limb Cao Yun was trying to control. Although it was obeying his commands, it wasn't as flexible and agile as his other limbs. Thus, finding Huang Liyue proved very arduous and frustrating.

The Chamber of Jade turned out to be very useful. With each sensation, Cao Yun was able to use his intuition to get better and better at controlling the Drop of Wrath. But even then, the Evil Qi was so concentrated that even a Mortal Warrior would have had a hard time detecting Qi very close to him. Right now, Cao Yun was trying to detect very faint traces of Qi in an undetermined radius. Moreover, there were currents in this black water. So Huang Liyue could have drifted away by a large margin by now.

After several hours, Cao Yun was still at it. He had closed the door of the room to make sure that what remained of the ship would last as long as possible. But he himself was outside of the room, somewhat protected by the Wei Qi left after Huang Liyue's last technique. Despite this protection, there was an intense pressure on his body as the very pressure of the entire ocean was pressing down on the Wei Qi itself. Then, in turn, the Wei Qi pressed against Cao Yun.

Without realizing it, Cao Yun had even started to make transparent to Qi thousands upon thousands of cells just thanks to this powerful Wei Qi pressing and somewhat entering his body. The change wasn't that important, but every bit of advantage was good to take. The closer he would be to an actual Mortal Warrior, the easier his current task would be.

From time to time, he still took some pause to analyze what he had felt and to try to think of a better strategy. No matter how much Qi remained in Huang Liyue's body, she would not be able to resist the corrosive black water for very long, especially under this kind of pressure.

It had been a long time now since Cao Yun had felt the boat sink again. That meant that he had probably touched the depths of the ocean. Of course, he couldn't know whether there were deeper parts or not. But hopefully, Huang Liyue could not fall any deeper. Hopefully...

With this kind of pressure, a mortal would had died instantly. Cao Yun could only estimate it but on an entire human body, there would be between twenty to fifty thousand dan* of pressure. Even an early Mortal Warrior's body would be in danger. For a Spirit Warrior, this was absolutely not a problem though. And for Cao Yun's body further nourished by his changed blood, he would probably be able to survive. After all, he could survive the reduced pressure induced through the Wei Qi.

The real problem was the corrosiveness of the Evil Qi. Right now, it was even slowly dissolving the Wei Qi formed by Huang Liyue's last resort. That meant that her own Wei Qi would be dissipated even faster. In fact, it was possible that her Wei Qi had already given way and that her flesh and then soul were under the burn of the Evil Qi all around her.

Cao Yun had to find her as soon as possible. Then, he could think of a way to help her.

* Approximately 1,000 to 2,500 tons