In the complete darkness of the bottom of this black ocean, Cao Yun could not see a thing. As he approached Huang Liyue's body while bearing the entire weight of the column of water above him, his Drop of Wrath allowed him to perceive her shape. He did not sense her Qi, he only sensed the Evil Qi around her slowly corroding her Wei Qi. Hopefully, she was still alive and her Wei Qi had endured long enough.
When finally Cao Yun reached the poor woman, he put his hands on her and at last, he could feel her Qi. It was incredibly faint. Her Wei Qi had greatly retracted itself to protect her vital organs. Outside of her body, it was almost gone. If she stayed a few more hours inside this black water, she would be completely consumed by this Evil Qi. Even her Soul Embryo may not be able to survive. As he wasn't a Spirit Warrior, Cao Yun was not able to get inside Huang Liyue's sea of consciousness so he couldn't know her real condition.
Within her sea of consciousness, everything had turned black. Her Soul Embryo had completely ruptured. As of now, she had truly lost her cultivation. And no one had ever been able to form a second Soul Embryo, even in the Legendary Era. For now though, Cao Yun could know none of that.
Instead of worrying about what would happen to her, he only worried about bringing her back to the 'Feng Soaring Junk'. With his Drop of Wrath, Cao Yun was able to clearly feel the currents of Evil Qi around him and would be able to find his way back without any problem.
When he grabbed Huang Liyue's body and brought her close to him, he felt that she was completely cold. If he couldn't feel faint traces of Qi in her, he would have thought she was already dead. Thus, it pushed him to move even faster than before. He activated all of his movement techniques.
Even with everything he had, it still took him almost as long to come back. And the worst part was to get back onto the deck. Climbing the ship with the entire pressure of the ocean on his shoulders, while holding the body of Huang Liyue was way more strenuous than he had thought. However, he pushed through and was finally able to get back inside the Wei Qi of the ship. After taking a deep breath, he didn't lower his efforts. Fighting against the pressure of the Wei Qi caused by the ocean pressing down on it, Cao Yun bulged his muscles and opened the door to the sealed room once more.
Finally, Cao Yun and Huang Liyue were both back inside the sealed room. Only then did Cao Yun collapse on the floor. The strain on his body had been immense. On the other hand, a large portion of the cells in his muscles and tendons had been greatly nourished by his blood. And many of them had naturally become transparent to Qi. Of course, considering the colossal amount of cells he had to cultivate, it was really a drop of water in the ocean. But anything was good to take.
Cao Yun allowed himself a few minutes of rest. Anyway, if he tried to help Huang Liyue without being rested, he would do way more damage than good.
After his well deserved rest, Cao Yun stood up and froze. Finally he had laid eyes on Huang Liyue. Earlier he had not realized this but since Huang Liyue's Wei Qi had retracted within her body, it meant that her skin had been unprotected. Not only were her clothes completely gone, her skin had been badly burned by the Evil Qi almost everywhere. Huang Liyue was absolutely impossible to recognize. Seeing her like that, barely breathing and completely disfigured, Cao Yun's rage swelled up. Now that he did not need to control his emotions to soothe the Drop of Wrath, Cao Yun let this rage go rampant in him.
And intense heat spread throughout his entire body. He could almost taste the rage in his mouth. And he realized that he had clenched his teeth, and hands also for that matter, so hard that he was bleeding. This rage was not just for Huang Liyue, but for all who had risked and given their lives for him.
There were medicine that could heal most of her injuries, but this didn't make the scene in front of him any better. Hopefully, as a noble member of the main branch of the Huang family, it wouldn't be too hard for Huang Liyue to get those medicines. And even if that weren't the case for any reason, Cao Yun could directly ask Xiao Xuefeng.
Although he intellectually knew that those injuries meant almost nothing to a Spirit Warrior, Cao Yun made the vow to not only kill Can Mouye but to make him pay dearly before that. When finally Cao Yun and Huang Liyue would leave this world, Can Mouye would be absolutely and completely dead. With these thoughts, the Drop of Wrath seemed to get somewhat joyous. It was just an illusion though. What happened was that the rage of the Drop of Wrath was in harmony with Cao Yun's.
Vengeance would be for later though. Right now, he had to help her once more. In her damaged skin and even a little in her body, there were traces of Evil Qi. But luckily, Cao Yun was now different. Not only did he have more experience with Evil Qi, he could now almost control it as though he was an early Mortal Warrior. And thankfully, Huang Liyue's remaining Wei Qi had protected her in a good measure. As such, there was not that much Evil Qi in her. In total, it didn't even take one hour for Cao Yun to completely purge her of this corrosive energy.
But even after that, she was in a deep slumber and would not wake up for a very long time.
Another thing that made Cao Yun mad was that she still had her spatial ring. Right in there, there were maybe some pills that could help her, or at the very least stabilize her, but he could not use it...
As it was the only thing he could do, Cao Yun used some of the water in the room to wash her. Then he used some drapes that were laid down to try and bandage her as best as he could.
-
Now that Huang Liyue was not in immediate danger though, he had to think of a way to get out of this situation. Right now, they were both stuck at the bottom of the black ocean. Even an early Spirit Warrior would have a hard time moving the ship to the surface. Besides, Cao Yun could not control Qi, thus he could not control the ship, let alone make it float.
Array formations were also a no-go for two reasons. The first one was that he could only make 5-star Earth array formations and none of them would be useful in that situation. But the second reason was even more straightforward. Cao Yun had no material on him to make an array formation. Everything was probably in Huang Liyue's spatial ring that he could not activate.
Since he needed to think, Cao Yun used his mind cultivation to completely erase his emotions. And he immersed himself in his sea of consciousness to try and think of a solution.
Even though the 'Feng Soaring Junk' was a ship built to fly in the sky, it was still a ship. And apart from the position of the masts, it almost had the same structure as any floating boat. Thus, it was also meant to float on water. The problem though was that it had been pierced through and through and the black water had completely flooded the lower decks of the ship. Now, the ship was weighted with so much water that it was impossible for it to float.
Cao Yun could maybe try to use his Drop of Wrath to push this black water away. But his recent experience told him that it would be almost impossible. Even if he had perfect control over the Drop of Wrath and was a Mortal Warrior, he still wouldn't have the strength to push that entire volume out, and keep it out until the ship reached the surface.
But then, he thought some more about it. While pondering over the matter, he remembered the high density of this black water. He couldn't measure it but it was way denser than just water. Since this ship had been built according to an architecture allowing it to float on normal water, it would float even more in this denser liquid. Indeed, the denser the liquid, the better the buoyancy was.
However, the problem was the same, he still needed to lighten the ship by getting rid of the black water.
Suddenly a thought came to his mind!
He didn't need to get rid of the water to lighten up the ship. In fact, he didn't need the ship at all, he only needed the sealed room to float. This sudden realization finally gave him a plan to act upon. He only needed to break the deck around the sealed room and let it slowly float to the surface. Now that he had this idea in mind, the problem was different.
Cao Yun looked back at the door. The array formation keeping it perfectly sealed had been broken... by him. The only thing preventing the black water from entering the room was the Wei Qi all around the ship. And Cao Yun had no idea how much of this Wei Qi would remain if he were to liberate the room from the rest of the ship. Thus, he had to try and keep as much of the Enlightened Sandalwood intact as possible. This wood was the ideal conduit for Wei Qi.
Hopefully, the room would be able to stay sealed long enough for it to go back to the surface. It probably wouldn't be very stable, but that was a minor inconvenience when compared with the alternative. Thus, once more, Cao Yun left the room.
Thanks to the Drop of Wrath, he knew exactly where the black water was. Unfortunately, it had completely invaded the lower decks and almost nothing could be salvaged. There were but a few spaces that were still sealed and protected from the intrusion of the liquid. With his spear in hand this time, Cao Yun chose very carefully where to strike. Ironically, the Wei Qi he was trying to preserve as much as possible was now preventing him from breaking the ship. Any normal strike would have no impact of the Enlightened Sandalwood full of the last strength of Huang Liyue.
For Cao Yun, this was a bit difficult to do because he literally had to destroy parts of the last bits of Qi Huang Liyue had poured out of her. But it was necessary to keep her, and him for that matter, alive.
'The Son of Heaven's Cavalry'!
'The Son of Heaven's Cavalry'!
'The Son of Heaven's Cavalry'!
...
Cao Yun let out many of his most powerful attacks again and again. But this was taking way too much time. Since he had to preserve as much Wei Qi as possible, time was of the essence. He had no way to calculate how long it would take for the room and the parts of the ship he could salvage to go back to the surface. So he could not waste any time at all. After all, under this pressure Wei Qi was slowly being corroded as well. In theory, it could still stay intact for a long time, but Cao Yun could not know how much of it would remain once he would have destroyed more than half of the ship.
Getting off the ship, Cao Yun decided to go for more drastic moves.
'Dragon's Tail Sweeps the Sky'!
This was the latest move of 'Azure Dragon's Seven Piercing Stars' he had learned. Cao Yun focused everything on it, just as if it was 'The Son of Heaven's Cavalry'. He also activated his entire mind cultivation, the Drop of Wrath and his blood. This technique was a powerful sweeping attack and he intended to quite literally cut the ship in half to separate the deck from the hull. Of course, he was still aiming lower than the cabin not to destroy it. In fact, he only needed the hull to be completely open so that it may not keep being weighted down by the black water within.
Even with his strength to the extreme and all his cards used, the strike did not do much damage to the ship because of the Wei Qi. Still, some wood cracked and several big shards exploded. However, this was clearly not enough. Destroying the ship like that would take way too long. What Cao Yun was trying to do was almost similar to a Mortal attempting to kill a Mortal Warrior. Around them, they had a denser Wei Qi and pure physical attacks were almost unable to penetrate their bodies.
But then, while visualizing this analogy, Cao Yun got another idea. If he could use Qi Manifestation, he could damage the ship. But he could not manifest his own Qi. On the other hand, the Drop of Wrath allowed him to partially manipulate Evil Qi. He had realized that even more while getting it out of Huang Liyue's body. And if he could manipulate Evil Qi, there was a possibility that he might be able to manifest it as well.
The idea was a bit crazy. A 9th-grade Mortal should not be able to manifest any Qi at all. But the Drop of Wrath came from someone who had way exceeded the level of Mortal. Even if it was barely a fragment of his destroyed soul, it still retained some of his strength.
Focusing on that, Cao Yun tried to gather Evil Qi around his 'Nine Chi Black Dragon Spear'. As he did, he felt the dragon scale in his spear get agitated. At the same moment as Cao Yun was gathering Evil Qi around it, he was circulating his Qi and his blood to perform his attack. Slowly, a shape appeared around his spear. At first it was very faint but it became a bit more material.
But just keeping it active required a lot of mental strength. Cao Yun was once more thankful for his improved will and the Chamber of Government. His lack of experience with Qi Manifestation made everything way more difficult. Right now, he was just trying to circulate the Evil Qi in the exact same way his martial art taught.
After several seconds without much progress, Cao Yun decided he had reached the maximum of what he could currently achieve.
Then, he unleashed everything!
As he swept his spear, not only did it produce a shock wave, there was a literal tail from the Azure Dragon that appeared. And it collided with the 'Feng Soaring Junk'. For the very first time, Cao Yun had manifested Qi, even though it wasn't his. But this simple success had opened his eyes to the way it was done. Another world had opened before his eyes. And at the same time, the boat got split in half.