Leyvi and his group continued fleeing from the Colossal Tree.
The terrain had become far more complicated after the earthquake. Cracked earth, uneven ridges, and newly formed ravines made traveling on foot slow and dangerous. Many of the people with them were already exhausted from the chaos earlier.
Seeing this, Leyvi decided to bring out all of their modified carriages.
Just like during their previous journeys, he would pull the carriages himself. This way, the others could rest while they continued moving, and it would also be far safer than letting everyone travel separately across the unstable land.
Each member of the Leyan Family who had entered the Mystic Realm carried one modified carriage. Altogether, they had five of them. The carriages were linked together into a single line, and each one could carry around twenty people if everyone squeezed in closely.
After arranging everyone inside, Leyvi ended up pulling nearly a hundred people behind him.
About half of them were the great beauties that Rose had previously brought to Bellion City. The other half were acquaintances of Leyvi's original companions who had reunited with them there before the disaster struck.
Aside from Leyvi, Bodo, Crown Prince Dastan, and Ava, everyone else stayed inside the carriages.
Leyvi pulled the entire convoy forward while Bodo, Dastan, and Ava guarded the sides and rear, watching carefully for any unexpected dangers.
Behind them, many surviving cultivators had made the same decision.
They believed they would be far safer following a Nascent Soul Realm expert than wandering alone in the chaos. As a result, a large group of survivors trailed closely behind Leyvi's convoy.
To them, joining Leyvi's group was clearly the smartest choice if they wanted to survive what came next.
Not only did the group have Crown Prince Dastan, a powerful Nascent Soul Realm cultivator capable of protecting them, they also had Bellion, the prodigious formation expert, and Madam Anda, a highly skilled alchemist who could provide support.
With such a lineup, their chances of survival were far greater.
Because of this, many people tried their best to keep up with Leyvi's pace using their own methods. Everyone was determined not to fall behind.
Several hours later, they finally reached an area where the terrain looked normal again. The destructive earthquake from earlier had not reached this far, leaving the land mostly intact.
Even so, they were still nowhere near the edge of the Colossal Tree's canopy.
To truly escape the tree's domain, they would need to travel at full speed for at least two more days. Only after leaving the vast domain of the tree would they finally feel safe.
Three days passed.
The overwhelming sense of danger that had filled everyone's hearts on the day of the disaster had gradually faded. Although they were still moving farther away from the Colossal Tree, the group was no longer rushing as desperately as before.
"Finally. We're out of the canopy. This is real sunlight now," Leyvi said as he stood on top of the first carriage, squinting slightly as the warm light fell across his face.
For days they had moved under the light of the Colossal Tree. Now the sky finally looked like a proper sky again.
At the moment, Bodo was the one pulling the long line of modified carriages.
"Dohoho! Where should we go now, Brother Leyvi?" Bodo asked cheerfully while continuing to drag the convoy forward with steady steps. "I can pull everyone for another day if needed."
Leyvi extended his spiritual sense behind them, sweeping across the distant plains where a group of cultivators was still stubbornly following their convoy.
"These guys are still persistently following us, huh?" he muttered. "But many of them have already been left behind. Less than half managed to keep up with us."
He didn't really care about them. If possible, he would rather they stop following altogether. His plan was to return to the great lake island, which would be an ideal place for his group to settle temporarily while they figured out how to survive the coming catastrophe.
The most troubling part of the situation was the uncertainty. No one knew how much time they had left before the Colossal Tree completed its evolution.
Leyvi was about to answer Bodo when something suddenly stirred within his mind, something he hadn't felt for a very long time.
His head immediately turned to the left.
The mental connections with his spirit beasts… were back!
The connection was still faint, too weak for him to communicate with them properly, but Leyvi was absolutely certain of it.
Stripey. Scarlet. Mr. Bison.
He could sense all three of them.
Not only that, but he could clearly feel that they were moving toward him at an astonishing speed.
Leyvi frowned slightly, confusion flashing across his eyes.
What is going on here? How are they so fast? he wondered.
Focusing his attention on the direction of the mental connection, it didn't take long before something finally appeared in the distance.
A tiny dot in the sky.
Leyvi's eyes widened slightly.
"What? Something came from the sky?"
He was genuinely surprised. As far as he knew, nothing in this world should be able to fly freely except Lapin's Celestial Cloud.
Yet the small dot was clearly coming closer, growing larger and larger at an incredible speed as it rushed toward them.
"What? Is that… a pyramid? Wait… don't tell me…" Leyvi remembered the pyramid he had seen during his worldwide spiritual sense scan.
At that time, he had noticed that the pyramid possessed extraordinary technology. And now it was proven.
"It must be Lin Wei!" Leyvi exclaimed in realization.
During this whole ordeal, he had completely forgotten about Lin Wei, the one he and Anda had labelled as the protagonist.
A surge of hope suddenly rose in Leyvi's chest.
If Lin Wei had arrived in such a mysterious flying pyramid, then perhaps this was the moment the story had been building toward all along. The pyramid must be some kind of ultimate weapon, the tool Lin Wei would use to confront and defeat the Colossal Tree.
The thought made Leyvi pause.
Could it be that everything had always been moving toward this outcome from the very beginning? All the disasters, coincidences, and events that had pushed everyone into this desperate situation might simply have been preparing the stage for the protagonist to step forward and save the world.
He couldn't help but feel conflicted.
For a long time, both he and Anda had deliberately tried to avoid getting too involved with Lin Wei. They had been afraid of becoming the typical fodder characters who died early to highlight the protagonist's brilliance. Yet despite their efforts, they had still ended up deeply entangled in the events surrounding him.
Fortunately, neither he nor his family had died along the way.
Instead of becoming expendable background characters, they had somehow managed to survive everything so far.
Leyvi let out a quiet breath, forcing himself to calm down. A disaster of this magnitude wasn't something he could have avoided anyway. In that sense, he should already be grateful that he and his loved ones were still alive.
Still, nothing was certain yet.
Just because Lin Wei might be the protagonist didn't guarantee victory.
Leyvi had read enough novels to know that some stories ended in complete tragedy, where the protagonist was the only one left alive after everyone else died, leaving him to pursue revenge alone.
That was the outcome Leyvi feared the most.
He absolutely did not want to see such a future.
While these thoughts ran through his mind, the enormous pyramid rapidly approached their location and soon came to a halt in the sky just outside the Colossal Tree's canopy. Although the structure itself was incredibly massive, it still looked small when compared to the unimaginable scale of the Colossal Tree rising in the distance.
The sudden appearance of the flying pyramid shocked everyone present.
For the past few days, the survivors had finally begun to calm down after escaping the tree's domain. But now this new and incomprehensible phenomenon instantly shattered that fragile peace.
Many cultivators stared at the sky with pale faces, their hearts sinking once again.
Lord… what is it this time?
Please… just spare us already…
After enduring one disaster after another, their spirits were starting to break, and hope was slowly slipping away from their hearts.
Bodo immediately stopped in his tracks. Those inside the carriages quickly came out to see the flying pyramid.
Anda arrived next to Leyvi.
"Leyvi, is this..." Anda said.
Leyvi nodded. "I think it is Lin Wei."
Anda let out a relieved sigh. She also began having similar thoughts and mixed feelings as Leyvi had just moments ago.
"Stripey, Scarlet, and Mr. Bison are in that pyramid," Leyvi informed her.
Anda blinked in surprise and turned toward him. "What? They've been with Lin Wei all this time?" She paused for a moment before asking uncertainly, "Then… is Mr. Bison actually a protagonist too?"
Leyvi was completely stunned for a second. The thought seemed so absurd that his brain almost stopped processing.
Then he immediately shook his head vigorously.
"No, no, nooo. That's impossible," he said firmly. "If that idiot bison is the protagonist, then this world has no hope."