The first layer of the barriers shattered instantly upon contact, followed by other layers. The last layer stretched like a membrane under unbearable pressure. It held for a brief moment, trembling violently, before finally snapping back into place.
The crowd stared in stunned silence. No one could understand how the situation had escalated to this point.
They were supposed to go home.
Yet the situation kept changing again and again, each twist worse than the last. Their emotions could barely keep up with the relentless upheaval.
At that moment, Bellion's voice thundered across the area.
"Everyone! Protect yourselves! The barriers will not last!"
The gigantic explosion had nearly exhausted the grand formation's remaining energy. Earlier, Leyvi had removed the Spiritual Vein and replaced it with top-grade spirit stones to sustain the formation.
Even under the relentless assault of more than ten thousand cultivators, the supply of spirit stones had been enough to maintain the barriers for two full days. No one could have predicted that a single explosion would drain nearly all the remaining energy in mere seconds.
Shock lingered on many faces, but the crowd reacted quickly. This was not the first time they had been forced to defend themselves today. Defensive techniques flared to life across the area. Layers of shields, barriers, and protective artifacts appeared one after another.
Those with weaker defenses instinctively moved toward those known for strong protection.
Leyvi stepped forward and positioned himself at the front of the crowd. In his hand, the tusk bloodline gem appeared.
If the task was simply pouring Qi into something, this was something he excelled at.
Qi surged from his body like a roaring river and poured directly into the gem.
A moment later, a gigantic translucent tusk rose into existence.
It towered before the crowd like a colossal pillar of bone. The barrier was at least a hundred times larger than the tusk shields Barcas and Barbara had formed earlier.
Leyvi quickly sensed the limitation. The structure had already reached its maximum size. Even if he pushed more Qi into the gem, the barrier would not grow any larger.
The crowd stared upward in disbelief.
Just how much Qi does he possess?
Thanks to Bellion's grand formation shielding the city earlier, they had been spared from the catastrophic core of the explosion. But as Bellion had warned, the barriers finally collapsed.
The next moment, a violent wave of air crashed into them.
The aftermath of the explosion swept through the city like a raging storm. The wind alone felt powerful enough to tear buildings apart. Fragments of shattered earth, burning debris, broken weapons, and twisted fragments of spiritual artifacts hurtled through the air.
They slammed violently into every defense the cultivators had raised.
The massive tusk barrier Leyvi created trembled as debris smashed against it again and again.
Facing this terrifying secondary impact, many in the crowd finally realized a grim truth.
Those who had been near the center of the explosion likely had no chance of survival.
Not without some heaven-defying lifesaving treasure.
They were fortunate. Without Bellion's grand formation shielding them from the worst of the blast, the city itself would have been obliterated.
Time passed slowly as the storm of destruction gradually weakened.
Eventually, the roaring winds faded.
The debris stopped falling.
The chaotic aftermath of the explosion finally began to settle.
Leyvi stopped supplying Qi, and the gigantic tusk barrier slowly faded from existence.
Yet instead of relief, a shaken expression appeared on his face.
Nothing had survived the explosion.
The devastation around the epicenter was far stranger than he had imagined.
Space itself looked… broken.
In the distance, the entire region had transformed into a massive chaotic spatial rift. When the portal had been stable, it resembled calm, dark purple water gently rippling in the air. Now it looked like that same ocean had gone mad.
Violent dark purple waves tore through the sky in every direction, forming jagged cracks that spread across the air itself.
Reality looked fractured.
What made it far more terrifying was that the already enormous rift was still expanding.
The purple fractures crawled outward like living wounds in the world, silently devouring everything in their path. Buildings, trees, rocks, debris. Anything that touched the cracks simply disintegrated, vanishing without even leaving dust behind.
If the mere presence of the portal had slowly turned the surrounding land into a wasteland before, then this… this was the extreme version of that same effect.
Complete erasure.
Leyvi did not fully understand the deeper implications of what he was witnessing, but one thing was painfully obvious.
Staying here would be extremely dangerous.
At this rate, the expanding spatial rift would eventually reach the city itself. If it stopped expanding, that would be fortunate. But what if it did not stop? What if it kept spreading?
The thought alone sent a chill down his spine. Would it continue expanding until it devoured the entire world?
That possibility was far too terrifying to ignore.
He immediately turned to Anda and described the situation. He also told Anda to tell everyone to run away quickly.
Among everyone present, she was among the ones with the greatest authority and prestige. If she gave the order, people would be far more likely to listen.
Many of the cultivators present looked mentally exhausted already. After everything that had happened today, quite a few of them seemed unable to think clearly anymore.
They needed someone decisive to lead them.
Out of the nearly fifteen thousand cultivators from the three camps, Leyvi had no idea how many had survived the explosion earlier.
Judging from the scale of the blast, it was likely less than half.
And even among the survivors, many were probably severely injured.
Leyvi could not help but feel a heavy sadness settle in his chest.
So many cultivators had died just like that.
Although the Mystic Realm expedition did not impose any age restrictions on participants, most of the people who came were still young and talented cultivators with promising futures ahead of them.
For so many to perish here like this was a devastating loss to the younger generation of the cultivation world.
All he could hope now was that those who had managed to survive the explosion would not be caught by the expanding spatial rift.
Anda stepped forward. Her voice cut through the lingering chaos like a blade.
"Everyone, listen to me! The explosion has caused space to collapse, creating deadly spatial rifts. These rifts are expanding and destabilizing the surrounding space. They destroy everything they touch, and they will reach the city soon. We cannot stay here any longer. If you still want to live, you must run. Head away from the colossal tree as fast as you can. Go!"
Her warning spread through the crowd like a spark falling into dry grass.
The thousands gathered there hesitated for only a brief moment before panic truly took hold.
Then they ran.
Streams of cultivators poured out of the city gates, fleeing into the darkness beyond the walls. Thousands of figures rushed away from the colossal tree, pushing their movement techniques to the limit as they tried to escape the expanding disaster behind them.
But none of them could have imagined that the situation was about to twist yet again.
As they fled beneath the endless canopy of the colossal tree, the only light guiding them came from the glow of countless Qi techniques and artifacts illuminating the night.
Then suddenly…
The darkness vanished.
The entire surroundings became blindingly bright.
It happened so abruptly that many people instinctively halted mid-stride.
"What?"
Voices filled with confusion echoed everywhere.
Cultivators stopped running and turned around almost simultaneously.
Behind them, the Colossal Tree was glowing.
Not just the trunk.
Not just the branches.
Every single part of the ancient tree radiated light. The bark shimmered, the countless leaves gleamed like tiny lanterns, and the massive crown spreading across the sky shone with a soft yet overwhelming brilliance.
The enormous tree that had dominated this land of darkness for so long was now illuminating the entire region.
"What is happening now?" someone shouted in disbelief.
"Maybe the tree is reacting to the spatial rift!"
"Is it going to explode too?!"
"Look! That must be the spatial rift Madam Anda talked about!"
In the distance, the expanding cracks in space were now clearly visible under the tree's light. Jagged purple fractures stretched across the air like wounds carved directly into reality itself.
The sight made many people's hearts sink.
"This is not normal! Please stop already! I can't take it anymore!" someone cried out desperately.
"Should we keep running or stop?"
"Run! Just keep running! Do not stop!"
Yet despite those shouts, many people still found themselves unable to move.
They stood there, rooted in place, staring at the surreal scene before them.
For as long as anyone could remember, this vast land had always been shrouded in darkness beneath the colossal tree's endless canopy.
But now the entire world was bathed in radiant light.
For the first time since arriving at the Colossal Tree, everything could be seen clearly.
The land. The lakes. The distant mountains.
The spreading spatial rift.
And the unimaginable scale of the glowing tree.
No one knew what it meant.
No one knew what would happen next.
So they could only stand there and watch.