I Can Give Talents-Chapter 453 - Help

"Wait. How could they possibly know if the portals are up here or not? They can’t even come up here. This place is around sixty kilometers high. Was it a lie from the beginning, or did something happen to the portals?" Leyvi talked to himself, pacing back and forth along the water’s edge.

He tried asking Lapin for his opinion, but there was no reply at all. The Celestial Cloud Rabbit had likely sealed himself completely within the spirit beast bag, unwilling to expose his presence while they were on the colossal tree itself.

"No. I need to make absolutely sure. I have to search more thoroughly first. Maybe they are hidden somewhere. I can’t go back down until I confirm this," Leyvi resolved.

He took out a weird-looking, distinctively shaped boulder that Anda had once told him to collect and placed it firmly on the ground to mark his starting point. With the bright ball of light floating above him, he began to sprint along the edge of the massive lake, his spiritual sense deployed to its absolute maximum, scanning every inch of the terrain as he ran.

Half a day later, he completed a full circuit and returned to the weird boulder. But he did not end his search. Though tired, he dove into the lake, determined to search the vast depths beneath the water as well. That search took him another two full days before he finally resurfaced, having found nothing.

Returning to the marker boulder, he lay down on the solid wood of the trunk and took a long, deep break. He was utterly fatigued, both physically and mentally, after concentrating nonstop for such a long time. And he had found no trace of any portal. The information about portals being here was likely a lie.

"Does that mean the portals are somewhere else entirely? Or maybe the portals don’t exist anymore. Could they have been destroyed when we arrived?" Leyvi was left with nothing but unanswered questions.

He closed his eyes, deciding to rest. It had been months since he last allowed himself to truly sleep.

Just as his consciousness began to sink and the boundary of dreams approached, something changed.

A powerful force suddenly latched onto his awareness.

Before he could react, his consciousness was forcefully pulled away, dragged toward an unknown place without any chance to resist.

With the current strength of his Sea of Consciousness, only a being far greater than Lapin could possibly do this.

A vast, absolute darkness unfolded before Leyvi’s consciousness.

There was no ground, no sky, no sense of up or down. Only an immense, primordial presence that slowly revealed itself, like a curtain being drawn back from the heart of existence.

He saw the world.

Not as mountains or oceans, not as continents or cities, but as something far more fundamental. A gigantic, intricate web of glowing laws crisscrossed endlessly, forming the very foundation of reality. Each strand pulsed with a faint, vital light, maintaining balance, rhythm, and worldly order.

And then he saw the intrusion.

From the depths of this luminous web, colossal roots pushed forward, thick and ancient, forcing their way between the strands of law. Wherever the roots touched, the light dimmed. Laws that once flowed smoothly began to twist, bend, and fracture under the pressure.

The colossal tree was there.

Not as a physical form, but as an overwhelming, devouring will. It towered beyond comprehension, its presence pressing down on the world’s laws like a suffocating, infinite weight. Its roots dug deeper and deeper, coiling around more strands, siphoning authority directly from them.

The world resisted.

Leyvi felt it clearly, a tremor that ran through the fabric of everything.

The glowing laws trembled and pushed back, throwing off sparks of desperate energy as they struggled to maintain their structure. Waves of resistance surged again and again, trying to expel the invading roots. But the tree did not retreat. Instead, it seemed to grow stronger with each assault.

Each moment, more laws were seized.

More light faded into nothing.

A deep, pervasive sense of exhaustion seeped through the entire web. The resistance weakened, growing fainter. The world was losing.

Leyvi’s consciousness was then forced to witness the final outcome.

The last struggle came like a silent, universe-rending scream.

One by one, the remaining laws were devoured. The luminous web collapsed inward, consumed entirely by the colossal tree. Oceans vanished. Land crumbled to dust. The sky shattered into fragments of nothingness.

The world was eaten.

And it did not end there.

Leyvi saw the tree drifting through the cold void, carrying the lifeless remains of a dead world within itself. Its roots extended outward like cosmic tendrils, latching onto neighboring planets. One after another, worlds were pierced, drained of their essence, and swallowed whole.

The last sensation that washed over Leyvi was not fear, but a profound, crushing desperation. A silent, wordless plea, raw and anguished, echoed directly into the core of his consciousness.

HELP!

Leyvi’s consciousness snapped back to his body. He gasped for air, his lungs burning as if he had been submerged for centuries. He felt utterly, physically suffocated.

He woke up drenched in cold sweat, his heart hammering against his ribs.

"Haa... haa... haa... What... what was that? The world... has its own consciousness?" He pushed himself upright into the complete, consuming darkness.

With a trembling hand, he created another ball of light, illuminating the familiar, alien landscape around him. He inspected his body carefully, relieved to find nothing physically wrong.

"That dream... was the world itself asking for my help? You must be kidding me. I just want to go home, you know?" Leyvi frowned as the fragments of the vision replayed in his mind.

"That scene... are you trying to tell me that even if I do go home, this tree will eventually destroy my planet too? What the heck! This can’t be real, right? But even if I know this, what do you expect me to do to help? Tickle this colossal tree?" he complained.

How was he even supposed to help? The world itself was losing its power to the tree. Asking a puny creature like him for aid made no sense at all.

Sorry, world. I can’t help you. I just want to go home. If you need a savior, maybe you should seek out Lin Wei. He is the protagonist, not me. Leyvi apologized inwardly, half hoping the fading consciousness of the world could still hear his thoughts.

"Haaaa...." He let out a long, weary sigh, the weight of the vision settling heavily on his shoulders.

"Time to go down and tell them the portal is not here," he muttered to himself.

He stored the weird-looking marker boulder back in his space ring and began the long, careful descent.

---

Colossal tree shade. Southeast Region.

"Hmm? A few of them are in trouble."

A man clad in a high-quality crimson robe stood up slowly. Closed eye patterns were embroidered across his sleeves and chest, forming an unsettling motif. A mask covered the upper half of his face, concealing his eyes completely while leaving his nose and mouth exposed.

This was Mental Lord Vincent.

Since fully embracing the path of a Spiritual Cultivator, he had ceased using his physical eyes entirely, relying solely on his spiritual vision to perceive the world. The disuse had progressed to the point where his natural sight had faded completely, leaving him functionally blind.

He walked toward a wall.

Hanging there was a large frame with no painting inside. Instead, thousands of tiny, distinct patterns shimmered faintly with an azure glow. Each pattern was evenly spaced, and beneath each one was a name written in neat script.

They were spiritual imprints.

At this moment, six of them were flickering violently.

"Oh. It is Rando’s group," Vincent murmured, his voice calm and analytical. "How strange. I have never seen him in trouble before. What difficult situation could he have encountered? Let me see."

A small, invisible hand of mental energy formed instantly and plucked Rando’s shimmering imprint from the frame.

"Locate," Vincent said calmly.

In the next moment, his perception shifted violently, his vision hurtling through space at breathtaking speed. Landscapes and shadows flashed by in a blur. After a few seconds, the movement slowed and settled on a specific location. From this anchor point, his spiritual sense unfurled, blanketing the immediate area.

Vincent immediately saw his subordinates. They were not just in trouble, they were captured. Rando and the other five men were writhing on the ground, screaming in muffled agony. Their meridians had been completely and expertly sealed.

He also saw a cute, petite woman brutally and systematically punching his captured men, her fists a blur until their faces became swollen and bloody, almost unrecognizable. He could tell the beating was not meant to be lethal, but rather to inflict maximum pain and humiliation. Behind her, three other women stood with their hands over their eyes, as if they could not bear to watch the violent spectacle.

"They lost to these women? What were they even doing?" Vincent muttered, genuinely surprised.

He then surveyed the area more carefully. The pervasive darkness meant nothing to him. His spiritual vision rendered the scene in clear, detailed monochrome.

"Hmm... This is the southern area, near that Pink Enchantress’s territory. Most of the women from her faction are skilled in illusion techniques. I see. I already warned them to be careful here. One of them was supposed to stay hidden as a safeguard in case the others fell under an illusion. It seems they did not listen. A bunch of fools. How difficult is it to conceal oneself in a place this dark?" Vincent felt a spike of sharp displeasure.

"Looks like I will have to contact the Pink Enchantress herself to resolve this. I wonder what she will demand to release these idiots. She would not ask for a night with me, would she? Not that I would mind. Among everyone here, I am likely the only one completely unaffected by her illusions." He mused aloud, a touch of arrogant confidence in his tone.

Suddenly, Vincent’s spiritual vision locked onto a new detail, a presence that shook him to his core.

High above, standing on the level of the ancient palaces built into the trunk, a man in a distinctive jacket was looking down at the scene below.

"Who? Who can possibly climb the tree? That is impossible!"