The Druid Who Devoured the Great Nature

“Puhak!”

Elliot, who had escaped from the water prison, gasped for breath. His eyes were blank, as he had held his breath for a long time. He gathered his trembling limbs and stood up, then turned to me and asked.

“Are you okay?”

“Isn’t that what I should be saying at this point?”

“I’m fine. It’s no big deal to have held my breath for a bit.”

Seeing him speak so nonchalantly, he seemed to be fine. Should I say it was the dignity of a veteran who had gone through all sorts of hardships in a rough profession? It would have been even better if he had given me a hint before starting the trouble.

“I’m fine too.”

“How can you be?”

Elliot also seemed curious. As soon as he figured out the environmental characteristics, Elliot had been reckless. His intention was to sort things out before I turned into an enemy, as I would most likely do. But since I was fine, he couldn’t hide his bewilderment, even if it wasn’t as much as the leader’s.

“I told you, I must be the great one you guys were talking about.”

To be precise, even I couldn’t conclude why that was the case at the moment. Of course, it was a joke, but there was a place I had in mind. The World Tree was dwelling in my body.

The hypothesis was that the holy blood affected humans, so it wouldn’t work on the World Tree. Or… it could be that the source of that holy blood was really divine power. Since I already held the divinity of the World Tree, a lower-class one couldn’t approach me.

Or maybe the druid’s job characteristics had a mental attack defense function. Either way, it was a situation I couldn’t speak of openly. If I couldn’t speak honestly, I had to go for hitting the enemy’s mentality.

It’s not just people who slow down in the water. The bullets fired in a surprise attack were blocked by the water barrier that the leader had spread.

“Can psychic powers be operated like that when they reach their peak? It’s amazing.”

It was closer to an instinctive defense rather than a conscious use of ability. Like reflexively putting out a hand to block. He still seemed to have not recovered from the confusion. It seemed to be a characteristic of psychic powers, which were different from magic or martial arts that were spread with the head and learned with the body.

“That can’t be, that can’t be. A new man. The only one chosen from the fruit of the holy spirit is me, the prophet who will save this fallen world…”

“You don’t have time to be lost in thought, do you?”

He was clinging to a trivial worry. The power of the M2 Maximum was excellent enough for me to use it regularly. But the purpose of my firing bullets was not just to rely on that power. It was because I could link it with the druid’s ability.

The brilliance of the spirit that sprouted from the warhead that had stopped in the water. As if playing a video quickly, the aquatic plants began to grow at a rapid pace. The momentum was to fill all the space in the water barrier and even eat up the leader beyond it.

The leader stepped back and compressed the barrier. The aquatic plants, which had swelled up in an instant and had approached right in front of the leader, were twisted and broken by the rapid pressure change.

He seemed to be wiping his cold sweat and taking a breather, but my aim was not just one.

“You shouldn’t lower your shield carelessly…!”

Aquatic plants are not particularly threatening plants. It wasn’t that I had summoned them for an aggressive purpose. But in this world where Mother Nature had almost died out, few knew this. The explosive growth was meaningful only in that it agitated the leader.

“Kkeuaaak!”

If I created an opening, Elliot would follow up with a subsequent blow. The blade touched the leader’s shoulder. Elliot shoved the chainsaw into the leader’s shoulder. The vibrating and rotating blade cut through the muscle and ground the bone.

The leader’s bloodshot eyes reached the arm that was falling off.

The torn arm exploded. Elliot blocked the debris that had exploded like a fragmentation grenade with both arms and retreated. The power was no different from a real bomb, and his mana-clad forearms were bruised black.

“He used blood as a medium.”

The leader’s psychic power was to control liquids. For an improvisation, it was not a bad trick.

“Instead, the possibility of restoring one arm has disappeared. It would be a sight to see if a guy who prides himself on being a new man goes around with a mechanical arm.”

“It’s sweet.”

Elliot added a hand to the provocation. He muttered and then shivered. It was a little unpleasant that he seemed to be truly ecstatic.

“I’m looking forward to how sweet it will be to cut that neck.”

「The World Tree stealthily avoids!」

He was on the verge of his eyes rolling back. It would have been creepy if he were an enemy, but since he was on the same side, well. Since he was burning with motivation, I didn’t throw a wet blanket on him.

“Leader!”

“O great one!”

Had the sound of the battle been heard outside? The shouts of the believers echoed from beyond the iron door. Hella and Waver were showing their skills, so there was no intrusion, but it was unknown how long they would hold out.

I felt a sense of urgency inwardly, but it was probably not as much as the leader, who had suffered a great blow to his perfect image as a cult leader.

A saw blade does not cut cleanly like a sharp knife, but tears the surface. Blood was flowing from the shoulder of the leader whose arm had been cut off. It was a detail that suggested excessive bleeding, but the blood suddenly stopped.

It was something that had happened the moment the leader overcame the pain and came to his senses.

“How dare…! You, who are less than a bug, have harmed the body of a new man who will reach heaven!”

The environment reacted to the leader’s enraged emotions. The water in the bathtub, which had been sloshing, overflowed completely and rose to his knees, wetting the hem of his clothes.

“You’re still not sober.”

I wanted to completely expose the bare face hidden behind the elegant tone. Well, I had achieved the purpose of provoking him. Since we were in a situation where we couldn’t drag out the battle for long.

From now on, it was a real sword fight.

***

The water rose. The holy blood that had filled the bathtub overflowed and then swelled up without limit. Starting from the ankles, to the knees, and now to the thighs. It was as if a hot spring that never dried up was gushing from under the bathtub, and it was about to fill this space without exaggeration.

Elliot ran on the water. He was as unrestrained as if he were running on flat ground. It was thanks to the leaves that had floated to the surface and were acting as a foothold.

The fountain that gushed from the floor only chased the place he had left, and he gracefully dodged the streams of water that were embedded like tentacles, as if dodging a rain shower.

Elliot, who had approached the leader without much resistance, brought down the saw blade, which was wrapped in a sharp wind, vertically.

The leader’s body turned into water and fell. It was a repetition of the same situation. It seemed it would be difficult to see a great effect unless it was a surprise attack like just now.

When Elliot approached, the leader did not counterattack but focused on dodging. Elliot’s face, which had been full of excitement, was now distorted with annoyance.

The leader was thoroughly dragging out the time. It was a tactic of being wary, not forgetting that it was a two-on-one situation. He was probably wary of the moment I stopped supporting Elliot and switched to the offensive.

“You can only run wild like a thunderbolt for now. There is no trial that cannot be overcome, and the time of judgment will soon come!”

“You’re saying a lot just to say you’re waiting for it to be flooded.”

The stream of water that had filled the huge bathtub. For a psychic who handled liquids, that alone was a great advantage. As if that wasn’t enough, the leader was trying to flood this space. So that only he could be free in the water.

This could also be seen as a kind of domain. It wasn’t a skill that was spread with level and enlightenment, but it was similar in that it created an environment that was only advantageous to oneself.

“But don’t you think you’ve shown the same trick for too long?”

Psychic powers are not magic. It might seem as if the leader was liquefying his body to dodge Elliot’s attack, but it was different. To be precise, it was closer to an illusion, a substitution using the steam that filled the air.

The main body must be submerged deep in the water. Elliot probably would have noticed by now. The reason he was repeating the meaningless exchange was because there was no other way.

It was a challenge just to locate him in the water, and it was even more difficult to chase him, who moved freely without being resisted by the water. It was an impossible task for Elliot.

But it was possible for me. In that sense, Elliot’s seemingly meaningless exchange was a great way to buy time until I found a way.

“There you are.”

Air bubbles rose from a corner of the bathtub. It was between the sparsely grown aquatic plants. He wouldn’t know, but it was a plant called a bladderwort. It was a carnivorous plant with a round pouch on its stem that sucked in and ate insects the moment they touched its sensory hairs.

The pouches of the bladderwort were stuck to the leader’s entire body. No matter how fast he was in the water. So I had planned to hold on to him from the beginning. So that he couldn’t play any tricks and had to face me head-on.

As Elliot swung his sword, the water split. The storm that raged along the trajectory created a path in the water. It was as if a fish had jumped out onto the land. Elliot ran along the path.

The foothold made of plant leaves was inevitably unstable. When he kicked off the ground, his speed was like a gale.

It was a saw blade that was closer to tearing than to cutting. But the moment it had torn about half of his neck, the saw blade stopped without advancing any further.

Even though it had been torn by the saw blade, no blood splattered from the cross-section. It was the same as when he had used his torn arm as a bomb. It seemed he had blocked the attack with blood as a medium.

Then, the waves that had been stationary on both sides became a tsunami and rushed at Elliot. Elliot, who had put all his strength into it with the determination to end it, could not respond and was swept away by the waves.

‘I shouldn’t just dismiss him as a psychic.’

He had reached this level, so he was a clear superhuman. Although it was half, his neck had been cut. Although he had stopped the bleeding, he was practically dead. Nevertheless, the leader was still thinking and acting normally.

Had he really liquefied? The cross-section of the wound that had been ground by the saw blade was round like a drop of water and flowed down. It was a characteristic that was closer to a natural object than to a human.

The fact that a psychic was inferior to a mage was just the common sense of the game.

‘I need to get rid of my prejudice.’

I had been using the common sense and information of the game usefully so far. But this incident was very different from the information of the game. The leader in front of me was clearly a superhuman who had reached the extreme level.

If I had fought him alone, dismissing him as a psychic, I would have been in big trouble.

“Your struggle was commendable, but the time has come.”

The leader was not angry, as he had been when his arm was cut off. His eyes, looking down at me as if a higher being were looking at a microbe, were arrogant. The stream of water was already lapping at my neck. The speed at which the water was rising was getting faster and faster.

My head was about to be submerged in the water, and soon the entire hall would be submerged.

“May the wrath of God descend.”

“I don’t know about God, but you certainly seem to be very angry.”

Although I said that, it was a scene where I could understand why he was so full of himself. A vortex swirled fiercely around him. A wave stood behind him with its mouth wide open majestically. His figure, standing proudly in the middle of it, was close to a new man who handled Mother Nature.

“Die.”

It was an indifferent sentence, as if reciting a predetermined result. The waves raged, and the whirlwind came. It was as if I had been swept away in the middle of a stormy sea with my bare body.

“Unfortunately.”

There was no tension, as if it were a desperate crisis.

“You’re the one who’s going to die.”

From the moment I had confirmed the identity of the leader’s fighting style, the so-called ‘holy blood’ that filled the domain, I had been waiting for this composition to unfold. The abilities that we had both used as our trump cards were similar.

A type that establishes an advantageous domain and ends it. In the end, our fight had no choice but to be decided by a contest of our domains.

He must feel like a god. Although there had been ups and downs, he would think that in the end, things had gone according to the picture he had drawn. Certainly, that one move had a grandeur that seemed to handle Mother Nature.

But to me, it just came across as his final scream.

“Domain Declaration.”

He had used too much power in his fight with Elliot. The difference was not small. This fight was my victory, as I had hidden my trump card until the end.

Wildflowers spread. The illusion of a huge tree that had soared into the sky became a barrier and blocked the pouring waves and vortex. I could see the leader’s wide-open eyes through the scattering drops of water.

The water level that had filled the hall gradually subsided. It seeped into the soil and collected on the ground. The holy blood, guided by the water channels on the floor, soon formed a small pond and became a natural part of the scenery within the domain.

“H-how can my divinity, my power…!”

The leader tried to control the holy blood, but it was useless. This was the domain of the World Tree, the incarnation of Mother Nature. Even if he tried to compete for control of the domain, it would be impossible with the power he had left.

In the first place, the level was different. A fake could not be the same as the real thing.

Leaves, petals, stems, fruits, and trees converged into one point. A huge cluster of plants. The wrath of Mother Nature formed a single shape in the empty air.

And then.

KWAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!

It fell.

(End of Chapter)