The Druid Who Devoured the Great Nature

“Keuleok!”

A person can die from falling backward and hitting their head, but surprisingly, they don’t die easily from a single bullet. If appropriate measures are taken, a life can be saved. It was the same even if there was a hole in the heart. A superhuman who could handle mana could avoid instant death.

“Eheheh.”

That’s why Alfonso was laughing.

“I won.”

“……”

I couldn’t finish off the sneering Alfonso. The back of my head tingled. It was a warning that if I acted rashly, I would suffer a great loss.

I slowly turned my head to confirm the winner of the battle. In fact, seeing Alfonso’s laughing face, it was obvious who had won.

A severed head fell at my feet. It was Vincent’s head. His face was so contorted that deep wrinkles had formed. Emotions such as humiliation and shame were deeply engraved in his lifeless eyes.

“I must have warned you that you were next.”

The winner was Lugar. Although the fur covering his entire body was stained red with blood. He was still alive.

I sighed with dissatisfaction and lamented.

“It ended up like this after all.”

Vampires are long-lived, not immortal monsters. Since only his head had returned, there was no possibility of him being revived.

It was Sonia’s defeat.

“I thought it wouldn’t be strange for her to lose since she was in a possessed body, not her main body. But for someone who had declared with such confidence that she could win, it was a disgraceful defeat.”

It was a very coincidental timing. It would have been better if it had been after I had definitely finished off Alfonso.

“Heh heh, it would have been so much better if you had just let me go. I would have lived, and you would have run away. In fact, I could have saved you.”

Alfonso, in his reversed situation, was still joking around even as he was dying. If Lugar killed me and took him to an external medical institution, he could live.

Of course, the nature of a top agent in the industry couldn’t be so frivolous. Seeing him constantly asserting his presence to me when it was hard to even open his mouth, he must have had the intention of creating a gap in me.

A trick to make me aim for him and overdo it, or to disturb my mind by making me worry about him during the battle with Lugar.

“Well, I don’t think the tide has turned enough for you to be so triumphant just because it turned out like this.”

If Sonia had won, that would have been the most ideal result. But it wasn’t that I hadn’t expected it to turn out like this, and it wasn’t a problem to be flustered about now, saying it was a failure.

“What can a single wounded beast change?”

It was a shame that I couldn’t finish off Alfonso, but it wasn’t something to obsess over. The reason Alfonso could be so triumphant now was because of the calculation that I was no match for Lugar.

That’s why if I won against Lugar, nothing would change. I just had to kill Lugar and finish off Alfonso.

“You’re overdoing it. Aren’t you?”

“……”

Lugar did not answer and just stared at me with his sunken eyes.

“It seems Sonia didn’t do nothing, even if she lost disgracefully.”

Lugar was catching his breath. The wound left by the vampire was indeed different, as blood gushed out from the deep wound without stopping.

Most of the blood-stained fur was not Vincent’s, but Lugar’s own. The aftereffects of awakening his pure blood, even if the technique was not complete, must have been eating away at his life.

Even Victor Laznik had burned his own flesh as a price for handling lightning. It would be no different for Lugar.

“Unfortunately, it’s not me who’s at a disadvantage for dragging this out, but you.”

In order to save the life of his collaborator, Alfonso, and also considering his own body, which was collapsing moment by moment. It was best for Lugar to aim for a short, decisive battle.

“Shall we see how much you can struggle?”

At the end of the blatant taunt, Lugar finally moved.

The need to close the distance was a limitation that could not be escaped as a werebeast. It was a speed I had already experienced once.

Perhaps because his body was not in a normal state, it was slightly slower than before. It was a speed that could be followed with the eyes, so it was possible to check his approach.

Thorns shot up and vines tangled along the path he was running. If he had charged foolishly like a huge bear, his ankles would have been caught.

Although I had believed the trick of the fraudulent wolf, it was me who had been helplessly defeated just a while ago. In addition, he was being chased by time, so he could have acted simply and foolishly, but Lugar was not careless.

A sprint that seemed to bounce, unfitting for his huge build. The path he ran was not straight, but zigzagged, going back and forth between the floor, walls, and ceiling.

‘I see, so the pure blood that Lugar has awakened is that kind of ability.’

In the sharp hawk’s vision that captured the moment, his strange legs stood out. The muscles were firm, but the outline was relatively sleek.

They were the legs of a deer. And the hands that grabbed various fixtures and freely twisted the path were the long arms of a monkey.

‘The factors of various beasts are contained in one body.’

There was a clear limit to the transformation of a werebeast. The fact that one person could only transform into one type of beast.

The current Lugar was not bound by such a limitation. It was the dignity of the pure blood.

And since he could even transform parts of his body, the versatility that resulted from it confused the opponent’s senses, making it impossible for them to adapt.

But even if the means changed, the purpose of closing the distance remained the same. If you know the opponent’s purpose, the countermeasure is also simple.

I scattered the seeds around my body. Lugar jumped into the dense seeds, which felt like a piece of white cloth.

The seeds exploded in a chain reaction. No matter how fast Lugar was, he could not escape the influence of the explosion.

And I was right in front of him. The explosion was more intense than I had thought, but he would have taken the damage rather than turning back.

If he retreated now and had a chase with me again, his body would be in a worse state than now.

“……!”

And so, enduring the shock of the explosion, he reached out his hand, but it only brushed past my collar. The shockwave from the explosion of the seeds had pushed my body back.

The impatience of being chased by time, the bewilderment from the explosion, and the miscalculation of the distance. He might have thought it was a close call, but it was a flow that I had thoroughly intended.

That’s why the next action he would take was also in my head. He stomped on the floor to forcibly fix the balance of his shaken body.

The crack in the earth’s crust that had spread from his heel blocked my escape route. It was a judgment that he would not give me the distance to drag this fight into a long-term battle.

The werebeast had the advantage in close combat. It was also the best decisive move he could make, aiming for a short, decisive battle in his broken body.

「Synchronization proceeds!」

That was his fatal mistake, not knowing that it was the flow I had induced. No, even if he had known, he would have had no choice but to move as I intended.

After all, he had no choice but to approach and attack me. But unlike his thoughts, I was not a complete novice in close combat.

“……!”

Fist and fist collided. Mana and mana collided and broke, shining in their respective colors.

Lugar’s eyes widened. He had thought I would run away without facing him head-on, so his trajectory had been straight without any particular technique.

If it was a contest of martial arts, I might not know, but if it was a fight of strength against strength, I was confident.

I caught him off guard. I did not retreat here, but took another step forward.

At the same time, pollen erupted from my entire body.

“Keub!”

It was a move that had worked effectively on Victor Laznik. Lugar wrinkled his nose and quickly held his breath and puffed up his body.

It was a quick response compared to Victor Laznik, who had been squeezing out all his tears and snot. The veteran’s skill of blocking the decisive blow that I would pour out next and waiting for an opportunity, rather than forcing the offensive.

I tried another mind game here.

I kicked him and pushed him away. He was so heavy that it felt like I was the one being pushed, but it didn’t matter.

The important thing was that I had created a distance. The distant figure of Lugar trembled as if in a seizure.

It seemed he wanted to chase me, but his body was not following, a phenomenon that had occurred.

Distance, time. I had grasped both. Now it was time to pull out the truly decisive blow.

“Domain Declaration.”

「Domain Declaration.」

The halo of light that the spirits scattered as they ran changed the environment of the area. In the shimmering halo of light, vegetation sprouted and waterways were created.

The gloomy scenery of the research lab was dyed in a variety of colors. The damp air of the underground scattered, and a refreshing breeze blew gently.

「The surrounding area changes to the domain of the World Tree.」

A huge tree, the illusion of the World Tree, shot up, breaking through the ceiling and reaching beyond the ground to the sky. As the World Tree breathed, the pressure of the great divinity that settled inside the domain made Lugar bite his lip tightly.

“Domain…!”

“I had no intention of dragging this out from the beginning, just playing defense.”

It would be stable, but in a real battle, anything can happen. Although he was injured, Lugar was the head of a faction of the Brotherhood.

It was best not to give him a chance to create a variable.

‘And just avoiding it doesn’t suit my temperament.’

Rather, breaking through head-on suited my taste.

‘I have a good chance of winning.’

While pretending to buy time, I had grasped Lugar’s condition. I would take the initiative and make a move here.

What was left was a contest of strength against strength. It was a field where I was as confident as Lugar.

As the World Tree grew, the domain also developed, and I had learned many tricks, but at this moment, such techniques were unnecessary.

Vines wrapped around the tree trunk, and leaves and petals overlapped, puffing up the volume. My will, which had become one with the World Tree, was added to the mass of trees that were clumping together in the shape of a large ball.

The image I imagined was the wrath of Mother Nature that would overturn heaven and earth.

I shot it out as if flicking a bowstring. A huge sphere of trees fell like a meteor.

The cavern shook as if it would collapse from the shockwave, and the hem of my clothes fluttered as if it would be torn by the blade-like wind.

“……!”

There was no place for Lugar to escape. His body was not in a state to do so either.

His choice was, as expected, a head-on confrontation.

Lugar transformed into the shape of a huge bear and received my attack. No, the features of various animals were overlapped on the shape of the bear.

Bird feathers grew on the black fur, a lion’s mane grew on his neck, and a hard carapace grew on his back. His pupils were those of a wolf, his molars were those of a hippo, the skin of his arms was that of a tiger, and his nails were those of a hawk…

It was a form that could not be described as any specific animal. It was close to a chimera created by a black mage.

And yet, Lugar was controlling and handling all those beast factors.

‘How ironic.’

While claiming the power of a pure-blooded werebeast, Lugar’s current form did not resemble any animal that existed on earth.

A monster no different from a chimera. If Shadowfang’s research had succeeded, could they have really revived the ancient pure-blooded werebeasts?

At least, just by looking at Lugar’s current form, it was ambiguous.

“Kkeueueuk!”

It was right after a bloody battle with Sonia. And in the battle with me, the damage had been steadily accumulating.

And yet, Lugar did not collapse easily. On the contrary, he endured the wrath of Mother Nature and slowly approached.

‘A monster is a monster.’

As expected of the head of Shadowfang. His body must have already reached its limit.

The madness of wanting to surely restore the glory of his clan must have been moving him.

‘But it’s the end anyway.’

I gestured with my chin at Vincent’s head.

“You can at least finish it, right?”

The lips of the corpse, which had been stiff, moved.

“Of course.”

“……!”

The one who had been defeated by Lugar was Sonia, but the one who had lost his life was Vincent’s body. And in the success condition of possession, the life or death of the medium was irrelevant.

The blood that Lugar had shed became thorns and pierced his entire body. It was a variable that was more than enough to break the balance of the power struggle that he and I were having.

The wrath of Mother Nature fell on the underground cavern and swallowed Lugar.

(End of Chapter)