Immortal Druid

What exactly was the Natural Order?

It was the hierarchy of life, the quiet understanding that everything had its place and purpose, that harmony came from alignment rather than defiance. It was also the brutal simplicity of survival, where strength prevailed not out of cruelty, but necessity. Above all, it was the way the world fit together, like a puzzle whose pieces moved, shifted, and yet always found where they belonged.

Everything was connected. Every action gave rise to another, each cause rippling outward into consequence. It was a cycle, endless and self-sustaining, a great circle that turned without pause. For that circle to flourish, balance had to be maintained. Good nurtured, chaos endured. Yet even that balance was delicate. Too much good could rot into stagnation, birthing new forms of decay. Too much chaos would consume itself, leaving only ruin behind. When imbalance reached its breaking point, there was only one answer.

Rip and tear the bad, so that the good may flourish again.

The thought struck me like lightning, raw and violent, tearing through the fog that had dulled my existence. The principles of Nevle Drol Diurdhcra surged to the surface, bursting from the back of my mind like a scab ripped open, exposing something that had never truly healed. Alongside it came a deep, primal, and undeniable isntinct. A druid’s hatred. There were two things we could never tolerate: aberrations that defied the cycle, and the undead that mocked it.

And standing before me was exactly that.

For so long, I had existed as a tree, my sense of self blurred and scattered, content in a strange, detached way. But now, clarity returned with brutal force. I had died. Truly died. And yet something had dragged me back, tethered me here in this half-existence.

Rage followed.

It burned through me so violently that it reshaped me.

“Rebirth World.”

The words tore free from my consciousness, and the next moment, I burst from the tree. Flesh formed where bark once stood, limbs replacing branches as I stepped forward into the world once more. I was naked, my body rougher than before, a beard growing across my face as if time had tried to catch up all at once. None of that mattered.

I moved.

Nature’s Stride carried me forward in an instant, closing the distance between myself and the skeletal figure. My hand snapped forward, gripping its skull with unrestrained force as I invoked the light of the sun itself.

“Sunlight Orb.”

The skull exploded in a burst of radiant energy.

Above, the crows stirred, their cries cutting through the sudden shift in the forest.

I did not stop.

Trusting my Druidic Insight, I reached back toward the tree and my staff answered. It tore free from the trunk and flew into my grasp through phytokinesis, the familiar weight grounding me. I slammed it against my shadow where I felt the skeleton was boldly hiding.

“Thorn Whip.”

The ground responded instantly. Vines surged outward, crawling through every patch of darkness, spreading across the forest like a living net. Shadows became pathways, and from them, thorns erupted, binding, seeking, hunting.

The skeleton rose into the sky, its form reconstituted, hovering above as if the destruction meant nothing.

“As amusing as this is, I have better things to do.”

I bared my teeth, my voice low and sharp.

“Hey, we’re not done yet.”

I struck the ground again.

“Spirit of the World Tree.”

Behind me, something vast emerged. An enormous tree manifested, its presence ancient and overwhelming, its roots stretching beyond sight. The air thickened, reality bending slightly under its weight.

For the briefest moment, I felt the skeleton’s surprise.

Then it began to fade.

It was trying to ecape.

But I had already locked onto it.

Through the World Tree, my senses extended, threading through space itself, anchoring onto its presence as it slipped away. I followed without hesitation, Nature’s Stride carrying me across distance in a single step.

The forest vanished and I appeared within a cave. A mural lined one wall. Cultivators knelt on the other. At the center stood a body I recognized instantly. It was Xing Ning, my friend. His corpse was standing, animated and inhabited by something that was not him.

Everything went still for me.

Ah.

Before, only the druid in me had been angry.

Now?

Even the Earthling part of me was furious.

I did not hesitate.

The moment their killing intent sharpened and the air thickened with hostility, the cultivators broke into chaos. Panic rippled through them, their composure shattering like brittle glass under pressure.

“What is that thing!? That isn’t a human—!”

“Stay focused!”

“So much qi!”

“Draw your swords! Formation—now!”

All of them were Core Formation cultivators.

The woman was at the Nascent Soul.

And the thing wearing Xing Ning… Soul Transformation.

Under normal circumstances, I would have smiled at those odds. I would have circled them, tested their techniques, dismantled them piece by piece while learning everything they had to offer. There was a certain pleasure in stretching a fight out, savoring it, and venting through controlled violence.

Right now?

I did not want to learn.

I wanted them to hurt.

The base of my staff struck the ground with a dull, resonant thump, and the world answered. Roots groaned beneath the earth as something ancient and immeasurable stirred. The Spirit of the World Tree manifested behind me, vast and silent, its presence pressing down on reality itself like a primordial will made manifest as it followed me here.

“How about no?”

I moved before their formation could stabilize.

Wild Shape: Primal Nature Spirit.

My body shifted, flesh giving way to something purer, something older. My skin became porcelain ivory, smooth and unmarred, as if sculpted by a god’s careful hand. A crown of twisting twigs grew upon my head, each branch alive, pulsing faintly with verdant light. My hair lengthened into a cascading mane, wild and untamed, flowing like a river of life itself.

Then I raised my hand.

The world answered.

Thorn Whips erupted into existence. They were countless, writhing, and screaming through the air like a storm of living blades. Each one lashed out with terrifying precision, tearing into flesh, bone, and soul alike. They pierced through bodies, ripped limbs apart, and shredded cultivators mid-chant, leaving nothing but mangled remnants in their wake.

Their screams did not last long.

The seeds within them? The foul and parasitic things I had sensed reacted violently under my assault. They burst, twisted, and tore their hosts apart from the inside, accelerating the carnage into something grotesque and absolute.

Blood painted the ground.

Bodies ceased to be bodies.

I did not slow down.

But I missed two.

It was the woman and the thing wearing Xing Ning’s face.

The latter moved first, its reaction immediate and calculated. It caught the woman mid-fall and vanished, space folding as they fled through a series of short-range teleportations. Their escape was clean and efficient.

It did not matter.

Nature’s Stride.

The world bent to me.

Distance lost meaning as I stepped through the veins of the earth, reappearing ahead of their trajectory. The woman barely had time to register my presence before my hand closed around her head.

Her eyes widened.

I did not speak.

Sunlight Orb.

Radiance condensed into a single, merciless point in my palm before erupting outward in a violent explosion of searing brilliance. The force consumed her instantly, burning through flesh and crushing her skull, leaving nothing behind but a headless body.

I released what remained and stood in the aftermath, the air still trembling from the violence I had unleashed.

For a moment, I paused.

Perhaps, it was not my imagination.

I had grown stronger and something fundamental had changed after my resurrection.

…

..

.

[POV: Lu Jing]

Lu Jing fled.

The sky itself seemed to burn as beams of condensed sunlight lanced through the air, each one carrying enough force to annihilate him utterly. He twisted and veered between them, his movements sharp and desperate, yet precise in a way only a cultivator of his experience could achieve.

His heart pounded, not with fear alone, but with something far more dangerous.

Excitement.

“An era with few immortals?” he spat, his voice half-laughing, half-breathless. “Bullshit! What manner of monster is this!?”

He had faced immortals before. He had witnessed destruction that shattered mountains and boiled seas. But this? This was different. It was neither the scale, the violence, nor the control. The qi in the surroundings did not merely respond to that existence. It obeyed him so completely, unquestioningly, and thoroughly as though the world itself recognized him as something greater.

Lu Jing’s eyes burned with manic clarity.

There was no spiritual root.

No energy core.

No structure he could identify.

That thing defied every principle he had ever learned.

“Half-step Immortal?” he muttered, dodging another beam that scorched past him. “No… if he possessed an Immortal Art, he would already be one…”

A thought struck him.

“Shén…?”

He immediately rejected it.

“No. The Shén are creators. Not… this.”

And yet, he laughed. Despite the death chasing at his heels, despite the overwhelming danger pressing down on him, Lu Jing threw his head back and laughed with unrestrained joy.

“A path! A path beyond immortality has opened before me!” His voice trembled with exhilaration. “There is more! There is more beyond the Immortal Path, and the clue stands right behind me!”

He did not understand it. He did not know how to grasp it. But he would. He had to.

First, he needed to survive.

The secret realm unfolded before him like a familiar map. Every hidden mechanism, every concealed formation, every subtle distortion in space? He knew them all.

His hand flicked.

A concealed formation activated above him, stone erupting downward into a solid wall that intercepted a barrage of thorny whips. The impact shook the structure violently, cracks spiderwebbing across its surface, but it held just long enough for Lu Jing to reach the wall ahead and press his palm against what appeared to be solid rock. His qi surged, intricate and precise, modifying a hidden spatial formation that only he could perceive.

“Almost, just a bit more…”

The stranger appeared beside him without warning, movement transcending space itself. A single hand shot forward, grasping Lu Jing’s head with absolute inevitability. Just as suddenly, the man rushed the skull with a spell.

The body collapsed lifelessly.

But Lu Jing was already gone.

At the instant of death, his soul had slipped free, darting away with practiced precision. The enemy’s hand lunged again, attempting to seize it. However, he only grasped at nothing, but an illusion so convincing even Lu Jing doubted an immortal would be able to see through them.

The real soul flickered into the spatial formation.

Lu Jing’s laughter echoed through sound transmission, sharp and triumphant. “You monstrous thing, do you think raw power alone is enough?” His voice carried a mocking edge as he stabilized the formation. “You lack finesse! You lack understanding!”

The formation activated and space twisted.

“Watch closely,” he sneered, his form already distorting as the teleportation took hold. “The path you embody… I will make it mine.”

With a final burst of manic laughter, Lu Jing vanished into the depths of space, his trajectory scrambled and concealed beyond pursuit, cast toward an unknown destination where even that terrifying existence would struggle to follow.

…

..

.

I lost him.

I lost him.

“Fuck… fuck… fuck!”

The words tore out of my throat like something feral, raw, and unrestrained. My gaze locked onto the wall where Lu Jing had vanished, my senses flaring, Druidic Insight clawing at the remnants of space for even the faintest trace of him.

Nothing.

Not a ripple. Not a scar. Not even an echo.

“FUCK!”

My fist slammed into the stone. The impact cracked it, fractures spiderwebbing outward as dust rained down, but the pain barely registered. It did nothing to vent the pressure building inside my chest, nothing to quiet the rage boiling under my skin.

“Gone.”

He was just… gone.

I stood there for a moment, breathing hard, before something colder, heavier dragged my attention elsewhere. I glanced down at Xing Ning or what remained of him. His body lay crumpled, headless, blood long since pooling into the earth beneath him.

My steps slowed as I approached.

Each one felt heavier than the last.

He had been the first person I could call a friend in this world.

And now?

I knelt beside him.

“Revive Life.”

The words left my mouth steady, practiced, almost mechanical. Power stirred, ancient and verdant, reaching out to grasp what lingered of him.

Nothing happened.

I frowned.

“Revive Life.”

Again, I cast it, forcing more intent into the invocation, pushing deeper, harder, demanding a response from whatever system governed this cursed existence.

Nothing.

“Revive Life.”

My voice tightened.

“Revive Life.”

The air trembled faintly with gathered energy, but it dissipated just as quickly, like water slipping through my fingers.

“Revive Life!”

Still nothing. Silence answered me. A line of flavor text surfaced in my mind, something I had skimmed over before, something that had never seemed important until now. The target of the spell must be willing to return.

My hand trembled where it hovered over his body. For a long moment, I said nothing. Then my shoulders sagged, the fight bleeding out of me all at once.

“…So,” I whispered, my voice quieter than I expected, brittle at the edges, “is this your choice?”

The question hung there, unanswered.

The wind moved.

The world continued.

And Xing Ning did not come back.