Immortal Druid

It was bad.

Even from the cliff’s edge, I could see that the horde below was not limited to human corpses. Among the dead were beasts made of hulking shapes of fur and bone, their bodies twisted by decay yet still brimming with unnatural vitality. None of them moved. None of them reacted. It was as if they were waiting, suspended between stillness and slaughter, until their master issued a command.

My spiritual senses swept across the mass, and what I felt only deepened the unease. Each one carried a presence roughly equivalent to a Qi Condensation cultivator. Individually, they were manageable. Together, they were a catastrophe. Worse still, every single one of them bore that same foul seed embedded within, a malignant core that pulsed faintly beneath rotting flesh.

The druid within me howled.

This was an abomination against the Natural Order. Every instinct I had screamed to cleanse them, to return them to the soil where they belonged. But I held myself back. I did not know what lay ahead, nor how much I would need to spend before this was over. The qi in the air was not infinite. I could not afford to exhaust myself here, when a more terrible battle could be waiting for me.

My gaze shifted toward the far end of the cavern.

There, beyond the sea of undead, stood an archway.

It was faint, almost swallowed by the darkness, but it stood apart from everything else. My Druidic Insight stirred, a quiet certainty forming within me.

It was important.

“What is that?” I asked.

Kang Kong narrowed his eyes, shaking his head. “I… I’m not sure.”

Xu Lei turned immediately. “Bring scholars here,” he ordered a nearby cultivator. “A formation specialist and a divination specialist, at minimum.”

Kang Wen stepped forward, his gaze fixed on the distant structure. “If my hunch is correct… it may be a spatial teleportation array. I have only seen a few in my life, but they rarely take the same form.”

We waited.

It did not take long before two figures arrived. It was a man and a woman, both bearing the composed air of scholars. Xu Lei wasted no time.

“What is that structure?” he asked, gesturing toward the archway.

The man squinted, focusing intently. “I cannot say for certain,” he admitted. “But I can make out fragments of a language system. It is likely part of a formation… though the complexity is unusual.”

The woman, however, was no longer looking at the archway.

Her attention had shifted downward.

“What in the world…” she murmured, her voice trembling slightly. “Each of them, they’re infected. There’s something inside them. What in tarnation is this!? So… disgusting…”

The man followed her gaze and froze.

“By the heavens…” he breathed. “An entire army of corpse puppets…”

Even among cultivators, the sight was enough to shake them.

Kang Wen folded his arms, his expression grim. “How did this come to be? Refining this many corpse puppets… it cannot be the work of a single individual.”

Xu Lei’s eyes darkened slightly. “That depends. Given enough time and sufficient cultivation, it is possible.” He paused before adding, “The number of those responsible may be smaller than we think. Perhaps no greater than the Dark Order members Senior Wo Li has already slain.”

That thought lingered.

If that was true, then it could only mean they’ve been preparing for this in a long time.

My mind drifted briefly to the Hidden Village of Leaf. The last attack had nearly succeeded, even with my intervention. If this horde had been intended as a second wave, a mass of expendable soldiers meant to overwhelm, it would have been devastating.

Li Qing had fortified the village, turned it into a city. But even so, leaving this here was not an option anymore.

I exhaled slowly.

“Who among you has spirit stones?” I asked.

There was a brief moment of confusion before several cultivators began producing them, small caches at first, then more as others followed suit. Soon, a modest pile had formed around me.

An idea had taken root.

If qi was limited in the atmosphere, then I would draw from another source.

I raised my hand and cast Thorn Whip. A single vine burst forth, its thorns glinting faintly as it coiled around the spirit stones at my feet. Then I pulled.

Power surged.

The vine drank from the stones, channeling their stored energy into me, and I did not hesitate. I cast again. And again. And again. More vines erupted into existence, slithering over the cliff’s edge like a living tide before plunging into the horde below.

Then the slaughter began.

The thorny whips tore through rotting flesh, pierced skulls, and crushed bone with relentless precision. They lashed and coiled, dragging corpses apart, shredding the unnatural constructs as if purging an infection from the world itself. Each strike was fueled not by my own reserves, but by the steadily draining pile of spirit stones.

I stood at the edge, unmoving, as the vines carried out my will.

If this was to be done, then it would be done thoroughly.

It took several minutes.

The undead did not remain passive forever. As the thorny vines tore through their ranks, some of them stirred, their hollow eyes snapping toward the cliff as if awakened by instinct alone. They began to climb, scrambling over one another, clawing at stone, their movements jerky yet relentless. The elevation worked in my favor, forcing them into narrow approaches where my spells could intercept them before they reached the top.

Behind me, the cultivators watched in grim silence.

“…that robe… isn’t that from our sect?”

“I recognize him… he was part of the outer court…”

“…to think he ended up like this…”

Their voices were heavy, burdened with grief. Some turned away, unable to continue watching as familiar faces were reduced to shattered remains under my assault.

A few of the stronger ones broke through the writhing mass, corrupted beasts with rotting hides, and former cultivators whose movements carried a crude imitation of technique. They lunged toward me, their speed far exceeding the others.

I had already raised my staff to respond.

But I did not need to even move an inch.

A flash of steel cut through the air.

Kang Wen stepped forward, his sword carving a clean arc that severed limbs and shattered torsos with ruthless precision. At the same time, Xu Lei thrust his spear, each strike direct and unyielding, piercing through skulls and cores alike. The undead cultivators fought with brutal ferocity, but there was neither discipline nor thought in their movements. Only instinct.

They fell quickly.

I returned my focus to the horde below, ensuring that none of the seeds escaped my notice. Each one I detected, I destroyed. The vines crushed them, pierced them, burned through them with borrowed qi until nothing remained but inert flesh.

When the last of them collapsed, the cavern fell silent.

Only then did I lower my hand.

We descended the cliff path and approached the gate-like structure. Up close, its presence felt even heavier, the faint traces of an ancient formation lingering within its frame.

“Analyze it,” I said. “Figure out how to make it work.”

The two scholarly cultivators immediately moved forward, their earlier shock replaced by focused intensity as they began examining the structure, tracing its inscriptions and patterns.

I turned to Xu Lei and Kang Wen.

“I have somewhere else to be,” I said. “I will leave this to the two of you.”

Both of them nodded without hesitation.

…

..

.

[POV: Cheng Ru]

Cheng Ru had once been an elder of the Steel Sky Sect.

Now, he was something else entirely.

“Do not let him escape!”

Several Core Formation cultivators surged forward, their auras flaring as they pursued him through the forested terrain. Techniques flashed, cutting through trees and earth alike as they attempted to corner their target.

But Cheng Ru was already gone.

Utilizing the stealth arts granted to him by the Dark Order, he slipped through their encirclement like a shadow, his presence fading until even their spiritual senses could no longer grasp him. Only when he was certain he had escaped did he slow, his expression darkening.

He still did not understand how he had been exposed.

Worse, the sudden reconciliation between the Steel Sky Sect and the Stone Spire Sect had completely unraveled his plans. The chaos he had worked to cultivate had been extinguished in an instant.

With a flick of his hand, he burned a talisman. Its ash scattered into the wind, masking his trail from divination and other tracking methods. Without pause, he ignited another.

The wind stirred.

“Zhou Tu,” he said quietly, addressing the invisible current. “What is your situation?”

Her voice answered, carried by the talisman’s effect. “Exposed,” she replied with irritation. “They’re hunting me down like a goddamn dog. The Sect Leader himself joined the hunt, so I can’t even retaliate properly.”

“My situation mirrors yours, it’s bad,” Cheng Ru’s eyes narrowed slightly. “We have no choice. We should regroup. Contact the head operative assigned to Sky Stone Cave.”

Their communication ended shortly after.

When the two finally reached the outskirts of the secret realm, they found it under heavy patrol. Cultivators from both sects moved in coordinated groups, their vigilance leaving little room for infiltration.

Zhou Tu clicked her tongue. She appeared youthful, her features soft and alluring, though her expression now carried clear annoyance. “We could have avoided all of this if we had joined that delegation when the Sect Leaders met,” she said with a snide edge.

Cheng Ru exhaled slowly. “Sect Leader Xing Mei had already begun suspecting our presence, especially after her son’s death.” His gaze shifted toward her. “And do not speak to me like that. If you had not attempted to seduce Xu Lei, you would not have been politically walled off.”

She scoffed. “Cultivator politics are childish. And I had a reason. I heard the young master had suffered a significant defeat, an opportunity to exploit. How was I supposed to know he was that rigid?”

Cheng Ru fell silent for a moment before asking, “Should we attack? Eliminate them all?”

Though both of them suppressed their cultivation to the Core Formation realm, their true strength lay in the Nascent Soul stage. Even so, Zhou Tu shook her head.

“The higher-ups would not approve,” she said. “What is Zhao Yan even doing? When was the last time you heard from her?”

Cheng Ru frowned slightly. “It has been some time.”

“Then we postpone,” Zhou Tu continued. “Zhao Yan is at our level, and she is not alone. If something has gone wrong, we need to know. The resurrection of our founding ancestor takes priority.”

Cheng Ru nodded slowly. “A reasonable decision. But where do we even begin? We severed contact when we destroyed the keys to the secret realm. It was necessary to maintain our cover.”

Before Zhou Tu could respond, the wind shifted.

A talisman’s signal reached them.

Both of them stilled.

A voice emerged from the current. It was calm and controlled.

“I require a meeting.”

It was Zhao Yan.

…

..

.

[POV: Zhou Tu]

They reached the village under the cover of night.

From a distance, it appeared ordinary, with dim lanterns flickering along narrow paths, the faint sounds of livestock shifting in their pens, and the quiet stillness of mortals long since retired to sleep. Yet Zhou Tu felt none of the usual ease that came with such places. There was something off, something too quiet, as though the entire village were holding its breath.

Still, they moved.

With their stealth arts in play, both she and Cheng Ru slipped past the outer edges of the settlement like drifting shadows. No dog barked. No villager stirred. Even the wind seemed to avoid them as they made their way toward the meeting point Zhao Yan had specified.

A barn.

Zhou Tu slowed as they approached, her senses brushing against a faint spiritual pressure within. It was weak, barely worth noting, but present.

She scoffed softly. “Oh my… what happened to you?”

Inside, Zhao Yan was barely recognizable.

Gone was the proud Nascent Soul cultivator she remembered from the training grounds. In her place knelt a disheveled figure, dirt smeared across her skin, her once-refined features hollowed by exhaustion. Her eyes were bloodshot, unfocused, and her clothes made of simple garments of a village girl now hung loosely over a body that seemed to have lost all strength.

“What happened to you?” Cheng Ru asked, his voice low but urgent.

Zhao Yan looked up, her expression collapsing the moment she recognized them. She scrambled forward on her knees and clutched at Cheng Ru, her grip desperate.

“Please… please, you have to help me,” she begged. “If it’s a Nascent Soul cultivator… it should be enough. Kill me. Please. Cut me into pieces—no, grind me into paste—scatter me to the winds so he won’t find me…”

Zhou Tu raised a brow, amusement flickering in her eyes. “How pathetic.”

This was the same Zhao Yan who once stood above others with quiet confidence? Now she was nothing more than a mortal, groveling for death. They had trained in the same grounds once. Zhao Yan had been her junior. They were familiar, but never close. Not close enough to warrant sympathy.

Zhou Tu stepped forward and kicked her aside.

“Compose yourself,” she said coldly.

Zhao Yan collapsed onto the ground, trembling uncontrollably. “He took my power,” she whispered hoarsely. “Imagine… what he’ll do to you…”

Cheng Ru dropped to one knee, grabbing her wrist to inspect her condition. His expression darkened almost immediately. “Her meridians… her spiritual roots…” he muttered. “They’re destroyed.” His gaze sharpened. “Who did this to you?”

Zhou Tu clicked her tongue in irritation. “That’s not the priority,” she said. “What about the mission? I can’t believe this… a failure like you—”

“SHHH~!”

Zhao Yan’s reaction was immediate and frantic. She scrambled back, eyes wide with terror as she looked around the barn.

“You have to be quiet!” she hissed. “Everyone’s sleeping! We can’t alert him!”

Her voice cracked as panic overtook her.

“I lied to him! I lied to him again! I told him I’d bring you to the forest, but I told you to come here instead!” Her breathing became erratic, her body shaking violently. “He’ll torture me… he’ll torture me… you don’t understand… you don’t understand how much it hurts! I can’t—I can’t—!”

Zhou Tu’s lips curled in disdain. “You’ve gone insane.”

Cheng Ru remained composed, though his tone grew heavier. “What about our people?” he asked. “How many remain? The mission, Zhao Yan, how much does he know?”

Zhao Yan’s expression fell into something hollow.

“He knows… everything.”

A brief silence followed.

Cheng Ru’s voice cut through it. “Who is he?”

A low, guttural growl answered.

“Me.”

Both of them turned toward the entrance.

There, framed by the dim light spilling into the barn, stood a massive tiger. Its presence alone was suffocating, its eyes gleaming with an unnatural intelligence as it stared directly at them. Around the structure, thorny vines began to creep and coil, sealing off any possible escape.

Zhou Tu’s amusement vanished.

Before their eyes, the tiger’s form began to shift. Its massive body contorted, shrinking and reshaping until, in its place, stood a man.

Silver hair fell loosely around his shoulders. His bluish-green eyes held a quiet, dangerous depth. His ears tapered into sharp points, and in one hand, he carried a staff that seemed to hum faintly with power.

Zhao Yan let out a broken sound from where she lay.

“Ah… we’re done for…”