Immortal Druid

[POV: Chen Lin]

The Earthly Heart Continent had long been regarded as the strangest among the six great continents. Ancient records claimed that the land itself had once been the corpse of a Supreme Being from the forgotten Age of Supremacy. The “Heart” in its name referred not to geography, but to the Supreme Heart, a transcendent existence said to have ruled over all humanity during an era so distant that even myths could no longer fully preserve it.

No direct proof remained of such claims. Time had buried most traces beneath ruined dynasties, shattered heavens, and countless wars. Yet scholars across the continent continued to believe the legends for one simple reason.

Humanity flourished there beyond reason.

Among all six continents, the Earthly Heart Continent possessed the largest concentration of human nations, clans, sects, and mortal kingdoms. In many domains, it was common to find several kingdoms competing for influence within the same territory, something nearly unheard of elsewhere. The continent overflowed with life. Cities expanded endlessly, villages appeared beside every river and mountain range, and conflicts over land became inevitable.

Overpopulation had become a chronic issue throughout history. Some scholars theorized that war itself was the continent’s natural method of maintaining balance. Others argued that humanity’s explosive growth was the lingering blessing of the Supreme Heart’s corpse nourishing the land beneath countless generations.

Regardless of the truth, humanity’s dominance shaped the continent unlike any other.

Humans were creatures of organization. They built laws, alliances, sects, and empires with terrifying efficiency. From that nature arose the strongest powers of the Earthly Heart Continent: the Ten Great Sects and the Four Sovereign Flags.

The Ten Great Sects stood at the peak of cultivation influence, overseeing countless affiliated clans and territories. Meanwhile, the Four Sovereign Flags referred to the four greatest imperial nations, each powerful enough to command entire domains beneath their banners.

Yet beyond those famous powers existed another organization, one that had nearly faded from the world’s attention.

The Willow Order.

Unlike the ambitious sects that competed for territory and prestige, the Willow Order had long abandoned the world stage. Its cultivators scattered themselves among hidden villages across remote regions, quietly protecting ancient relics and remnants from a forgotten Dark Age that few even remembered anymore.

For centuries, they remained isolated and reclusive.

Then the Dark Order appeared.

No one knew where the heretical organization truly came from. Their origins were shrouded in mystery, and even their doctrines seemed fragmented and insane. The only thing consistently repeated among survivors was their horrifying claim.

They declared themselves responsible for the disappearance of the Willow Order’s Soul Transformation and Immortal Realm cultivators.

At first, many dismissed the words as madness.

Then the massacres began.

The Dark Order launched coordinated invasions against the Willow villages hidden throughout the continent. Entire settlements vanished overnight. Protective formations that had endured for thousands of years were torn apart by strange black arts. Ancient guardians disappeared without leaving corpses behind.

The Willow Order had been forced out of hiding almost immediately.

Unfortunately, the awakening came too late.

Most of their villages fell during the first waves of attacks. The organization that had once hidden quietly across the continent was reduced to scattered remnants in only a few short years.

Only three villages survived.

Even among those survivors, two eventually abandoned their ancestral lands and returned to the Willow Order’s ancient nomadic traditions, wandering endlessly to avoid further detection.

Now, only a handful still gathered openly beneath the Order’s name.

A cold breeze swept through the ancestral grounds of the Willow Order’s founder.

Ancient willow trees stretched across the mountainside, their silver leaves swaying softly beneath the moonlight. Spiritual lanterns floated quietly among the branches, illuminating old stone paths worn down by countless generations.

Chen Lin stood silently before an ancient shrine.

Her short graying hair shifted gently with the wind as she waited patiently beneath the largest willow tree in the valley. Though age had begun to touch her appearance, her posture remained straight and firm. The spiritual pressure surrounding her body carried the unmistakable aura of a Nascent Soul cultivator.

Her gaze lingered on the weathered shrine ahead.

Memories surfaced once more.

She still remembered the night her village fell.

The Dark Order cultivators had descended without warning. Black flames devoured homes. Formation barriers shattered one after another. Even the sky itself had seemed to scream beneath the corruption flooding the battlefield.

Her husband had been the village chief then.

He had remained behind with the elders to hold the enemy back while the others escaped through the teleportation array hidden beneath the village grounds.

He never returned.

Afterward, the surviving elders appointed her as the new chief.

At first, she had believed grief would eventually dull with time.

It never did.

Footsteps echoed softly from behind her.

An old man slowly approached through the willow trees. One of his sleeves hung empty beside his body, yet the sharpness in his eyes remained as fierce as a seasoned warrior standing upon a battlefield.

Like her, he was a Nascent Soul cultivator.

Chen Lin glanced toward him before speaking casually.

“Your arm’s still hurting, Old Yao?”

The old man snorted.

“I’m not that old,” Yao Fu replied irritably. “Your hair turned white ages ago, so you should worry about yourself first.”

Chen Lin rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, sure. You’re more than four hundred years older than me, so no. You’ll always be an old man to me.”

Yao Fu clicked his tongue, though amusement briefly flickered across his face.

Like Chen Lin, the old man standing beneath the willow trees had once been the chief of a Hidden Village of Leaf.

Those villages no longer existed.

For generations, the Willow Order had withdrawn from the cultivation world and scattered its members across the Earthly Heart Continent. To avoid attracting attention, each settlement adopted the same unassuming identity: Hidden Village of Leaf. Outsiders often mistook them for ordinary secluded communities, never realizing they were fragments of an ancient order preserving dangerous relics and forgotten knowledge from the Dark Age.

Now most of those villages had been reduced to ash.

The survivors wandered like ghosts carrying the remains of a dead homeland.

Chen Lin’s fingers slowly tightened beneath her sleeves.

Revenge.

That was all she desired now.

The Dark Order had destroyed her home, murdered her husband, and scattered her people across the continent. Every time she closed her eyes, she could still hear the screams from that night and smell the burning spiritual wood of their ancestral halls.

“That brat is late,” Yao Fu complained suddenly.

Chen Lin immediately knew who he meant.

Li Qing.

After the catastrophic losses suffered by the Willow Order, Li Qing had been appointed as the new Archon. Among the surviving villages, hers had suffered the least damage. Her forces remained largely intact, her resources untouched, and her influence among the surviving members far exceeded everyone else’s.

In truth, the decision had been inevitable.

That did not mean Chen Lin had to like it.

Her expression darkened slightly.

“Is she looking down on us?” Chen Lin asked coldly. “Is that why she’s taking so long?”

Yao Fu sighed softly, already sensing where the conversation was heading.

“I told you before,” Chen Lin continued, unable to suppress the bitterness in her voice, “you shouldn’t have made her the Archon. With your seniority, you could’ve—”

“Enough,” Yao Fu interrupted sharply.

The old man’s gaze hardened.

“Still hot-headed despite reaching such an age,” he muttered. “What do you expect me to do? Incite a power struggle when our order is already on the verge of collapse?”

Chen Lin remained silent.

“We cannot afford infighting,” Yao Fu continued. “Making Li Qing our leader was the logical choice. Less than a dozen cultivators survived from my village. Yours has fewer than fifty remaining.”

His voice grew quieter.

“As for Li Qing’s village… hundreds survived. Not a single casualty.”

Chen Lin’s jaw clenched.

Yao Fu exhaled slowly before speaking again.

“I misspoke earlier when I mocked her in your presence. Li Qing is the Archon of the Willow Order now. We must speak of her with respect.”

Chen Lin let out a sarcastic laugh.

“Really? Misspoke?”

She tilted her head slightly.

“Care to remind me who requested this meeting in the first place? Wasn’t it you?”

Yao Fu frowned but said nothing.

“And besides,” Chen Lin continued coldly, “those aren’t even her achievements. She sold us off.”

Her eyes narrowed dangerously.

“An immortal suddenly extending a helping hand out of kindness? Have you truly lived so long that you believe such nonsense? I’ve never heard lies more blatant than that.”

“There’s nothing blatant about it because everything I said was true.”

A calm voice descended from above.

Chen Lin looked upward immediately.

An old woman wearing pale green robes slowly descended from the night sky, spiritual energy rippling softly around her figure. Her hair was silver-white, neatly tied behind her back, and though age lined her face, her eyes remained clear and terrifyingly calm.

Li Qing had arrived.

Chen Lin scoffed openly.

“Do you take me for a fool, Qing?”

Li Qing landed gently upon the stone pathway before answering without hesitation.

“Yes,” she replied simply. “You are a fool.”

Chen Lin’s brows twitched.

Li Qing continued calmly, utterly unaffected by the hostility directed at her.

“Because if I intended to lie about something, I would do so thoroughly enough that you would never question it.”

Then she turned toward Yao Fu.

“Elder Yao, please explain to my junior sister that we are supposed to be allies. If I didn’t know any better, I would think she planned to kill me where I stand.”

Chen Lin grinned coldly.

“Junior sister? We are no longer apprentices learning beneath the same elders, Li Qing.”

Her gaze swept across the older woman’s robes.

“Perhaps your position as Archon has gone to your head.”

Then she looked toward Yao Fu again.

“What do you think, Elder Yao? Should we relieve this senile woman of her position?”

The air exploded.

A terrifying spiritual pressure burst forth from Yao Fu’s body, crushing the surrounding atmosphere like an invisible mountain descending upon the valley. The willow trees trembled violently. Stone pathways cracked. Even the surrounding laws of heaven and earth distorted faintly around his presence.

Chen Lin’s pupils contracted.

That pressure…

It was no longer the aura of a Nascent Soul cultivator.

It was Soul Transformation.

The old man’s remaining arm trembled slightly as overwhelming spiritual power surged around him. For the first time in years, the exhausted elder revealed the cultivation he had hidden beneath layers of weakness and injury.

“You two,” Yao Fu said heavily, his voice carrying across the entire ancestral ground, “are no longer children competing for the attention of your elders.”

The pressure intensified further.

“No more of this.”

His sharp gaze swept between them.

“Do you understand?”

Chen Lin stared at the old man in stunned silence.

The terrifying spiritual pressure filling the ancestral grounds gradually settled back into calmness, yet the lingering distortion in the air remained enough to prove what she had just witnessed was real.

Soul Transformation.

An entire major realm separated Nascent Soul from Soul Transformation. It was not something one casually crossed through isolated cultivation.

Especially not Yao Fu.

The old man had been heavily injured for centuries. Everyone in the Willow Order knew his foundations were damaged beyond repair after protecting one of the hidden villages during the Dark Order assaults. Under normal circumstances, his cultivation should have slowly declined until death eventually claimed him.

Yet now he stood before them carrying the aura of a Soul Transformation cultivator.

Chen Lin slowly narrowed her eyes as understanding dawned upon her. Her voice became much quieter. “Congratulations on your breakthrough, Elder Yao.”

Yao Fu laughed softly. “There is nothing worth celebrating.”

The old man’s eyes no longer carried the sharp confidence of a cultivator who had achieved a higher realm. Instead, they were filled with exhaustion, sadness, and a resolve so heavy that Chen Lin suddenly felt her chest tighten.

“Please…” uttered Li Qing softly in disbelief. “You didn’t…”

Yao Fu closed his eyes briefly.

“I had to.”

Chen Lin froze as the truth struck her all at once, unable to look away from the reality staring back at her.

“You raised your cultivation through heretical means.”

Yao Fu did not deny it.

Instead, the old man merely sighed.

“Take comfort in knowing I did not do it for the easy pursuit of power,” he said calmly. “This is a sacrifice I must bear to buy us precious time.”

Chen Lin felt anger surge through her chest almost instantly.

“But you still should have consulted us first!”

Yao Fu shook his head slowly.

“It had to be done. I only lost a few decades at most—”

“Decades you didn’t even have left!” Chen Lin shouted. Her voice echoed through the valley. The fury in her eyes was mixed with something far uglier. It was fear. She had already lost too many people. Now even this stubborn old fool intended to throw his life away.

Li Qing lowered her gaze slightly. “I understand, Elder.”

“You understand?” Chen Lin exploded furiously. “You understand nothing!”

“She knows nothing about this,” said Yao Fu.

Li Qing suddenly looked toward him. “It’s the Sea Dragon Palace, isn’t it?”

Yao Fu nodded grimly as his voice grew heavier. “Not only them. The Heavenly Domain Sect has also been seen moving around our surrounding seas recently.”

Chen Lin’s expression darkened immediately.

Both were monstrous powers.

The Sea Dragon Palace dominated vast regions of the eastern waters and possessed numerous Soul Transformation cultivators among their ranks. Meanwhile, the Heavenly Domain Sect stood among the most powerful sects in the entire world, a terrifying behemoth that had survived countless eras.

Neither should have had any interest in the broken remnants of the Willow Order or this continent.

Unless?

“The Dark Order is preparing another assault,” Chen Lin muttered coldly.

Yao Fu nodded.

“They know we are on our last legs. If the Sea Dragon Palace or Heavenly Domain Sect learn the true extent of our weakness, they will not hesitate to intervene.”

Chen Lin clenched her fists tightly.

“They would dare invade the continent itself?”

“They would dare anything if enough benefits exist,” Yao Fu replied calmly. “Especially if ancient relics from the Dark Age are involved.”

Chen Lin gritted her teeth.

“Then negotiate with them!”

“With what leverage?” Li Qing immediately shot back. Her usually calm voice finally carried irritation. “The greatest leverage we possess is standing right before you. Elder Yao already placed his life into our hands by forcefully reaching Soul Transformation.”

Chen Lin turned toward her sharply.

“Then send that immortal you’re so eager to place above our organization!”

Li Qing’s expression hardened immediately.

“You know I cannot do that.”

“Cannot?” Chen Lin laughed coldly. “Or unwilling?”

“Enough.”

Yao Fu’s voice was not loud, but both women fell silent.

The old man looked older than ever.

“Please,” he said quietly. “Stop arguing amongst yourselves.”

A faint smile appeared on his face.

“I have no intention of negotiating with them. They will see any desire for dialogue as weakness. It would only encourage them to escalate further. I intend to fight. The decision is final. This is likely the last time the two of you will see me.”

The mountain winds grew colder.

Chen Lin suddenly found herself unable to speak. Only now did she fully understand why Yao Fu had gathered them here in the ancestral grounds of there founder. This was never a strategy meeting. Instead, it was a farewell.

Yao Fu slowly turned his gaze toward the distant mountains surrounding the ancestral grounds.

“The traditions of the Ten Great Sects preserved the cultivation world for countless generations,” he said. “But they also made it stagnant.”

His voice carried neither anger nor admiration.

Only tired acceptance.

“The Four Sovereign Flags continue competing for dominance. Eventually, they will gather enough strength to challenge the sects directly. Internal turmoil. External enemies. That is the current state of the Earthly Heart Continent.”

Then his gaze shifted toward Li Qing.

“You are doing good work, Li Qing.”

The old woman visibly stiffened.

“Securing influence within the Ten Great Sects will allow the Willow Order to intervene when necessary. Your decision to send Lady Jia to our immortal benefactor was also wise. Like Chen Lin, I remain apprehensive toward this mysterious immortal. However, I understand your reasoning. Lady Jia is the last of the chroniclers. If our order truly perishes one day, then only through her records will the world remember our contributions.”

Li Qing lowered her head silently, guilt painfully clearl across her face.

Yao Fu then turned toward Chen Lin.

His gaze carried warmth, expectation, and an almost painful degree of trust.

“I have always admired your cynicism,” he said quietly. “You possess the willingness to question others when everyone else remains silent. In truth, you have always been the voice of reason amongst us.”

Chen Lin’s expression slowly changed.

“Continue supporting your senior sister,” Yao Fu said. “She will need you. The Willow Order has always operated beneath a single absolute authority. It is time to change that. From this day onward, I declare you the Consul of the Willow Order.”