Immortal Druid

Blood erupted from my mouth in violent bursts as I doubled over, every cough sending fresh agony tearing through my chest. The voices crashed against my mind without pause, thousands upon thousands of whispers overlapping until they became an unbearable roar that threatened to split my soul apart.

I desperately cast Lifepulse, letting warm vitality surge through my ravaged body, only to follow it immediately with Cleanse Spirits in an attempt to purge whatever unseen corruption clawed at my consciousness. Again. Again. Again. The spells bought me fleeting moments of clarity before the endless cacophony returned with even greater fury. Around me stretched a darkness so vast that no horizon existed.

There was neither earth beneath my feet nor stars above my head, only an infinite void that swallowed all direction. I had no name for this place. Yet as I gazed into the immeasurable darkness, a single word surfaced from somewhere deep within me.

'Abyss.'

The abyss stared back.

Within that endless blackness, faint silhouettes stirred beyond the limits of reason. Tiny shapes drifted in impossible directions, each possessing outlines that refused to remain consistent. The longer I looked, the more my thoughts twisted, insisting they were both impossibly distant and standing directly before me.

"Don't lose yourself."

The voice snapped me away from those incomprehensible figures.

I turned around and found the rift still hanging open behind me. Its fractured edges crackled violently as if struggling against an invisible force determined to tear it apart. Standing within its light was Nyx, her hands weaving spell after spell as she desperately fought to stabilize the collapsing gateway. Tears streamed down her face while she screamed until her voice nearly broke.

"MY LORD! I'M NOT CLOSING THIS RIFT UNTIL YOU CROSS IT! DON'T YOU DARE MAKE ME WATCH YOU DIE! IF YOU FAIL HERE, YOU WON'T JUST FAIL THIS WORLD—YOU'LL FAIL THE NEXT ONE TOO! I DON'T CARE IF THIS WORLD BURNS! I DON'T CARE IF EVERYTHING HERE PERISHES! IF SAVING YOU MEANS ABANDONING ALL OF THIS, THEN I'LL DO IT! SO COME BACK!"

I tried to answer, but nothing came out.

The abyss devoured sound itself. My throat strained until veins bulged across my neck, yet the vacuum stole every syllable before it could exist.

Another hand reached desperately through the rift.

It was Mab; her entire body trembled as tears rolled freely down her cheeks.

"Quick! Hold my hand~! Please! Don't leave us!"

I stretched my fingers toward hers.

Before they could meet, unbearable pain exploded throughout my body.

My Wild Shape began unraveling.

The countless blessings woven into my flesh peeled away one after another, dissolving into fragments of primal essence. Before I could comprehend what was happening, enormous tentacles burst from the surrounding darkness and wrapped around every inch of my body. Their grip tightened until bones creaked beneath the pressure.

Famuroen's thunderous voice echoed across the abyss.

"YOU ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE!"

The void itself convulsed.

An invisible force struck the rift.

Cracks spread across its surface before the entire gateway exploded into countless fragments of fading light. Nyx's horrified expression, Mab's outstretched hand, and the world beyond disappeared in an instant.

Darkness consumed everything, and even my own body vanished from sight.

Within that absolute blackness, another familiar voice gently embraced me.

"I will always be by your side."

It was the World.

Its voice carried neither fear nor desperation. It simply spoke with quiet warmth.

"Don't let them take you away from me ever again."

An indescribable ache settled inside my heart. Regret. Sorrow. Helplessness. Countless emotions tangled together until breathing itself became painful.

Softly, another voice called to me. It was cold, ancient, and unyielding.

"...I shall only do you this favor once."

The Supreme Monster.

The moment those words fell, a colossal sphere of radiant sunlight ignited above me.

The immense Sunlight Orb eclipsed entire horizons that did not exist, flooding the abyss with golden brilliance. Darkness retreated beneath its overwhelming radiance as unimaginable power surged upward from the deepest depths of my existence. Every fragment of the World wrapped itself around me in a comforting embrace, lending me strength that transcended reason.

I looked up.

Hope never came.

Instead, there was only despair.

The sunlight illuminated Famuroen.

What I had mistaken for its body beneath the lake had only been the tip.

The tentacle we fought within the lake had been nothing more than the smallest appendage extending from an incomprehensibly vast existence drifting beyond the boundaries of the World. Its true body dwarfed continents. Countless limbs stretched endlessly into the abyss, each one eclipsing mountains, oceans, and civilizations alike. Around it floated countless more entities equally grotesque, their impossible forms existing outside every law that governed reality.

My thoughts froze.

"FOCUS!"

The Supreme Monster's roar detonated inside my soul.

"WAKE UP! DO NOT LOSE YOURSELF NOW!"

The command struck like thunder, and the haze clouding my mind shattered.

The World immediately answered.

"You must remain strong."

Its gentle voice resonated directly through the Voice of the World.

"If your heart breaks here... it may become your end."

I closed my eyes.

The sensation that followed defied explanation.

Rather than hearing the World, I became immersed within it.

I saw everything.

Six vast continents stretched beneath me like jewels scattered across creation. Endless oceans surged between them, carrying tides older than history itself. White beaches shimmered beneath sunlight while forests whispered with life. Kingdoms bustled with countless mortals who knew nothing of the horror lurking beyond existence. Mountains pierced the heavens. Rivers carved their paths through fertile valleys. Every flower, every bird, every beast, every heartbeat...

I felt them all.

"FIGHT BACK!"

The Supreme Monster screamed with enough fury to shake the universe.

"NEVER LOSE! YOUR TASK ISN'T TO WIN! YOUR TASK IS TO SURVIVE! SO SURVIVE!"

I opened my eyes.

My staff swept across the void with borrowed power from the Supreme Monster and the World.

The abyss erupted.

Forests materialized from nothingness, their roots piercing eldritch flesh before blooming into colossal world trees that imprisoned writhing abominations beneath endless vines. I summoned hurricanes carrying leaves sharper than heavenly blades, shredding malformed limbs by the thousands. Seas surged into existence, becoming living tidal dragons that devoured creatures larger than mountains before freezing into crystalline prisons. Entire mountain ranges burst forth beneath my command, crushing impossible beings beneath continental weight. Swarms of spectral beasts answered my call as wolves of moonlight, phoenixes of emerald flame, serpents woven from rivers, and colossal bears carved from living stone charged into battle beside me.

When overwhelming numbers threatened to bury me, I became the storm itself.

Lightning split dimensions apart.

Solar fire consumed impossible flesh.

Lunar frost halted creatures existing beyond time.

Gravity bent beneath druidic authority as planets of condensed life energy crashed into monstrous bodies. Every fallen enemy gave birth to blooming forests that immediately lashed out at the next wave. Even space itself became fertile ground beneath my will, allowing impossible ecosystems to flourish where nothing should have existed.

Still, they came.

They never stopped. Every corpse birthed another horror. Every victory attracted something greater. Time ceased holding meaning as days, nights, months, years, or perhaps none at all passed by.

I no longer knew what was real or not, so I simply fought with all my might.

The hatred sleeping within the Supreme Monster seeped into every corner of my soul. Regret older than civilizations. Longing that stretched across eternity. Bottomless grief. Endless fury. A desire for annihilation so profound it threatened to erase everything standing before me.

Eventually, those emotions became my own.

"You filthy cosmic parasites!" I screamed with every shred of strength remaining. "I'll rip every last one of you apart! I'll drown you in your own blood! I'll butcher your entire species! Come! COME! I'LL GIVE YOU PAIN THAT WILL MAKE DEATH LOOK MERCIFUL! I'LL SLAUGHTER YOU UNTIL THE ABYSS FORGETS YOUR EXISTENCE!"

The battle raged on without end.

Each clash blurred into the next in a frenzy of violence and cosmic fury, until at last...

Silence.

When awareness finally clawed its way back, I drifted alone in the endless vacuum. The battlefield stretched out around me like a graveyard suspended in the void. The corpses of eldritch horrors floated everywhere—twisted, nightmarish forms that had once defied comprehension. Some had been cleaved clean apart, their jagged limbs and tentacles drifting in separate, slowly tumbling orbits. Others had withered into lifeless husks, their grotesque bodies shriveled and desiccated. Many still smoldered beneath lingering beams of sunlight that pierced the darkness like accusatory fingers, their flesh crackling faintly as residual energy burned away.

I tried to move. Nothing happened. My body refused to obey, hanging weightless and inert in the cold expanse.

Looking down at myself, I barely recognized what I had become.

My skin was gone.

What little flesh remained had shriveled tightly around exposed bone. My ribs lay open to the void while one ruined lung dangled uselessly from my chest, pierced beyond repair. My heart had turned an unnatural shade of blue, beating with slow, stubborn determination despite every law of life insisting it should have stopped long ago. I could no longer feel my legs. My left eye saw only darkness while maddening whispers echoed endlessly through my remaining ear.

Movement stirred once more.

The abyss stirred once more.

From the distant darkness, they returned with countless silhouettes emerging like shadows given form. Their presence swallowed what little light remained, twisting the vacuum into something even colder. At their forefront loomed Famuroen, its colossal shape radiating malice. Its voice drifted across the silent expanse, somehow clear and piercing despite the absence of air.

"Give up," it intoned, the words slithering into my mind like venom. "There is nothing left for you. You cannot save them. You cannot even save yourself."

I opened my mouth, desperate to answer. The vacuum's strange power stole every sound before it could form. Still, I screamed, pouring every last fragment of my broken soul into the cry. A silent, raw defiance that burned through what remained of me.

The abyss answered with laughter.

Thousands of voices. Millions. Perhaps countless beyond measure. They overlapped and echoed in a cruel chorus that filled the emptiness around me.

"He still struggles."

"How adorable."

"Look at him."

"A broken insect pretending to be a guardian."

"He has no skin."

"He has no strength."

"He has no future."

"Let him crawl."

"His despair tastes sweeter than his blood."

I tried to cough, to force out the blood rising in my throat. Nothing came. Even my blood had abandoned me, drifting in frozen beads that caught the faint starlight like mocking jewels.

My vision blurred. The laughter swelled, wrapping around my broken form like chains. Yet somewhere deep within the wreckage of my will, a single spark refused to die.

"Not... yet..." I thought, the words a silent vow hurled back at the void.

"There is still one thing you can do."

The Supreme Monster's voice echoed faintly through the ruins of my mind.

I managed a bitter smile.

"What? What can I do?"

"You already know."

"I do?"

"You do."

I frowned despite the agony tearing through my body.

"What are you talking about?"

Silence lingered for a moment before his voice returned, harsher than before.

"You must make a sacrifice."

I remained confused.

"What sacrifice?"

The Supreme Monster clicked his tongue in annoyance.

"You stubborn fool. I scolded you before for refusing it, and now that choice has returned to haunt you. When Mab offered you the Hollow Star, you should have accepted it."

"..."

I had no answer.

The Supreme Monster fell silent.

Around me, the flickering remnants of my power slowly struggled back into existence. Tiny motes of sunlight, leaves, qi, and life mana appeared only to disappear moments later. Even the World could barely sustain me anymore.

Meanwhile, they continued approaching one by one.

Patiently.

There was no urgency in their movements. They drifted closer through the abyss with the certainty of predators surrounding a dying animal. Countless malformed eyes watched me from impossible angles while endless mouths opened and closed without making a sound.

I almost laughed.

This was unfair beyond reason.

Back on the Earthly Heart Continent, immortals and cultivators were preparing themselves for a war that would decide the fate of civilizations. Looking at these creatures now? That coming continental war resembled nothing more than children pretending to wage battle. FUCK! FUCK ALL OF THIS SHIT!

Gathering every remaining ounce of strength, I reached through the Voice of the World.

"I WANT TO BARGAIN!"

For the first time, my voice existed in this strange dimension. It spread throughout the abyss like ripples across still water. The creatures stopped. The incomprehensible language that had tormented my ears since arriving here suddenly became clear, as though some invisible barrier had vanished.

"He wishes to bargain."

"Refuse."

"There is no need."

"Kill him."

"No..."

Another voice interrupted.

"Listen first."

"He possesses the World."

"He offers something."

"We have waited too long."

"We should simply devour him."

"You fool."

"If he bargains willingly..."

"The cycle ends."

"Our quarry falls sooner."

"The harvest accelerates."

"He cannot deceive us."

"He is dying."

"Accept."

"Reject."

"Accept."

"Reject."

The endless debate spread throughout the darkness, voices clashing and fracturing until even the abyss itself seemed divided.

While they argued, I turned inward, retreating into the quiet sanctuary of my own mind.

"Supreme Monster."

Silence answered.

"I don't regret refusing the Hollow Star."

He remained quiet, but I pressed on.

"Back then... maybe it was cowardice. I won't deny that." I lowered my gaze. "I was afraid. I feared what taking it would make me become."

A tired chuckle escaped me.

"But not anymore."

I slowly closed my remaining eye.

"I still don't understand you. I don't understand how vast your existence truly is. I don't know how many lives you've lived. I don't know what crime you committed. I don't even know why you've spent countless lifetimes trying to save a world that probably should have abandoned you long ago."

Fragments of buried memory stirred within me. They were impossible to fully recall. Faces. Names. Places. They slipped away like smoke. Yet the emotions remained, vivid and raw.

"I remember how they felt," I whispered into the void. "The despair. The unfairness. The loneliness. The desperate hope. You clung to every fragment left behind. Every relic. Every memory. Every promise. Not because they could save the world... but because they helped preserve yourself."

My grip tightened around my staff.

Reality blinked.

Suddenly, I stood once more inside the Supreme Monster’s mental realm. Everything had begun to rot. The once-vibrant field of vines was dead and skeletal. Rivers carried thick black sludge instead of water. Mountains had collapsed beneath impossible decay. Above it all, the Dark Sun of Misfortune no longer hung in the heavens. Instead, it had become the heavens themselves. Its swollen, corrupted mass consumed the entire sky.

Something limped toward me: a figure woven from rotting vines in the crude shape of a man. Each step left a trail of wilted flowers behind.

It stopped before me and seized my shoulders with trembling hands.

"DO YOU REALLY HAVE NO REGRETS ABOUT REFUSING THE HOLLOW STAR?!"

Its arm shot upward, pointing at the all-consuming Dark Sun.

"LOOK! WAKE UP! TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY! PLEASE! PLEASE DON’T DO IT!"

Other voices filled the ruined world, pleading and warning.

"Don't." "Stop." "You'll disappear." "Think again." "Choose another path."

But this one voice… this one felt achingly familiar.

The vines unraveled piece by piece until the figure standing before me became… me. A black business suit. A loosened necktie. Messy hair. Tired eyes. The overworked salaryman from my previous life, Wally.

Tears welled in his eyes as he stared at me.

I simply smiled.

"Oh… I’m taking this very seriously."

I gently cupped his cheek. The unexpected warmth surprised us both.

"Everything’s going to be okay." A quiet laugh escaped me. "If it isn’t… then maybe I’m just a reckless fool after all."

I looked toward the swollen sky.

"Who knows? Maybe it really does take a monster… to kill a monster."

His composure shattered.

"Please, Nevle…" His voice cracked. "Don’t do it…"

I shook my head.

"I was never Wally. The overworked salaryman who wanted nothing more than to escape capitalism… was a different person."

I placed my hand over my heart.

"My name is Nevle Drol Diurdhcra." A gentle smile formed across my lips. "And I’m a druid. A protector of worlds."

The mental realm shattered and faded away.

My awareness snapped back into my broken body, still floating amid the endless abyss. The moment I returned, the furious arguments among the eldritch beings ceased completely. Every grotesque eye, every void-like gaze, turned toward me in sudden, hungry anticipation.

I forced the Voice of the World to carry my declaration across the infinite darkness, my words thundering through the vacuum like a cosmic decree.

"I HAVE A BARGAIN!"

A heavy silence answered.

"In exchange..." I drew one final, ragged breath, "...for my soul... I SHALL LET YOU DEVOUR MY WORLD!"

Madness.

Absolute madness!

The abyss erupted into pandemonium.

"MINE!" "HE OFFERED IT TO ME!" "NO!" "OUR CONTRACT!" "KILL THEM!" "TAKE HIS SOUL!" "THE WORLD BELONGS TO US!"

Thousands of impossible entities surged toward me at once. Others turned on each other before they could even reach me. Tentacles tore through cosmic flesh. Impossible jaws sank into rival horrors. Entire masses of living darkness devoured one another in blind, desperate fury, each convinced it alone deserved the prize.

I couldn’t stop laughing.

"Hah..." "Hahaha..." "HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"They wanted my world that badly..." I spat the words through broken teeth, my grin widening despite the pain. "How about... fucking no?"

They reached me.

The first creature plunged directly into my chest. Then another. And another. And another.

"I WON'T MAKE IT EASY! COME AND GET ME!"

Something colder than death forced itself through every wound across my body. My bones cracked apart as countless foreign consciousnesses invaded my soul simultaneously. My veins swelled until they burst. My organs twisted into grotesque shapes before violently knitting themselves back together only to rupture again moments later. My skull split open as whispers flooded every corner of my mind. My heart convulsed, changing colors with every pulse while my remaining eye bled streams of black and gold.

I screamed.

Not from pain, but from the unbearable pressure of existence itself crushing down on my shattered form. Countless eldritch horrors poured into me, their alien essences tearing through my soul like razor wire.

With trembling fingers, I tightened my grip around my staff. Then… I severed it.

The tether connecting me to the World quietly slipped from my grasp. If everything failed…? If I became something beyond saving…? Then the World would remain untouched, safe, and untainted by whatever monster I was about to become.

Within my mental realm, I watched.

The invaders celebrated too early, their voices echoing with triumphant glee as they flooded into what they believed was an easy conquest. None of them noticed the swollen Dark Sun looming overhead like a cancerous god. None realized they had willingly entered the Supreme Monster’s prison.

Misfortune spread through them like a plague.

Their greed twisted into suspicion. Suspicion festered into hatred. And hatred ignited into slaughter.

“You dare take what is mine?!”

“Traitor!”

“It was promised to me!”

“I’ll devour you first!”

The Supreme Monster’s domain became a battlefield of nightmares. The invaders turned on one another with mindless savagery, ripping, consuming, and destroying their own kind as the Dark Sun pulsed with cruel satisfaction above the carnage.

I smiled through bloodied lips, my broken body still drifting in the abyss.

The trap had sprung.

They ripped one another apart in an endless frenzy, each believing the others intended to steal the bargain. The Dark Sun fed upon every death, every betrayal, every scream. It swelled larger and larger, devouring the fallen horrors until nothing remained of them except despair.

I laughed until tears streamed down my face, the sound raw and broken yet filled with genuine triumph.

The monsters… had become prey.

Trapped within the Supreme Monster’s rotting domain, they tore each other apart in an orgy of greed and betrayal. What they had believed was a feast had become their tomb.

My consciousness slowly faded, slipping away into the quiet dark. Somewhere beyond the pain, beyond the endless whispers of the abyss, I gathered the last fragments of my strength.

I whispered with everything I had left.

“D-Don’t worry, Mab…”

A weary smile lingered on my lips.

“I’m going home…”