Immortal Druid

"You can't take her away," I said.

The woman stopped in her tracks.

For a brief moment, she simply stared at me before letting out a scoff that carried equal measures of disbelief and amusement.

"Hm? Did I hear you correctly?" she asked. "My, my... you certainly have some spine. I knew displaying her body was a poor decision, but Sect Leader Yu Gan has always adored theatrics." She sighed dramatically before her smile returned. "Unfortunately for you, the thing in your arms now belongs to the Heavenly Domain Sect. She is a spoil of war."

She extended a hand toward Mab.

"Hand her over—"

"You are noisy."

The words left my mouth almost absentmindedly.

Quintessence surged through my body.

"Entanglement."

She began choking as I cast the spell from her throat with quintessence.

The roots dug into her tongue and fed into her flesh, leaving her choking on her own blood. Eventually, the roots spread throughout her body like living veins. Blood burst from between her lips as she clawed desperately at her own neck, unable to scream.

I gently released Mab from my embrace.

Using the simple art of flight that nearly every cultivator learned through qi, I allowed her body to float peacefully behind me.

Softly, the Monster spoke.

"Once you cross this line, t**here will be no turning back."

I thought I had lost him after everything that had happened.

Apparently not.

I looked at the choking immortal without the slightest urgency.

"You know..." I murmured quietly, almost speaking to myself. "This is almost the third time I've realized I was still holding back."

She collapsed onto one knee as the roots continued spreading through her immortal body.

"The first time was when I fought that stupid dragon. Back then, I believed I stood above this world's rules. I thought my powers were absolute." I smiled bitterly. "Afterward, I promised myself never again. So I refined my abilities and stopped looking back."

The roots continued to spread.

Her spiritual energy desperately fought against my quintessence.

It accomplished nothing.

"The second time was when I fought an immortal for the first time. Too many people died because I hesitated. I blamed myself afterward. I should have been more aggressive. I should have seized the initiative the moment an opportunity presented itself."

She attempted to summon her spiritual power, but the roots devoured it.

"So I changed. I decided to take responsibility. I promised myself that I'd always protect the people around me."

I slowly raised my eyes toward hers.

"This? It is the third time, already. When am I gonna learn? Hah. I'm such a fool. And here I thought I was already giving my all, but there are still so many things I could've done. So many things I could still let go, so that I would become a little stronger."

The woman trembled beneath my gaze.

"Do you know what's been holding me back all this time?"

I answered my own question.

"Decency."

Another root pierced through her shoulder.

"Morality."

A second burst from her chest.

"Propriety."

Blood spilled onto the forest floor.

"Yes."

I watched her expression slowly change from anger into fear.

"Those were the chains restraining me. No more. Your people wanted a war. Fine. I'll give them one. From this day onward, it's survival of the fittest."

She was an immortal. Someone of her cultivation would never fall so easily. With a roar muffled by blood, she summoned a radiant sword from her storage ring and lunged toward me.

"Sword Art—"

She froze.

The blade stopped less than an inch from my face. Every muscle in her body locked in place. She strained with every ounce of immortal strength she possessed, yet the sword refused to advance even a hair's breadth.

Of course, she'd fail.

Entanglement had never been designed merely to restrain. Within LWO, it functioned as a crowd control spell with a strict rule of how many seconds it would last. It was for the sake of a game. Reality had no such limitations.

In fact, the ancient druids who created this spell had never intended it to immobilize enemies. They had intended it to enslave their lessers. At least, that was how the spell was described in the flavor text.

Now? My quintessence had rewritten the spell's purpose into something far closer to its original design.

I extended my hand and the roots responded.

They continued growing beneath her skin before violently bursting outward. Thick vines emerged from her arms, shoulders, legs, and torso, tearing flesh apart as they reached for the open air. Leaves unfolded from every vine, flourishing upon her body as though she herself had become fertile soil.

She could no longer even breathe.

"Razorjade Leaf."

The countless leaves shimmered emerald.

An instant later, they became blades. Hundreds of razor-sharp leaves sliced across her body simultaneously. Both arms separated first, and then her legs. The severed limbs struck the ground one after another. Despite the agony, the vines immediately prevented her immortal body from regenerating.

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I reached into my storage ring.

A massive spirit stone appeared in my hand.

Holding it before me, I quietly imbued a spell beneath the authority of the Circle of Forest. It was a spell I had painstakingly recreated from LWO through arduous and rigorous experimentation.

Her eyes widened.

"W-What are you doing?"

The words reached me through sound transmission alone, since she could no longer speak. I ignored her. Opening her jaw with phytokinesis, I shoved the enormous spirit stone into her mouth.

Her body convulsed violently. The roots obeyed my will.

They wrapped around the spirit stone before dragging it deeper, past her throat and into her stomach.

Her muffled scream echoed through my mind.

"YOU! RELEASE ME! DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!? DO YOU REALLY SEEK TO OPPOSE THE HEAVENLY DOMAIN SECT!? I AM—"

"I don't care who you are," I interrupted. "You are a messenger. A nobody. Your death means nothing to me. But I do want you to remember this feeling. This helplessness. This despair. Very soon, I'll bring both to your people. They seem to have forgotten that actions carry consequences. Go home. Tell them about me. Crawl if you must. Deliver my answer. And tell them that I'm coming."

I saw genuine fear within her eyes. It lasted only an instant as fear gave way to fury, and then shortly, determination. Without another word, she tore open space and fled, disappearing into the distant horizon with desperate haste.

The Monster spoke again.

"You're about to do something incredibly reckless."

"I know."

"You still intend to do it?"

I watched the direction in which the immortal had escaped.

"I won't attempt it unless I believe there's at least a chance of succeeding."

The Monster remained silent.

After a while, he asked another question.

"You're doing this because you're thinking clearly... not because your emotions are controlling you. Correct?"

I closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, the grief remained exactly where it had always been.

"I'm emotional," I answered honestly. "My heart is in turmoil. But grief doesn't prevent me from thinking. It simply gives me a reason to act. Someone has to teach them that there are consequences for what they've done. It just so happens that someone is me."

I needed time.

If I was going to do what I had in mind, then every passing moment mattered. Charging into the Heavenly Domain Sect now would accomplish nothing beyond throwing my own life away. They wanted me to act out of grief. They wanted me to lose myself in rage.

It was all so that they could subdue me.

I refused to give them that satisfaction.

They made a grave mistake, thinking they had everything under control.

I returned to Freedom City and emptied every warehouse containing high-grade spirit stones. The largest ones were carefully transferred into my storage ring one after another until I had gathered every suitable specimen the city possessed. No one questioned what I intended to do. They merely watched in silence as I disappeared once more.

Eventually, I returned to the ancient tree that had once been my own body. I sat beneath its enormous canopy. The world became quiet. Mab remained inside my storage ring. I still hadn't decided what to do with her. The silence suited me. It reminded me of the calm before an approaching storm.

"Sage... you're here."

I lifted my head.

Zhen Ai had fallen to her knees before me.

Beside her stood Jia Ping and Li Ming, both wearing expressions hollowed by exhaustion.

"My son..." Zhen Ai whispered. "They took my son."

Li Ming lowered her head. "They killed Grandma."

"I know," I answered softly.

The words felt painfully inadequate. Nothing I could say would lessen their grief. Nothing I promised could erase what had already happened. Even so, words had to be said so that they would have meaning.

"I'll do everything within my power to make this right."

The moment the sentence left my mouth, I knew it was empty. There was no making any of this right. Only consequences remained.

Zhen Ai looked directly into my eyes. "How?"

"If the Heavenly Domain Sect took your son," I said, "then I'll bring him back."

I paused before continuing.

"And if someone precious to you has died, then I'll do everything I can to return them to life."

Jia Ping gently placed a hand upon Zhen Ai's shoulder.

"Let's go," she said quietly. "Our energy is better spent helping the survivors."

Zhen Ai slowly stood, her eyes burning with determination. "No. We should retaliate. If we know where they are, then we have a chance of destroying them."

I understood where her confidence came from. She had witnessed my Spirit of the World Tree. She had seen what happened when I elevated everyone's cultivation by an entire realm. But just like me, she was speaking through grief.

“Calm down,” I said. “I have a plan. For now, go. Return to the others and see to their well-being while I worry about the rest. I have a plan. I will make it right. Trust me as you always have.”

I looked toward Li Ming. “You should go as well.”

Finally, my gaze settled on Jia Ping. “You stay.”

Neither Zhen Ai nor Li Ming argued further. After a reluctant nod, both departed.

Jia Ping watched them leave before letting out a weary sigh. “I’m sorry. I should’ve convinced them to rest.”

I shook my head. “No. They’re grieving. It's fine.”

Silence settled between us.

Finally, I asked the question that had been lingering in my thoughts. “Where’s Hao Lei?”

Her expression immediately darkened. “Missing. He disappeared during the attack.” She folded her arms. “Fortunately, the intelligence network he built is still functioning. His contacts remain active.” She hesitated. “But we’ve found nothing. No trace of the Heavenly Domain Sect.” She frowned. “You’d think an entire flying island would be impossible to hide.”

“So did I.”

I stared toward the horizon. “I’m about to attempt something reckless.”

She remained silent.

“If I don’t return…” The next words refused to leave my throat. “…find Nyx.”

I stopped. For the first time in a long while, I hesitated. If I died now, whatever unity remained among the people under my protection would likely collapse.

Jia Ping clearly understood what I couldn’t bring myself to say. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“I’ll be going now, Sage.” She bowed respectfully. “The cultivators of the True Origin Sect wished to speak with you. I’ll tell them you’re occupied.”

“Thank you.”

After she left, I remained beneath the ancient tree. Hours passed. Then another day. I quietly organized every possibility inside my mind.

Threats wouldn’t work. Negotiations alone wouldn’t work either. If I wanted the Heavenly Domain Sect to take me seriously, they had to believe I possessed both the will and the means to hurt them. Only then would they negotiate. Only then could I buy the time I desperately needed right now.

As my thoughts settled, my attention drifted toward my own abilities.

Back in LWO, every player eventually reached a level cap. Once that happened, learning new spells became impossible. The system simply refused. Reality proved far more generous.

Through countless experiments and an embarrassing number of failures, I gradually rediscovered abilities that had existed only as forgotten flavor text inside the game. Most weren’t particularly flashy. Many were highly situational. Yet every one of them expanded the ways I could approach a battle.

The spell I’d embedded inside the spirit stones was one such example. It wasn’t destructive by itself. It was a summoning spell.

Ironically, my build had never been designed for player-versus-player combat. I excelled in player-versus-environment encounters: large-scale battles, boss monsters, sustained damage, crowd control, support. The only reason I could compete against other players at all was that I’d spent years refining my technical skill.

The game also imposed another restriction. Players could equip only a limited number of spells or abilities at any given time. Reality ignored such limitations.

Among those rediscovered abilities was one called Sky Vision. It had originally been a passive ability that dramatically expanded a druid’s map awareness while allowing them to perceive distant locations through existing druidic magic. When I successfully merged its principles with Druidic Insight… everything changed.

My perception followed the immortal messenger through the lingering magic rooted within her.

I waited patiently beneath the ancient tree while observing fragments of her journey.

Eventually, she arrived at her destination.

Hidden beyond layers of cloud and powerful formations floated an enormous island, the Heavenly Domain Sect. She crossed one protective barrier after another before finally entering its inner grounds.

Disciples rushed toward her. Elders emerged from distant halls. Panic quickly spread across the sect as everyone realized something was terribly wrong. My Entanglement spell still hadn’t faded. Quintessence endured far longer than ordinary spiritual power.

I slowly opened my eyes.

“It’s time.”

My voice was barely louder than a whisper.

“Summon.”

Far away, within the Heavenly Domain Sect, the immortal messenger suddenly froze.

“No…”

She staggered backward.

“No… wait!”

Her terrified voice echoed through the magical connection.

“Someone—!”

Her hands clawed frantically at her abdomen.

“Get it out! PLEASE! It’s growing!”

Panic swept through the surrounding disciples as unnatural movement rippled beneath her skin.

“Elder! What’s happening!?”

She collapsed onto the stone courtyard.

“HELP ME! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!”

The spell answered.

A colossal treant forced its way into existence from the summoning focus hidden within her, bursting free in a violent eruption of splintered wood, shattered stone, and spiritual energy. The shockwave threw nearby cultivators from their feet, while the immense guardian continued growing until it towered over the courtyard, its roots digging deep into the island itself.

The Heavenly Domain Sect erupted into chaos.

I stood.

"Nature's Stride."

My body dissolved into emerald light before passing effortlessly through the magical pathway established by my own spell. This ability had a neat game mechanic that allowed a player to teleport through active and existing spells, letting me appear inside the Heavenly Domain Sect.

Every disciple present turned toward me. Dozens of swords were drawn. Spiritual pressure descended from every direction.

I calmly rested both hands upon my staff. My gaze swept across the gathering crowd.

“Where,” I asked evenly, “is your Sect Leader?”

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