Chapter 557: The Druid Who Took to the Skies
On the ramparts of the small frontier town, twenty-five guild leaders stood tall, each flanked by their most trusted lieutenants. A hundred elite players in total crowded the wall, their eyes fixed on the battlefield outside.
Across the dark hills, a fiery, starlit silhouette flickered against the night—Ethan, in the form of a blazing panther, carving his way through over a hundred rogue players.
"Is that the Druid from the Survivor Faction?" one of the guild bosses muttered, squinting. "I remember him looking different."
"Doesn’t matter," another leader snorted. "This so-called Druid God is just some rookie who got lucky. Probably only famous because the Survivor Faction has no one else."
"Oh really? Why don’t you go fight a hundred men by yourself?" a third voice cut in, laced with disdain.
"Hmph. Brute force is meaningless if you lack foresight. Look closer—he hasn’t even noticed we’ve surrounded him. This is the so-called Druid God? A fool blinded by his own hype."
A ripple of nods moved through the guild leaders, contempt etched plainly on their faces.
"Archers, angle forty-five degrees! Fire at will!"
Down below, Ethan finished off the last straggler. But the small rise he had been fighting on was now hemmed in by armored Shield Tanks advancing in a tightening ring, shields locked together. Behind them, ranged units were already lining up their first volley.
"Hahaha! Let’s see which guild snags the last hit and takes the glory. Druid God? More like Druid Fraud. Unless he sprouts wings and flies away, he’s done for—"
The speaker broke into raucous laughter, only to choke mid-sentence. His eyes bulged, his laughter strangled. "Wait... where is he?"
Others turned, confusion spreading. Dozens of heads tilted back at once, staring skyward. The man followed their gaze and froze.
His jaw dropped. "He... he flew? He actually flew?!"
The man was dark-skinned, his teeth flashing bright against the night. In the Shadow Realm class, he could vanish completely in silence, but right now every bit of him stood out in disbelief.
---
Just moments earlier, Ethan had racked up a hundred honor points. But as soon as the last body fell, his senses sharpened. A wall of Shield Tanks was closing in from all sides, and beyond them a phalanx of ranged units was ready to blanket him with skills. Tens of thousands of red names stretched across his vision, a suffocating sea of enemies.
For a brief moment, he cursed himself. He had grown careless, lulled by the thrill of the slaughter. Years in the Sea of Death had trained him to trust his Soul Sense for danger, but in this game that ability was gone. Old habits had dulled his edge, and now the price of that lapse was coming due.
The first volley soared skyward. Ethan’s sharp eyes darted across the battlefield. Every escape route was blocked, the ground a tightening noose of steel and fire. A direct fight would be suicide.
He didn’t hesitate. Before the barrage landed, he triggered Travel Form.
His body shifted, the blazing panther swelling into the towering shape of a Stag. Its hooves pounded once against the earth—and then left the ground entirely.
Mid-leap, the Stag dissolved into feathers and talons. A massive Eagle burst upward, wings beating hard, shooting into the sky like an arrow loosed from a bow.
The air filled with explosions as the enemy volley struck where he had just stood. The hilltop was gouged and blasted apart, fire and rubble raining down.
"Good thing I can fly," Ethan muttered under his breath, weaving nimbly between lingering trails of magic. "Otherwise I’d be paste right now."
Even if the barrage hadn’t broken his defenses, the relentless chip damage would have bled him dry.
---
But one question gnawed at him: how had the Carnage Faction mobilized so quickly? In mere minutes they had mustered an army of elites.
His eagle eyes narrowed as he scanned the town walls. There they were: twenty-five guild leaders, smug faces turned up at him, shock still etched on their expressions. And among them...
Ethan blinked. A floating mouthful of teeth gnashed at the sky, opening and closing as if trying to bite him from a hundred yards away. A pair of bulging eyes hovered above the teeth, rolling wildly.
"What the hell is that supposed to be?" Ethan growled. "More disgusting than Meatball’s skeletal class. Just a walking set of dentures with eyeballs? Are you kidding me?"
Rage flared in his chest. These leaders weren’t just spectators. They had issued the order, turned his own tactics against him, and now laughed as their army tried to grind him down.
Fine. If they wanted to play that game, he’d bring the fight to them.
With a sharp cry, the Eagle folded its wings and dove.
---
"Ranged units, shoot him down!" panic swept the walls.
But before they could react, Ethan shifted mid-dive. His eagle form vanished, replaced by a lithe, shadowy Panther that seemed to melt from existence entirely.
"Not good—Flare!" a hunter shouted. He raised his hand, but never finished the motion. Pain lanced his neck, his health bar vanished, and he collapsed into a corpse.
Gasps erupted. The fiery Panther flickered once into view before vanishing again, leaving only the fallen hunter—a vice-leader of the Desert Sands guild, dead in less than a heartbeat.
"Cover the wall with Flares!"
Light bloomed across the ramparts as players scrambled to reveal the intruder. But even as they cast, two more lieutenants were already dead, their bodies dropping like puppets with cut strings.
Ethan crouched beneath one of the glowing flares, his stealth blown, but he didn’t care. A grin stretched across his lips.
His form swelled, claws thickening, arms lengthening until they brushed the stone beneath him. He rose, not as a beast of stealth but as a hulking Were-bear, a predator made for open carnage.
Other Druids had Bear Forms, but none like his. Grey Throat’s Might had twisted his into something more savage, more lupine, his arms longer and his strikes wider.
Panther Form had its uses, but this—this was freedom. After years of skulking as a Rogue in his past life, sneaking through shadows, he finally fought as he had always wanted to: head-on, no restraints.
"Stop him!" someone screamed.
But Ethan had already charged.
The narrow wall erupted into chaos. The height and angle shielded him from attacks below, and those further back couldn’t reach him with precision skills. Volley fire was an option, but none dared risk hitting their own leaders.
Ethan’s grin widened. Trapped with him at the choke point, unable to retreat, the guild leaders and their guards had become his prey.
A one-man army stood at the gate, and the wall itself had become his battlefield.