Chapter 555: Return of the Druid God
The place that shook the most wasn’t a battlefield or a city—it was the global chat channel of the Northern Frontier region.
"Druid God is back? All hail Druid God!"
The words repeated endlessly, flooding the screen until every other message was swallowed whole. Within moments, the chant shifted into something even grander:
"Renegade Alliance, defying heaven—Druid God returns, unifying Ethereal!"
Any other conversation, jokes, or sales pitches vanished beneath the tidal wave of repetition.
Inside the Renegade Alliance guild channel, the silence of the past few days shattered. Normally this time of day belonged to dungeon raids, with every team locked in battle and no one wasting words in chat. But the instant the announcement appeared, groups abandoned their bosses mid-fight.
Team leaders shouted the same order almost in unison:
"Stop, stop, stop! Don’t waste time fighting—wipe it, everyone regroup!"
Members who’d been swinging blades and casting spells seconds before now stood down, deliberately throwing themselves to their deaths just to respawn faster. They gathered at the graveyard, opened guild chat, and started bombarding the channel with questions.
Their leader, Ethan, had been offline for three days. High-ranking officers had assured them he was just busy and would be back soon, but rumors had been piling up. A recent scandal video, whispers of a lawsuit, speculation he might even have been detained—it all made members uneasy.
And during Ethan’s absence, Skyblade, the main tank of their elite first team, hadn’t shown up either. For three days straight he’d skipped guild runs, skipped mentoring, skipped everything. For someone who had never once failed to rally the troops, his absence was louder than words. Some feared he was being frozen out. Others suspected he was ready to jump ship.
The guild had been built from the ground up by four players: NotADruid, Skyblade, Slashblade, and SeraphWarrior. Ethan—known to outsiders as NotADruid—was their figurehead, their legend, the one whose name alone carried weight. But Skyblade had been the daily backbone, the older brother who trained rookies, ran speed clears of low-level dungeons, and personally made sure new members weren’t left behind.
The small rewards he handed out—tiny contribution points barely worth anything—weren’t why people followed him. They followed him because he never treated anyone like dead weight. And now, with him missing for three days straight, people whispered that he’d been spotted hanging around the Orange Tavern instead.
The rumors spread fast.
---
Meanwhile, in the Carnage Faction, things looked very different.
"Wait, isn’t that guy the Druid God from Survivor Faction?" one player typed.
"It’s him! Did he transfer here?" another asked.
"Nonsense," a third scoffed. "No one can cross factions. If he’s here, does that mean someone from Carnage can cross to theirs?"
"Think, idiot. If he can’t cross, neither can we," a fourth snapped.
And then, in the middle of the debate, a new message appeared.
ParallelX: " I just got killed by NotADruid a thousand meters south of San Lorenzo Town. Brothers, please help me get revenge!"
Her avatar was a girl’s face. That was all it took.
The chat exploded.
"A girl got killed? Where’s he at?!"
"I’m not waiting around, I’m going first!" a Barbarian Warrior posted.
"Hold up, I’m coming too!" another replied.
Dozens more followed, itching for blood.
---
In San Lorenzo Town itself, the guild leaders were deep in negotiations when the global announcement dropped. For a moment, silence blanketed the room as they all processed it. One by one, aides leaned in to whisper the details in their ears.
The leader of the Judgment Guild arched an eyebrow. Then a smile tugged at his lips.
They’d been arguing for hours with no progress, circling endlessly around fortress allocation, trying to prevent anyone from upsetting the balance of power. His plan had been to divide the fortresses peacefully, a win-win solution that avoided costly wars while still protecting his top position.
It sounded good on paper, but few guilds had been willing to bend.
Now, fate had just handed him an answer.
"I suppose everyone’s heard the news?" IronSeraph—the Judgment Guild’s leader—broke the silence.
"What do you mean?" another asked cautiously.
"This so-called Druid God," IronSeraph said with a grin. "Since he’s shown up on our side, we should give him a proper welcome. Let’s make a contest of it. Whoever kills him the most gets the most fortresses. What better way to settle things?"
He spoke as if Ethan were already dead, nothing more than meat waiting to be carved up.
If Ethan had been present, he would’ve laughed in their faces.
But here in San Lorenzo, IronSeraph’s suggestion lit up twenty-four pairs of greedy eyes.
"Good. Settled then!" Unworthy of My Pain barked. "Fair’s fair."
"I agree. Don’t come crying when you lose!" Worldly Indifference added with a smirk.
Others quickly voiced their support, many of them foreign guild leaders from different continents. In Carnage Faction, the borders didn’t matter—players from every country mixed freely, and now nearly all of them were united by the same ambition: to hunt down Ethan.
---
Back in the wild, Ethan hadn’t given the slightest thought to whether the shaman he’d just killed was male or female. He never did.
In his mind, there was only one rule worth following: Any red-named player out here is a monster. Doesn’t matter if you’re good or bad. Killing you is justice. Not killing you is mercy.
That was his creed.
After dropping the shaman, his mood soured when the global announcement hit. He cursed under his breath, even dragging Morzan into it.
"Damn that old man Morzan. Did you really need to broadcast it to the whole world? I try to keep a low profile, and now you’ve blown it wide open!"
Grumbling, he opened the new icon blinking on his panel.
[Honor System]
This was why he’d come: to farm honor points, to trade them for gear. PVP gear, specifically.
Honor gear wasn’t like standard dungeon loot. It carried a unique attribute: Resilience. Useless against monsters, but devastating in player combat. Resilience tilted every exchange, reducing your chance of being crit, lowering incoming damage-over-time, even dulling true damage. Against opponents with none, a high-Resilience fighter could dominate battles, even when out-leveled.
Ordinary players farmed honor to stock up on that gear. But Ethan had no intention of wasting points on standard equipment.
His eyes were locked on a different prize: the Resilience Forging Stone.