The Human Giant

"I concur with General Blood Stone\'s change." General Black Snow quickly added. He had enough experience dealing with abnormal events and monsters to know that they couldn\'t be underestimated.

If they underestimated their enemy by even a slight margin or didn\'t path to collect some additional information about their enemy, then their enemies would continually be operating in the dark while they worked in the light. But, even if they lost both of their generals, they would know that the forest had become too dangerous for a general like them to enter. Therefore, they needed to call for the assistance of Martial Grandmasters.

Seeing that the rest of the generals agreed with General Blood Stone\'s addition, General Blazing Phoenix didn\'t try to resist and accepted it. Then, after finalizing some finer details of how they would place New Swamp Town\'s army to stop the Branch Forest\'s expansion, each general went to their soldiers and gave their instructions.

"Soldiers, we will protect the far eastern path to the Gecko territory. Any plant life that tree extends its roots, branches, and tentacles towards that region, you have full permission to eliminate it on sight. " General Blood Stone told his soldiers that included Floyd.

"Gecko range? That\'s quite a large space for us to protect. How are we going to reinforce each other?" Floyd\'s eyebrows curled as he heard his grandfather\'s instructions.

Even without an explanation, Floyd could understand how they were assigned to this range encompassing more than 20 villages and five towns. The Branch Forest was too large to block completely in its entirety, and even if they tried, they would be spread too thin to stop the forest\'s growth.

So it was obvious that they needed to select the regions that were the most important and protected the most human lives. And after looking through his mental map, Floyd felt that only ten territories led straight toward New Swamp Town, so those needed to be protected at all costs.

As for the territories that weren\'t directly linked to New Swamp Town, the generals had decided to temporarily abandon them for now and allow the martial art sects nearby to deal with them until they could get more reinforcements. It was a hard decision that could spell the death of many human lives, but as generals of New Swamp Town, they had to think in the town\'s best interest.

The Gecko territory that General Blood Stone and his soldiers were assigned to was the far east territory directly linked to New Swamp Town. The region\'s terrain was extremely rocky and had steep hills and valleys that made it difficult to travel but also made it difficult for the forest to expand.

With such an environment, they alone were assigned to this territory so the extra soldiers could be assigned to more critical areas. However, being so far away and distant from most of the army would make it challenging to get reinforcements in case anything happened.

"We just have to make do," Floyd silently sighed as he followed his grandfather\'s soldiers as they marched away to the far East.

Back at New Swamp Town, Yoze was inside his father\'s hospital room, wrapped up tightly in medical bandages. He almost looked like a giant mummy who had risen from his sarcophagus to rule his empire once more.

Also inside the room, Tiki, Dreyer, and Jewel were trying their best not to laugh as they recalled what happened just an hour ago. Having been gone for a day, Yoze directly went to the hospital that his father was staying in to see if he had woken up. 

However, the moment he arrived, the hospital staff nearly fainted due to how much blood Yoze had been covered in and the wounds he had incurred from Immortal Welse\'s explosion. They were so shocked that they demanded that he had to get treatment right away or he would die.

They even refused to let him inside, fearing that he would spread a disease unless he accepted their treatment. After glancing at his father\'s spiritual energy still in his room, Yoze accepted the hospital\'s request.

That resulted in him getting wrapped tightly in Medical bandages and forced to look like a mummy before he could visit his father\'s room. Only to find that his father had fallen asleep just as he arrived.

"So, how is Dad doing?" Yoze asked, ignoring that Tiki and Dreyer were trying their best not to laugh.

"He is doing quite well, and his recovery was faster than the doctors had expected. An hour after you had left, he had regained consciousness, and a few hours later, he was as energetic as he usually was."

"He was even able to make some friends at the hospital and lost around three copper coins due to a bet he made with one of the nurses and another old man inside the hospital," Tiki said after collecting her composure.

"That\'s good. Did anything else happen while I was gone?" 

"Nope, but it seems that you had quite an adventure yourself. So what happened outside that you got a pet snake?" Jewel added after noticing that a snake-like creature was slithering around Yoze\'s arm as if trying to camouflage itself as a part of the bandages.

"I got this little guy from the forest around the Beast Hunter Sect. Right now, this snake is so strong that all three of you would lose if you fought against it." Yoze calmly said.

"The Beast Hunter Sect? Wasn\'t that sect destroyed by the battle between a demon and an immortal?"

As Jewel was speaking, she conveniently ignored that Yoze had said that even after all her hard work, she was still weaker than a snake only a foot long. Instead, she suddenly looked at Yoze with enlightenment.

"Wait, were you the demon in that scenario or the immortal?" Jewel asked with curiosity in her voice.

"I fought an immortal this time instead of a demon, so I wasn\'t able to get any demon meat. But I got something better for my troubles, which is an immortal sword." 

Already aware of what Jewel wanted to suggest, Yoze shook his head and showed them the crystal sword that he had wrapped up in leather straps.