"Bang!"
The sound of rocks crumbling snapped Floyd out of a possible future and returned to focus on the present. An active battlefield was undergoing, and right now, a thick root busted out of the wall from the valley he was in and wiggled around wildly, trying to find anything it could pierce through.
Noticing this, a tall soldier beside Floyd took action and stepped forward to deal with the four feet long root. The soldier took an audible deep breath and quickly grabbed the root with a single hand.
Taking another deep breath, the tall soldier swung his remaining hand in a chopping motion directly at the base of the root. With a harsh thud coming from the source of impact, the tall soldier couldn't help but feel pleased with himself as he had once again improved the power of his Earthly Chop.
Even though he only created a slight bend across the thickest part of the root, that was much better compared to what he was capable of a few hours ago. If it took him ten chops to slice through this root a few hours ago, then now he predicted he had lowered the amount to only nine chops.
It wasn't a significant difference for most people, but this was a great success for someone like him who had been stuck on the same stage of the Earthly Chop martial art technique for years. While the soldier felt a bit better about himself, he didn't stop his chops even for the slightest second as powerful chop after chop came right after another, not giving the root any chance to regain any ground.
Within only a few seconds, the root was utterly cut off from its main body and went berserk. It tried to pierce through the tall soldier's body. Still, the tall soldier had plenty of experience dealing with other similar roots, so he quickly suppressed and chopped it into much smaller pieces before allowing others to finish it off while he dealt with other plants.
Knowing that this was his time to shine, Floyd immediately picked up a large rock, found a small root that was still alive, and slammed the large rock on top of it. Even with a 10-pound stone crushing it, the root held on for its dear life for three more strikes from Floyd before it died.
Just as Floyd successfully killed the root, he felt his mind become slightly clearer and answers to questions he always had started to show themselves. He even began to understand some of the martial arts his grandfather wanted to teach him when he was younger.
Unfortunately, this sensation only lasted for less than a second before it disappeared. Being familiar with the process, Floyd didn't bother stopping to think and walked to the nearest mini root and began to crush it with his large rock.
It wasn't just Floyd, many of the weaker soldiers, such as the medical and scouts who don't have much fighting power, resorted to dealing with the leftover pests or plant roots. But, of course, many of them didn't need to resort to using a large rock like himself since they were familiar with martial arts.
Even though he was an oddball in the troops, no one bothered to tease him or doubted his ability to deal with the roots since most of the soldiers placed their trust in each other. The stronger soldiers dealt with the larger roots and destroyed the central bodies of the plants. In comparison, the weaker soldiers took care of the leftovers.
As Floyd was dealing with his hundredth small root, he suddenly noticed something rapidly approaching from the corner of his eye. Curious about what he could be, he looked up and saw a beautiful array of blue stars alongside a black light rapidly closing in on them from the sky.
As Floyd witnessed this strange phenomenon, a strange chill crawled down his spine as he could only think that this was an ominous sign. And possibly could be an asteroid coming to strike them down.
"General Blood Stone, something has been detected in our sky and is quickly approaching us."
Hearing the voice of one of his soldiers from his scout team shouting at him, General Blood Stone temporarily stopped his massacre of the plant life and withdrew before looking into the sky. However, it didn't take long before he saw a black ray of light quickly flying over them and flying deep into the Branch Forest's interior while also being followed by hundreds of blue stars.
The scene was magical and was imprinted not only in his mind but also in the minds of all the soldiers in the Gecko territory. Without even him having to declare it to his soldiers, many soldiers thought that this was the appearance of immortals and felt a bit more assured that they could successfully stop this crisis from reaching New Swamp Town.
General Blood Stone and Floyd breathed a small sigh of relief as they had similar thoughts. However, if this appearance had been caused by a battle between an immortal and a demon, then that meant that there was nothing they could do to stop it.
They could only hold on until whatever was causing the plant life in the Branch Forest to spread and evolve rapidly stopped naturally, or they would have to find out the source causing this abnormal event. The issue came from the fact that there was a real possibility that this strange event wouldn't stop naturally, and they would fail to deal with the source.
What all the generals were most afraid of was if the source of the anomaly was coming from the depths of the Endless Forest. If the source of this problem comes from the Endless Forest, there was absolutely nothing they could do to stop the source.
If even an army of Martial Grandmasters, who were the peak of what humanity was capable of, couldn't cross the depths of the Endless Forest and disappeared without a trace, then there was nothing that New Swamp Town or New Swampscott City could do about the source of the problem.