The Human Giant



"The immortals are here?"

Yoze's face turned toward Dreyer with complete seriousness as he asked for confirmation. Without missing a beat, Dreyer nodded his head and spoke to clarify.

"The immortals have arrived at New Swampscott City and have called out to all rogue immortal cultivators that are interested in joining their immortal sect to gather outside of the city." 

"This is surprising; I thought they weren't supposed to arrive for the next few months. For them to suddenly decide to arrive early can't be without a reason. And to gather all the rogue immortal cultivators outside the City gives me the sense that they have an ulterior motive." Yoze frowned as he could feel his instincts telling him that there was something odd about the immortal sect's schedule change.

He was happy that he no longer needed to wait for several months before he could meet the immortals of the immortal sect. But he was also frustrated with the timing of this revelation, as it couldn't get any worse.

Not only did he no longer have his talents marks since he had just used them to collect talent from Immortal Welse and the Giant Serpent. That meant that for the next 24 hours that the immortals were here, there was no way for Yoze to improve his Crystal Nerves talent or obtain any exciting talents.

Not only that, he had not even created his first crystal nerve set, so he hadn't even stepped into the path of immortality yet. That meant that whatever test the immortal sect set to decide whether to take in rogue immortal cultivators could be detrimental to Yoze's chances of getting into the immortal sect.

If the immortal sect test included his ability to cast spells or his ability to manipulate crystal energy, then there simply was no way for Yoze to pass the test. He could only hope that his immortal cultivation talent, having crossed into the pure rank, would be enough to join.

What made Yoze concerned as while was the fact that as soon as he killed Immortal Welse, the immortals from the immortal sect arrived. His instincts immediately felt that there was a connection between their appearance and Immortal Welse's death. 

"Immortal Welse is an immortal whose Crystal Nerves talent had reached rank seven, so the likelihood that he was part of an immortal sect is extremely high. Furthermore, for Immortal Welse to appear in the Beast Hunter Sect's territory while the Immortal Sect members were near New Swampscott City is too strange to be a coincidence." 

"They are either from different immortal sects or from the same sect. If they are from the same sect, then that means that the immortal had arrived a long time ago and were waiting to declare their existence."

"If Immortal Welse and the immortals are from different sects, then that means something here is attracting their attention. Recruiting rouge immortal cultivators is an excuse to gather rouge immortal cultivators for some kind of goal." 

"But at the end of the day, this is too good of an opportunity to give up. So I'll go participate and see what benefits I can get before I decide whether to leave." Yoze's mind raced at extreme speeds as he processed the information he had gathered and decided not to stall any longer.

"Thanks for the information Dreyer. I will head over to New Swampscott City now. Tiki, are you interested in coming along?" Yoze asked Tiki after seeing that her eyes were sparkling.

"I would, but I have a feeling that I would only put my life in danger if I went with my current cultivation. Even with you around to protect me, there isn't much I would get by going." Tiki heaved a heavy sigh of regret at her lack of talent and shook her head to say she wasn't coming.

"That's understandable…here, hold this crystal sword for me. It's only going to bring trouble if I bring it along." 

Seeing no one else was interested in coming with him, Yoze handed the wrapped-up crystal sword to Tiki. Even though the crystal sword made out of Immortal Welse's crystal spine, crystal skull, and crystal brain was highly durable and sharp enough to cut through demons, he could only see himself encountering trouble if he held onto it.

If his intuition was correct and the immortals that arrived at the City were from the same immortal sect, then there was a high chance that his crystal sword would be identified as the True Body of one of their fallen comrades. After the immortals confirmed that Yoze had killed their comrade, there was a high chance that they would attack him together to eliminate this threat.

In such a scenario of fighting against multiple immortals as strong as Immortal Welse, Yoze didn't have much confidence that he would win that battle. Much less now that he was still heavily injured from his previous fight with Immortal Welse.

With his current injuries, there was a zero percent chance that he would be able to win that battle and a high chance that he would be killed even if he tried his best to escape their pursuit. With such odds, Yoze ultimately got rid of the thought of being the crystal sword with him, even if it strengthened the destructive power of his attacks.

After deciding the dangers of bringing the crystal sword along, Yoze felt that giving the crystal sword to Tiki was a much better decision because several hours after Immortal Welse's death, the immortals hadn't made their way over to collect the crystal sword.

This either meant that the immortal had a particular method to detect that Immortal Welse was dead but had no information of where he had died or the location of his True Body. Or they didn't care to collect it due to various reasons.

Yoze also knew that Tiki would be able to make the most use of the additional firepower that having an immortal sword would bring compared to Jewel or Dreyer. Even though she wasn't trained in any sword techniques, he was aware that there were a few useful spells in the Fire Immortal cultivation manual that would drastically improve with the involvement of a sword.