The Martial Unity

Rui knew that there was a reason why all of this had occurred, but he simply wasn't qualified to figure it out. Thankfully, it wasn't his job to figure it out either. That was something best left to the Ministry of Environment and Ecology. He only needed to do his job.

He chose to travel deeper into the elevated landmass. The deeper he traveled the greater the density of fruits. And the greater the density of corpses that had been poisoned after consuming it and died. Each and every single one of the corpses was being slowly pulled underground by the roots. Rui could believe that these corpses were the reason the tree had grown in this strange fashion. Such was the sheer count of the corpses that lay on the ground.

Furthermore, the deeper he got, the taller the tree trunks were, elevating in height as he continued traveling.

It took a while, but Rui soon reached the core of the elevated landmass.

"Woahhh..."

Before him lay a gigantic tree trunk that dwarfed all other tree trunks.

"Is this the main tree trunk of this large tree?" Rui wondered. It certainly seemed to be the case. The tree trunk was tall and wide and had many large branches branching off from it. Each of the branches from the main tree had secondary tree trunks attached to them. Those secondary tree trunks had even more branches that had even more tree trunks attached to them.

"Could it be that each of these tree trunks is actually branches that simply extended downwards before reaching the ground and taking root?" Rui wondered.

In that case, it was more accurate to call all the tree trunks in the forest tree branches.

Just as he was about to ponder more, he got a beep on his mission tracker device, indicating a message from the Martial Union.

Rui frowned as he read the message. "An urgent summon back to the headquarters?"

in confusion. Why was he

didn't know

back at the main trunk suspiciously, before setting off back in the direction he had come from. He couldn't afford to waste any time

immediately began running back at a high pace, using all

is actually extremely dangerous to human civilization and I just discovered a big threat?') A random thought entered his head before his logic and reason quashed the

no way that tree is a threat.') Rui shook his head. ('If I can avoid its attacks then that means that Martial Squires can handle

Martial Squires could handle, then there was no way it was a threat in the grand scheme of

that may not entirely be true. The earthen basilisk ould get crushed by any Martial Squire, but they were still viewed as a threat by the Ministry of Environment and Ecology.') Rui recalled. This was because the earthen basilisks were very difficult to

Rui's eyes lit up in interest. If the urgency was not negative

which one was the case. Of course, there was the possibility that the urgent summons had nothing to do with his mission and some other emergency had occurred

would find out

Union, panting heavily. He quickly consumed a physical rejuvenation potion before entering the Martial Union,

me." Rui addressed a staff member. "I received an urgent summon from the Martial Union. Can you please tell me what

moment." She fiddled with her terminal. "Office number

and navigating his way

KNOCK KNOCK

A male