The Human Giant



Just as the young man was about to play the green recorder, he suddenly felt heavy and oppressive pressure slam into his mind. His thoughts slowed down at the same time his body became frozen, unable to move a muscle.

"What is this?" The young man thought to himself.

"Drax, are you okay?" The young man's slow mind shifted towards worrying about the safety of the wooden doll on his chest. But when he eventually was able to turn his sights down he looked down and found that his wooden doll brother was missing from his chest.

"Are you looking for this?" The young man suddenly heard a deep voice come from in front of him.

By the time he looked up, he saw that sitting in front of him was a giant man with an extremely strong body holding his brother like a rag doll. A wave of anger slowly built up in the young man's heart as he hated how his brother was being treated.

He hated the giant man when he noticed that his brother was so terrified that he couldn't move and acted like a real lifeless doll. It might have been because of his slow reaction or maybe the fact that his eyes were spitting out fire, but the giant man nodded his head with approval and placed his brother on the table in a sitting position.

"It seems you have a strong connection with this doll you call your brother. As long as you answer my question I'll let you two go free." The giant man calmly said.

It took a few seconds for the young man's mind to catch up to what the giant man said but once it did the young man calmed down and used his eyes to express his agreement.

"Good, I'll take you to a new location so we can discuss this." The giant man made out of muscle stood up and picked up the young man's brother and himself as if they both weighed nothing.

As he lifted Drax and the young man, the giant man took their green recorder and the black bundle of string into his pouch. Even though it was a strange sight for the giant man to be dragging a grown man and a wooden doll outside, no one in the cafe seemed to care or even notice the young man or wooden doll in his grasp as he walked out.

The giant man dragged them into the inn that they had been spying on and took them to an empty room. Once inside the giant man placed them on the carpeted floor and allowed the pressure that was preventing the young man from speaking to be lifted somewhat.

"Ha," The young man felt relieved as some of the pressure on his mind was lifted causing him to let out a soft sigh of relief.

"Tell me why you and other rogue immortal cultivators decided to attack where I lived." The giant man asked softly as he placed his hands in the young man's pockets.

"We were told by another rogue immortal cultivator that you and the other immortals were coming over to the city to recruit some immortal cultivators."

"But we fell for his schemes and trusted the information about you wanting to capture an immortal cultivator in your group was part of the test to be accepted into the sect." It took over three minutes for the young man to spit out a response as even though some of the pressure was lifted off his mind was still slow.

The giant man, who the young man assumed to be the immortal who took down the ancient and strong immortal cultivators, didn't look surprised by this revelation. Instead, he nodded his head and continued to ask the young man numerous questions.

The questions started quite simply and even surprised the young man with how simple they were. However, as time went on the questions became harder to answer and more personal. 

Even though the young man was uncomfortable he answered all of them with great honesty. It was frankly surprising even to the young man how much information he gave to the giant man.

From his monstrous stature and immortal status the young man felt he should have been wary and less willing to spill all his secrets to a stranger. But other than the initial scare when they first met, the young man quickly felt as if the giant man wasn't his enemy but his protector.

The strange mixture of auras and pressure coming from the giant man's body seemed to take on a soothing, relaxing, and protective feeling that the young man couldn't escape. The longer he was in the giant man's presence the more he came to view him as an older brother that was protecting and defending his interests.

By the time the interrogation had ended, the young man had given the giant man not only what he wanted but his entire life story. So much information that the giant man knew him better than his real family. 

"Zeak and Drax, it was incredible to meet you two. I'm finished asking you all the questions I can think of for now."

"Since you were so cooperative I won't kill you but I want you to come here every day to report what you have been up to and what is happening in the city. Oh, and also look for information about the Spice immortal cultivator and Masked immortal cultivator." Yoze looked at the young man in front of him with interest. 

The young man was strange as his appearance was simply abnormal for a human. He had the body of a young man in his early twenties but his head was weird. The young man's eyeballs came from a human-sized lizard. He had five teardrop tattoos on his face in the outline of an upside-down pyramid. His skin was abnormally smooth as if it came from a doll.

From what the young man told him, all these strange features on his body were the result of his ex-teacher trying to convert him into a war doll only to be killed in the end by his student. As for the doll that he called his brother, it was his real brother that he had converted into a doll to save his life.

The young man's story was incredibly interesting and would have been a grand story of an ordinary human rising to the top of the world to find a solution to turn his brother back into a human. Unfortunately, it seemed to him that he had unintentionally scrambled this young man's mind.

It was all the three-headed fox demon's spiritual energy's fault as it created an invasive aura and illusion that made his mind crumble. A combination of the three-headed fox demon's illusion, Zeak's mind being oppressed, and slowed, and his mental defenses being lower than normal resulted in his mind scrambling.

Even though Yoze didn't do it on purpose, he was happy with the results and planned to try to replicate this in his future interrogations. As for now, he wanted to see how long it would take Zeak's mind to recover and how long he could make use of him.

So he asked Zeak and his brother to investigate the Spice immortal cultivator that had made his escape early and the mysterious Masked immortal cultivator. Yoze hoped that he could find either of them so he could kill them immediately.

Especially that Spice immortal cultivator since he had the same flower spiritual energy as Regi Regi and Winter. For that flower to show up again during this fight cemented in Yoze's mind that they were up to no good and were his enemies.

As for the Masked immortal cultivator, he wasn't sure if he was also Regi's alter ego or someone else. But it didn't matter to Yoze since had put his family in danger, he had to die.

"Umm, may I call you my big brother?" After getting most of Yoze's spiritual pressure off his spiritual energy whirlpool Zeak asked.

"No, just call me... Golem." Yoze shook his head, rejecting Zeak's request.

"Alright, I'll call you Golem." Zeal sighed before he picked up his brother and walked towards the door. 

"Before I forget Golem, can I have my recorder and bundle of string back?" Suddenly remembering that Yoze had taken his things, Zeak asked if he could get his most valuable possessions back.

"Not at the moment, I want to use them for something." Yoze shook his head as he never planned on giving Zeak anything back.

"Okay," After nodding his head in acceptance, Zeak left with his brother in tow.

[24 hours have passed. Talent mark has been refreshed.]

After confirming that Zeak and Drax had left the area around the inn, Yoze walked back to his room to find Jewel, Tiki, and Dreyer collapsed on the ground. Hearing the door suddenly open startled the three of them causing them to snap their heads toward the door only to find that it was Yoze.

"It seems that you three had a great workout." 

"..."

Whether it was because they were too tired to respond or lazy, all three of them didn't respond and focused on recovering their strength. Seeing that they were busy, Yoze went into the room where he stored his art supplies and placed the three men that had been turned into puppets.

Not particularly picky Yoze tossed his talent mark at one of them and examined their information.

[Name: Lio Spring]

[Age: 56 years old]

[Talents: Martial Art Comprehension (Grade 7), Body Cultivation (Grade 8), Swordsmanship (Grade 5), Fist Art (Grade 4)]