The Titan Forest

Battered from their brush with the Female Titan, Jean whistles for his missing horse while Reiner bandages the gash on Armin's head. Both Jean and Reiner reason grimly that a rider without a mount may have to be abandoned, but Armin proposes firing a signal flare first, since the formation's heading has not changed and another group might still be near. When minutes pass without an answer, Armin offers to stay behind himself, asking only that a message be delivered to Commander Erwin in person. Krista Lenz then rides up leading Jean's horse, which she recovered after the Titan spooked it, and the four set off together. Green smoke on the horizon tells them the expedition is changing course rather than retreating, though they cannot know whether news of the shattered right flank has reached Erwin.

Riding among the Special Operations Squad, Eren puzzles over the absence of Titans before realizing his protected slot in the formation explains it, which turns his thoughts to casualties at the front. A messenger brings word of the right flank's collapse, and Levi has Petra pass the report leftward. A black flare soon signals an Abnormal loose inside the formation.

The Female Titan continues hunting toward Eren, slaughtering anyone in her path. One team attacks her from every side at once, but she leaps skyward with the soldiers still tethered to her, crushes one on landing, boots another into a building, whips a third around by his maneuvering lines until his spine snaps, then tramples and kicks away the last man before resuming her search.

With the course-change report still working through the ranks, confused squads spot the Titan Forest ahead. At its edge, Erwin directs only the central column inside while the flanks circle around. On the forest road, Eren frets that the formation can no longer detect Titans early or shield the supply carts. An irritated Levi points out that towering trees on every side are ideal terrain for vertical maneuvering equipment and tells him to reason things out for himself, though Levi privately registers that even his own veterans look uncertain. A sound from the rear cuts the discussion short. Levi orders blades drawn as the Female Titan smashes through another squad and charges into the trees behind them.

Krista returns Jean's runaway horse, sparing Armin from volunteering to be left behind after the Female Titan's attack.

The Female Titan wipes out an entire squad that ambushes her from all directions, continuing her advance toward the formation's center.

A black signal flare announces that an Abnormal has penetrated the expedition's lines.

Erwin routes the central column, including Squad Levi and Eren, into the Titan Forest while the flanking troops go around.

The Female Titan breaks through the perimeter and enters the forest directly behind Squad Levi.

The Titan Forest is the second chapter of volume 6 and the 24th overall, authored and drawn by Hajime Isayama within The Female Titan arc. It appeared in Japan on August 9, 2011, with the English edition following on August 27, 2013. The anime adapts it as Forest of Giant Trees: The 57th Exterior Scouting Mission, Part 2. It follows The Female Titan and leads into Bite.

The chapter's Current Publicly Available Information sidebar describes the giant tree forests found on both sides of the Wall, whose trees average more than 80 meters tall for reasons no one has explained, though soil composition is one theory. The woods once drew tourists before Wall Maria fell; since then weeds have overtaken most of the old path, apart from stretches kept clear by Titans passing through. The Survey Corps now relies on the forest as a defensive base during expeditions.