The force of the wind fired out from his hands blasted the monkeys in a blink of an eye. Many weak fragile monkeys exploded into black mist before even hitting the trees. His smile turned into a disappointed look. He really wished he could get experience points from all these dead monkeys or at least some badass points. At Least he wanted to reach Core Formation level 8 somehow before competing in the championship tournaments.

Putting his thoughts aside, he looked around to see if there's any monkeys remaining but there wasn't a single monkey in the surroundings.

"I wonder if Dular will be able to control these Netherels" He couldn't help asking this question to himself. If Dular was able to control them, he would have an army of the dead under his command to do his bidding.

"Is everyone alright?" somewhere deeper in the forest, finally Ross and the group stopped running. Ross asked as he noticed their missing teammate,

"Where's David?"

"I don't think that freak made it," Maria said. Everyone turned their gazes at Logan as he was the last person to see David.

"He'll come. It'd take more than some undead monkeys to kill him" Logan said with utmost confidence even though the overwhelming number of monkeys he saw before leaving David's side made him question the odds of his survival.

"We'll camp here for two hours and if he's not here by then..." Ross did not finish his sentence but everyone knew the meaning of his words. Except for Marcella and Maria, the rest had gloomy expressions on their faces. Not because they were thinking David died but because he was the strongest of them all and this part of the forest was said to be the least dangerous. If they lost their strongest in this area, they couldn't even imagine what would happen in the center, the most dangerous place on the island.

"Whoo, those monkeys were annoying" they all freaked out when they heard a sudden voice. The direction the voice came was dark, they all stared at the darkness as slowly a figure merged from that darkness.

"David" Logan grinned, sighing inside.

"Did you kill them all?" It was Jonah who asked Michael the question. Michael just shook his head,

"Of course not, there were so many I had to back off. Thank gods they didn't follow me" the overwhelming number of monkeys as well as the way he spoke made them believe him. They didn't want to believe he could kill all those undead monkeys. After all, he was just a normal human being like the rest of them.

"Weird, normally undead won't stop until either they're dead or their prey is' ' Marcella threw a doubtful glance at Michael. It was obvious she didn't believe a single worth that came out of his mouth.

"If you have doubts, you better go and ask those monkeys"

Michael couldn't care less about what she's thinking. After getting Ross to guide him to the artifact, he would show them his true powers. At that time, Marcella might end up as another victim of Lucifer.

"Humph" Marcella snickered before turning her back. Logan walked towards Michael while the others began to set up a temporary camp on the ground. After the long battle with the monkeys, they wanted to get some shut-eye, even if it's only for two hours.

"I knew those monkeys can't stop you"

"Yeah you bet"

The two of them fist-bumped like best friends,

"It's your turn to watch big guy, I need some shut-eye if I'm gonna fight another undead"

"Logan is already on the job, my friend," he said, placing his hand on the chest in a funny manner. While Logan was watching over them, Michael lied down under a gigantic tree with heart-shaped leaves. The roots created a hollow place on the ground that Michael used as the bed. The sky still looked menacing with all the dark clouds above them. If he was back in his Sunrise sect home, he would have loved the thunderclaps because he loves sleeping during the heavy rain. The warmth of his bed, the sound of rain droplets hitting the roof, the smell of the ground, he loved those things.

However, at this moment, he wished it would not rain. The forest was bad as it is with all the leeches and undead, the last thing he wanted was heavy rain.

"Hello, human are you there?" Just as he was about to close his eyes, he heard Gaya's voice in his head.

"Yep," He whispered.

"I sent those pirates a rescue ship with our little Spyders"

"Good. I want them to spread rumors about me as far as they can. Where are you now?"

"We are at the far north of the island. I can come to you if you need my help" her voice sounded like she really wanted him to say yes. If she were to come to him, it would definitely complicate his plans. Therefore he couldn't say yes, however, he did have a task that she could help him with.

"There's another team hunting for the same artifact as we are. Try to locate them and kill them before they could get their hands on the artifact"

The glimpse of the future turned him more ruthless. Just his order to kill them without sparing their lives made Gaya realize this change. If it was before, she knew he would have told her to chase them away or stop them by giving them a small beating.

"You sure you want me to kill them? I could just chase them away from the island"

"They came into this hive of undead searching for that artifact, so we can't expect them to back off unless you can do something that really scares the shit out of them more than the undeads themselves. You think you can pull something like that?"

For a few moments, Michael heard no answer from Gaya,

"Do what you want, just keep them from reaching the artifact before me"

"Will do, just put one of those drone thingies into the interlinked space ring"

"Already done that" After casting the Winblast to kill those monkeys, Michael refilled the APD and transferred the drones to Gaya's ring before coming to regroup with them.

"Contact me when you're done with them"

"What's happening on your end?"

"I'll tell you everything later, now I need to get some sleep"

"Is it raining out there? It must be since you're so desperate to sleep rather than talking to me"

"Goodbye," Michael cut the connection. He would have continued to talk to her if Logan wasn't coming in his direction. He willed the system to turn off the earpiece before closing his eyes. Ever since he saw the future, he rarely slept. When he first came to this world with the system, he really thought this was going to be some fun-filled journey of reaching the top, crushing his enemies, and having everything he wished for but now, he was forced into saving this world. Although he already decided to save this world by conquering it, he was not completely doing it for the goodness in his heart. He was doing it for himself. The world he saw was not suitable for an immortal such as himself in the future. How could he live in a world that turned into hell?

If he wanted to live his life to the fullest, enjoying every second of it, he had to first save the world. Besides, after witnessing the future world, he definitely felt less guilty about killing people such as the other team who's hunting for the artifact.

**********************************

"Wakey wakey" Michael slowly opened his eyes to see Logan patting his shoulders. It felt like he just closed his eyes but the two hours went by like a flash.

"Yaw" letting out a short yawn, he stood up and brushed off the dust on his dress. The rest of the teams seemed like they never slept.

"Sleep well?"

"Like a baby"

Logan's brows arched up slightly, "only you can sleep like a baby in a place like this"

"It's because you were protecting us big guy" Michael patted Logan's back chuckling.

"Haha very funny"

The rest of the team gathered their things while Ross took a glance at the map once again. If he was correct, they were eight hours walking distance from the river where the recon team would be waiting for them with a boat.

"If we go this way, we have a better chance meeting with Johnny" Maria whispered to Ross, pointing at a different path leading to the river than the one marked on Ross's map.

"You saw those monkeys... If something happened to Johnny" her voice was mixed with anger and desperation to save her boyfriend. Ross stared between the map and his daughter.

"It's not like this new path is less dangerous than this one" Ross convinced himself for the sake of his daughter. If he were to find Johnny first before he could reach the center the better. But he knew he can not let the team know that he's taking a detour for his daughter, hence he decided to omit the itty bitty information of him taking a detour.

"Be at your best, people. We'll face deadlier undeads on our way to the river"

Thankfully Ross didn't waste time giving them any pep talks which would have bored the heck out of Michael. He wanted to get the artifact as soon as possible so he could finally quench the thirst for curiosity.

"Let's move"