Michael glanced deeply at the countless pieces of stones of the Golem. He did not say anything and silently followed Lailah away.
Just as the two of them traveled several kilometers, they immediately felt several powerful presences appear behind them. They were all from magical beasts and Golems that had reached the Core Strengthening stage. Not too long afterward, another dozen or so weaker presences appeared from behind, all of which were at the Core Formation stage.
Michael looked back. Through the thin mist, he could see several human figures and silhouettes of huge magical beasts currently pacing mindlessly around the Golem. Michael understood that they were the same as the Golem: bions that were made an unknown number of years ago by the Dragon Clan. They had neither intelligence nor souls and moved about according to their instincts.
"Come closer and keep the death-kissed dragon's aura around us and don't make any signs to alert them. We may not fear them, but getting tangled with them will be problematic." Lailah whispered to him.
"Lady Alden, I can vaguely see humanoid creatures back there, what are those?"
"They are those who ventured into the Treacherous ocean and died many millennia ago. Just like everything else here, they too have no soul and feel no pain"
"Just how many of those things are there?" Michael asked another question. His face didn't have the usual cool smile as he seemed very serious. All these beings in The Treacherous Ocean possessed indestructible bodies. They felt no pain and had no fear. If the two of them were surrounded by these mutated beasts, it would be extremely troublesome or even life-threatening.
"The Treacherous Ocean has already existed for countless years. During that period of time, plenty of human experts and intelligent beasts have ventured into it. Some of these have fallen in search of or battling over treasure, while others have died simply because of The Treacherous Ocean. Over the years, the experts that have died in The Treacherous Ocean have already accumulated a terrifying number. Every person that dies here will become like them, immortal and unaging. As a result, the number of powerful beings in The Treacherous Ocean will only increase, and never decrease. Today, probably even powerful organizations like the Nine Great Clans have no idea about exactly how many Fusion stages or even half immortals there are in The Treacherous Ocean. The only reason we were able to make it this far is because of the aura of the death-kissed dragon. If we weren't surrounded by this aura, our presence would have alerted even more powerful mutated beings or the formations set by the Dragon Clan"
Michael felt even more heavy-hearted. No wonder Christopher became so afraid when he heard the mention of the Treacherous Ocean. While following Lailah, he couldn't help but wonder that if the second dangerous place was like this, how terrifying the Demon Grave would be, which is said to be the most dangerous place in this world. Even a Fusion stage cultivator survived here this long only because of the Death kissed dragon's aura. Otherwise, they could easily face life-threatening dangers with just a lapse in concentration.
"Whoa!" Michael's body jerked.
Suddenly, the scene before them changed greatly. The original island disappeared instantly, replaced by an endless desert. A flaming-red sun hung in the sky, scorching the ground with terrifying heat, raising the temperature of the entire region to a terrifyingly high temperature.
" We've fallen into a formation" Lailah furrowed her eyebrows and spoke with a deep voice.
Michael immediately unsheathed his sword and looked around for any activity vigilantly. He also ate some perception pills again, preparing for another battle. He had witnessed the horrors of The Treacherous Ocean so he did not dare to be careless at all.
Suddenly, the ground began to tremble violently. The ground where Michael and Lailah stood slowly began to sink into the ground and, at the same time, their feet were trapped by the moving sand, constantly sucking and dragging both of them underground.
"Fly!" Lailah spoke coldly. With a flick of a finger, a sound wave immediately collided with the ground, turning the sand trapping their legs into dust. She immediately began to float.
Michael did not hesitate either. He stepped onto the flying sword and put Arch energy into the sword. The devastating force of the Arch energy turned the sand into dust, propelling him out of the ground.
The sand below the two of them constantly sank down, forming a huge black hole. A putrid smell wafted from it. Just a breath of it was suffocating.
Soon afterward, the entire desert began to tremble violently before forming a weird but huge, almost two hundred-meter-long monster. The horrid gaping cavern below the two of them was the enormous mouth of the beast.
The monster seemed like a lizard that had been magnified countless times. It had light brown skin with countless cracks, radiating scorching hot. Its entire body seemed to have formed from sand.
"This is a region created from the fusion of a killing formation and an illusionary formation," Lailah mumbled softly. She could tell that it was all an illusion with a single glance.
"The formation here was cast down by experts of the Dragon clan. It's extremely well-hidden, so it can catch people completely off-guard. We need to be careful in the future. It's fortunate that the formation just then was not as powerful as before, or it wouldn't have been that easy to break free from it." Lailah said indifferently.
Michael nodded sternly. His fear for the formations was even greater than Lailah's. The illusions of Spectre were still following him and affecting his focus as the old man was so life-like. He did not fall prey to another illusion.
Several powerful presences quickly flew over from the distance at that moment, attracted here by the commotion, hurrying over from all directions.
Michael and Lailah immediately flew away from the monster. The living corpses all behaved instinctively; they were unable to perceive things visually, unable to see anything. They completely relied on sensing foreign presences and activity to search for living organisms, thanks to the Death kissed aura, they were unable to pinpoint Michael and Lailah's location.
Michael and Lailah traveled far from where they were before. Living corpses that hurried over in the meantime, from everywhere. They all stopped where the two of them were before lifelessly. They paced about mindlessly, without dispersing for a very long time.
The two of them advanced carefully, where Lailah discovered traces of many formations and a few living corpses, both human and magical beast. They kept a wide distance from them, so the journey was frightening, but there weren't any battles.
The two of them flew with their guards up, occasionally stopping to look around. They had only traversed a couple of hundreds of kilometers in over half a day, yet they still remained in the outskirts of The Treacherous Ocean. They had not even reached the general region of the island.
The sky, concealed by a thick layer of fog, darkened slowly, the darkness of night filled up The Treacherous Ocean slowly. As expected, both of them were unable to see in the darkness of The Treacherous Ocean, which caused the range of their vision to shrink constantly.
Lailah traveled with her veena in her hands. She looked at the darkening sky, and her bewitching eyes became rather stern. She said, "It's darkening. It's not suitable for us to travel at night. We need to find a stop to rest for the night and continue tomorrow."
"Fine with me, Lady Alden," Michael replied calmly.
Eventually, Michael and Lailah spent over an hour finding a cave that was spacious enough. The cave curved about inside and was about a hundred meters long, so they did not fear that they would be seen inside.
At the end of the cave, Lailah produced a fist-sized luminous pearl from her Space Ring and lodged it into the roof of the cave. It shone with a gentle light, illuminating the darkness. In The Treacherous Ocean, the living corpses were extremely sensitive to any ripples of energy ripples as well as objects that never usually appeared in The Treacherous Ocean. This was why they could not light a fire. The heat and smoke would travel outside and draw in the living corpses or the Golems or any other weird beings in the area. The only way for light was through the luminous pearl.
Lailah sat down and slowly closed her eyes after lodging the pearl in place. She paid no attention to Michael while he ignored the old man sitting beside him and applied the Healing potion on the baby dragon's greyish scales.
He then found a clean part of the ground and sat down with his legs stretched out. He glanced to his side, glancing at Lailah who always kept her face concealed.
"You are not the Ghost I know, kid, you have become weaker"
"Get out of my head"
Michael closed his eyes for a moment, calming himself down. Looking away from Spectre, he cast away the distracting thoughts in his mind and began to look into his situation.
He first opened up the system's interface to see it's still in safe mode. His remaining sword was almost on the verge of breaking because of the fight he had with the fishes and the Golem on their way. The sword's condition was not his worry as he knew a sword alone won't make much difference in front of these living corpses and Golems. He needed to depend on the baby dragon's death-kissed aura and Lailah to survive this place.
"You forgot the first lesson I taught you kid, never depend on someone else other than yourself. What are you doing?"
"The rules have changed, Oldman, this is not the earth," he said, gritting his teeth.
"People like us can't depend on others, kid"
"As I said before, this is not earth. If I wanted to rule this world, I have to depend on others"
"Hahahahah" the old man burst into laughter, although Michael could understand all of this was happening inside his mind, it felt so real.
"That's the most childish thing I heard in my entire life, kid. Do you really believe you can rule this world? People like us don't get a happy ending, there will be always someone on the good side to put us down, it's only a matter of time before someone put an end to you kid"
"I know it's not you talking but my own subconscious mind" Michael gave a short slap to the back of his head and ignored the old man.
"I need some fresh air" he then stood up to take a walk.