Traveling on the raft against a calm wind seemed peaceful, almost making them forget where they were. H used the long bamboo stick as a paddle to move the raft faster while on Michael's raft, Brownie used the bamboo paddle.
"You seem tense," Maria said looking at Michael. He was surprised to see this stubborn stupid girl noticing his inner emotions.
"Is it weird considering where we are going?" he shrugged. He could have smiled yet he showed no expression on his face. After getting a question as an answer, Maria frowned before sitting on the raft to relax her muscles.
At the moment, Michael was standing behind the raft, in front of the back wall made of wooden planks. Except for Maria, no one turned back to notice what he was doing. He chose this place so he could concentrate on controlling the drone which would let him know the whereabouts of the crocs.
While Michael was looking at the footage being captured by the drone, out of nowhere an arrow shot straight at the drone. The drone flew chaotically above the river before finally falling into the water. But before it went down, Michael saw a humanoid figure on a boulder near the river.
"Is that an alpha?" his brows furrowed. This was another difference he found in the Netherels of the Southern continent. Back in the Northern Continent, a netherel bite wouldn't turn a cultivator into a netherel, it was the exact opposite here. It was obviously the lack of Arch energy in the peoples' bodies here. If Jessie was a cultivator and had Arch energy running through his energy veins, he wouldn't have turned into a netherel or undead.
As he learned recently, the alphas were stronger and intelligent undeads who possessed intellectual equal to a human. In other words, alphas were perfect killing machines.
After the alpha undead shot down his drone, he had no way of knowing the crocks' whereabouts or how far the undeads from their current position were.
Michael put the Doombringer on his shoulder, preparing himself for the upcoming battle.
"Guys, I feel like something's heading in our way. You might wanna put your guard up" Michael warned everyone on the raft. For a few moments, Ross gawked at him doubtfully but ultimately Ross nodded.
For a few more minutes, he heard only the sound of the river's flow, the birds chirping as well as the creaking noises produced by the rafts. It was until he started to hear the ear-piercing scream which was followed by growling noises of countless undeads.
"Watch out!" Logan shouted from his raft. Michael peeked through the wall's holes to see either side of the river is getting swarmed by humanoid undeads and undead beasts.
"Graahhhhhh!"
"Grrrrrrrr!"
"Eeeeeeekkkkkk!"
Various terrifying noises came from all around them.
"Move move move!" H shouted as the first raft began to move faster. The undeads standing on the shore swarmed into the river, hoping to catch them mindlessly only to get stormed by the river current. Many beast undeads drowned instantly.
"Fuck crocodiles!'
Yet again Logan warned them with a shout but Michael and everyone on his raft could see the army of crocodiles swimming towards them with their jaws wide open.
[There's no way the host could get past those crocs without using your cultivation powers]
Even the system couldnt stay silent looking at the crocks swarming the river ahead of them. He could use wind blast to blast the crocks away. Given the current situation, it seemed to be the only logical move. It would be nearly impossible for these rafts to go through the crocks. Probably while they were stuck with the crocks, the alpha might pick them off one by one with his bow.
Whoosh!
"Brownie!" Just when he was thinking about the alpha, an arrow went straight through Brownie's head. The blood spattered on Ross's face who was standing relatively close to Brownie. Michael saw Brownie's lifeless body falling into the river. The arrow that killed Browne was extremely fast. In a blink of an eye, it took Brownie's life. Brownie didn't even see the arrow that took his life. He was completely clueless.
"Get down!" Ross shouted as they all ducked down. Through the hole in the wall, Michael noticed a 6ft humanoid figure standing on a boulder with a bow in his hand. There was no skin below his neck while half of the skin had fallen off of his face. The messy patches of grey hair fluttered in the wind behind the figure. His horrifying figure sent a chill running through everyone's spines.
"An alpha undead!" he heard Marcella's shout. Without Brownie paddling, the raft started to propel violently.
"Hang on!" Ross cautiously crawled towards the paddle. Fortunately, Marcella was able to fire a couple of bolts. Her bolts made the alpha undead retrieve from the boulder to seek cover. However none couldn't breathe a sigh of relief, the crocks were still coming on their way.
"Fuck it" Realising there was no way of getting through them without the help of Arch energy, Michael stood up to wind blast the crocks.
"Need some help" Suddenly he heard the sweet melodious voice of Gaya in his ear. He had no idea what she's doing here without tracking down the other team, still, he was glad that she's here to help them. It was still too early to reveal the fact that he could use Arch energy.
"Oh my god!"
"Watch out!"
"What is that?"
Everyone began to shout crazily, staring at the sky. He looked up at the sky to see a huge boulder flying towards the crocodiles.
Boom!
The boulder hit the crocks with tremendous force, crushing many crocks while the shock wave blasted the remaining crocks away. Looking at the shock wave coming in their direction, Logan paddled the rift to avoid hitting the boulder while Ross shouted at them to hold onto something.
"Hold onto something!"
Fortunately, both the rafts had sidewalls to prevent them from falling into the wall. Still, when Maria was thrown into the wall, the crash sent the wall flying away. Logan's raft wasn't in a good shape either. Since Logan's raft was the first to receive the shockwave's wrath, they lost all the walls.
Without giving a thought to what just happened, both Logan and Ross paddled the raft away from the boulder in the river a couple of yards before them.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
The alpha undead rained down arrows while keeping up with their rafts. He was like an Olympic gold medalist runner on drugs merged with an Olympic archer. Despite the raft's speed, he was able to keep up with them. The remaining side wall was able to prevent the majority of the arrows from hitting Michael's raft but the same couldn't be said to Logan's raft which had no walls to protect them. If it wasn't for Marcella firing back to mess with the alpha's accuracy, they would have surely lost another teammate, most probably Logan since he was literally a huge target.
"Stop the alpha," Michael said to Gaya through the earpiece before the alpha could get lucky and kill one of them. Even Michael remained behind the wall because of the alpha undead's precision. He headshot Brownie who was on a moving raft.
"Piece of cake" As usual, she sounded confident.
He was glad she's here. Otherwise, he would have been forced to reveal his secret. Until he could see the artifact, he didn't want the others to know that he can use arch energy. Besides, he wanted to see what H or Ross planned to do when they finally reached the artifact. It was possible that either of them still holds an ace up their sleeves.
Right at the moment, the alpha knocked up an arrow to fire but before he could do that, another arrow came from the forest behind him. Michael saw the alpha turning his head, sensing Gaya's presence but it was too late as the arrow went straight through the alpha's head.
Just like Michael, everyone else
The others who saw the scene were bewildered. First, a boulder came out of nowhere, and now the alpha was killed by someone, the sudden change of events confused them.
"Who killed it?"
"Someone's in the forest"
Ross came to the correct conclusion yet he had no idea who was in the forest helping them. Plus, no matter how hard he thought, he couldn't find an answer to the question, how or what could have thrown the boulder with such force.
Everyone except Michael was thinking the same thing. Even the alpha's death couldnt stop the dumb Netherels from rushing into the river. Unlike the alpha, they had no brain function whatsoever, hence they ended up either drowning immediately or flooded by the river.
They were not a threat, not at all. If they had the ship built by Rowan's team or it wasn't for the alpha and the crocodiles, this journey would have been a peaceful one and Brownie would have been still alive. He was a valuable team member as well as a great fighter. They needed all the fighters they could. Now they only had Logan, H, Ross, Michael, and Marcella to face an army of undeads guarding the temple.
"There are still some alphas heading your way, let me take care of them," Gaya said.