The collar was working perfectly, too perfectly. At the moment, they were like robots waiting for Michael to control them. That meant their each and every moment could be controlled by Michael. It was not efficient when he had thousands of undeads as he would not be able to control each and every one. He wanted them like mindless war machines. If he instructed them to attack, they should be able to attack their target without him controlling their movements. This way, whoever controls the collar would have less stress on their brain.
"Grrr" the undead growled as Michael approached the undead. Jonah and Dular were staring at the undead without batting an eye. Dular started to sweat inside his long coat. If Lucifer was able to control the undeads without him, his usefulness to Lucifer would diminish greatly.
Since the system could not make Dular his subordinate for some reason, Michael always handled Dular with caution. He wanted to replace Dular if Dular tried anything weird. He almost replaced Dular with the portal opener. Before the portal opener, Dular was the only one who could open a portal to summon the netherels but this portal was one way. Only netherels could walk through the portal, no one could enter the nether realm.
Now Michael could open the portal to the Nether Realm and capture as many netherels as he wanted. In addition, he could farm experience points inside the Nether Realm as well as gather rare herbs for his herbal garden.
"What are you doing?" asked Gaya, looking at him tinkering with the bronze collar around the undead's neck.
"Give me a minute"
Using runes to control the Netherels would be much easier. Considering he was not a runemaster, he had to take the long route by placing several components he bought from the system and the stores in this world into the collar.
After tinkering with the collar for a few more minutes, Michael felt the control over the undead had been greatly reduced. But the undead was still in his control.
"Attack that wall"
His order sounded weird but the undead was already running toward the wall he pointed. Reaching the wall, the undead began to attack the wall violently. It punched, scratched, slapped, and even bit the wall.
"That's how you make an undead army" Michael cracked his neck. The words that came out of his mouth were drenched in pride. With an undead army, the bloodshed would be greatly reduced. Also, there wouldn't be major loyalty issues, maintaining an undead army cost fewer resources, and compared to the human army, the undead army was several times deadlier. Unlike an army made of humans, the undead army would fight till the end as they would not feel any emotions or pain.
"Jonah, Dular" Michael called the both of them. They left the Alpha undeads to come to him,
With a flick of his wrist, Michael retrieved the portal opener from his space ring. He threw the portal opener into the middle of the hall and closed his eyes,
"System, activate the portal"
[Establishing connection with the portal opener…]
[Please select a target location!]
[Warning, the host will not be able to change the target location afterward…]
"Nether Realm"
[Locking coordinates…]
[Manipulating the space between the Southern continent and the Nether Realm…]
The portal opener on the ground began to vibrate as the symbols glowed brighter and brighter with the seconds passing by. They could feel the distortion of space around them.
Boom!
A muffled booming sound echoed through the hall as the portal to the Nether realm finally opened. Dular was stunned and so was Jonah and Gaya. On the other side of the portal, they saw a land filled with foreign vegetation. Rainbow color trees, gigantic sunflowers, miniature trees as well as netherels. The netherels looked in the direction of the portal as though they had detected the portal open. However, after a few seconds, they went back to roaming around aimlessly.
"Jonah, Dular, your task is to summon as many netherels as you can and put this collar around their neck. You will get more collars before tomorrow night. Take this, this will help you knockout the netherels when they come out of the portal" Michael flicked his wrist as several crates appeared beside the portal.
"Maxine will bring you all your necessities"
Jonah and Dular had no choice but to accept. He then retrieved a drone from his space ring before sending it flying into the portal.
"Azazel, I have sent a drone into the Nether Realm. Monitor the feed carefully and contact me if anything interesting happened"
After giving an order to his trusty demon butler, Michael and Gaya activated the runic teleportation to leave the Crypt leaving Jonah and Dular behind.
******************************
Two days later, Michael and Gaya were preparing to attend the party in Hades. Gaya looked stunning in her new clothes. Her glistening white ornate dress flew from top to bottom and had a square neckline, which gracefully revealed the luxurious dress worn below it. The delectable corset of her dress covered her stomach where the continuous flow was broken up by a simple cloth band worn quite high around her waist.
Below the cloth band, the dress opened up to the left and revealed the dress below. The front of the top dress easily reached the ground in the front, the back continued to flow a good length behind her and ended in a broad rectangle.
Her sleeves were incredibly long and incredibly wide, their flow was broken up just above the elbow where they changed color from pearl white to a tinge of silver and where they were divided by thick, simple bands, these were the same fabric and color used to outline the edges of the dress.
When she adjusted her loose hair, Michael was staggered by beauty. He wore a Victorian gothic-style jacket that reached his knees. The jacket was ornate with silver etchings. His black trousers perfectly complimented his black jacket. Adjusting the edge of his sleeves one last time, he walked towards Gaya. He hugged her from behind and kissed the back of her neck passionately.
"Hehehe it tickles Michael" she giggled.
"You smell good" Michael kissed her cheek,
"It's the jasmine drops Olivia gave me"
"Speaking of Olivia, is she still in seclusion?"
According to Claire, Olivia was trying to break through to the Core Formation level 9 and she had been in seclusion ever since Gaya left for the Fire Realm.
After the championships tournament, Michael presented her with enough pills and potions to successfully reach the Core Formation level 9. He planned to make her his subordinate when she came out of the seclusion.
Knock!
Knock!
Knock!
Someone gently knocked on the door thrice. Since the two of them finished getting ready, they stepped toward the door. When they opened the door, Claire was standing outside in amazement.
"Wow, you two are going to steal the show"
Claire put her hand around Gaya's hand and led them towards the outside. When they reached outside, almost the entire Sunrise Sect was there to cheer for them. Michael felt like he was a celebrity on the red carpet. He waved his hand at the disciples as their thunderous cheers got louder.
Ricky was waiting in the carriage.
"Ladies first" Michael opened the door for Claire and Gaya. He helped both of them get into the carriage by holding their hands as a gentleman should.
"Did you give the package to him?" he asked Ricky,
"Yes, Master Ghost. He gave you this" Ricky handed over a tiny piece of paper. He opened the paper to see two words written inside,
'Debt settled'
He put the paper into his space ring just in case. In addition to the portal opener, Gaya and Michael took another item from the treasury. It was the item Lord Information asked Michael to get. The item was a bronze plate with several runes on it. Michael scanned the bronze plate. According to the system, it was a piece of an artifact and without two more pieces, the system was unable to tell Michael about the function of the artifact.
Although Michael was curious, he handed over the item to Lord Information via Ricky. With this, he had returned the favor to Lord Information for giving the information of who put the bounty on his head before the tournament.
Also, Michael asked all his minions to call him 'Master Ghost' instead of 'Your Majesty' outside Bradford. There was no reason for this except the latter made him feel somewhat older.
Since all the pathways were paved, the carriage ride was so smooth. It used to take two hours to reach the river town by carriage due to the untended path but now, it would only take them an hour.
"When are you going to Mazeroth Ghost?"
"Tomorrow morning"
"Aww, your finance gonna miss you" Claire playfully nudged Gaya's elbow,
"I am going into seclusion" lied Gaya as Claire was taken aback by surprise,
"Again? Don't tell me you're about to reach the Core Strengthening stage"
Gaya shook her head,
"How can I? I'm not a monster like him. I feel like I will reach level 3 if I spend another month or two in seclusion" Gaya lied again because she did not want Claire to get more suspicious than she actually was.
At this moment, he did not know he was about to meet his arch-enemy, to be more specific, Lucifer's arch-enemy, the future Supreme Guardian Noah.
Somewhere else in Ozer, someone had already sent assassins to crash Michael's special day.
************************
Hi my wonderful readers,
Major( or minor ) turns of events coming up. New enemies, a new realm and a new version of Michael. The next tournament arck will be a fun filled wild ride with lots of actions and background story.
So get ready....
Also... Hunter Sterling Blade in another universe is about to get his own system...
Dictator with a Badass System...
(fear not, the both systems are not the same)