For whatever reason, the monsters stop coming at Mikey. He doesn't know the reason either. They just stopped and let Mikey, his soldiers and UCHK move up the mountain.

What is happening this whole time is that the monsters are gathering around and waiting for other monsters to spawn. This is a rare occurence of monsters using their brains instead of their instincts.

This happened to Mikey before, it was during the second night in this world. The night where he made sure to light up the entire island that he was staying at. He did this knowing that drowned would appear, he however didn't expect them to come in as a big horde. He expected them to go in one by one, if they would even decide to go to the surface in the first place.

With that said, this is the second time that this had happened to Mikey. The thing is, he hasn't even realized it yet because all of the monsters are hiding away. They're waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.

About ten minutes later Mikey decides to take a break. He sends two of his soldiers to scout the area ahead of them.

The soldiers don't return and Mikey realizes that they've been slain. Mikey summons two more spectral pirates and prepares for the attack.

Soon enough he can hear it clearly...

The growling of zombies, the rumbling of the ground, the clanking of bones, and the screaming od endermen. Mikey is surprised by how he didn't notice this until now.

He realizes that things are about to go down here. He takes a deep breath and tells the UCHK to get on top of his head.

The comical image of UCHK standing on top of Mikey's head makes even Mikey's spectral pirates laugh. He didn't even know that they could express their emotions until now.

The laughter stops the moment that first of the monsters appear. Everyone prepares for an onslaught.

Dozens of zombies start running downhill right towards Mikey and his pirates.

[You have activated an ability of the "Adaptive Fighter"]

Mikey notices more monsters to his left and right, most of them are skeletons. He sends all of his pirates at them while he charges at the zombie horde in front of them.

[You have activated an ability of the "Freestyle Fighter"]

Mikey uses his signature meteor kick move and drops at them. The horde is completely decimated by Mikey's kick.

Mikey starts ascending the mountain again, leaving his spectral soldiers behind. His original order was actually "Buy as much time as possible" not "Defeat those monsters." And that's exactly what his soldiers are doing. They're buying him time while he's ascending the mountain.

Mikey is really mad for some reason. He himself doesn't know why. But the expression on his face clearly says "I am totally fed up with this." It isn't surprising to be honest. He almost lost his life several times now, has been stuck in this domain for probably two days, and hasn't seen anyone from his crew in those two days (it wasn't two days for the others but for him it was).

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Oh wait, that's right, Lucy sent me a message. I forgot to look at it."

[Mikey, where are you? Me and Zoro have already taken care of things. I can't track you with my attribute anymore. We're on our way to help Christina and Ragnar. After that we're coming your way. Please respond, asap]

(Some time earlier)

Lucy and Zoro are approaching the forest which Christina and Ragnar are in right now. This was right after Lucy had sent her message to Mikey.

"Do you think he's okay?" Lucy asks Zoro. "He's number one, I am sure he must be okay. It is worrying that you can't track him with your attribute, but there's no way that something terrible could've happened to him." Zoro says with confidence.

Mikey starts writing back while he keeps going up the mountain.

[It's a long story. I am alive, don't worry about me. Help Ragnar and Christina, after that, wait for me. There's no way you can get to my location right now anyway.

If it takes me more than a day to respond, you can leave without me. If I don't respond within a day, then I must be dead]

Mikey finishes writing his message. His mad expression makes all the monsters nearby shiver, they don't dare attack him. That's how strong is the presence of number one.

Once Mikey is about two hundred meters away from the mountain peak, the ghost appears again.

"Well, well, well." The ghost says. Mikey ignores him. "I understand that you're mad at me, I mean you got into all of this trouble because of me." The ghost adds.

Mikey ignores him again and just keeps walking.

"I'd love to ask you how did you get out of that fighting trance that you were in." The ghost says.

"A friend of mine helped me. I'll have to thank her once I am done with you and your trials." Mikey answers.

"Yikes, you're mad, I can tell." The ghost says provocatively as he flies closer to Mikey. A vein pops up on Mikey's forehead, he gets even more mad than he was and punches the ghost (the punch has obviously no effect on him). The ghost laughs it off.

"You're almost done with the second trial, you have managed to earn a high reputation between the monsters and that's why they're not attacking you. Crazy how even monsters can feel fear huh?" He says.

"Anyways. There's one last challenge before you reach the peak of the mountain. The monsters are not aggresive towards you because you earned their respect.. HOWEVER."

Mikey stops and looks at the ghost

"I can simply snap my fingers and completely change that. Which is what I am going to do." The ghost says with a smirk on his face.

He actually snaps his fingers, about a second later Mikey can hear a zombie nearby. The zombie is charging at Mikey with all its might. It has red eyes which the zombies didn't have until now. Their eyes were pitch black. Mikey kills the zombie with ease.

"All monsters are more aggresive, they all know your location and will attack you no matter how strong or scary you are. This will last until you die, or the trial ends. Good luck. Oh, I forgot to tell you. You look very comical with that Chicken Horse Kraken on your head." The ghost dissapears.

Another vein pops up on Mikey's forehead. He's really angry now. "Damn that stupid ghost." He says.

All of a sudden, a horde of monsters starts running after Mikey, including the skeleton horde that had already taken care of Mikey's spectral pirates.

Mikey, with arrows flying all around him, keeps running uphill, he doesn't stop unless he has... He knows that the only way for him to survive is to sacrifice that chicken.

Mikey still has to stop a few times and kill a few monsters that block his path, however it doesn't take long until he reaches the peak and sees a large campfire in the middle.

The ghost appears. "Throw the Ultimate Chicken Horse Kraken into the fire and you'll pass this trial." He says.

Mikey does just that, the UCHK just stands in the fire without a reaction, as if it couldn't feel its heat.

"We're not done yet actually." The ghost laughs.