Chapter 122: Soul Map and First Battle

Jade said to his IP 'I want to use the Soul Map' and a huge black sphere covered in many white shining dots appeared in his mind. The shapes of different continents were outlined by darker lines.

Some knowledge entered Jade's mind and he knew that the brightness of each dot represented the Rank of the creature it was indicating. The knowledge he acquired also let him know that he could mark souls and keep track of them.

Jade thought as he surveyed the sphere 'Where is my soul?' As if answering his question, the black sphere zoomed out in his vision until it merged with the black background and in a few seconds Jade saw a green soul and knowledge entered his mind that told him it was his soul. Beside his green shining soul was a dim white soul, it was Mira.

Jade was shocked and he thought 'So my portal dimension is so far away from the earth. Will other Hunters see me here?' then he thought 'I doubt it. The Soul Map description says specifically 'known world' not just 'World'. So only Mira will be able to get my location since I've brought her here and she knows about this place'

Jade returned his view back to earth and checked the American continent. The continent had a lot of high Rank monsters especially those above Rank 20. Jade checked Africa and noticed it was as he had deduced, Africa had few monsters above Rank 20. The highest Ranked monster in Africa was a Rank 24 monster in Egypt.

The Highest Ranking monster in America was a Rank 27 monster which shocked Jade. He thought 'Isn't the Highest Rank monster Rank 30?' Jade checked for Rank 30 monsters and found one, it was in China. Jade thought 'Well they're not going to have a good time'

Jade was certain these were monsters because he knew that the Highest Ranked human was Rank 21. Jade checked the highest Ranked monster in Nigeria and found out it was a Rank 20 monster. He thought 'Just one Rank above Rank 19 that I need to kill for my job quest, I guess I'll kill it after I evolve. It might even be a person since there is already a Rank 21 human evolver. *sigh* I'm pretty sure the person had Transcendental stats before evolving. I wonder what that felt like.'

Jade checked the world for the highest Ranking monsters and noticed there was 1 Rank 29 monster and 2 Rank 28 monsters. One of the Rank 28 monsters was in the sea. It was the only monster in the sea that showed on his map, the Infant Ocean Master.

Jade remembered the brutal difference between him and the monster that was thrust into his face after he evolved. Jade thought 'Does the IP not consider the sea a known world to me? Only the Infant Ocean Master shows'.

Jade's mind was quiet for a while, he was afraid. He wanted to mark the Ocean Master but he was afraid it would notice him… He grit his teeth and said inwardly '17 more Ranks to go' as he marked the monster. Jade was afraid something would happen but nothing happened. So he relaxed and thought 'It's probably not a Hunter'.

Jade checked Japan and saw that the Highest Ranked soul was a Rank 27 soul. He thought 'It's manageable'. Jade saw that many souls were moving around quite a lot on the map. He nodded and said 'The monsters are getting souls? But why are they so disorganized? It's almost as if every monster, spawn or not, is going to provide for itself. There are a few exceptions but though'. The souls in the map were moving erratically in most of the places where he looked. Jade had expected that hordes would perform raids on each other but the souls on the map weren't organized.

He mentally noted a place on his map in America, marked Mira's Soul and deactivated the privilege.

Jade stopped seeing the map and said to Mira 'I've noted down a good place for you to go. It has mostly Rank 4 and 5 souls there so whether their humans or monsters you'll be good'

Mira nodded and followed Jade to the room where the Light Gate was. Jade set the coordinates and the space within the gate rippled. Mira with her Space Bracelet and Bubble armor walked through the rippling space while waving goodbye and Jade deactivated the gate.

Jade said inwardly 'I should check out how my Magic and Magic weapons work on a Rank 11 horde. Oh I should also watch how the monsters are reacting to the Event, this disorganized movement is unprecedented I need to know more'

…

At the sanctuary.

11 minutes after the IPs announced the World War 3 Event.

"AAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!"

A loud howl rang through the sanctuary's territory. The sound made the legs of the people shake as they knew their lives were about to change. The Rank 6s of the sanctuary, Jola, Funmi, Samad, Mistura and Kore, stood on top of the wall of the furthermost defense bases.

The bases were filled with Rank 5s, although they didn't understand howl speak, they could all sense a meaning behind the howl they heard. A challenge.

3 minutes after the howl they saw a giant 9 foot tall and 23 foot long White wolf. The wolf was running on the air toward the sanctuary. It was the Rank 7 monster closest to them, the Alpha Fenrir. There were no spawns around it, it came alone.

The Fenrir stopped when it was half way through the no-man's land. It stared at the bases of the sanctuary as it slowly walked on the air. Jola thought 'Didn't Lara say that there were not flying monsters? All these bases will be useless if this monster can just run over them'

Jola like many people had misjudged the situation. The Fenrir was not a flying monster; it learnt how to walk on the air on its own. After spying on the sanctuary's raids and campaigns it learnt that the Martial art it could instinctually do could be modified with enough practice, so it trained itself and got even more proficient with its innate skill.

The Fenrir made a swipe with its paw toward the sanctuary that sent 3 wind slashes toward the sanctuary from its claws. Samad easily blocked one of the slashes with his shield, Black Sun, covered in black aura.

The others didn't have it so easy, Lanre jumped from behind Jola and blocked one of the slashes with his black aura and Mira dispersed the wind slash with her energy control spell. Mira and Lanre had expended 30% of their energy to block the slashes.

The Fenrir had look of surprise on its face when it saw what happened. It was surprised by how much it took to block its weakest attack, it was pleasantly surprised. It made its decision immediately and the hair on its mane stood straight and pointed toward the sanctuary while it ran forward. It decided to fight the sanctuary without its spawns.

After the event announcement, it wasn't all roses for the Conquerors. The Conqueror spawn privilege had been removed so the Conquerors couldn't make spawns anymore. But that wasn't only what happened; the spawns were no longer under the control of the Conqueror.

As a result many of the Fenrir's spawn had run away to form their own pack, only few remained loyal to it. It didn't want to waste the few loyal spawns so it decided to test the strength of sanctuary which had millions of souls for it. It was pleasantly surprised that the best the sanctuary could offer were weaklings.

The hairs on the neck of the Fenrir continuously shot toward the sanctuary's bases like a Gatling gun with hair for bullets. Each hair had more power than the wind slashes and although they were just hair it was as if the bases were being rained with javelins that were extremely thin.

When the hairs hit the air around them exploded, throwing way people and further damaging whatever they were embedded in. In a few seconds many of the sanctuary's bases were reduced to rubble. Jola ordered a retreat. He looked back at the approaching monster and thought 'How the hell are we supposed to beat that?'

…