Jade woke up from his sleep some hours later. The first thought on his mind was ‘Why?’ Jade wondered why his destiny was so horrible, he had encountered 3 high rank creatures. They were all gunning for him but he didn’t know why.

He thought ‘Why me? Why can’t I be like Mira and just encounter people who would help me rather than give me a fate worse than death?’ Jade cried as he assessed his situation, the odds were stacked against him. A Rank 27 creature in his soul and a Rank 20 one waiting for him in Abuja, Jade thought ‘Why did they go after me?’

Jade could only reach one conclusion ‘My soul ability’. Jade was sure of it, that was the only thing that could cause a Rank 20 and Rank 27 to team up on a measly Rank 11 like him. Jade thought ‘Maybe there’s a hidden quest for the killing me, this event does involve getting souls after all so it wouldn’t be impossible that getting someone with a soul ability would give some special kind of reward. In that case, shouldn’t I get a reward for surviving all these behemoths going after me?’

Jade sighed and he remembered the Soul Parasite. He remembered that the rat’s body was facing where he was, in between the giant palms in his soul, the rat didn’t have to turn its head to look at him. Jade thought ‘It’s going for the ability itself. It’ll probably eat all the planets blocking its way’

Jade stood up and angrily threw away one of the explosives in the lab. The explosive hit the wall without exploding; Jade had stopped himself from giving the mental command to make it explode.

Jade thought ‘That’s weird, why was I so unnecessarily angry’. Then Jade realized ‘The rat is affecting my personality by eating the planets. I’m not just forgetting memories; I’m forgetting part of myself’.

Jade tried to remember the part of himself that he had forgotten, he couldn’t but he could feel the rat in his soul slowly chewing on planets. Jade realized ‘It has slowed down. Why?’

Jade thought back and remembered that his IP had told him that his soul was being consumed, but he didn’t feel it and didn’t lose many memories until he went to his soul realm. Jade thought ‘Could it be that going into my soul realm makes the rat consume me faster? So I can’t use True Dream any more without losing a part of myself. I’ve been nerfed’

Jade sat on the floor and stared into space at that realization. Jade then asked the important question ‘What do I do then?’ He was gradually losing himself, going crazy, and he couldn’t use his greatest ability, how was he supposed to beat all that?

Jade thought for a while and asked his IP ‘Will the Soul Parasite be removed when I evolve?’ Jade’s IP responded ‘No, but you will get the chance to fight it on equal ground when you’re evolving’ Jade smiled and thought ‘That’s fine by me’.

…

In Abuja, at the spot where Jade disappeared from, just after Jade teleported, the Champion Arachni screeched the equivalent of the word “Fuck”. It was in a circle with 12 other Rank 18 Champion Arachnis. It calmed down after a minute and one of the Champion Arachnis said with a psychic message “I guess we’ve experienced why it could escape the employer”.

The Fernandez looked at the Arachni that spoke with disdain and sent a mental message “You’ve always lacked ambition Darol. Because Jade was the prey now doesn’t mean we won’t be prey later. If this event ends and the employer isn’t a King it might choose to control our minds to limit our potential, the enemies the employer faces are not as kind as humans. If we don’t increase our Rank to at least 25 we’ll never be free from the employer”.

Fernandez looked at the empty space and sighed. Fernandez said “Darol, you wait here for a week in case Jade comes back. The rest of us will go and get souls and en-code”. The 12 spiders all replied “Yes Father!”

…

2 days after Jade’s infection, Jade had packed up and he was ready to go to Japan. He couldn’t possibly hunt in Nigeria anymore since the spider was after him so he would just change locations.

Jade activated the light gate after checking for a position that wasn’t filled with too many high rank souls. He didn’t really trust the Soul Map or any privilege at all anymore after the incident with the spiders and the Soul Parasite, he knew that the privilege would always prioritize high Rank creatures over him so he cast a Transparency spell to make him invisible and put nothing in the space for his fake race.

This way the IP of anyone that saw him in his transparent state wouldn’t alert them of his presence. Jade walked through the rippling space and came out at into a forest. There were some trees that were cut down and some that were still up.

A mental message entered his mind, it was Mira’s message, It said ‘Hi Jade, it hasn’t been long but you wouldn’t believe it. I found vampires’ Jade was shocked and worried, he even thought this would be a cry for help but he read further ‘They were nice and they have a city with humans and vampires in the mix. They need light, moderate and heavy armor of different sizes and they also need weapons; Gauntlets, whips, swords, spears, javelins, guns, throwing knives,…’

Jade was stunned as he read, he thought ‘I had assumed that all evolutions would be human type races, this is an interesting case… or maybe I just haven’t seen enough of the world’. The message continued after Mira listed a bunch of different weapons ‘The sizes and descriptions are in a separate mental message, they also sent monster corpses and they are paying with Blood Magic, Aura skills and some science knowledge (I don’t really know the details) but hey said it was top tier those are also in a separate mental message.

There are 2 Rank 12 Original Vampires, Ancient Grade races obviously. They will pay for their armor with research data in some military science facility somewhere (I didn’t really listen to the details). They are going to go there after you send their own armor and weapons. They said you can keep the materials that remain as an added payment.

Would you believe it when I tell you that there are no undead here? I asked and they said they’d never seen such. Crazy right? Bye’

Jade smiled when he finished reading the message, it had got him to momentarily forget his terrible situation. Jade sighed and walked toward the first soul in his Soul Map. He thought ‘I can’t let the haters get me down. So two powerful monsters went after me, it just shows how great my potential is. Even if I’ve lost my soul ability, there is still so much I can do. I’m good’.