He was stuck on the third line. Around two hundred thousand failed.
“The ones who failed to destroy a Rift Zone… what happened to them?”
They are dead.
Kade knew the answer, but it still hit him hard. It was more the realization that the eighty percent success rate was the absolute best-case result.
The system sent what it felt were the humans with the best chance of succeeding into the Rift Zones. The future numbers would be much more tragic.
He crushed the sinking feeling into nothingness. He could do nothing, so there was no reason to think of it. He had to keep his focus.
“Show me the ranking for my Safe Zone.”
You are considered a part of Chicago due to your vicinity.
Chicago Rankings (Safe Zone #197):
1. Michael O’Connor (Warrior) – 1,291 points
2. Carlos Martinez (Mage) – 263 points
3. David Kim (Warrior) – 254 points
4. Maria Gonzalez (Rogue) – 187 points
5. Jamal Johnson (Mage) – 183 points
6. Anthony Rossi (Warrior) – 143 points
7. Aleksander Kowalski (Warrior) – 139 points
8. Liam Murphy (Warrior) – 123 points
9. Rajesh Patel (Mage) – 122 points
10. Aisha Thompson (Mage) – 112 points
Kade’s name was missing, and it nearly caused him to demand an explanation until he realized he must be on the other ranking since he was missing here. That was the preferred one, anyway. The thought of not being on either never crossed his mind.
“Show me the regional ranking.”
North American Rankings:
1. Anita Shah (Scholar) – 12,290 points
2. Kade Beckett (Warrior) – 4,829 points
3. Alejandro Torres (Rogue) – 2,633 points
4. Amélie Tremblay (Mage) – 2,619 points
5. Caleb Price (Warrior) – 2,583 points
6. Julian Wright (Warrior) – 2,532 points
7. Isaiah King (Warrior) – 2,411 points
8. Noah Mitchell (Warrior) – 2,409 points
9. Daniel Kim (Warrior) – 2,388 points
10. Eliza Brooks (Mage) – 2,387 points
“What the actual fuck is that gap?!” Kade stopped walking and stared at Anita’s points in shock. It was even more unbelievable since she had [Scholar] next to her name.
He didn’t get an answer, but it was a rhetorical question. He had checked the recording of the [Scholar] but had stopped watching early on when Anita did nothing but sneak around and lay traps.
Kade had concluded that she scored a narrow win by subterfuge and dismissed the interface long before anything interesting happened. Obviously, he couldn’t have been any more wrong.
He pulled up the recording and watched it all the way through this time. Several minutes later, he stared at the still image of Anita’s proud smile as she overlooked a corpse-filled battlefield. It was the end of the recording.
She had somehow inflamed tensions so high in her Rift Zone, she caused a massive civil war that killed nearly all the monsters that lived there, including the protector, who had been mobbed by the very monsters it protected.
Kade had a look of awe as he dismissed the interface.
She might be the most terrifying person on the continent. She has earned the top spot.
He remembered he had to check on his house and resumed his steady jog. He still had some questions.
“How many kills is a point worth?” Anita definitely killed far more monsters than what she was rewarded in points.
A kill in a Class F Rift Zone counts as 1 point. A 75% penalty applies to Anita Shah’s tally due to all the kills being indirect.
Nearly fifty thousand monsters were killed without raising a weapon. My hero.
Kade wanted to meet her… and stay as far away as he could at the same time. He skimmed the rest of the list and stopped at the last name.
Eliza Brooks.
Eliza was the name of the attractive girl Kade had come across on the freeway. She wasn’t on the list for Chicago, and with his unease around her, she could very well be the tenth name in the region.
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Still, her last name was a mystery, so it was possible that Eliza Brooks was someone else. It wasn’t likely, but the slightest possibility was there.
Kade felt an itch to go back to Chicago and find her. He bet she could put up a good fight, far better than the stupid, but overly-strong, lesser troll.
He decided to challenge her the next time they met. For now, he needed to find out if there were any stragglers around.
Kade stared at his apartment building. There was no point in even trying to enter because the massive trees that grew right through the building completely ripped it apart. The entire area was in the same shape. It seemed like everything outside the Safe Zone would fall to the same fate.
All he could hope for was that this hadn’t happened immediately. Thankfully, there were signs that pointed to that being the case.
He didn’t miss the fact that there were no dead bodies to be found. Unless this unnatural nature somehow reclaimed them, it meant there was plenty of time for everyone to evacuate. Of course, plenty of time in this context meant several hours.
Kade weaved through the forest to check on his friend’s neighborhood, the only one not living in the same apartment complex as he did. He expected nothing different, but had to make sure.
He was wrong. There was absolutely no chance that any humans were alive here. There was an infestation in the neighborhood.
Kade shuddered in disgust as he stared at the oversized bugs crawling over each other. They were everywhere, but the bugs packed together more closely as it got closer to the center of the neighborhood.
He briefly thought about just leaving it, purely because of his reluctance to have his precious [Soulrend] touch any of them. However, he couldn’t do that.
He had an obligation to destroy any monster that he saw. Even if they were disgusting, nasty, vomit-inducing bugs.
Kade summoned his [Soulrend] and targeted the center where the bugs were most present.
Before his [Soulrend] made contact, he activated [Inferno Burst]. He subconsciously formed a smile as he stared at the burst of flames burning all the bugs it touched into nothingness.
He summoned back his [Soulrend] and mentally patted himself on the back. He destroyed all of them without ever sentencing his precious [Soulrend] to touch them.
Kade would try his luck in finding his friends in Chicago. He purposefully ignored the large possibility of never seeing them again.
His friends were not what anyone would call ‘physical specimens.’ It would be generous not to call them couch potatoes. Still, they were street-smart. He grew up with them and knew what they were capable of. He still had… something moved.
That bug is still alive.
Kade frowned as his curiosity forced his disgust aside. He approached the burning bug and observed it with sharp eyes.
It didn’t seem affected by the fire as it skittered away out of fear. The flaming bug was nowhere near fast enough to escape, but he didn’t make a move to finish it off. It seemed to have some sort of resistance, almost immunity, to fire.
He felt tempted to leave it be. Even though it was a disgusting bug, it would be interesting if something like this grew stronger.
Kade would have to rely on physical attacks to get rid of it. Assuming the exoskeleton would get much stronger along with the bug, it might give him a challenge.
Even if he never saw it again, it would still be useful.
With how weak the monsters that roamed Earth currently were, it would be beneficial if there were some stronger ones around to challenge humans.
Kade stared at its twitching feelers and shuddered at the sight. He would do it, give it a chance to grow stronger.
Kade turned and walked away from the neighborhood as he stored the [Soulrend].
“Where is the closest Class E Rift Zone?”
The interface showed an arrow pointing to the right. The distance he needed to travel was below it.
“Five miles. Better than the hundred I was expecting,” Kade muttered with relief. He paced himself. He didn’t want to go into the Rift Zone with any handicap whatsoever. His key priority was to fully recover his [MP].
The closer he got to the destination, the more that anticipation built up. Kade was tired of ripping through monsters with barely any effort. He expected this Class E Rift Zone to solve the issue thoroughly.
Kade winced when he reached the destination. A glowing circle was in the middle of the blackened ground, and the surroundings had been burned to make way for it.
The interface disappeared only after he stood directly in the circle’s center.
This is the gate to the Class E Rift Zone #2,827,182.
Would you like to enter this Rift Zone?
He noticed a sharp drop in the number assigned to this Rift Zone. The number for the Class F Rift Zone was several million higher.
Instead of confirming or denying the interface’s question, Kade asked his own to the system. “How many of each Class of Rift Zone exists?”
Rift Zones remaining:
Class F Rift Zones: 15,694,231
Class E Rift Zones: 2,755,237
Class D Rift Zones: 459,206
Class C Rift Zones: 76,534
Class B Rift Zones: 12,756
Class A Rift Zones: 2,126
Kade didn’t realize he was smiling till he unintentionally let out a laugh. The sharp reduction in the number of Rift Zones with every higher Class meant he knew to hurry.
It would be first come, first served, and he very much intended to be the first to visit every new Class of Rift Zones.
“Send me in!” Kade saw the gate light up in a brilliant purple before it flashed a bright white.
When his vision cleared, he saw himself standing on top of a mountain. The chill immediately sank into his skin as the wind and snow quickly shrouded his body.
Kade was stunned for a moment until he forced himself to ignore it.
With the howling wind around him and a blizzard nearly making him blind to anything other than the snow, he still saw deep red eyes open tens of feet away. A snarl that could strike fear in almost anyone rumbled the mountain.
He had summoned his [Soulrend] immediately.
Kade kept his attention fixed on those red eyes, even when the snarl sounded like it had caused an avalanche below.
The hand holding the [Soulrend] trembled.
Not from the cold or fear. He could sense the strength of this beast. It matched his own.
Kade was ecstatic that he would have a fight that would test his skills.