Athanasia: My Hacker System

Chapter 305: Having Fun with Luke and Elena

After securing the den’s perimeter with three concentric circles of fortifications, John finally entered the main fortress to meet Luke and Elena.

The two were visibly exhausted, Elena’s armour was scuffed, and their eyes rimmed with dead fatigue. It was expected; neither had enjoyed a proper sleep in days. However, the moment John briefed them on his recent exploits, their exhaustion vanished, replaced by pure adrenaline.

"Wow! You actually brought the humans to the eastern territory?!" Luke shouted, his voice a mix of surprise and pure delight.

Elena immediately joined Luke and began raining down a barrage of questions. They wanted to know everything about the survivors and what he did to them. John answered as many as he could, but eventually, his own weariness caught up to him. He cut them off with a sharp wave of his hand.

"You can go and check on them yourselves," John said, pausing as he realised this might be the most strategic move to make right now. The humans needed to see the broader scope of the team, and their friends needed to see what they were actually fighting for.

"Wait until the machines have followed me north. As the den is suppressed, once the territory is cleared, you can go ahead and take the Bulltors with you."

He looked over the walls of the outpost, looking towards the distant horizon, his mind already repositioning pieces on the regional board.

"You know what? Start gathering up all the scattered Bulltors in the eastern territory. We don’t need them stationed there as guards anymore. The machine threat is almost over, and the rest can be handled by the scattered defences."

"Sure, sure, and leave the monumental task of feeding that giant army to me," Elena said, nodding with an unexplained spark of excitement in her eyes.

John recalled the strange warmth he had felt when he first stood among the thousands of humans in the south. Seeing that same look on Elena’s face, he could partially understand her thoughts.

After weeks of blood, cold steel, and alien giants, the prospect of being among her own kind, even a traumatised group of refugees, even if they were weak and not useful, was clearly a powerful draw.

"Still... The Anomaly God Paragon? Hahaha! I bet Ricky will literally cough up blood when he hears this! Hahaha!" Luke doubled over, his laughter echoing off the walls. It was the most amused John had seen him since they arrived in this hellscape.

"I had to improvise," John said with a shrug, not feeling any annoyance at all. "I tried to call myself a War God or a Death God, but apparently, all the Greek God names are taken."

He chuckled, finding it genuinely funny himself now that the immense pressure over his friends was gone. "Still, I can’t get why they were so fixated on the Paragon thing. Why can’t they just accept me as a normally strong human?"

He shook his head, dismissing the thought, but the sudden, sober expressions on Elena and Luke’s faces told him he had made a grave misunderstanding of human culture in Athanasia.

"It seems you really did come from a humble background, John," Elena said with a soft, weary sigh. "In our world, where Great Families, different forces, and massive corporations compete for power, everything is done under the umbrella of a Paragon. They aren’t just titles; they are the pillars of our world, the true rulers."

"See..." Luke chimed in, the two of them adopting a tone usually reserved for explaining basic arithmetic to a toddler.

"The Paragons are the absolute leaders in Athanasia. They are the strongest, the oldest powers in existence, and they hold the keys to the deepest secrets.

For example, they are the main source of magical potions supply. It’s expected that no one would ever buy the story of a normal human doing even one percent of what you’ve done. Honestly? Even we struggled to accept it at first."

"..."

John stared at them, speechless. He couldn’t believe that even his closest friends secretly suspected him of being a Paragon. He didn’t care for such grandiose titles, but he began to realise the weight the word "Paragon" carried for everyone else in the world.

"You know, when I think about it, you really do make a perfect match for a real Paragon," Elena said suddenly, her gaze turning appreciative.

"You are strong, capable, resourceful, and terrifyingly dependable. On top of that, you hold the keys to our survival and can make anyone around you stronger just by providing the right means and giving us directions."

"And we make the perfect entourage for the Anomaly God Paragon," Luke added with a fresh grin. "Ricky and I can act as your Guardians, while Elena and Cissel can do brilliantly as your Sword."

"Don’t say that in front of Ricky or he’ll try to kill you for the insult! Hahaha!" Elena broke out into another fit of laughter. And Luke joined her.

John watched them, a small smile tugging at his lips. It was refreshing to see them acting casually and carefree. After so many weeks of relentless stress and the constant threat of death, this moment of levity was more valuable than a mountain of cores.

"Anyway," John said, knowing that if he stayed for days, the two would never stop joking about his self-appointed Paragon title, "I’ll move out now and lead the machines away.

There’s a Blue Terakos farm at the Hiveminds’ secondary base territory; it’s near the southern borders of that place. Go there and stock up on provisions if you want..."

"And let our new friends miss out on the fun? No way," Elena said, shaking her head firmly. "I’ll lead them there myself. I want them to see everything with their own eyes. I bet they’ll grow mad at seeing the giant blue cattle, hehehe!"

"Don’t forget that territory is still a hot zone," John warned, his voice turning serious again. He accessed his inventory and began taking out a massive pile of defensive items. "Arm yourselves to the teeth, then. Don’t take any unnecessary risks with that many civilians in tow, okay?"

From the mischievous, determined look on Elena’s face, John could tell she wouldn’t drop this plan regardless of his warnings. Instead of wasting time trying to convince her to stay behind the walls, he decided to give her and Luke every possible advantage.

He provided them with many Mobile Fortresses and a large number of other defensive items to fortify the entire territory on their own.

"Thanks, John. Seriously," Elena said, her smile widening from ear to ear as the gargantuan mobile units hummed to life around her.

John left his parting gifts and moved out. It was still the dead of night, the fog a thick, suffocating curtain. He began his trek, using yellow flares and the occasional purple grenade to clear the immediate path and manage the machine skirmishers that kept chasing him in the dark.

As he walked steadily northward, aiming to link up with Cissel and Ricky, he performed a routine check of the map. Suddenly, he skidded to a halt, his heart hammering hard, his eyes narrowed to a slit.

A bizarre, impossible scene was unfolding on his map.

Cissel and Ricky hadn’t been idle. They had spent the night scouring the northernmost territory, their original starting point, to ensure no hidden dens remained. Finding nothing, they had turned south to sweep the Bulltors’ lands. But as their two icons met near the border, something unexpected happened.

"Are they... Fighting each other?!!"

John stood frozen in confusion. The scene he spotted by zooming in was unmistakable: the two were clashing fiercely, unleashing their attacks and abilities that suggested they were fighting a life-or-death battle. A chilling thought flashed through his mind, colder than the night.

"Did they get infected by the fog again? Or is it something worse?"

He couldn’t grasp what could have driven his two friends to draw blood from one another. Without a second thought, John picked up his pace, blurring as he tapped into his maximum speed. He tore through the Bulltors’ home base territory, heading directly toward the epicentre of the fratricidal clash.