Athanasia: My Hacker System

Chapter 313: I Saw the Two of You Fight Like Real Enemies!

The Paragons were the leaders of the old world, the world of Athanasia and Earth that had already failed. John was going to be the leader of the new world: the apocalyptic Source Code World.

As he had started walking down this path, and it was entirely thanks to his own relentless efforts that he had achieved all this, John never intended to give any of it away. Yet, he had to think of a way to do things right, to protect what was rightfully his in a world that only respected strength and Paragons.

He was someone without a prominent backing, without a powerful family name, and without a history in the upper echelons of Athanasia. And yet, he knew he possessed what all those high-born elites lacked: a rapidly growing power fueled by his unique System and a burgeoning authority over this new, raw world.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt the need to plan things properly before the trial concluded. The last thing he wanted was for the different powerhouses of the academy or the Great Families, or even Paragons, to take advantage of his no-name status back in Athanasia.

He could almost see it now: arrogant families affiliated with Paragons trying to snatch his achievements, or even attacking him and his friends to force him into a contract against his will.

The answer to all this was simple: meticulous planning. He would slowly bide his time and construct a grand strategy to achieve exactly what he wanted.

He had faced the machine swarms, the Bulltors, the Hiveminds, and even the machinations of Mark himself, and he had crushed them all. He wouldn’t flinch now from dealing with a few arrogant bastards who were drunk on their own status and perceived powers.

Reaching this consensus, John felt more at ease. The vague worry and troubled thoughts that had plagued his mind since meeting the southern survivors finally cleared, replaced by a cold, sharpened focus. He had selected a path he believed in, and he would do everything in his power to walk it down until the very end.

Once he had laid down tons of defences around the sixth den, prioritising the super cannons, as they were the deadliest and most effective weapons in his current arsenal against the metallic behemoths, the next day finally arrived.

He watched with satisfaction as his weapons began killing the machine behemoths regularly. He didn’t stay idle; he turned around and started hacking and collecting the loot from the fallen giants, his inventory swelling with much fiercer weapons and strange, pulsating components he hadn’t even named yet.

There were still masses of weaker machine units fighting against his mobile fortresses on the outskirts. From time to time, he would intervene, throwing a few Logic Bombs to kill any significant clusters.

Even though he had succeeded in destroying the fifth den, there was still a massive waitlist quota, a residual spawn count that needed to be killed before the world would stop producing new machines.

"John! John!"

Just after ten hours of relentless fighting, during which he had hacked and collected almost everything around the den for tens of kilometres, he heard the loud, frantic shouts of Cissel coming from the distance. After all this time, the den was finally exhausted. The red saturation on his map was fading, and no new machines were appearing in the territory.

His friends had taken a few more hours after the fall of the fifth den to clear the outer circle, feeling the immediate change in the enemy’s surge and numbers. The moment the machine tide started to flicker, they had pushed as hard as they could. At some point, they advanced beyond their starting point at last.

So Ricky asked them to dismantle the rear parts of the defensive lines and reassemble them at the newly cleared forward zones. After five hours of intense, coordinated movement and fighting, they had finally managed to clear a path directly toward John’s position.

"I was dead worried!"

The moment Cissel arrived, she threw herself upon him, hugging him, a move he had never seen coming. And yet, for a reason he couldn’t quite name, he felt a genuine warmth spread through him. He slowly patted her back with both arms, holding her for a moment in the middle of the mechanical graveyard.

"I told you already, nothing in this world can harm me," he casually repeated his line, though his eyes were already scanning over her shoulder, noticing the deeply troubled and conflicted look on Ricky’s face.

"We need to talk."

Ricky sounded like a deflated balloon. All the arrogant words and the long, self-important speeches he had prepared in his head seemed to evaporate the moment he stopped in front of John.

Seeing John standing in the middle of such terrifying carnage, surrounded by the twisted, mountainous bodies of behemoths made of metal and peculiar parts of pulsating flesh, made Ricky hesitant and profoundly shaken.

He hated to admit it to himself, but standing in front of John right now triggered a deep sense of fear, a genuine dread he had never felt before in his entire life, not even from the Paragons he had encountered.

All he could manage were those few simple words, yet he was immediately met with a warning, threatening glance from Cissel the moment she broke away from John’s embrace.

"Sure. I also want to speak with all of you," John responded slowly and calmly. The scenes he had witnessed on his map, the hours-long clash between Cissel and Ricky, were still fresh in his mind. "Let me build a proper base for us here first, before we can talk."

"We are going to do it now?!!" Luke and Elena both exclaimed in shock. They had felt the rising tension between Cissel and Ricky and had assumed John was oblivious to it. Yet, what he said next made the two swallow every worry they had.

"I saw the two of you fight like real enemies," John began, dropping the bomb without any preamble as they stepped into the centre of the newly erected base he had just laid in a few minutes. "So, I expect an explanation for all of this."

John stood in the middle of the base, waiting for the two to speak up and explain everything. Outside, the Bulltors were moving in tight formations around the perimeter, securing the walls and clearing the leftover machines under the leadership of Blakar.

However, Blakar wasn’t just focusing on the perimeter. He kept his ears glued to the centre of the base, trying to understand the friction between the humans. He could easily tell something was fundamentally wrong.

As his future, and the future of the few thousand Bulltors following him, was now inextricably attached to the human ship, he had to make sure there wasn’t a disaster festering at the very heart of their leadership.