Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 251: Please Return Safely to Me!

"Fck it! How many times do I have to knock your head to wake you up?!"

John’s words hit a sour spot with Mark, driving the latter into a sudden fit of rage. His calm facade cracked.

"Last times? Last times you were lucky! You were saved by unforeseen events, all thanks to that useless sack of meat who came in and interrupted my work! That doesn’t mean you survived because of some special trait of yours or unique strength you have. Today, there are no interruptions. Today, you fall. Today, you die."

Mark turned and gestured toward the one thousand cyborgs standing in silence behind him.

"Do you see them? The moment the den is activated, their human side will be exterminated. They will be turned into pure cyborgs. Then they’ll move south, spreading out to the other untouched areas. Can you imagine the horror of the dens created by cyborgs? Hahaha! Come on, Mr Mirage, it’s already game over for you. You’re just a bug waiting for the shoe, my shoe."

John interrupted Mark’s arrogant rant by raising a hand, pointing a finger at the centre of the thousand. He had gathered enough information on the dens, but he still knew nothing about the specific units Mark was planning to summon. It was time to pry for the most important part of the incoming enemies before making a move.

"You don’t seriously expect me to fear a few more D-1000 units," John said, his voice cold and steady. "I’ve killed five thousand of them before. I can kill ten times that number if I need to. If that’s all you’ve brought to the party, then you’ve wasted your time coming here."

"Hahaha, you are so funny, Mr Mirage, hahaha!" Mark’s laughter exploded. As if on cue, the one thousand cyborgs behind him erupted into the same laughter.

"Do you really expect the dens to gush out the same useless D-1000s? Do you expect these dens to operate exactly like the primitive Fog Seeker dens did? I can’t believe it!

I heard from the Hiveminds that a tsunami of Wrathers and mutated Wrathers appeared in their territory, forcing them to retreat south. I initially thought you were the one behind it, finally learning some tricks about the trial. And here I am, disappointed. Hahaha!"

"What do you mean?" John pitched his voice to carry a note of desperate anxiety. He gritted his teeth, his jaw tightening as he let out a low roar. "No matter what you say, what I fight will be the same useless D-1000 units you sent before! I don’t believe this trial is without an enforced ceiling! You’re just bluffing, Mark. You’re a bad program, a very bad program."

"Hahaha, very funny, truly hilarious," Mark bellowed, doubling over in another wave of mocking laughter.

"Do you really think the trial rules are that simple? To be fair, I can’t speak entirely from experience, but from what the Hiveminds shared with me, they were created through this very process aeons ago.

The dens evolved their race members, kept evolving them until they stabilised in their current form. What do you think will come out of these upgraded dens? Perhaps gigantic, heavy-armour iterations of the D-1000s? Or maybe the far scarier, high-mobility S-1000 forms? Who knows! Want to bet? Let’s put your life on the line, what do you think?"

"Retreat!"

The word cracked like a whip. John finally had exactly what he wanted to hear. The moment the intel was confirmed, he stopped caring about maintaining the mask of hopelessness he had been wearing since they met Mark.

He turned to his friends, his voice booming with an authority that brooked no argument. "Go back and shield yourselves behind the outposts! Wait for my return! Move, now!"

"It’s all pointless, Mr Mirage..." Mark began, but he was cut short.

"Shut the fck up!" John snarled. The powerless, ashen look vanished, replaced by a look of such sheer, terrifying ferocity that even Mark seemed to recoil. "You said you wanted to create full cyborgs? Then let me help you with the transition."

In the next instant, John vanished. He dashed forward with his highest speed, activating his AOE sword’s special effect: Sword Lightning.

The moment the effect triggered, the area was swallowed by a blinding, chaotic storm of deadly sword slashes. Bolts of lightning, shaped like translucent blades, rained down from the sky and scorched everything in their path.

John didn’t stand in one spot. He became a whirlwind of destruction, kept moving around, to ensure every single one of the thousand cyborgs was caught in the area of his attack.

He finally stopped in the centre of the carnage. His face was a mask of cold stone, watching his friends as they retreated, finally shaking off their shock. The shift in events had come with the suddenness of a lightning strike, and John had unleashed hell without a second’s warning.

John’s friends didn’t fully grasp every detail Mark had blabbered about, but they understood the parts that mattered. The den was minutes away from full activation. It wasn’t going to spit out the monsters they were used to; it was going to unleash waves of machines.

Mark hadn’t just mentioned the D-1000s; he had mentioned the S-1000s. And more importantly, he spoke of a mutation. They realised they had been standing on the doorstep of a slaughterhouse for far too long without even knowing the door was about to be opened. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Cissel couldn’t help it. As she ran toward the safety of the distant outposts, she turned her head, stealing a short, panicked glance over her shoulder. Even in the midst of this dangerous turn of events, John had prioritised them.

He had stayed behind in the centre of the nest to stall the initial wave, placing himself in the path of the rising enemies just to buy them a few more minutes to flee to safety.

A cold, hard hand seemed to squeeze her heart when she spotted him from a distance. He was standing alone in the middle of the rising carnage, surrounded by the twitching, reviving cyborgs he had just decimated. The glow of his Sword slashes flickered in the darkening air, outlining his solitary figure. The battle wasn’t over; it was just getting started.

’Please, please return safely to me,’ she prayed inwardly, a desperate, silent plea. She forced her head to turn away, focusing all her energy on the sprint, treasuring the slim chance he had created for all of them, for her.