Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 270: A Flaw in John’s Plan

While the Bulltors handled the sky threats, John didn’t remain idle.

He moved along the southern riverbank, layering defences until he reached the southern underwater bridge. Once the perimeter was fortified in a way that satisfied him, John ran back toward the Bulltors army.

They were currently on high alert, eyes fixed on the horizon as they waited for the ground units to leave the den and attack them. However, when John appeared and explained the necessary shift in tactics, the Bulltors didn’t hesitate.

They divided themselves into three groups, each heading toward one of the three underwater bridges to choke the machine advance at the three bottlenecks John created.

Satisfied that the river was secure, John didn’t even bother to stay for the clash. He turned his back on the battlefield and headed directly toward the source of the trouble: the den.

The den was situated deep within the southern sector of the territory, placing it dangerously close to the den in the adjacent zone. John knew that if these two were allowed to link their waves together, the difficulty spike would be catastrophic.

He needed to neutralise this den first and foremost, stripping it of its teeth and turning this entire territory into a thorn in Mark’s grand scheme.

As the machine ground units were busy laying down more defences, John managed to cover half the distance to the den before the heavy units even began to move out. He searched for the blind spots of their travel paths using the map and pushed directly into the heart of the enemy lair.

"That’s indeed a good harvest. Good job, Mark. Very, very good job," John whispered as he approached the empty den.

Before him stood a massive base. The machines had been busy and seemed to take this task quite seriously. The den was shielded by hundreds of layers of walls, thousands of defensive towers, and tens of thousands of cannons. It was a fortress that could have withstood a long siege from any normal army.

John didn’t waste a single second. He activated his Encrypted Skin ability. He stepped up to the first layer of the defences and began the hack. Once he succeeded in handshaking the defences, he began storing the walls, towers, and cannons in massive batches.

By the time the seventh wave was about to erupt, John had already managed to hack and claim one-third of the total fortifications the machines had laid so far. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

When the den finally hummed to life, he retreated into a safe spot nearby to observe. A staggering four thousand and eight hundred drones screamed out of the den, forming a silver cloud that headed straight for the Bulltors.

"It’s time to see if you can handle the pressure or not," John muttered. He watched a contingent of D-1000s frantically trying to replace the defences he had just taken away, while S-1000s acted as overseers, their sensors scanning for the thief they couldn’t see.

John shifted his attention to the map, zooming in on the Bulltor positions. "Not bad," he noted, his voice tinted with genuine respect. He hadn’t fully accounted for the fact that the Bulltors were a warrior race by nature. Every individual in that host had been trained since childhood, surviving brutal selection processes just to stand on this battlefield.

Even if they had faced setbacks against the machines before, they were strong, capable soldiers. Watching the ferocity with which they swatted drones out of the sky drove a satisfied smile to the corner of his lips. It would have been a massive headache if they had folded under the pressure.

"Now, it’s time for them to handle the fourteen thousand and four hundred ground units," he muttered to himself, while watching the S-1000s lead an army of D-1000s towards three different directions, heading to the Bulltors.

After waiting for two hours, the last of the flying drones was finally destroyed, but the massive ground force was now marching, heading towards the Bulltors. John saw the potential flaw in his plan: timing.

"If they keep taking this long to clear the flying drones, they will end up being linked and overwhelmed by the ground attack..."

He chewed on the problem while working his hands as fast as they could move, hacking the remaining den defences and pulling them into his inventory.

At every occasion his Mental Points dipped dangerously low, he would retreat to a small, hidden outpost he’d built nearby, where he had stored a group of drone-smashed bodies out of the lots he had killed earlier. He would recharge his exhausted Mental Points, then dove back into the work.

In three hours of constant work, John had successfully cleared the entire den of every last wall, cannon, and tower. The area was now empty and looking barren. As he stood in front of the emptied den, he looked toward the northern border of the map.

"I need to send a detachment to help Ricky and Elena," he noted, checking their icons. They had successfully arrived at their assigned territory, but they were alone. And the territory there was overwhelmed with a shitload of machines that made John’s scalp grow numb.

"To do so, I need to take care of this den core once and for all... So, no more time for playing Farmville. Tsk!"

Aside from looting the machines of all the defences they laid around the den, he wanted to keep training the Bulltors for a bit longer. Their practical experience was a very important piece of the puzzle he needed to ensure their survival in the last stages of this clash.

Yet, he knew it was of no value if the southern territory was left untouched, and his two friends, Ricky and Elena, failed to take it back from the machines.

As the Bulltors seemed to have at least three more hours of gruelling work ahead of them to finish off the remaining D-1000s and S-1000s, John decided to capitalise on this window. It was time to lay down a grand circular fortress around the machine den.