Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 188: The Purple Grenades!
"Are you sure about this?!"
After the passage of more than a day and a half since the first black cloud had bled into the territory, the air had grown heavy with the approach of the last test.
It was now time to face the fifth and final wave of the Wrathers. The cycle of slaughter had become a grim routine, but the stakes were shifting in a way that made every one of the group feel a chill in their bones.
During the past two waves, John and his friends had become a well-oiled machine of destruction. They had held the line against the fourth wave, which had surged with twenty thousand Wrathers.
It had taken several hours of gruelling combat to clear the field. During which the Wrathers had followed their established patterns: six hundred Wrathers had branched off to kickstart the old den, launching waves of yellow monsters to harass their flanks.
This time, the yellow monsters weren’t attracted to the southern regions. As the team was still fighting hard against the fourth Wrathers wave, the yellow tide was drawn over to their spot, ending up facing two dangers at the same time.
However, the pressure hadn’t been unbearable. By the time the team had ground most of the twenty thousand Wrathers into the dirt, the yellow monster tide was only just beginning its sixth wave.
With the yellow monsters and the remnants of the Wrather fourth wave, the team had been forced to exert themselves for a bit longer to clear the combined threat.
Once the field was finally silenced, John had spent the time before the fifth wave’s arrival laying down a series of reinforced outposts, using the help of the Bulltors to mount the cannons on top of the walls.
It was a strategic move whose true purpose he had kept hidden from his friends until this very moment.
The fifth wave was estimated to appear in roughly an hour. As the countdown ticked away, John gathered the group to announce his intentions and final part of the plan. As was becoming his habit, he decided to venture solo. He planned to head North, scouting the primary den to find a way to stop the fifth wave at its source.
He remained tight-lipped about his ultimate goal—the assassination of Sorolith. He didn’t want to burden them with the sheer scale of the risk he was taking. Yet, his friends weren’t fools; they could tell by the frequent clenches of his jaw and the cold intensity in his eyes that this was about far more than just scouting.
After all, the standard Wrathers didn’t pose much of a threat to them anymore, not even when bolstered by the yellow monsters as happened in the last battle. After fighting all this time together, the team grew accustomed to their recent massive power upgrades.
"I’m sure the trip won’t take longer than a couple of hours," John replied to Cissel’s sceptical question, his voice calm but firm. "During that time, you just fight normally. Use the outposts I’ve built to weaken the horde and stop the Wrathers from swarming you. And if the yellow tide comes, as it inevitably will, make sure to keep a few of them alive for as long as possible to delay the next wave trigger..."
"And if things go south, we head South," Ricky finished the plan layout for him, a grim smile touching his lips. "We’ll retreat to the main base and fortify ourselves there. Don’t worry about the leadership, John. You can depend on me to coordinate the defence properly while you’re away."
"Hey, who said you’re leading us just because John’s gone?!" Luke bellowed, his voice echoing off the newly raised walls of the outpost. "We just do our thing! You’re just the guy helping from the sidelines!"
Luke had gained an immense amount of confidence after his latest upgrade. He felt like a titan, and the idea of being led by anyone other than John didn’t sit well with his newfound ego. John watched the exchange with a small, tired smile.
He knew Luke wasn’t the only one who had gained significantly from the cores; the entire team was now operating at a level that would have been unthinkable just a week ago.
"Anyway," John said, cutting through the bickering. "I’m sure you’ll handle the situation well enough in my absence. You’ve grown enough to hold this line." He paused, turning to walk away, but then stopped abruptly as a detail flashed through his mind. "Ah, I almost forgot..."
He turned back to face them, and they all watched him with curious, expectant eyes. John reached into his inventory and pulled out two of the activated purple cores, the ones that had been enhanced by the lightning. To the four of them, the cores looked like beautiful, dangerous jewels, but they had no clue what John was about to demonstrate.
"Watch closely," John instructed. "You bring two of these activated, lightning-enhanced cores together like this..."
He slowly moved his hands toward each other, the two purple gems beginning to hum with a high-pitched, vibrating frequency. As they drew within a few centimetres, they behaved like powerful magnets. They were violently attracted to one another, glueing together with a sharp clack.
Immediately, the two cores began to react. They started to melt and coalesce simultaneously, the solid crystal turning into a swirling, unstable liquid, emitting purple light, and ending up forming a bigger orb. John’s eyes widened as he felt a surging, blistering heat radiating from the combined mass.
"Then, you throw them at your target," John said, the sudden sting of heat acting as a wake-up call. The new orb was becoming too hot to hold, jolting him into action.
He threw the combined orb as far away as possible, aiming for a distant, empty area. He had a visceral, bad feeling about what would happen if he threw them any closer to their position. "You count to ten and..."
*Rumble!*
