Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 195: Five Minutes of Hell!
"I’m ordering you... Stay still, freeze!"
John’s voice boomed across the area inside the northern ramparts. Just as he had seen on the map, the eleven Bulltors were in the throes of a violent, hallucinatory rage. They were madly attacking the silver-alloy walls, their massive fists and heavy weapons slamming into the fortifications with a rhythm that sounded like a funeral drum.
Luckily, in their distorted mental state, they completely ignored the towers and cannons. Their rage was focused solely on the prison bars they perceived in the walls.
Lanmar was at the forefront, leading the charge with a delirious fervour, while Reody stood slightly back in a corner, shouting out instructions as if he were directing a grand siege. The entire group was utterly immersed in their own private worlds.
Even when John used Object Lockdown on them, the effect was only partial; their body parts stiffened, yet they still tried to crawl toward the walls, dragging their heavy limbs through the dirt just to land one more spiteful blow. The sight left John speechless for a few seconds.
Realising that standard abilities wouldn’t be enough to quell the madness of giants, John decided to invoke the ultimate authority granted to him by the magical contracts.
"Freeze!"
The Bulltors locked in place, their muscles bulging under the strain of the forced command. John wasted no time. He stepped forward, reaching out to touch Lanmar’s trembling, sweat-slicked shoulder. The moment his hand made contact with the giant, a series of notifications appeared.
[Ding! You have come in contact with several Source Code Trial (SCT) Fog Essence Codes!]
[Ding! You can pay 100 Mental Points to extract all of the Source Code Trial Fog Essences!]
[Ding! Warning: Extracting the essence codes will take five minutes and cause immense pain to the host!]
[Ding! You will receive several SCT Fog Essence Codes that can be used to code specialised potion!]
[Ding! Please note: This extraction process is only available in conjunction with your Object Lockdown Ability!]
[Ding! Do you accept? Y/N]
"So this purple fog will give me more than one SCT Fog Essence Code? That’s impressive... Of course, do it!"
John was startled as he processed the notifications. Previously, when he had saved Ricky from the grey fog infection, he had only extracted a single SCT essence, paying a mere ten Mental Points and waiting one minute. But this purple variant was far more concentrated. It seemed there was a literal harvest of waiting for him.
He moved his eyes across the other ten frozen Bulltors, then looked toward the distant horizon where his friends were still engaged in their berserk fight against the horde. A wide, slightly evil grin spread across his face. "It seems it’s time for me to code one of these and see what it actually does."
As the extraction process began, Lanmar’s massive frame started to fiercely twitch. Despite the lockdown, the sheer agony of the process caused his muscles to ripple and spasm.
Yet, because of John’s direct order not to move or scream, the giant remained a silent, vibrating statue of pain. The look in Lanmar’s eyes was one of pure agony, pleading for release. John, however, didn’t even consider stopping. He needed the essence, and Lanmar needed the cure.
"I don’t know what will happen to the rest of them," John mused as he watched the giant’s silent suffering. His thoughts drifted toward Cissel, Elena, Luke, and Ricky. It was clearly apparent that the pain this time would be massive and severe, nothing like what Ricky had suffered before.
On top of that, he faced a nightmare. There was no one else but himself to hold the victims down during the process. Even if he succeeded in curing the Bulltors now, he remembered that Ricky had entered a state of coma after the extraction of the weaker essence. He fully expected the coma resulting from this purple essence to be much longer and deeper.
As he was lost in these doubts, a rapid-fire series of notifications scrolled through his vision, accompanied by the physical sensation of small objects manifesting under his palm.
[Ding! Congratulations! You have successfully extracted an SCT Fog Essence Code!]
[Ding! Congratulations! You have successfully extracted an SCT Fog Essence Code!]
...
[Ding! Congratulations! You have successfully extracted an SCT Fog Essence Code!]
A total of twenty notifications filled his sight, making him realise he had truly underestimated the density of the purple fog’s corruption. He instantly stored the essences into his inventory.
As the last bit of code was pulled from Lanmar, the giant’s eyes rolled back. His body finally relaxed, losing all tension as he slumped into a deep, heavy state of coma.
"Tsk, it’s going to be a bit tricky this time," John muttered. He moved from giant to giant, repeating the gruelling five-minute process ten more times. By the time he was finished, eleven unconscious Bulltors were sprawled around the base like fallen monuments.
Now, his concern for his friends reached a fever pitch. As he checked the map and began his high-speed run toward their location, he spotted the mounting obstacles.
They weren’t just standing around; they were in the middle of a literal meat grinder. Tens of thousands of yellow monsters were fighting fiercely against them, while the remnants of the fifth Wrather wave still lunged from the shadows of the purple fog.
The problem was how he was supposed to extract the essences from their bodies, rendering them unconscious and vulnerable, while they were surrounded by such a densely packed and aggressive horde? He couldn’t just let them fall into a coma in the middle of a battlefield.
"I’ll have to set up a few outposts then," John decided. The only viable option was for him to lay down enough outposts to handle the incoming monsters, effectively creating a safe zone perimeter. Inside that circle of fire, he would provide enough space and protection for his friends to rest and recuperate after he performed the extractions.
Yet doing this meant he would have to face and handle the yellow monster tide himself until they would either wake up or he’d finally finish off the eastern den. He didn’t know which specific wave was currently flooding the plains, but from the sheer, suffocating density of the monsters, he could tell they were at least at the sixth wave.
