Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 197: Finishing the Quest and the Sub-Quest!

John sat by Cissel’s side, watching her calm and peaceful face as if he were seeing her for the first time without the grime of battle or the shadow of the fog masking her features.

The contrast was striking; here was a woman who could dance through a horde with lethal grace, now looking as fragile as porcelain in her deep sleep. John took out a piece of the cooked meat Elena had prepared earlier and drank fresh water from a flask.

At this moment, even with the thumping of explosions and the distant roars of the yellow monster wave echoing all around him, he couldn’t help but feel slightly blessed.

He ended up with a faint smile on his face, a rare moment of introspection washing over him. He recalled how he had started this journey, an arrogant, young hacker who thought the world began and ended at the edge of his keyboard.

Now, he was here, in the middle of an unknown world, fighting unheard-of monsters and taking the lead to save humanity’s future, all with a beautiful girl by his side.

"What happened to you, John?!"

As he walked back toward the fray after his precious half-hour of rest, he couldn’t help but ask himself that question aloud. Had he gone soft, or had he finally found something worth fighting for beyond just survival and getting stronger?

He only answered himself with a wide smile and a little shaking of his head, before the mask of the warrior returned. He dove back into the chaos, madly unleashing his abilities to pave a path of destruction.

Powered up by his brief respite, he returned to the field recharged and fully active. He decimated the remnants of the tenth wave in less than four hours, despite them being formed of a staggering one hundred and eighty thousand monsters. But the system wasn’t done with him yet.

"This is it. The eleventh wave," John muttered, his eyes narrowing as the horizon turned into a solid carpet of gold, skinless roars.

After taking six hours to grind down the previous wave, he was welcomed by the final surge. This time, he knew he couldn’t afford a single mistake.

The tide was composed of slightly more than seven hundred thousand yellow monsters, a figure large enough to literally drown half of his territory if they weren’t contained. He didn’t wait for them to reach his side. He instantly surged toward the most critical bottleneck: the underwater bridge nearby.

He began to use his purple grenades and his most deadly abilities without restraint. The air turned into a soup of smoke, fire, and shrapnel as he fought like a man possessed. Even with this level of firepower, the sheer weight of numbers pushed him back, foot by foot, hour after hour.

Yet, he held his position at the bridgehead for three whole hours, acting as a living dam. His resistance forced the monsters to divide, seeking alternative routes to the north and south.

John was aware of the existence of another underwater bridge somewhere to the north; it was the path the Wrathers had used to originally cross the river. Seeing the yellow tide split into three distinct directions made him heave an inward sigh of relief. He had left his grandest outpost at the northern den, and he desperately hoped the northern bridge was positioned above that fortress, not below it.

Luckily for him, his intuition proved correct. The northern bridge was higher up than his small fortress. As the northern contingent of monsters tried to pass by the big outpost, they were caught in a brutal fire. They ended up suffering massive casualties at the hands of his towers before they could even regroup.

As for the southern route, the path was even more treacherous for the horde. John had spent a long time filling that riverbank with interlocking outposts. It was like a gauntlet of fire; the volume of the monster tide shrank with every kilometre they travelled.

Seeing the effectiveness of his layered defences, John realised he had a golden opportunity. He slowly began a fighting retreat, drawing the third, central group of monsters toward the pre-arranged kill zone close to his current position. By fragmenting the seven hundred thousand into three manageable chunks, the task became significantly easier.

The southern group suffered the most. Even the portion that managed to bypass the riverbank outposts ended up slamming into the long, fortified walls of his base. Out of the roughly two hundred and fifty thousand yellow monsters that had taken that route, not a single one lived to reach John.

The northern path was more resilient. They took damage from the den outpost but passed it with more than half their numbers intact. John knew he had to act fast; he couldn’t allow the northern group to link up with the central one.

He fought as hard as he could, his sword never stopping, his abilities firing in a constant sequence. He burned lots of purple grenades until the entire wave was finally decimated against the walls of his various outposts.

"I’ll leave the towers to handle the stragglers," John panted, checking his map.

Despite the bone-deep exhaustion screaming in his nerves, he had one last task. He had to reach the den and hack the golden core before the next potential spawn cycle could begin.

This was the crux of the problem; if he didn’t secure it now, the next wave could potentially top a million monsters, a figure that would threaten his territory even if all his friends and the Bulltors were awake and fighting.

He reached the centre of the den and initiated the hack. Once the golden core was secured in his inventory, he collapsed next to it, drinking the last of his fresh water. He allowed himself exactly five minutes of rest before heading back to clean up the field.

There were still nearly one hundred thousand yellow monsters scattered across the outposts, and while the towers were doing their job, they were being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of monsters.

Because this was the last of the yellow monsters before the end of his quest, John fought with newfound vigour. He didn’t take more than two hours, even in his exhausted state, to eliminate the final remnants of the eleventh wave.

"At last," he whispered.

He felt as though his entire body was numb, his muscles vibrating from the prolonged adrenaline and mental strain. Without even thinking about where he was, he collapsed onto the parched ground and closed his eyes. Before falling into a stupor, he performed one last check of the map. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

There wasn’t a single red dot left. The territory was safe, secure, and silent.

"I finally completed this damn quest!"

[Ding! Congratulations! You have completed the sub-quest!]

[Ding! You have earned a Bonus Reward for killing Sorolith and destroying the den!]

[Ding! Congratulations! You have completed the Main Quest!]

[Ding! Congratulations: Your map has been updated to cover the entirety of the Pocket Trial!]