Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 206: The Fourth Den is Coming!
"This..."
John was startled as he realised the Hiveminds had placed these items in the area closest to his position. He kept closely watching until the three objects became clear. When he saw what they were, he sucked in a cold breath of air.
"I can’t believe they are waiting for the fourth Fog Seekers den to come," he said, an evil grin spreading across his face. "Those idiots! I swear, I’ll make them experience a nightmare instead!"
The Hiveminds’ weird attitude since this morning finally clicked into place. Somehow, they were seeing through the hidden mechanics of the trial. They knew exactly when the next Fog Seekers den was scheduled to appear, and where. But for reasons only the Hiveminds could justify, they had decided to relocate the three Ogolith Cores away from the predicted respawn location.
When John gave it a little more thought, he realised they were acting overly cautious. They didn’t want to risk losing these three critical cores in the chaotic crossfire of the upcoming battlefield, as these cores were essential for their long-term plan to dominate the trial.
By placing them in the quiet northwestern corner, they thought they were securing their future. They didn’t realise they had just delivered their most prized sheep directly to a hungry and vicious wolf.
The sheer irony of the situation was too much. John couldn’t restrain his laughter for nearly half an hour. If he hadn’t been getting closer to their actual territory, risking the attention of wandering guards, he would have kept laughing until his lungs ached.
The moment he settled on his new objective, John stopped walking. He exploded into a sprint, turning into a high-speed blur within the white fog. While the Hiveminds were distracted with their elaborate fortifications in the east, John finally arrived at their northwestern borders.
"Frame Recognition!"
As he reached the outer threshold of the Hivemind’s territory, he stopped playing safe and started acting vigilantly. Even though his map showed the area was clear of any threat, he was still acting cautiously. He held his sword high and walked slowly. Every muscle was coiled, ready to react the moment his ability flagged an abnormality around.
Until the moment he officially breached the perimeter of their territory, John had encountered nothing out of the ordinary. The transition was jarring; as soon as he passed through the outer fog rim, he stepped into a grand, open stretch of land. Here, the entire territory was cleared of fog.
"I’ll need to act a bit faster... Wait, what is that?!"
He had barely covered a kilometre of the open plain when his momentum came to an abrupt halt. In his Frame vision, he spotted an abnormality buried just beneath the surface of the soil. A weird, flickering blue hue pulsed at a distance, directly blocking his intended path.
John started to scan the terrain with utmost care and caution, focusing on any lustre appearing from the ground. As he looked further ahead, his heart sank. Similar cerulean flickers appeared at regular intervals, forming a staggered grid that stretched as far as his sight could reach.
"I bet they are traps," he said, his voice a grim whisper. He performed a slow, 360-degree sweep of the area, checking the map to ensure no Hivemind patrols were closing in. To his relief, the sky was empty, and the ground was still. The Hiveminds’ collective focus was entirely diverted towards the eastern fortifications.
Safe for the moment, John crept toward the nearest blue pulse. He reached out a hand, hovering his fingers just inches above the soil. The system responded instantly, a series of notifications scrolling across his eyes.
[Ding! Warning! A high-yield trap device has been detected!]
[Initial Analysis: Proximity and Pressure Trap. Designed to detonate upon physical contact or weight distribution changes. Detonation Radius: 1,000 meters.]
[Attempting to hack/spoof: You’ll need to pay 100 Mental Points to successfully hack it!]
"One hundred Mental Points? And an explosion that covers a full kilometre?" John felt a cold sweat prickle his neck. "Damn!"
The sheer scale of the weaponry was staggering. The basic traps he had back at his own base were toys by comparison, barely capable of a five-meter lethality zone. He had ignored them as a waste thanks to this point in particular, but this trap in front of him was a different league entirely.
He looked out over the horizon, his mind reeling as he imagined the entire Hiveminds territory littered with tens of thousands of these deadly landmines. Then he moved his greedy thoughts back to the Hiveminds themselves, thinking about what else they had hidden deep inside their storage programs or devices for him to loot!
"Anyway, let’s get this over with," he muttered. He bit his thumb, pressing a drop of blood onto the soil above the sensor, and waited for the system to hack the Hiveminds’ encryption and start a handshake.
Before leaving his territory, he had ensured his Mental Points were capped at their maximum. By his math, he could afford to hack twenty, maybe thirty of these devices, while still keeping a small Mental Points reserve for emergencies. However, the next series of pings from the system made him reconsider his entire approach.
[Ding! System Handshake Established!]
[Ding! You have successfully synchronised with Trap Device #8956332247!]
[Ding! The trap is now disabled! User Permission Granted: You may leave the device dormant or add it to your Inventory.]
[Trap Device #8956332247: Unique Grade!]
[Description: A high-output area-denial weapon. Features adjustable detonation triggers: Physical Touch, Seismic Vibration, and Acoustic Frequency. Once triggered, it releases a thermobaric bloom covering a 1,000-meter radius, maintaining a localised burn for ten minutes. Must be buried to initiate the arming sequence.]
He began to dig, his fingers moving quickly through the dry earth until he unearthed a heavy, quadruple-segmented metallic base. The device hummed with a suppressed energy, its surface etched with glowing red and blue code structures that flickered like a heartbeat.
"Hmm... It seems my luck today is infinite!"
