Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 217: Shifting Priorities
"Sorry, man, but we won’t waste any more of our time on this madness."
Blakar said, his tone blunt and final. "We truly hoped you were telling the truth, but nothing you say makes sense. You speak of things no one can see and impossible events. You’re a lunatic."
"Tsk. I already told you to just fight me and get this over with, but you refused," John interrupted, his eyes snapping toward Blakar with seriousness.
Before the giant could respond, John vanished. He dashed forward with a burst of speed that was out of the Bulltors’ comprehension, leaving afterimages trailing behind him.
"Let me show you just how different my realm is from yours..." John’s voice echoed from two hundred meters away. "Lightning Dance!"
John made sure to put significant distance between himself and the Bulltors to ensure no accidental casualties, but he needed to showcase the terror he was capable of. What manifested next drove a cold spike of dread into the hearts of every giant watching.
In an instant, a shimmering, dome-shaped sphere of blue-white energy erupted around John, covering a radius of one hundred meters. Inside that dome, lots of lightning-etched sword shadows materialised, attacking the air and the ground with relentless strikes. The sound was a continuous, deafening roar of sword slashes and thunder. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶
John didn’t stop there. He began to move in high speed, and the dome of lightning swords followed his every movement like a shadow.
The message John sent was simple and loud: if he had truly wanted to, he could have killed them all without expecting any good fight from them.
As the elite Twelve instinctively thought of activating their protective shields, they involuntarily recalled the shattered lattice of Galnar’s defence. They all stole a lingering glance at the badly wounded Bulltor, who didn’t look any better after seeing how strong John was.
"Are we clear now?"
John stood his ground in the centre of the scorched ground, resting his blade casually against his shoulder. He didn’t look like a man who had just exhausted his energy; he looked like a hunter waiting for a reason to strike again. He motioned toward the gathered giants with a flick of his chin.
"I don’t care if I have to fight twelve of you or two hundred and forty. I don’t care if I kill every single one of you right here, right now. But you were the ones who demanded proof. You asked to see the truth with your own eyes. So, you either stick to your words and follow me, or I’ll stick to mine and end this challenge by wiping you off the map!"
His words were rude, domineering, and laced with a level of threat that felt heavy. Yet, none of the Bulltors present took them lightly. John hadn’t just made a verbal threat; he had demonstrated a deadly AOE attack that could have thinned their numbers by a painful, permanent chunk.
His calm demeanour was the most terrifying part. It gave them the sinking feeling that they weren’t looking at the ceiling of his power, but merely the tip of the iceberg.
A single display of strength had achieved what hours of talk never could: all doubts vanished. At this moment, John actually would have preferred for them to attack. He wanted to finish the task of subjugating the Bulltors as fast as possible so he could sprint toward the Hiveminds’ territory, intercept his friends before they fell into the siege of the Wrathers and yellow monsters.
However, the response he got wasn’t the one he hoped for.
"Lead the way," Blakar said, clearing his throat and adjusting the grip on his weapon. The mock and the laughter had been replaced by respect. "We will follow you. We will see for ourselves what has become of the Hiveminds."
"They are running," John said, turning on his heels without waiting for a second confirmation. He began a high-speed run toward the Hiveminds’ territory, his eyes already flickering back to the map. "They’ve lost almost their entire army. Fewer than a thousand are left, mostly the insects. They’re abandoning the area and making a desperate run for the south, likely heading toward the adjacent territory to regroup."
"Well..." Blakar sounded hesitant. John didn’t need a psychological profile to understand why; to a Bulltor, the idea of a dominant race like the Hiveminds simply abandoning their base and fortifications was a concept that bordered on the impossible.
"Let’s settle it this way then," John said, shrugging his shoulders as he picked up the pace.
"We’ll make a direct, non-stop run toward their territory. When you see the aftermath with your own eyes, when you see the emptiness and the monsters I’ve left behind, then you’ll know I was telling the truth. And then, you will all join me. You will become part of my force, and we will move as one. Are we clear?"
He didn’t even turn his head to look at them as he spoke. He maintained a running speed that matched the top sustained pace of a Bulltor warrior, forcing the giants to exert themselves just to keep him in sight.
"Sure. That’s the deal," Blakar responded.
Behind him, the rest of the vanguard followed in a stunned, rhythmic thumping of heavy boots. They didn’t know what to make of this human. He was far stronger than anyone they had encountered in the trial so far, yet he spoke of impossible, far distant events and acted like a madman most of the time.
In the end, they settled on Blakar’s logic: they would follow him to the Hiveminds border and let the reality of the situation settle the score.
As for John, his mind was rearranging priorities. First and foremost, he had to reach the border in time to prevent his friends and the eleven Bulltors from walking into a meat grinder. If he failed to catch them in time, he needed to act fast to save them. Then, he had to investigate the anomaly at the Hivemind base.
Something had changed in the behaviour of the Wrathers. For a boss-level entity like Sorolith to leave its den and move and occupy a base was a deviation from the patterns he had witnessed before. Sorolith didn’t even take the lead when he started killing the outer Wrathers defending the den back then.
John couldn’t tell the reason, didn’t know if the Hiveminds did something, or if there was a variable that he had never accounted for. He had been so busy managing the Twelve and the challenge that he had missed the moment the transition occurred.
All of that aside, the retreating Hivemind remnants were no longer an urgent problem now. Their low numbers and the fact that they were abandoning their painstakingly built base and defences were enough for him to demote their threat level.
Once he settled the situation at their old territory, once he cleared the tides and formally took over the four thousand Bulltors using system contracts, he would shift his full attention to the clean-up of the Hivemind survivors.
To him, in that moment, they posed little to no threat at all. However, John would later realise just how much he had underestimated their dirty schemes.
