Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 222: Shocking the Bulltors Over and Over
The casual words John threw at their faces hit like a lightning strike. The Bulltors stood frozen, their breath hitching in their massive chests.
"What did you just say?!!!" Galnar was the first to shout, his voice cracking with a mixture of indignation and sheer disbelief.
Before the giant could spiral into his usual useless rant, John spoke up, his voice slicing through the air to clarify the misunderstanding they all shared.
"Did you forget? I belong to a fallen race," John said, his eyes never leaving the scrolls he was currently hacking.
"My people have never cleared a pocket trial before. We have never had the privilege you all enjoyed, the ability to buy different soul-bound items from the Source Code World and bring them into these trials to help you compete for winning it."
He paused, raising his head to look at the startled Bulltors. "I came here with nothing but a sword and my four friends. Most of our powers were sealed away the moment we stepped here.
Everything I have now is what I have seized from this pocket trial. I have the ability to bypass locks on any storage device or program brought into this trial. Whether the owner is alive or dead doesn’t matter to me."
"Prove it!" Galnar roared, his pride stung by the casual way John dismissed their unbreakable soul-bound feature of everything they brought here. He reached up, took a heavy silver earring from his lobe and threw it into the dirt at John’s feet. "Prove what you just claimed! Break my storage device and take out the items inside!"
"You are noisy," John said, glaring at Galnar. Then, his eyes softened all of a sudden. That sudden shift in expression sent an unexplained shudder through every Bulltor in the area.
"But saying this reminds me..." John looked up at the Twelve. "Drop all of your storage devices here. Every ring, earring, and bracelet. I’m going to collect everything and use the contents to strengthen our collective force for the next battle."
John’s words added more confusion to the Bulltors. A long silence followed as the giants looked at each other in disbelief. It was a widely known fact in the Source Code World that no one could access another’s storage space without consent.
That was why no one bothered to clear the fallen on any battlefield, as there was no point in doing so. To lose a storage device was usually just to lose the ornament; the contents remained locked forever. But John didn’t ask for their consent.
He simply gave the order as if there was no such protection over these ornaments. At the same time, his eyes wandered around the area as if he were mentally mapping out a warehouse.
"This area will do," he said abruptly, pointing to a flat stretch of ground near the fog line. He turned back to the baffled Bulltors and calmly added, "Leave everything inside that perimeter. We have lots of work to do.
And for those of you heading back to the base to let the rest of your kin sign the contracts, make sure you gather every storage device from them. Bring them all to me, alongside every warrior who can still hold a blade."
John was already running the numbers in his head. He initially planned to hack and activate more than twenty thousand contracts this time. His sights were set on the total consolidation of the remaining power in the trial: what was left of the Hiveminds, the ten-thousand-strong Kroger, and the remnants of the human survivors.
However, as he heard what Galnar said, he decided he had hacked enough, and it was now time to start working on strengthening this area and preparing for the upcoming tough battle.
He reached into his inventory and pulled out large stacks of ready magical scrolls, enough for the four thousand Bulltors remaining at the base to sign and join his side. He handed them to the Twelve. "Take these. Make sure every single Bulltor back home signs. Do exactly as I said."
"You heard the human," Blakar cleared his throat, his voice uncertain. He looked at the earring in the dirt. "Do you... Do you want us to grant you our permissions to see through the content, or...?"
"Don’t bother," John said casually, as if the process of granting permission was a tedious hurdle that would only result in unnecessary trouble. As for John, he wanted to demonstrate his unique ability to shock them even more. "Just leave them there and be ready. We are going to start a big fight soon."
"I like you more now, hahaha!" Lilith suddenly shouted. She touched her storage device, took out a massive glaive that was heavy and deadly. "I love a man who cuts straight to the fighting!"
"You really do remind me of someone," John muttered, watching her. The more he looked at her fierce expression and bloodthirsty grin, the more he saw a reflection of Elena. It was as if Elena had been scaled up to giant proportions, grown a bit uglier in the face, yet became twice as savage.
As the Bulltors began to comply with his orders, dropping their precious storage items into a pile, John started working on a different scale. He took out a handful of Wrathers cores and began clearing a well-calculated area around. He had to be extra careful so he wouldn’t suddenly link the growing area with the vast territory nearby.
By the time he was finished, he had carved out a killing zone of several kilometres in every direction, completely purged of the fog.
While the Bulltors wondered why he was wasting his time and cores on such a massive clearing, John shifted his attention to the pile of storage devices. One by one, he initiated the hack.
One by one, he bypassed the seals and dumped the contents onto the ground. In less than half an hour, he had emptied the hundreds of storage devices.
