Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 232: Six Pocket Trial Ownership Parts
According to the trial rules John understood, a wave had to be cleared for the next one to spawn. If the Hiveminds were hiding and his friends came later, and struggled to defend themselves, who was clearing the field?
[Ding! If there is no one present to fight and kill the monsters, the den will automatically re-absorb 10% of the current wave’s total count as sacrifice and unleash a higher-tier wave, jumping 10 levels for every hour of uninterrupted growth!]
’...’ John was speechless for the third time in a row! He stared at the system’s answer, his mind racing to process the logic being revealed to him. The implications were staggering. ’Does that mean if in any territory, no one fought these monsters, the den will keep evolving endlessly?!’
[Ding! There is nothing called endless in the apocalypse! If the monster wave count hits 100, an evolution will occur, and a new type of monster will appear!]
’...’
John felt like he was learning new secrets every single day he spent in this pocket trial. He had mistakenly thought he had seen the ceiling of this pocket trial, yet it felt like he had barely scratched the surface. His mind drifted toward this new type of monsters the system mentioned.
He wondered if their cores would provide even greater stat boosts, a more potent push to his abilities, or allow him to upgrade his weapons beyond their current limits.
For a fleeting moment, he was tempted. A part of him wanted to let a den reach Wave 100 just to see what kind of nightmare would crawl out of it. But as he looked at the weary faces of the Bulltors and the precarious state of his friends, he shook his head, casting the reckless thought aside. He couldn’t afford to run an experiment that might end in a total party wipe.
’It seems those bastards weren’t running out of fear,’ John’s eyes flashed with a sudden, cold realisation. The Hiveminds weren’t just retreating; they were conceding the ground to let the dens fester.
’Still, why didn’t they try to take over the three dens and put up a good fight against the monsters earlier? Was their failure a fluke, a coincidence? Or was it something else I don’t know about yet?’
The more John analysed the Hiveminds ’ behaviour, the more suspicious he became. Their passive attitude forced him to pause and take a glimpse at their current spot using his map.
There, he saw the Hiveminds’ leftovers confined in eerie peace and tranquillity behind the walls of their newly established base in the southern territory. Seeing them acting so freely and living peacefully while their former territory was being ushered into chaos made his blood boil. It felt like a deliberate insult.
’No matter what, I’ll make sure to crush all of your schemes,’ he thought to himself, clenching both fists out of determination. He had a growing gut feeling that the Hiveminds weren’t simply pivoting by running away; they were following the beats of a pre-written script.
They were waiting for something. But he wasn’t worried, and he certainly wasn’t afraid. He was confident that no matter what they were plotting in the dark, he possessed the power to crush it into dust.
"Let’s move to the next den," John commanded, his voice filled with a new, aggressive energy.
Pumped up by his thoughts, he led the group away from the first den. As they walked, the dead den continued to release the remaining quota of monsters into the night. John didn’t look back; he had already positioned several outposts around the den to take down and kill those monsters.
The many super cannons ensured that the monsters would be harvested the moment they emerged, clearing the debt of the wave until the den was truly empty without the need to send any force here to do the job.
By the end of the long, bloody night, the vanguard reached the second den. This time, John didn’t choose to obtain the core. He decided to hack it directly. That left him with six Pocket Trial Ownership parts in total.
"That’s enough for now," John said, wiping a smear of monster ichor from his forehead. Once he had stored the ownership fragment away, he turned to Blakar. The daylight was just beginning to crawl over the horizon, turning the distant fog into a bruised shade of pink.
"You’ll arrange your people into different groups," John ordered. "Each group will take shelter inside one of the outposts I’ve laid down. No one, and I mean absolutely no one, is to approach the central area until I am awake and give the order. Do you understand?"
"No trespassing in the central zone. Got it!" Blakar nodded firmly, his massive chest heaving with fatigue. "I doubt we’ll face the same tough situation we did when we first arrived, right? The cannons are doing a great job, handling most of the work."
"We can’t be certain," John shrugged, before recalling a vital detail. "I also want eyes on the southern territory, the place where those mechanical bastards ran off to. Send a specialised scout team to trail their movements. Wake me up immediately if anything big happens there. If they made any move, I want to know about it."
"Why don’t we just attack and kill them now?" Lilith asked viciously, her fingers twitching on the grip of her glaive. "I’m more than willing to miss a few hours of sleep if it means turning those tin cans into scrap!"
"Yeah, me too!" another of the Twelve barked.
"I won’t say no to an offer like that!"
John moved his eyes around the Twelve, considering their bloodlust for a moment. The temptation to end the Hiveminds threat once and for all was strong. "No, stay put for now," he eventually decided, shaking his head.
"Let’s first fully secure this territory and finish healing your wounded people. Once we are at one hundred percent of our fighting powers, we move out in full force and kill them all in one sweep."
He didn’t know why, but the more he thought about the Hiveminds’ quiet attitude, the more restless he became. He couldn’t shake the sensation of a dirty, invisible scheme unfolding just out of sight.
Yet, because they hadn’t made a single aggressive move since building their new base, he couldn’t spot the trap; he couldn’t tell if the trap would be triggered by attacking them or by waiting for quite some time. So he didn’t risk sending anyone to hit them for now.
He decided to follow the golden rule of warfare: handle the threat you can see first. He would settle the known challenge of the dens today and leave the unknown variables for another day to settle.
