Athanasia: My Hacker System

"Not when we spread the portals randomly at first," John finally revealed his trump card. An evil grin spread across his face.

"We’ll distribute the portals across Athanasia and put a single, unyielding condition on them: to pass through, one must swear allegiance to the Anomaly God Paragon."

"But this way, no one will pass through it!" Luke said, being the slowest to grasp the psychological warfare at play.

Elena patted him on the shoulder, though it was more like a sharp slap. "He doesn’t intend to let people actually go through them this way, Luke. Not at first. He wants to spread his name, create absolute chaos, and let the other Paragons start suspecting each other."

"Suspect each other... How?" Luke rubbed his shoulder, still looking lost.

"Think about it," John’s smile grew louder, his voice humming with the thrill of the scheme. "In a world where only the old Paragons are supposed to exist, a series of portals linking to the pocket trials suddenly appears with the absurd condition of being loyal to a new Paragon.

Simultaneously, the name of this new Paragon starts spreading through the mouths of the few thousand humans we currently have here in this trial. What do you think the other Paragons will think? That a new Paragon appeared?

No way. They know a new Paragon can’t be born. They’ll suspect this is a foul play, a dirty, undercover scheme orchestrated by one of their own to steal resources or destabilise a rival."

John’s eyes shone in a dangerous light. "While they are busy pointing fingers and launching investigations, throwing the blame at each other, we will be in the shadows of the academy, growing stronger.

By the time they realise the Anomaly God Paragon is real, we won’t be a rumour they can silence anymore. We’ll be an unstoppable avalanche."

"Oh, I see," Luke finally said, his eyes lighting up with a mixture of realisation and awe. "So you’re going to let them tear each other apart first. You’ll sit in the shadows, wait for the dust to settle, and then pick a front base later on, choosing the exact right place and the exact right timing to reveal yourself. That’s... That is incredibly evil, John! Hehehe!"

"I like it," Ricky added, crossing his arms. He looked like he was finally beginning to enjoy the chaos John was promising.

"It’s a bit risky, and we’ll definitely need to fight plenty of battles, maybe even full-blown wars, along the way, but it’s doable. In a world this paranoid, the greatest weapon isn’t a sword; it’s a well-placed suspicion and rumours."

"I believe if all five of us are fully committed, we can also work to include our families and our respective forces," Elena said, her eyes moving between the others. She was already mentally drafting the lists of loyalists they could peel away from the old order.

"We can slowly and steadily let our families join the cause. As for you two," she looked toward Ricky and Cissel, "I don’t know how much power you currently have on your side, but you can rope them in at the right time."

Elena moved her gaze between Luke, who was nodding with visible excitement and strong support for the suggestion, and the two Paragons. Ricky and Cissel both gave a calm nod, agreeing with her words without exposing how much powers were loyal to the two of them.

"Adding our forces won’t be an issue," Cissel said, casting a glance towards Ricky. "I don’t have a massive army on my side at this specific moment, but I have enough high-tier contacts and loyalists to properly fortify our public base once we decide to announce it to the world."

"And we can even do better than that," Ricky’s eyes shone brighter as his mind began to build upon John’s foundation.

"We can play a double game. We can claim that our Paragon forces have simply become allies with this new Paragon to secure exclusive spots for our people to enter the pocket trials.

Like this, we won’t look like rebels; we’ll look like shrewd opportunists. It’ll attract even more outside forces to join our banner just to get a piece of the pie..."

"This can be a double-edged weapon," John calmly intervened, his voice acting as a cooling agent to Ricky’s burgeoning ambition.

"But surely this method can be used at some point. Let’s do it only after the different Paragon factions have started openly fighting each other, and their wars have intensified. If we move too early, it will be a siren song that attracts their attention directly to the two of you."

The two immediately understood the weight of his warning. Moving while the world was still stable was suicide; moving when it was in flames was strategy. They nodded in agreement.

"Don’t worry, we’ll time it together," Cissel said, her voice softening. "But we’ve accounted for everything except one thing..."

She trailed off, her eyes flickering with a specific kind of dread. Everyone knew exactly what she was referring to, even without the name being spoken. In response, John let out a long, heavy sigh.

"Dealing with those machines will prove to be harder than you can imagine," John said. He knew she was referring to Mark and the Big Mind. "Yet, in front of our combined strength, nothing catastrophic will happen at first. We have the defensive advantage here."

Everyone could tell he wasn’t being entirely forthcoming about everything he knew regarding those machines, or about the enemy who seemed to know him quite well, Mark.

"Just one question," Ricky said. He knew if he asked directly for John’s secrets, he wouldn’t get an answer. He had to pivot his approach. "Does that machine, Mark, know exactly where you are in Athanasia?"

John nodded slowly in response.

Seeing this caused everyone to draw a sharp, cold breath of air. The realisation that their enemy was well aware of their place in Athanasia was a chilling thought.

"Then it’s going to be tricky indeed," Ricky continued, his voice tight. "What if he spreads the word about your location to the academy or the other Paragons? He could burn our hiding spot before we even finish laying out the first brick."

"Luckily for us," John said, having already thought deeply about the threat Mark posed, "that machine and his backers only have ties with the most hated and distrusted faction in the world: the Nihilists."

"No one will trust them," Cissel whispered, catching onto the hint immediately. Her expression relaxed slightly.

"The Architects and Evolutionists would rather die than take a tip from a Nihilist. In fact, if they tried to expose us, they might put the blame towards them instead of pushing it on us. That can buy us some time at first. But not forever. Eventually, the evidence will become too loud to ignore."

"That’s why I said we’ll need to pick a public front base that is a significant distance away from the academy," John said, accounting for that exact variable. "We won’t give them time or chance to suspect the academy. We’ll use that fake front to divert their attention wholly away from us."

With that final clarification, the five friends agreed and settled on the grand plan. There were countless risks, hundreds of volatile variables, and above all, their survival was heavily leaning on picking the perfect timing at every corner.

Yet, as they stood there, no one thought too much about the risks, only the gains.

For Luke, this was a golden chance for his family to rise from the ashes. The Paragon they had served for generations had a direct hand in his family’s downfall, and he knew that no matter how hard he worked, his family’s honour would never be restored by staying on that Paragon’s side. He needed a new ground.

Elena saw a similar chance. Her family was considered part of the vanguard elite, serving the Sword of their Paragon. And yet, they were constantly being pressured, limited, and pushed back by their Paragon’s paranoia.

They should have ascended long ago to lead their Paragon’s military as the Sword, but they were kept on a short leash. Joining John meant the chance to finally enjoy the earnt honor and privilege they deserved.

As for Ricky, he could tell that John’s insane plan had a chance of success. Seeing how John had constructed a global-scale deception from scratch gave him more confidence in his chances of actually securing his Paragon seat.

Cissel had different thoughts altogether. She didn’t care about the other Paragons, the power struggles, or the internal politics of the factions. All she cared about was evading the impending disaster and the final apocalypse she had seen in her previous regressions.

John looked more like the Saviour she had been hunting for through the loops of time. She looked at him and couldn’t help but wonder how far he could walk down this road, and just how powerful he would become by the end.