Athanasia: My Hacker System

"Dammit, John! You are out of your goddamn mind!! Yet luck is on our side, hahaha!"

Ricky’s frantic laughter cut through the chaos of the battlefield. The past half-hour had been a high level of madness. The moment the Demons had surged forward to engage the draconic illusions

John had woven into the ground, and the sky, and the landscape had descended into a literal hellscape. By weaving his Remote Access Trojan through the lower ranks, John had turned brother against brother.

The first strike was the most shocking. A wingless Demon warrior had suddenly spun around, burying his axe into the spine of the comrade he had been joking with seconds ago.

The Demons halted, their red eyes widening in absolute confusion as dozens of their own kind began a brutal massacre within their own ranks without any warning or reason.

Even as the commanders roared for order, reason was a luxury they could no longer afford. When a blade is descending toward your neck, you don’t stop to ask why; you strike back. Intense, bloody internal clashes erupted across the plains, halting their advance towards the western Dragons.

John watched with cold fascination, his Wireframe Sight analysing their combat patterns. He noticed their skin glowing with a faint, pulsing redness as they activated their racial abilities and attacks, augmenting their physical strength to higher levels.

Eventually, the notification pings in John’s mind slowed till they stopped. The Demons were activating their abilities, increasing their strength attributes enough to overcome his. A resistance started to form in the middle of the chaos, causing his control ability to fail more frequently till it stopped working.

Seeing the window closing, John stopped the attempt to subvert more puppets. He turned toward a stupefied Ricky, then cast a swift glance at the silver ships in the sky. The fleet was repositioning, its massive broadsides tilting toward the colossal dragon illusions.

An evil smirk spread across John’s face. "It’s time for us to move."

The Demons had been outplayed, but the setup was only half the battle. John’s first target was the demon he had forced to stay behind as a watchman.

Before the creature could shake off the lingering fog of the Trojan ability, John moved with a burst of speed, his sword drawing a shallow, stinging cut across the demon’s shoulder. While the Demon roared, John pulled a golden scroll from his inventory, soaking it in the fresh demonic blood.

The scroll vanished into a shimmer of particles, and the Demon’s eyes suddenly glazed over with a new, permanent light of obedience.

"Go back and wait for me at the base of the hill," John commanded without looking back. He surged forward, heading straight into the heart of the fratricidal Demon army.

John excelled in chaos. Before any of the Demon leaders could stabilise their troops, John wove through the ranks like a shadow. He didn’t use his sword for every kill; instead, he planted Logic Bombs within lots of Demons around.

He was a whirlwind of destruction, reaching into his inventory to pull out stacks of scrap metal, sucking them dry of Mental Points to fuel the insane consumption of his ability.

Yet, even as he carved a path of confusion on the ground, the real nightmare remained above. The silver ships had begun to adjust their massive hulls, their cannons glowing with dangerous lights, as they prepared to erase the Dragon illusions.

John knew the moment they realised the Dragons were harmless, curtains of light, the fleet’s full fury would descend on him and the hill.

The first strike in the sky didn’t come from the Demons, but from John’s previously laid network of aerial sensors and traps. The moment the ships banked to adjust their firing angles, they blundered directly into the sensory grid of aerial traps he had scattered before descending the hill.

Fierce, sequence-timed explosions ripped through the air. The traps, though demoted in size and deadliness, were too many to cause fierce explosions and enough to cause damage to the ships.

In mere seconds, more than three silver ships were rocked by detonations. Ten vessels began to list heavily, thick plumes of dark smoke billowing from their ruptured hulls.

That was the signal.

From the summit of the hundred-meter towers on the hill, Cissel and Elena moved. They were too far to hear what John and Ricky were saying to the alien scary race members down below. But the sudden eruption of explosions in the sky told them everything they needed to know.

The two girls launched themselves from the towers. Their enhanced speed attribute allowed them to cross the gap between the fortifications and the low-hanging ships in a single, gravity-defying leap.

Like shadows against the aurora, they landed on the decks of the outermost vessels. They didn’t engage in prolonged swordplay; instead, they began raining down the high-grade purple grenades John had provided.

The two girls took the time John and Ricky bought to discuss the best tactic to fight against these grandiose ships. Seeing thousands of Demons descend using ropes told them everything they wanted to know; these ships were filled to the brim with many more of them.

Trying to fight them using their weapons and abilities was suicidal, as it wouldn’t leave any ripple across the expected fierce fight. So the two settled on using the most ferocious force of nature they knew; the Wrathers cores purple grenades.

If the world demoted the weapons they had, it touched nothing out of the deadliness of these cores. Plus, the explosions they caused were severe enough, lasted long enough, to cause damage to such metallic hulls of the floating fleet.

Massive purple pillars of fire erupted from the silver decks, engulfing the ships in an unstoppable blaze that melted metal and charred sails.

Down on the plains, John and Ricky saw the purple fire pillars and knew their window was slamming shut. They fought with a desperate, mad ferocity, cutting through the demons who were still trapped in the logic of their own internal war.

"Attack those two humans!"

The roar came from one of the winged demon leaders. He had finally managed to hover above the fray long enough to see the two figures moving with purpose through the chaos. He pointed a clawed hand towards John and Ricky, putting a mark on their backs.

"They are the source of all this trouble! They are the ones twisting our minds and burning our ships! Forget the Dragons! We’ll fight them whenever they come closer. Kill the humans first."

The order acted like a surge of electricity, grounding the internal chaos and redirecting the Demons’ bloodlust toward a singular, vulnerable point.