Athanasia: My Hacker System

"Kill him!"

John leant over Cissel, who kept twitching and screaming, with a contorted face out of immense pain. He could tell this was something left over from the precious scheme from Mark. And yet, he wouldn't ever succumb to Mark's wishes.

At this desperate moment, John's decision was decisive. He took a deep look at Cissel, noticing no black or differently coloured codes in her body, the same as he had never spotted anything abnormal before.

He could tell that whatever Mark did, it was something so complicated and deep, something he had never met or seen before.

And it would take time to handle it. Yet the good news was in something Mark said. It seemed whatever he triggered, Cissel wasn't in grave danger right away.

She was in immense pain without doubt, but her life wasn't in danger, at least for hours, if not for a day or more. After all, Mark linked her death to the failure of the attack on the academy, which meant he couldn't kill her right away.

That gave John more determination. He instantly turned around, coldly glared at Mark and the other cyborgs around, and issued the kill order.

He didn't stand idle; he went up and vented all the frustration inside over Mark and his cyborgs. The fight didn't last for a few minutes, and Mark didn't even give much resistance. If any, he kept laughing in amusement, jumping from one cyborg to another, teasing and insulting John.

And John didn't bother.

"Cissel, hang on with us," once the fight ended, and Elena threw herself at her friend, holding her in her arms, and her eyes flooded with tears.

"John… Do something… Please…"

Elena feared that John wouldn't care about Cissel anymore after what the latter had done in the past few days. She was ready to give a long list of excuses, yet with one hand raised to stop her, she didn't say anything.

"I will find a way to save her," John slowly walked to Cissel's side, turned to Elena and Ben, "as for you, go and kill any enemy around. Don't let anyone disturb me, no matter what."

The tone, the words, the look in his eyes… All pointed towards one thing: John was determined to save Cissel.

Seeing this made Elena stop crying, wipe her tears, and the look on her face changed. She didn't look desperate; instead, she looked thirsty for blood.

"Let's go," she turned to Ben, while walking in firm steps, "let's move together, circle the entire dome, and kill any filthy rat we meet."

Ben couldn't decide what to do. He was one of the newest members joining the team. He knew Cissel when she turned hostile and aggressive towards John. Yet he was still feeling sorry for how she ended up.

Her screams were heart-curdling, making anyone feel like knives were brutally cutting through their hearts. And yet, with a firm nod from John, Ben decided to entrust things over to him.

"Call us if things went south or enemies appeared," Ben said this last comment, while running after Elena.

"If that happened," John moved his eyes off Cissel's twitching face and convulsing body towards the world around, "I'll handle everything on my own. After all, I need a huge army to kill to feel a little better right now."

John then turned his full attention towards Cissel. He scanned her body again, moving his eyes slowly around her code structure. The first thing he noticed was abnormal, and the only thing was the green codes shining slightly brighter than usual.

It felt like her green codes were receiving lots of energy and were emitting it. That explained why she felt such pain, and why she was feverish at the moment.

John still didn't get what caused this, or how it happened.

"It seems this is the core problem," he frowned after scanning her body structure for the fifth time without any new findings, "but what can probably cause this?"

John instantly thought of help from the system. Previously, the system kept its silence for a long time, but now wasn't the time for that.

'Take whatever Mental Points you want, but let me know what I shall do, and what caused this to happen.'

His determination finally got a response.

-

[Ding! To answer your question, you'll need more system synchronisation!]

-

"I don't have time for such crap!"

John shouted in rage.

'I need answers!'

'I need a solution.'

'I need them now!'

John waited for a few moments, feeling like eternity. Yet eventually, the system responded.

-

[Ding! Luckily, the remaining synchronisation level needed will be covered by the ongoing quest!]

[Ding! Let me give you an exception this time!]

[Ding! I'll give you a hint, won't provide a detailed answer!]

[Ding! As for the answer, you'll find it yourself soon enough!]

[Ding! After all, the solution you'll have now won't be permanent, and you'll need to do something else, somewhere far from here, at some time in the future!]

-

John felt like the system was speaking in riddles, yet he didn't care.

'Do it!'

He firmly answered the system. And when the system told him he needed to pay one thousand Mental Points to cover up for this service, he didn't care.

Yet the answer he received was quite shocking to him.

-

[Ding! You recently developed a new ability!]

[Ding! Use the Reality Binding you gained, and you'll save her!]

-

John couldn't believe what he heard. The Reality Binding ability he gained recently allowed him to deeply synchronise with structures in Athanasia, alter them at will.

Yet whenever he thought about it from a different angle, he didn't find the answer quite as shocking as before.

Even humans in this game world were a compilation of codes. So that also meant he could do the same, synchronise on a deeper level with Cissel's body codes, and try to alter them.

"Yet that means the problem she is suffering from is indeed in her code structure…"

He looked at Cissel's glaring, brighter green codes, feeling a little at a loss.

"But how come Mark did it?"

"Is it even possible?"

He didn't know the answer, but he knew he had finally found a way to reverse whatever Mark did to Cissel.