Athanasia: My Hacker System

John knew he was taking a risk by doing that. And yet he had no other option but to sleep.

He couldn't even raise an arm to fight or focus enough to use any ability properly. Going on to fight the invasion would end in disaster.

So he lay on the ground, closed his eyes, while hearing Elena and Ben discuss what to do in case they got attacked.

It went without saying that Mark would come and hit them while John was asleep. Ben suggested using their defensive weapons if things reached this far, but Elena stressed not doing it.

On top of that, they didn't have any chance to do what they agreed upon. The attack came suddenly, and they couldn't even prepare anything related to the Ares God Paragon to frame him with everything they would do.

So they couldn't use these weapons, even if Elena herself knew how easily things would be if they did that.

John drifted into the world of sleep while they didn't settle on what to do, and he was too dead tired to say anything to them. He knew every wasted second was quite precious, and he had to sleep, even for a couple of hours at least, to reset his mental exhaustion.

Just after half an hour of his sleep, Elena and Ben spotted a large group coming in their direction from a far distance.

"Get ready," Elena instantly growled, "we'll do it how we agreed."

"It's quite risky," Ben sighed, "but let's do our best then."

As the two nodded to each other, they instantly acted. Elena instantly took out her two sledgehammers and ran towards the incoming enemies, while Ben ran on her side, ready to use his ability.

The distance closed fast, and soon enough, the two sides collided.

Elena didn't ask questions, instantly turned into a storm of rage and death. Her two sledgehammers slammed fiercely at the enemies, attacking them like bullet rain.

As for Ben, he instantly activated his ability, surrounding everyone with his tornado attack.

The danger he referred to was in Elena's presence in the middle of his attack. This wasn't something he was sure of when fighting such a large number of enemies at the same time. He tried it before against John, yet the latter was already able to sustain any damage if things went wrong, and there wasn't anyone attacking them like now.

Ben knew he had to exert more control over his ability to avoid hurting Elena, even if the latter asked him not to. Elena was prepared to get injured for the team, for the sake of John and Cissel. Yet Ben didn't like it.

The fight started intensely from the start. The two fought against a group of fifty enemies, all of whom were cyborgs, and all were quite strong.

Lots of abilities got activated at once, and Ben instantly felt the pressure. Against his earlier role as the main attacker, he had to play the role of diversion. After all, with the grand display of his ability, he knew the enemies would focus on his tornado instead of Elena.

At the same time, Elena would act as the main attacker, using the distraction caused by Ben's ability to kill and wound as many as she could. She had the advantage of her Speed attribute, making her flash and attack like lightning.

Yet she knew she couldn't do it the same way she had been using for a long time. Her usual fighting style was to shower a single enemy with her sledgehammers, then jump onto another enemy once she was done with him.

Yet this time, she had to keep jumping around, even if her attacks were defended, even if her attacks were deflected, even if her attacks didn't seriously wound the target.

That greatly lowered her efficiency, yet it made up for the lack of numbers in such a disadvantageous battle.

Soon enough, the enemies took note of her and started to target her more than Ben. At this moment, she suddenly retreated, leaving the stage to Ben, who directed everything he got over the enemies.

Such a sudden switch surprised the enemies, yet it wasn't enough to kill them all. Thanks to what Elena did, the enemies were already in disarray, lost part of their defences and were wounded. So when Ben attacked, a few were instantly crushed and killed, and many suffered different wounds.

Ben's tornado shrank on itself to maximise the attack, then it suddenly expanded. This was the sign for the outside standing Elena to step in and attack again.

The second switch took the enemy by surprise as they weren't ready to welcome the fiery Elena. The sledgehammers rained down over their heads, and her attacks became deadlier and far scarier than before.

It wasn't because she changed or because she held back before; it was thanks to the repeated damage the enemies received, their shattered defences, the heavy toll of different wounds they suffered, and the loss of morale.

Thanks to all this, Elena managed to kill more of them before finally retreating and leaving the last kill for Ben to deliver. The battle lasted for five minutes only, but it was quite intense, risky, and yet they won.

"We did it!"

Elena raised her sledgehammers before she felt sudden weakness. She was exhausted in this intense fight, making her wonder how John kept doing it for a long time back at the pocket trial.

She realised now how hard it was for John to keep doing it. Back then, she and others depended on John to handle the frontline most of the time, handling the toughest parts of any fight.

But now, she could tell doing it wasn't easy at all.

"We need to rest," Ben wasn't feeling any better, "I'm sure this was just a probe attack. Whatever comes next will be far deadlier than this attack."

He was partially right. As these weren't normal humans, they were cyborgs. And that meant whatever method they used now wouldn't work as it did in this fight.

Elena grasped this and instantly warned Ben about it. The two were lost in deep thoughts, considering what they should do to stop the next wave.