Athanasia: My Hacker System

John watched the three ladies laugh at what he did, but he said nothing.

Instead, he acted.

Once the tornado rose high in the air, John opened his inventory and took out a mobile fortress.

Seeing the metallic behemoth appearing on wheels, with lots of walls and towers, giant and towering, instantly silenced the three ladies.

"Now, let's start."

John didn't stop there, he took out the yellow grenades, filled the ground around the ladies with throwing them. Then he opened the gates of hell and all fires rained down over the ladies.

BOOM!

The moment the explosions fell, huge bellows of dust appeared. The mobile fortress moved towards the three ladies, and all the cannons and towers onboard kept raining fire nonstop. Yet John didn't follow alongside it.

Instead, he took a few steps behind and waited.

"Dammit! That really hurts!"

Suddenly, a scream came from the depths of the dust cloud. Then three flashes came out from within, attacked the mobile fortress and boarded the walls and towers.

"I take back my words," another lady growled, "let's kill those bastards with everything we got."

"That damned Mark! How come he didn't warn us of such sorcery?"

The three ladies were shocked and quite terrified. The mobile fortress, the giant walls, the huge towers, all were things they had never seen before.

And to make things worse, their attacks were strong enough to make the three feel threatened.

The initial attack left deep wounds on each of the ladies, but then they each activated one defensive treasure, sustaining what came next. Or else, their current miserable state would have changed and become way worse.

Yet before they could attack the towers and cannons, John attacked first.

He didn't tag along and kept himself behind, as he felt these ladies weren't strong thanks to their abilities or special codes. They used lots of special weapons and gadgets, war items that would make all the difference in any situation.

That was why he stayed back, waited till they finally revealed themselves and attacked. When they appeared, he lunged forward, activating his Lock Speed ability, before overlaying lots of abilities on top of each other.

'Object Lockdown… Code Destruction… Logic Bomb… Latency Injection… Lightning Dance…'

John used almost everything in his arsenal in succession, without pause. He kept hammering the ladies with one ability after another, not even caring about any Mental Points consumption or cost. He held a sword in one hand, a piece of metal scrap in another, and kept attacking relentlessly.

Ben was watching a very bizarre scene. From one point, the mobile fortress was something that scared even him. From another, what the three ladies did was something that truly puzzled him.

"Why are they attacking an empty spot and not that metallic, scary behemoth?!!"

In his eyes, he saw the three ladies jump off the bellow of dust, and lunged forward, to end up landing in an open area. They totally missed the mobile fortress by almost fifty metres. And what made Ben totally shocked was that the metallic behemoth was something that a blind person couldn't miss.

Yet what happened next made his understanding of John totally change. All of a sudden, the three ladies stopped attacking the ground, turned to each other, and started madly fighting among themselves.

Each lady took weapons, hidden weapons, and even grenades. They all came at each other's throats as if they had a blood feud between each other.

This sudden change was abrupt and without any reason for Ben. Yet he couldn't help but turn to see John, who kept running in circles around the three ladies, attacking them with lots of sword shadows, while lots of attacks landed on the three ladies out of thin air.

Different forms of explosions, holes appearing in their bodies, suddenly freezing their limbs, and forcing them to stumble on the ground. Everything was quite insane for the youngster, and he couldn't find any explanation but one; it was all John's doing.

"He… He is a monster…"

Seeing such scary three enemies being toyed with by John made Ben finally realise how strong and deadly John was. He couldn't help but turn towards Elena, whom he took outside and gave the healing potions John delivered. And as if she noticed his gaze, with half-opened eyes and panting breaths, she showed a calm smile over her ashen white face.

"He is doing circles with them, right?"

Ben couldn't believe it, but right now it felt like Elena knew exactly what was going on inside. And that made him recall how calm and collected Elena was even when faced with these three deadly enemies.

"She knew John was this strong…"

"But how come a student, younger than me, with a couple of years he was absent from the academy, grew to such an extent and be this scarily strong?"

John didn't know what Ben was thinking about, as he was totally focused on killing the three ladies.

When he started his attack, he didn't use any of the deadly abilities first. Instead, he used the Sandbox ability, making an illusion typical of the mobile fortress he took out.

That made the ladies attack an empty area, turning them into silly sitting ducks waiting for slaughter.

Then he landed a barrage of abilities, and finally let the mobile fortress open fire without any pause.

The ladies might be strong, but against such a barrage of attacks, and after they fought among themselves for one whole minute, with everything they had, the situation changed to John's side.

They suffered deep wounds, and then the final wave of attacks came from the mobile fortress to kill the three of them.

John didn't even spare them a second glance. Once the three fell and died, he instantly ran towards one direction: Elena.

"Open path for me," he didn't need to shout, as Ben realised what he was after, and opened a hole for him to pass through.

"What about them?"

Ben asked, while fearing the three ladies might be feigning death to trick them.

"Just attack them a few times," John shrugged, as he was sure the three were dead. Even if they were using a trick to feign their deaths, he left the mobile fortress behind to handle the situation, just in case.

Yet the most important priority right now was in saving Elena. After all, she was poisoned long enough to hover over the border of death.