Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 134: The Dragon Race’s Rule!

"I know more about those bastards than you think!"

Lanmar’s air changed the moment John asked him about the mechanical hivemind of beasts and insects. The giant’s earlier submission was momentarily replaced by a shudder of genuine dread.

"Those folks... They are relentless and ruthless! Imagine a swarm of deadly beasts and insects, covering the sky and land, even coming from the river waters you drink! Those folks... They are maniacs! And what adds more to their ferocity is the fact that they are all connected by a superior mind!"

"A program, perhaps?" John tried to come up with something he could relate to, his mind naturally drifting toward his own expertise. "Like an AI program controlling them? Directing their movements?"

"That’s far less than what those folks are," Lanmar said, shaking his head dismissively. "For a program to run like that inside your world’s machines, it needs power to operate upon. It needs a battery, a generator, or a grid. But those crazy folks? They gain power from eating the flesh and bones of their prey!"

Seeing how John was struggling to imagine the biological-mechanical synthesis, Lanmar sighed, attempting to use a comparison John would understand. "In the case of your machines, they needed sun rays to operate, right?

I heard they carry some flashy wide plates with shiny surfaces and point these at the direction of the star shining in the new world. But at night, they are vulnerable. In times when the sky is dimmed and covered by thick clouds, they are vulnerable!

In times when there is an eclipse, they are vulnerable! And in the case of our ongoing trials here, where there is no sun shining at all, they are in a deadly environment for them, right?"

John couldn’t refute any of that, so he slowly nodded. This was how the D-1000s and other machines on Earth were generally built. Without power, primarily harvested through solar arrays or massive thermal plants, they were as dead as puppets with their strings cut. It was their greatest limitation.

"Yet those bastards... They don’t need any of that! They perfected the hybrid of living races like us and machines of yours! They built their population from metallic beasts and insects. But they don’t need power from the sun to run.

They feast on the flesh of the fallen, turning these into pure energy that runs through their metallic bodies! They are the type of crazy folks who will grow stronger the more dire the situation is, the more the war progresses..."

John started to develop a terrifying mental image of this race. They weren’t just machines; they were metallic ghouls, fueling their mechanical systems with caloric energy rendered from organic matter. He stayed silent, letting Lanmar continue to flesh out the nightmare.

"There is a reason why they are currently the second top race in the apocalypse! See, at first, they don’t move much. They confine themselves to their territory. Mostly, they harvest the Fog Seekers and surround their territory with fortifications to turn it into an impregnable fortress.

Then, when everyone else fights and only one race remains, they start to move... They don’t aim to attack that race directly at first. Instead, they spread all over the trial pocket, gather the fallen bodies from different races in various battlefields, and then they make their final move to crush their opponent while having enough bodies to fuel an ongoing onslaught that ends with their victory!"

"If so, then why don’t you scatter groups around to stop these dead-body collectors?" John paused, his mind seeking a countermeasure. "Or better, why don’t you burn the bodies of the fallen?" 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

"Do you think after crushing two other races, the remaining race will have a better stand in terms of numbers and overall strength against the fresh forces of theirs?" Lanmar shook his head.

"Do you think we have time to burn the bodies of the dead? In the middle of an ongoing war, doing this means you’ll draw attention to your location, and even worse, you’ll cause fire and deadly smoke that can even affect your own forces. No, others tried everything, but only one method succeeded..."

Lanmar’s eyes shone in a fierce, desperate light as he added, "You target them since the start of the trial, before they’d even have time to harvest the Fog Seekers, before they’ve fortified their territory.

The method originated from the Dragon race, and other races followed it... It became like a universal rule: the moment we spot them in any trial pocket, we all move together to attack them head-on. We ignore each other for a moment just to wipe that blight off the map."

"Then..." John paused, thinking more about what Lanmar just said. A cold realisation began to sink in. "Did you start doing this? Is that why you were moving your battalion north?"

"Sure," Lanmar nodded, "Luckily for us, we ended up with two fallen races—one weak, or supposedly so, and the other has no interest in fighting. Yet it’s also a drawback..."

Lanmar sighed, his mind flickering back to the brutal efficiency with which John had dismantled his group. He was still reconciling the pathetic human stories with the cold-eyed, scary human standing before him.

"We are the only race in the pocket trial who can stand against them. So at the end of the day, it’s ten thousand against ten thousand, while we drew the short end of the stick by fighting against a race that can keep fighting relentlessly by feasting on our fallen..."

Lanmar didn’t need to add any more. The picture was clear: a war of attrition where the enemy had the upper hand.

"Don’t worry," John said suddenly, his voice devoid of doubt. "We’ll play a role in this pocket trial. In fact, this pocket trial will fall under my control in the end."

"Hahaha!"

As if he had just heard the funniest joke in the multiverse, Lanmar erupted into laughter. The magical contract didn’t bind or limit him this time; the reaction was too genuine to be suppressed. He was truly amused by the audacity of the human standing with only four other companions, claiming he would conquer a world of twenty thousand elite warriors.

"My apologies," Lanmar said, wiping a tear from his eye once he caught his breath, "but thinking that only five of you dream to take over twenty thousand and win is just funny! You have a few stolen towers and a handful of slaves. The Hivemind has a literal sea of steel and teeth. And my people aren’t weak!"

"I know," John replied, completely unfazed by Lanmar’s mockery. He had been underestimated by better men—and better Mark—than this giant.

"But I’ll let you watch and see. For now, can you tell me what the most well-known strategies these folks adopt in fighting? Do they use formations, or is it just a mindless swarm?"

Lanmar stopped laughing and gave John a long, searching glance. There was something in the human’s calm that started to feel more like a threat than a delusion.

"May I ask something?" he paused until John nodded, then continued. "Why are you so fixated on them? You have me, a commander of the Bulltors, right here. Yet you haven’t asked a single question about my people’s formations or weaknesses. Do you perhaps worry I will grow a sense of guilt by betraying my own kind?"