Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 137: Arguing About the Defensive Towers

John looked at the others, his expression serious. "These towers are the only things that can reliably thin out their deadliest asset: the flying insects. We don’t just want to keep them out; we want to make sure that once they decide to enter, nothing gets back out."

"We have more than enough resources to execute that kind of entire wall defence! As you said, the towers are our only chance to stand against the mechanical insects. Thinning them by distributing them inside is a big mistake in my opinion. Once we deployed them, it’d be impossible to relocate or adapt to any changes!"

Lanmar said, his tone defensive. He was the one who had originally encouraged Cissel to follow a more standard perimeter-based deployment, and seeing John tear the idea down stung his pride.

"I know that sounds true, but..." John nodded slowly, then shook his head as he looked at the Bulltor and sighed.

"And I know why you advised her to do it this way. I’ve heard what your people once said when I activated the defensive tower, Lanmar. I know it requires ten of your strongest people just to activate a single one of these towers.

That means in a real, hectic, and fast-shifting battle, you don’t have the luxury of mobility. You can’t simply deploy and redeploy them on a whim. Once they are rooted into the ground, you’re forced to stick to that position no matter how the tide of battle turns."

Lanmar’s jaw tightened. He felt a prickle of irritation, sensing a hint of condescension in John’s analysis. "Well... It isn’t just a limitation of my race. These towers aren’t toys, John!

They are massive feats of engineering, ones that even the brilliant minds of all races couldn’t crack or imitate. They require a staggering amount of Mana to bridge the gap between their dormant state and their active form. No single person is meant to power them."

"That doesn’t apply to us," John calmly said, raising his head. His voice was calm, but it carried a weight that silenced everyone. He looked at Lanmar, then swept his gaze across his friends. "More specifically, it doesn’t apply to me. I can easily and solely activate a tower, deactivate it, move it, and reactivate it anywhere I choose, anytime I want."

The silence that followed was heavy with realisation. Everyone present suddenly recalled the first time they had seen John activate the defensive tower. To them, the towers were massive, immovable structures.

To John, they were palm-sized, pyramid-shaped items that grew and expanded into lethal fortifications with nothing more than a magical touch of his. They had seen him shrink it back down just as easily, storing it away as if it were a common pebble.

Cissel let out a long sigh, her frustration melting into a new kind of focus. She realised her mistake; she had accounted for the terrain, the resources they had, and the enemy tactics, but she had failed to integrate the most volatile variable of all: John himself.

"So..." she said, her voice regaining its steady, practical edge. "Tell me exactly what you have in mind. Give me your vision, and I’ll make the blueprints work."

John moved his hand over the papers spread across the grass, smoothing out a section of the map.

"I want you to build this base with a specific philosophy. It’s not just meant to be a slaughterhouse for the hivemind; it’s meant to be a starting point for all of us, a starting point for something bigger. It also needs to keep you safe and hold the line long enough for me to do my job."

"Dammit, John, not again!" Cissel’s voice rose to a bellow the moment the implication of his words hit her. "You are not doing this! You are not going out there to fight solo, not even with all this!"

She gestured wildly toward the massive piles of loot—the weapons, the generators, and the walls—that stretched out along the riverbank. "We have an army’s worth of equipment now! Why are you still trying to be a lone wolf?"

"Even with all of this, it isn’t enough to win this pocket war through attrition or confining ourselves inside big walls," John countered. He met her gaze with a calmer demeanour, his expression softening just enough to acknowledge her worry, but his resolve remained unshaken.

"I told you once before, Cissel. There is nothing in this world that can kill me. Still, it’s not enough to win this by being still and not acting proactively."

"Still... The risk of acting alone is—"

"Let’s hear him out first," Elena interrupted, placing a steadying hand on Cissel’s shoulder. Her eyes were glued to John, searching for the logic behind the madness. The rest of the group—Luke, Ricky, and the Bulltors—remained deathly still, waiting for him to continue.

"I’ve said it before: we are going to beat those bastards at the game they are best at," John said, standing up. He looked each of them in the eye. "Lanmar, from what you’ve told me, the hivemind fears the defensive towers more than almost anything else in our arsenal, right?"

Lanmar was startled to be pulled back into the centre of John’s crazy plan, but he couldn’t deny the facts. "That’s... True. Their aerial swarms are glass targets; they can’t survive the relentless, deadly attacks of the towers even with their flying speed.

And their ground beasts—even the massive ones, the dinosaur-types—lack the power to bring a tower down in a head-on clash once it’s fully powered and properly fortified. The towers are their natural hard-counter..."

"Exactly," Luke interrupted, nodding. They had all heard these tactical breakdowns enough over the last forty-eight hours to memorise them by heart now. "But a tower is only as good as the ground it stands on. Unlike what Lanmar says, we lack the numbers to properly defend the towers..."

"Which is why I’m going to do the one thing they won’t expect," John’s eyes flashed with a dangerous light, interrupting Luke’s worried words.