Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 246: A New Group Approaches... What’s Going On?!!!

"Your theory is the useless one!"

Ricky snapped back, glaring at Luke. The two stood chest-to-chest for a fleeting second, defying eyes locked in a silent contest of wills.

"Hey, stop bickering at each other and stay vigilant," John said calmly. He didn’t even turn his head to look at them; his focus remained outward, scanning the eerily silent horizon. "We are in a hostile area, regardless of how clear the area looks. We don’t know what is waiting for us deep in the southern bank."

"Then..." Cissel paused, her hand hovering near her waist as she looked around at the open terrain. "Why don’t we start building outposts now? In case things go south, we can retreat to a fortified position and strategise there. We shouldn’t cross the river without an anchor."

"Good point," John nodded in agreement. Cissel’s caution aligned perfectly with his own growing unease.

"We are currently on the opposite bank of the river from where the humans are clustered. I’ll fill this area with our outposts, then we’ll cross over. Luke, Elena, you two go and search for an underwater bridge. There must be at least one nearby that we can use."

Fearing that Luke and Ricky would simply start another round of arguing if left together, and since his map didn’t explicitly highlight the submerged pathways, John decided to split the team. Sending the two most restless members to two different directions would keep them occupied while he performed the heavy lifting of fortification.

As he didn’t know what was waiting for them on the other side, John decided not to hold back. He reached into his inventory and pulled out the upgraded versions of the walls and towers he had harvested from the Hiveminds base.

He began layering them into massive, interconnected outposts. He was careful to leave regular distances between the structures, accounting for the vastly enhanced range and the deadly, overlapping splash effects of the advanced towers.

Once the walls were set, he placed the super cannons, the massive generators, and the energy cells. It was a complete, top-tier fortification, a piece of the Northern human tradition brought to the South.

The process took John roughly five hours of intense, focused work. During that entire time, Ricky and Cissel stood guard, their eyes scanning the plains for any sign of an incoming enemy. Yet, the silence remained unbroken. Not a single shadow, beast, or human appeared until Luke and Elena returned from their scout.

"We found one," Luke said, pointing toward a bend in the river about one hundred kilometres away. "It’s roughly a thirty-minute run from here. The water is shallow enough, and the stone pillars are just an inch below the surface."

"Let’s go," John commanded. He led the group toward the crossing point.

Once they reached the southern bank, the atmosphere seemed to shift again. The air felt heavier, almost stagnant. John led them directly toward the known coordinates of the human group. The closer they got, the more restless he became. His internal alarm bells weren’t just ringing; they were screaming.

He kept his eyes fixated on the map, watching for the slightest deviation in the humans’ attitude. The three hundred humans were situated far to the west on this bank, huddled closer to the receding fog line than the river itself.

John knew he could reach them in one hour at a full sprint, but he chose to play it safe. He elongated the travel time to four hours, stopping every dozen kilometres to lay down more fortifications and outposts. He was creating a corridor of kill zones, ensuring that they always had a line of retreat back safely to the river.

"Stop!"

Just as they were less than an hour’s distance from the human cluster, John suddenly shouted and came to a dead halt. The group mirrored his movement instantly, weapons drawn and eyes vigilantly scanning the perimeter.

"What happened?" Elena asked, her voice a tense whisper. "Did something change? Did they finally move?"

"Well..." John kept checking his map, double-checking what he was seeing there multiple times to ensure he wasn’t hallucinating. "Another group just appeared from the fog. They’re large... Around one thousand strong."

"Humans?! Or something else?!" Cissel asked. Everyone’s attention was now fully fixated on John’s face, searching for a clue.

"Humans," John slowly said, his eyes narrowing to slits. "And they look as if they were waiting for us to get closer. Their time of appearing... It seems like they timed it to arrive at the three hundred group minutes before we do. This isn’t right... Something is definitely not right!"

The more he analysed the movement, the more restless he became. John zoomed in on the new group. Physically, they looked like ordinary survivors, ragged, tired, and armed with basic gear they brought with them from Athansia. Still, their timing was too perfect.

The way they marched in a steady pace towards the original three hundred made John’s skin crawl. And something told him if they started to accelerate and run, they would also do the same.

"How about the humans back at the main southern territory?" Ricky suddenly asked, his voice sharp with a new realisation. "Is there anything new about them? Are they mobilising too?"

"Nothing," John replied. He had already checked the main human camp the moment the thousand appeared. He hadn’t bothered to count the humans in the main southern territory before, and now he felt a pang of regret.

He had never considered the humans down there to be a threat. To him, they were just weak, scattered remnants. He had expected them to be a headache when it came time to negotiate or take them over, but he never saw this kind of trouble coming.

"Either way," John said, his hand clenching the hilt of his sword until his knuckles turned white. He looked at his friends, his eyes flashing with a fierce light. "From this moment on, we deal with them as if they are our enemies. Expect a fierce battle ahead."