Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 269: Fighting Machines Isn’t Like Fighting Monsters

When John had first spotted the machines splitting their ranks to utilise all three crossings, he couldn’t help but inwardly sigh.

He almost missed the mindless monsters of the earlier trials, monsters that followed simple, sound logic and predictable behaviour. These machines were far more annoying, far more cunning.

However, now that the Bulltors were on the field, John finally had the breathing room to outpace the machines’ schemes.

He reached the middle underwater bridge at a full sprint and immediately began laying down a dense cluster of fortifications on both banks. He was effectively choking the passage, turning the narrow bridge into a literal deathtrap for anything attempting to cross.

"They are quite fast this time," John noted, wiping sweat from his forehead. He had just finished anchoring the heavily fortified outposts on both sides and was starting to add a few extras on the southern bank when he noticed the machines were mobilising out from the den through his map.

A combined force of three thousand and six hundred S-1000s and D-1000s was already bearing down on his position. "I’ll handle the machines arriving at the central passage myself, then leave the rest for the Bulltors to manage."

He made a decision right on the spot: he would hold the centre personally while the Bulltors divided to handle the two remaining splinter armies at the northern and southern bridges. By fighting here, he could strengthen this vital path of the river before moving to choke the other two underwater bridges.

Once the machines arrived, John moved like a storm, his attacks tearing through the mechanical ranks. He cleared the central force in less than half an hour, ending the threat before the other two machine detachments had even reached the halfway point of their respective underwater bridges.

"I’ll wait for them to fully cross into the kill zones, then I’ll move to choke those areas," John muttered, his hands never stopping as he laid down more outposts. He checked his map every few seconds, his mind running through how to properly fortify this side and make it impossible for the machines to cross over.

After performing this process of laying outposts an endless number of times, it had become as natural as breathing. While he worked, the distant sounds of heavy combat echoed from the north and south; the Bulltors had engaged.

"As expected," he grinned, seeing the green dots on his map remain steady while the red dots flickered and vanished. Even though the Bulltors had to divide their forces, they were easily dismantling the machine’s two forces with his help.

It took them an hour to clear the fields, not a remarkable speed, but certainly not a bad start for their first time facing S-1000s in a fortified position.

By the time the last machine units were reduced to scrap, and the sixth wave erupted, John had already finished fortifying the northern underwater bridge on both sides.

He opted not to cross back to the southern pathway immediately; instead, he hovered near the flank to observe how the Bulltors would handle a massive aerial threat without his direct intervention.

The sixth wave was a monstrosity of scale: nine thousand six hundred units in total. The flying drones alone accounted for two thousand four hundred units, a silver cloud that seemed to swallow the horizon. Unlike the ground units, these used to move in a direct line towards the central area of his defences.

John began a feverish construction project on the southern riverbank to prepare for the spillover. This time, he followed his intuition, laying out the outposts in a complex zigzag formation, three layers deep.

This stretched the kill zone across a massive area, ensuring that both ground and aerial units would be under constant, overlapping fire regardless of where they tried to break through.

To tie it all together, he linked the outposts with reinforced walls, creating elevated walkways so the Bulltors could move between various outposts with maximum agility, without the need to go down and up the ground.

If not for the grand loot waiting for him from the destroyed waves, or the yet to come loot from the upcoming waves, he wouldn’t have dared to spend what he had this lavishly.

By the time he looped back to the central underwater bridge, the Bulltors had already regrouped. They were standing their ground in the central sector, currently embroiled in a fierce dogfight with the flying drones.

On paper, one thousand five hundred Bulltors facing nearly double their numbers, and fighting an aerial battle where they couldn’t even jump that high, seemed like a recipe for a massacre and defeat.

Yet, in reality, the Bulltors were winning. They had watched John’s aerial dance and executed the tactics with brilliant, brutal mimicry. With the help of the defences and John’s specific instructions on timing, the tide had turned in their favour from the very first clash.

The only issue was the flying drones’ reset logic. Because of the sheer number of flying drones, the Bulltors couldn’t wipe them all out in a single engagement.

They had to endure a frustrating cycle: the drones would dive, take heavy losses, and then what remained would fly to the upper atmosphere to recalibrate and descend again ten minutes later to continue the slaughter.

What was truly remarkable, however, was the Bulltors’ discipline. Even after four consecutive engagements with the drone swarm, they hadn’t lost a single warrior. Not one death, not even a serious wound. And that was quite surprising to all of them. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

John watched the Bulltors closely through the map, noticing how they became more accustomed to the tactics of the flying drones with every new dive from them. It was impressive growth.

In the span of a single wave, they had transitioned from a state of near-paralysis to mastering the rhythm of the engagement. Seeing them leap, strike, and retreat into the outposts with such ease made him feel significantly more comfortable about leaving them to hold the line on their own.