Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 55: You Are... Pathetic!

The student was utilising a rare synergy of two special abilities: Acoustic Dampening, which allowed him to move without producing a single decibel of sound, and a Stealth ability. It was a combination designed for assassinations—deadly, silent, and invisible.

Least to his knowledge, he was picking a fight with his absolute nemesis! John didn’t need to hear footsteps to localise an opponent, nor did he see the world normally like others. He was watching the code structure of the student’s presence, a thing that even Stealth ability couldn’t do a thing against!

In the green-tinted world of Frame Recognition, the captain was as visible as a white neon sign in a dark alley. John watched, baffled, as the student suddenly slowed down and walked at a normal pace toward him.

’What the heck is he doing?!’ Seeing how the student stopped running and started crawling, confused John! He watched the boy moving slowly to his side, creeping with the confidence of someone who believed they were a ghost. ’Does he think I’m blind, or a retard?’

The sheer audacity—or stupidity—of the move made John decide to go all-in from the very start. He didn’t see the point in holding back. As the student approached his flank, preparing a surprise strike, John moved first.

"H... How?!!"

The student’s face, momentarily flickering back into visibility as John’s fist made contact, was a mask of utter shock. The entire audience was in a state of immense disbelief.

Stealth abilities were globally considered among the toughest to handle. Even Nikolas, who had realised exactly what the third student was attempting, couldn’t help but clench his fists. He knew the defeat was coming.

He wasn’t alone in that thought. Even Cissel and Ricky paused their respective charges when they saw the third student vanish. Ricky had been about to shout a warning to John to watch out, and Cissel had been opening her mouth to tell him to retreat toward them, but both had the words choke in their throats when John suddenly snapped like a loose cannon.

He landed fierce blows, one after another, striking the empty air with surgical precision, while the third student’s silhouette kept flickering on and off invisibility. To the spectators, it looked like John was fighting a phantom and winning.

No one understood how he spotted the invisible threat. The captain was in total disbelief as he saw John turn around and precisely hit his limbs, one by one, without missing a single hit. John was targeting the joints, the points where it’d hurt the most, and render his enemy unable to move or attack.

Then, the pain followed.

"Agh!"

The third student couldn’t maintain his stealth any longer. The feedback from the physical and mental trauma shattered his concentration. It felt like a bulldozer had slammed against his arms and legs.

He fell to the ground, the invisibility flickering out completely, leaving him twitching, cursing, and screaming in agony. The entire arena fell under a suffocating silence. The secret weapon of Year Two had been dismantled in seconds.

"I don’t know what type of silly game you were playing just now, but..." The first to speak was John. He looked down at the writhing captain with a gaze of true disdain, his voice filled with an immense, cold rage. "I can tell you this: you are out of this match!"

Without hesitating, John delivered a brutal kick to the student’s belly. The force sent the student flying off the stage entirely, sailing through the air before falling unceremoniously into the Year Two class spot below.

"And now," as if he had just performed a perfectly normal task, John clapped both hands together, rubbing imaginary dirt off. He turned his head to glare at the other two opponents, who were standing frozen in shock. "It’s time for your class to officially get defeated in this match!"

Before either of the two could even process the sudden shift in atmosphere, John acted first and fast. Even Cissel, with her naturally enhanced reflexes and speed, was taken aback by the gale of wind that passed by her side, throwing her hair wildly into the air.

The speed was so absolute that no one could track his trajectory. Then, all that everyone heard was two heart-curdling screams that echoed through the silent arena.

John finished his short show of power with two perfectly timed kicks. The impact was dull and heavy, sending the remaining two students flying off the stage. They sailed through the air like discarded ragdolls, landing in a spot right next to their fallen captain.

"Why the heck did you take all this time to finish these two losers?"

John turned back towards Cissel and Ricky, his breathing even and his expression neutral. And the two, at this precise moment, felt like they never knew John before! The person standing in front of them wasn’t the Class President they had trained for the entire week with. He was a monster who had just dismantled an elite upperclassman team in mere seconds.

"Year Two... That’s a joke."

John turned his attention next towards the Year Two spot, ignoring the bewilderment shown on his teammates’ faces. He mistook their frozen expressions for simple surprise at how strong and fast he truly was. In his mind, he was still frustrated—he had been holding back much of his power, fearing he might accidentally kill the students and end up with a severe punishment from the academy.

"You dare to forfeit your match and hide whatever shitty ability you have? That was the silliest show I ever seen in my entire life. You are all... Pathetic!"

John threw his last harsh words out like venom. It wasn’t a calculated move to keep the Year Two students fixated on him or a manipulation; he was truly enraged. He had entered this match thinking he’d have a good fight against a worthy opponent, only to end up facing a clown that wasted his time and precious Mental Points.

"It’s..."

With John’s humiliating last words echoing, the referee was jolted back awake to his senses. He looked at the stage and the groaning students on the floor. "It’s Year One’s win! They won this match, and they won the competition!"

The entire arena erupted in a roar that threatened to tear the roof off. Without saying a word, Cissel and Ricky exchanged long, meaningful gazes. They followed him down the stage, their movements cautious, as if approaching a sleeping dragon.

There, they spotted Elena, who was still paralysed by shock. She stood with wide eyes and a gaping mouth, watching John casually walk down the stairs and stand by her side as if he had just finished a morning stroll.

"You bro... You were hiding all this power all this time from us..."

Luke came from a distance, walking with a conflicted look on his face. He was covered with white medical bandages, looking in terrible shape, but the light in his eyes suggested he had watched the fight from start to finish. There was a mix of pride and a strange sort of fear and shame in his voice.

"Hahaha, a real hero never shows his strength until the right moment!"

From a corner, Nikolas’ voice beamed with pure, unadulterated excitement. The teacher looked like he had just won the lottery. He lunged forward and gave John a deep, rib-cracking hug—one that made the latter feel like his bones were this close to getting crushed.

"You were hiding the ability to reveal stealth abilities?! Hahaha! I swear that kid never knew what hit him! To go up against someone like you with a stealth ability... He was doomed from the start!"

"Stealth abilities?!"

John was startled when he heard this word, and soon enough, he learned from the surrounding chatter what had truly happened back there on the stage.

’Damn! It’s all thanks to my Frame Recognition ability!’ Once he realised that the student was actually using two combined and complementary abilities to hit him—not acting foolish or like a clown as he had initially thought—John couldn’t help but suck in a cold breath of air.

He finally spotted the root cause of the misunderstanding. To everyone else, that student had been a terrifying, invisible ghost. To John, he was a bright, glowing neon sign moving in slow motion.

When he recalled the brutal insults he had thrown at the Year Two students out of his own rage and misunderstanding, he couldn’t help but inwardly sigh. He hadn’t been mocking a coward; he had been mocking someone who was actually trying their best, using one of the scariest abilities in the entire world!

’I hope our paths won’t cross again,’ he inwardly muttered, realising he had just made a very powerful, very motivated set of enemies for no reason other than his own cheat code and pure misunderstanding.