"Phew! That was hectic and tiring!"
John stood in the centre of a vast, unnervingly quiet expanse. Where just hours ago a fortress of walls and towers had lood, there was now nothing but open and empty plain.
The area was completely void of anything save for John himself and the flickering of the yellow fire pits he had scattered across the dirt to keep the encroaching cold and the darkness of the nightti at bay.
His work had extended far beyond what he had initially imagined. When he first laid eyes on the Hiveminds’ upgraded base, he thought the takeover process would take a few hours at most. Instead, he had been forced into a gruelling ten-hour marathon of work after night had fallen over the world.
He had eventually sent his friends away to different parts of the territory. They were tasked with thinning the relentless Wrathers herds, activating the mountain of cores they had harvested, and helping the Bulltors’ army stabilise the front lines.
Even from this distance, the muffled roar of continuous combat echoed across the plains. John knew the yellow monsters were still putting up a fierce challenge against his forces, but at this mont, he was simply too exhausted to care. He didn’t have the strength left to put an end to their nace after the ordeal he had just lived through.
John had been forced to fight his way toward every single tower. In the beginning, he had tried a soft approach, leaving the towers standing once he gained ownership, but he quickly learned the hard way how futile and destructive that was.
The first ten towers he gained imdiately identified the adjacent, non-synced towers as hostile threats. They began trading fire at point-blank range, resulting in the catastrophic loss of several high-grade defensive towers and walls.
Since that bitter experience, his thod had beco absolute. The mont he touched a wall and claid it, he stored it away. The mont he transferred the ownership of a tower, he took the entire structure place it directly into his inventory.
That was why he now stood in an empty wasteland. To John, this territory wasn’t ho; there was no base quite like the one he had painstakingly built in the North. He planned to take these superior Hiveminds components back there, strengthening his true stronghold once the entire pocket trial was officially under his thumb.
"I’ll take a nap," he whispered to the wind.
It was inevitable. All the fatigue, the ntal strain, and the stress he had been pushing into the back of his mind for the past few days finally kicked back with a fierce, punishing intensity.
He didn’t have the energy for a grand setup. He pulled a few captured wall segnts from his inventory to form a small, square outpost, didn’t even bother to lay down defensive towers or cannons, and collapsed in the heart of the small zone. Within seconds, he was dead, asleep, and started even to snort.
Perhaps it was the subconscious realisation that the hardest part of the entire trial had finally passed, but John slept for fifteen hours straight.
Outside his shelter, his friends and the Bulltors were well aware of his success in nullifying the danger at the heart of the territory. They saw the fog vanish and the fortress disappear, yet despite the ongoing chaos of the waves, not a single person tried to wake him.
"Leave him alone!" Cissel snapped, standing guard close to the small outpost like a prowling cheetah. She looked ready to tear the throat out of anyone who dared to step within ten ters of the periter. "He has fought long enough! He hasn’t taken a single mont of real rest since the second we arrived in this hellish place! He deserves to sleep."
She turned her fierce gaze on the rest of the group, her voice a low roar that brooked no argunt, even from her three closest friends.
"But you know..." Ricky started, his voice hesitant. He had only survived Cissel’s recurring wrath over the last few days because the scale of the ongoing battles provided a constant distraction.
"He’s the only one who can truly handle the yellow monster dens. We tried to breach the periter of the closest one while he was out, and you saw how miserably we failed. We couldn’t even take down a single den without handling the lightning, and we can’t deal with it at all."
"I’m with her," Luke stepped up, placing a heavy hand on Ricky’s shoulder and sighing. "Even if we have to fight a little harder and push our limits today, it’s worth it. It’s exactly like she said, since we ca here, John hasn’t stopped working or fighting for even a second. Let’s give him the rest he’s earned and actually do our jobs as his friends for once."
"Ok," Ricky sighed, seeing Elena wordlessly move to stand by Cissel and Luke. He knew he had already lost the debate against their unified front. "Let’s return then and fight hard. The yellow monsters are increasing at a scary rate with each wave. Even with all the defences John scattered around, I don’t think the Bulltors alone are enough to stop the tide."
With the decision made, the group fanned out to rejoin the fray. Even in their exhaustion, the competitive spirit remained; they settled on dividing the territory into four distinct quadrants. Each would handle the monsters and the subsequent loot within their own section, strictly agreeing not to trespass on another’s share of the cores.
When John finally opened his eyes fifteen hours later, the first thing he felt was a massive headache, like how he felt during the ntal Burnout State. His head was buzzing, heavy, and pulsating with a headache so severe it felt like a heavy weight pressing against his skull.
It was the price of overpushing himself lately. Yet, paradoxically, his body felt totally refreshed. The bone-deep fatigue and the exhaustion that had plagued his limbs for days had vanished, replaced by a strange vitality.
"It seems I overslept," he muttered, rubbing his face and squeezing his temples to dull the throbbing.
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