That attack had taken more out of him that he was willing to admit, but he knew that he was strong enough to take these things down without the help of his Divinity. As another monster leaped at him, Jonathan rolled backwards, and flipped upwards at the end, grabbing ahold of the creature's foreleg. With a sharp motion, he trapped the leg between his hand and his shoulder, and wrenched it clean off, tearing the monster's leg off in a welter of gore. The monster screamed in pain, and withdrew, leaving its brethren to attack. Jonathan squared up and smiled. This would most certainly lead to some gains in his Pathway skills.
He seized ahold of his meditative battle state, and began to drop into the effects of his Warrior's Trance ability. His fists moved in unison with his body as a whole, and he started to dance around the monsters, completely oblivious to anything except from himself, and them.
Jonathan laid eyes on his first target a moment later, a larger troglodyte that looked to be some sort of leader type. It was standing at the back of the group and pulsing strange bursts of magic from its hands that seemed to enhance certain troglodytes as they came out.
Jonathan bunched his muscles and leaped over the densely packed monsters, landing in front of his target. His eyes were glassy at this point, and if he were more lucid, he would have laughed at the expression on the troglodyte’s face when it saw his gaze. He was completely devoid of emotion now, only a killing machine reaping its due.
Jonathan battered the monster into bloody submission over the next few seconds, tearing into its flesh. It was clearly not designed for fighting, and it fell quickly before his fists. With that done, Jonathan was now free to destroy the rest of the troglodytes utterly. Jonathan turned around, only to be bowled over by a rabid monster, who was howling in anger at Jonathan. Jonathan knew that he had probably killed some relative of the creature, but he didn't care. He was here to beat the dungeon, not engage in maudlin moral debate.
Jonathan planted his fist into the creature’s abdomen, tossing it at another monster that was rapidly approaching him. The other monsters were a bit further behind, but they would soon be upon him at this rate. Jonathan began to sink deeper into his trance, and he launched himself forwards, delving into a bloody dream of gore and pain.
Some time later, he emerged from his fever dream of carnage, and found himself almost completely spent. The ground was strewn with entrails and blood, some of it his own. His entire body was torn and battered, but he had somehow survived against all odds, and was now the victor. His method had worked, and he quickly felt the blessed level up notification chime within himself. Jonathan ignored the actual popup itself, instead sighing as the healing energy coursed through himself. He was as good as new in a moment, and he only had the caked blood on his body as a legacy of his struggle.
Jonathan almost collapsed as the adrenaline that he had been deprived of with his meditative skill came crashing down into him, However, he had better control over his bodily functions after his thresholds, and he quickly banished the uncomfortable feeling. He was not a slave to the whims of his own body. No, he was its master.
Stolen story; please report.
Jonathan left the monsters behind him, and started towards the village, readying himself for more slaughter. The monsters at the village would be stronger than these ones, but he would figure that out when he got there. If everything went to hell, then he always had his huge stockpile of free points to rely on.
Jonathan tramped through the bushes, not caring about drawing the attention of the monsters again. He knew that he would never be able to draw all of them in with a simple noise, and the few that might come would be easy to deal with. Jonathan reached the outskirts of the village less than a minute later, moving at about a tenth of his top speed, and looked towards the center, where the majority of the monsters waited. There were a bit over fifty left, which was too much, even for Jonathan. He would have to lure them in for this to work.
Jonathan held out his left hand, and pumped as much of his Divinity into it as he could, supercharging the rune there. As the rune lit up, about a third of the monsters snapped their gazes over towards Jonathan, their eyes rabid. Jonathan smiled, and darted towards the left, trying to separate the pack somewhat. Because they were tracking the rune, and not tracking him by sight, he was able to break up the group around a few of the mossy huts in the village, splitting them into two groups. Judging by the difference in sound, one of them was significantly larger than the other.
Taking a risk, Jonathan threw his gauntlet about twenty feet away, towards the direction that the larger group was coming. With this done, the smaller group would head for the gauntlet on a course that passed straight through him. Meanwhile, the larger group would go straight for the discarded weapon.
This worked out perfectly a minute later as the smaller group of monsters tramped through the moss, straight into Jonathan’s fist. He brained one of them with his charged up gauntlet, and sent its corpse flying into its brethren. The other troglodytes roared in rage and leaped at Jonathan, knocking him backwards. He rolled away from the impact a moment later and drove his heel into the nearest troglodyte, snapping its front leg. It hissed at him and slashed out with its claws, scoring a hit on his armor. The chainmail bent slightly, and there were noticeable grooves left within it. A bruise formed on his leg as he stepped backwards, and he sighed.
Stepping forwards a moment later, Jonathan sidestepped a strike and uppercutted a monster, knocking it into the air. With a thunderous elbow strike, he eviscerated the monster, using his mana like a blade. The bloody corpse dropped to the ground in front of a charging troglodyte, fouling its aim. Jonathan laughed out loud as he heard the other group appear behind him, targeting the gauntlet by mistake.
He looked around and saw the group of some fifteen odd beasts cluttered around the gauntlet, confused. He leaped backwards, and snatched the gauntlet up off the ground just as the newcomers noticed him. The monsters snapped at him, but he narrowly avoided their attacks, vaulting over them in his efforts to escape. The two groups crashed into each other underneath him, and Jonathan came down like a thunderbolt, lashing out with his fists as he did so. Now with both of his gauntlets back on, his fighting prowess had improved by quite a bit, and he killed monsters left and right as he fought, aided by his sudden ambush and their confusion.