The undead leader grinned at him, its teeth showing, and slammed its palm against the ground, sending a crack racing across the ash towards him. The ground rumbled beneath Jonathan, and he dived out of the way as a rapidly growing canyon extended outwards from the monster's palm. It seemed to reach down into some underground section of the cathedral, as it was far deeper than it should have been, given the creature’s power. Ethereal green smoke began to rise out of the ground, and the undead that it touched began to speed up.
Jonathan narrowly avoided the strikes of a nearby monster, but only barely, as it had become almost as fast as him. This was rapidly becoming dangerous. Jonathan began to draw upon his battle trance and his martial skill in order to weave his way around the many strikes coming his way, and even then, he began to take damage as he moved. A withered fist, a bony foot slamming into his legs, all of the attacks began to mount, and they were starting to do serious damage now. Jonathan did not let his fear overtake him however, and he maintained steely focus on his target. He tried as best he could to mitigate the damage, but he knew that to win, he would need to be willing to take it. In any case, it was nothing new.
Jonathan punched the monsters out of the way as he neared them, and he kept up the pace, moving quite quickly for someone who was fighting their way through a horde of super powered undead. He focused on his own prowess, trying to maximize the impact of every one of his strikes, aided by his new skill. What it did was allow him to pinpoint the exact spot where he would be able to feasibly land a strike with the most impact, but it required a lot of focus on his point, and seemed to be designed to mesh with his battle state. However, it still was not enough to do much. He was going to die at this rate if he did not improve his pace, and even the addition of his skill was too little to do much. If he used Smite now, he would run out before he was able to do any lasting damage to the leader of the undead, which meant that he was adrift here. Even if he broke the bank in terms of free stat points, the difference still might not be enough.
As a fist almost dislocated his jaw, coming in from a blind spot, and moving quickly enough to evade his superior senses, Jonathan’s mind embarked upon a sudden path that seemed to be driven as much by instinct as anything else. Tendrils of his Void tainted Divinity snaked up into his brain, reaching towards the runes that made up his skill. His Impact skill was made up of a concentrated tapestry of various runes, but near the center, there was one that he recognized. The Rune of Hatred. It seemed to be integral to the targeting part of his skill, meshing in with the desire to harm his opponent in the most effective way possible. His Divinity lanced into the rune, and empowered it beyond its normal limits, briefly supercharging the skill. For a moment, it was like he was some god of perception, with every vulnerable spot on the nearby enemies laid bare.
He moved as if in a trance, and his strikes landed with a conceptual weight that went beyond the limits of the skill. Bodies exploded as his fist struck, but the sudden power was all too quickly gone, replaced with a stabbing pain. Blood ran down his face, and Jonathan almost vomited as nearly a quarter of his health bar was ripped from his body. However, his skill had resulted in the desired effect, and his path was momentarily free of any of the undead.
Jonathan ran forwards, ignoring the pain stabbing into his body, and headed for his quarry. The undead leader was looking at him in shock, but it quickly reined in the emotion, and prepared an attack, gathering dark power between its skeletal hands. Jonathan kept running, weaving together his mana within his core to respond with whatever attack was coming his way. As he approached the undead, Jonathan began to sense a profound wrongness coming from the air in front of the creature, the result of the spell that it was using. As the dark orb of power grew and grew in front of the undead, the air began to twist and warp before his very eyes. Jonathan began to send his mana forward in a concentrated spike of power, but it had little effect on what was happening before his very eyes. The undead laughed, and then spoke a single word that was drowned out by the noise that the spell caused mere moments later. The ball of energy ruptured, and a myriad of howling shadows poured out of it, sweeping across the ground towards Jonathan.
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He crossed his arms, and wreathed himself in warding mana, but he was still taken off his feet by the attack. The shadows sent a deep chill straight to the center of his body, causing him to lose health at a precipitous rate. Coupled with the weakness from supercharging his skill, Jonathan was in dire straits.
Jonathan landed heavily a hundred feet away, his body chilled to the bone. He tried to get to his feet, but his muscles and joints were unresponsive, the result of the supreme chill. He forced his mana into his body, repeating the same thing that he had done during the dungeon to cleanse poison from his system, and he managed to burn the coldness out of himself, causing him great pain. Jonathan growled in anger, and shook his head, clearing the fugue from his body.
He took off, running at the undead, a little bit tired of how this seemed to be his ultimate response to any threat. Seeing as he was predominantly a melee based fighter, there really wasn't much else that he could do other than charge his opponents. In any case, his build was certainly made for such a thing, with his monstrous durability and titanic strength. However, he was finding that if an opponent possessed sufficient magical strength, then his fighting style became slightly annoying.
As he ran, the other undead tried to pile on top of him, stopping him from moving forwards. Jonathan did not bother engaging them, instead leaping over their heads into the few clear spots of ground that were left. The monsters seemed too dull to fill those spots before he landed, which was good for him.
Jonathan leapfrogged the rest of the way, fending off strikes from the monsters as he went. His health bar was below half at this point, which was quite concerning. Jonathan reached the leader a few seconds later, with his fists coated in mana and Divinity. As the monster began to thrust out its hands towards Jonathan, ready to send him flying backwards once more, Jonathan sent a blade of mana out from the tip of his right hand, and slashed it down through the air, slicing through the burgeoning spell. It had the effect that he had been looking for, and the telekinetic hand was severed in two, unable to move.
The monster was briefly stunned, and Jonathan drove his fist into its abdomen, trying to get through its unnaturally tough skin. His Divinity, coupled with his mana, was able to get past that however, and he poured as much as he could into the attack. A shockwave of purple and red energy blossomed outwards from his fist, and knocked the monster off its feet, sending it skidding across the ash. Jonathan followed up with his strike, and leaped into the air, bringing his fists down together in a mighty smash that folded the undead over in half as he landed. Jonathan was too late to stop its spellcraft however and the undead thrust a blade of onyx light into his stomach, phasing through his armor. It did not physically harm him, but his body began to seize up as primordial coldness spread throughout his body and soul. Jonathan gritted his teeth, trying to move away. The coldness was tied to the blade and if he got off it, then he would be able to escape. The attack was not taking any health off, but it was rooting him in place, which was quite a bad situation to be in.
“You are stronger than you appear, interloper,” the undead leader said. It seemed to be completely unfazed by the hole in its stomach. “However, your journey ends now. You have cost me much in the lives of my followers, but I will restore justice to them now.”
Jonathan tried to speak, but his lips would not move. He was disgusted with the whole thing, of this foul monster daring to speak about justice and the lives of his followers. None of them were even real. They were all already dead. Jonathan snarled, and triggered his final skill.