Fighting the Necromancer

The skeletons and zombies stop chasing the townsfolk and freeze. They simultaneously turn to face Nathan.

"Thank you, adventurer!" A man carrying his young daughter says to Nathan with tears streaming down his face as he continues to run away.

A few of the other people running by give thanks to Nathan as they continue escaping the Legion. Nathan gives them a wave to acknowledge their sentiments as he focuses on the remaining Undead in front of him.

The Undead get into a formation and move to attack Nathan. Before the skeletons get to him, Nathan quickly puts his five stat points into dexterity.

The six skeletons fan out and position themselves while waiting for the zombies to fill the gaps.

'Their movements are completely different from before,' Nathan notices even the zombies aren't staggering as much and seem to be more aware of each of the other Undead positions.

Nathan changes his stance to a full front stance and readies his blade. Sweat starts to form on his forehead as he concentrates on each of the Undead.

Four zombies dash out of the group and throw their bodies at Nathan trying to overwhelm him with their lack of pain and fear.

Nathan's pupils dilate as he takes a deep breath and slashes out with his full strength. The wind is cut as the blade moves. Two of the zombies throw themselves in the path of the blade and are instantly cut in half.

Instead of dying instantly, the two zombies continue their forward momentum and with only their upper torsos remaining, grab ahold of Nathan's arms. The other two zombies dive for Nathan's legs and tackle him to the ground.

-2 flashes red in Nathan's vision as his head slams into the cobbled street. As Nathan is pinned to the ground, he can hear the groans and grunts of the zombies atop him. The blood and organs leaking out of the two zombies make the ground slippery as Nathan tries to buck the zombies off himself.

Nathan can feel the zombies gnawing at his limbs, but they are unable to get through his armor. Hearing the familiar tapping noises, Nathan knows it is only a matter of time before the skeletons rush over and start slashing away at him with their blades.

'I need to get up!'

Nathan can feel the blood pounding in his ears coinciding with the pulse of his heart. He feels the gnawing on his arms stop and instantly realizes that the zombies he cut in half were no longer alive or moving. Ripping his arms out of their death grips, he slams his elbow down on the zombie holding his right leg.

The zombie's head explodes like a watermelon. The remaining zombie holding onto Nathan looks up from trying to bite his thigh and claws at his face. Nathan blocks the zombie's attack with his left forearm and reaches out with his right hand. He grabs the lower jaw of the zombie and yanks it as hard as he can.

The zombie's jaw is ripped from its skull. Before Nathan can finish off the zombie, he sees three chipped blades swinging for his head. Nathan attempts to throw up both his arms to block his face from the attacks but, the last zombie grips his left arm holding it back.

Cling, cling, cling. Nathan takes two hits to his vambrace and one to his helm.

-4, -3, and -7 flash red in front of his retina.

Nathan yells in rage, he unequips his sword to free his mobility and twists out of the zombie's grip.

He rolls backward and unbeknownst to him, into the other three skeletons that moved to his blindside.

Nathan takes two slashes to the back and one to the side as he tries to evade them.

- 6, -7, and -4 flash as his health continues to plummet.

Nathan rises to his feet and glances around to get his bearings. He is surrounded by Undead. He equips his sword and charges toward the zombie group to his left without any hesitation. With his newfound dexterity at work, he twists away from the two zombies trying to pounce on him to restrain him.

"I won't fall for that trick twice!" Nathan shouts as he swings his Banesblade at the closest zombie. He cuts its head clean in half.

He kicks another zombie in its chest, and it flies like a kite with its string cut, sprawling on the ground with its chest cavity caved in.

Another two zombies dive at Nathan attempting to tackle him to the ground. Nathan jumps into the air flipping over the two of them and using the blade like a spear, impales one through the back of its skull as it dives past.

Nathan begins to pant heavily as he lands on the ground. He looks at his stamina bar and finds it a little more than half depleted.

'I need to end this quickly and go for one-hit kills, I can't keep this pace up or I'll run out of stamina.

Nathan starts to panic as he does not know the consequences of running his stamina bar to empty.

Nathan looks around and finds the remaining Undead are all located in front of him, and he lets out of sigh of relief. He casts [Flash Heal] and a green +10 flashes in front of his eyes.

His mana and stamina both go down. Nathan curses at wasting additional stamina and not realizing that casting spells also requires stamina.

With his stamina less than half, Nathan feels his lungs burn with each breath he takes.

The six skeletons spread out and have the remaining zombies form up between them. The zombies charge toward Nathan while the skeletons set up for a pincer attack.

As Nathan gets ready to go all out, he hears a woman's voice with a slight accent yell out, "Get the skeletons on the right, I'll grab the ones on the left. You good Pop?"

Nathan looks over the skeletons on the left to see one of the most beautiful women he's ever seen. She has wavy black hair reaching down to her mid-back and flawless caramel skin. Her eyes are an enchanting soft brown, and her mouth is quirked up in one corner revealing a smile that makes his heart flutter. Her white leather armor looks like it's about to burst at the seams around her chest area.

Nathan loses himself for a moment until he stutters a reply, "I'm good, I'll take out the group on the right and then meet up for the zombies."

"I got you Pop, let's see who kills more." She laughs at Nathan's reaction to her and whips out two curved daggers and flashes toward the skeletons.

With half the Undead now being dealt with by the caramel beauty, Nathan pushes off the ground using his strength to launch himself at the skeletons. He swings his Banesblade with tremendous strength and smashes through two of the skeletons instantly.

The remaining one gets a swing off which glances off Nathan's shoulder pauldron. Nathan does a spinning kick and connects to the skeleton's skull launching it towards a building wall and it shatters upon contact.

Nathan looks up to assist with the zombies, to his shock the remaining zombies are already eviscerated, and the woman is staring at Nathan smirking.

Nathan's eyes go wide as he mumbles to himself. "so fast!"

"Hey Pop, what took you so long?" the woman laughs in a carefree tone as she sees Nathan's dumbfounded look.

"My name is Nathan; you don't have to call me Pop. I appreciate your help with these Undead." Nathan says while still holding his blade at the ready.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Victoria. Don't mind me, I call everyone Pop." Victoria says with a grin on her face. "No need to be defensive around me, if I wanted you dead, I would have sat back and watched the Undead do their thing."

Nathan glances around and looks towards the tops of buildings. He turns to Victoria, "I'm not wary of you, I'm worried about the Necromancer who controlled this wave of Undead. If they're still alive, we could be facing another wave at any time. Did you happen to see anyone strange while coming this way?"

Victoria puts her hands behind her head and stretches causing her already stretched chest armor to almost exploding at the seams as she answers Nathan's inquiry. "I didn't see anyone strange except for you Pop. Everyone else running for their lives from the Legion, here you are trying to get yourself killed taking on ten plus Undead. Made me excited just watching."

Victoria winks seductively at Nathan.

If Nathan didn't have his helm on Victoria would have laughed at how red his face became from her comment.

Nathan unequips his sword as he tries to come up with a response to Victoria.

"Well, I --"

An ear-piercing roar from the chained beast cuts through the air cutting off Nathan's words. A huge fireball flashes past and hits a building on the same street as Nathan and Victoria.

It explodes and throws them both off their feet as everything rumbles. A huge chunk of wall flies in the explosion and heads toward the two of them.

Blinded by the explosion Nathan fumbles on the ground and the last thing he can remember is pain exploding all over his body. He sees a -50 in bold red flashing in his retina as his stamina bar empties to zero.

Nathan's health plummets to [3/76].

Everything goes black.