Plans Failed.

John winced when the zombies finally clashed with the Orcs of his tribe. A loud crack split through the air as monster swung against monster, and the first zombie fell to an attack that was barely heard between the elemental's heavy footsteps... and then the first Orc fell as well. Warriors smashed against warriors with flashes of silver and purple light dancing between them, and John yanked his horse to a stop a few hundred feet away from the battle. He didn't even manage to turn his mount back around to face the enemies before the tribe started screaming and pushing back away from the waves of Hallowed that continued marching towards them. The light that the Beacon gave off reached out and touched the front lines of warriors...

... and John watched as those same warriors quickly fell beneath the stampeding heels of the dead that merely walked over them. He grimaced... and then his heart dropped when the undead horde finally finished passing over the Orcs that had fallen. The bodies of his soldiers twitched in the beacon's wake, their limbs curling tight to their forms like a spider’s legs on ****... and then they straightened. The bodies stretched to the point that their joints popped and then they clawed at the ground below. The dead Orcs pushed to their feet, clutching the weapons that they had been using to fight the Hallowed for a new purpose while the Beacon continued to drain the remnants of life out of them. Cheeks and eyes became sunken and pale, the skin on their bodies was pulled taut across their bones, and even their weapons began to change for the worse. The metal blades they used to fight became rusted and chipped, and the wooden clubs began to rot away.

The Orcs that were left behind the front line, the majority of the tribe, pulled back as quickly as they could when they realized that John had not come back yet. Their voices became a mixed chorus of pain and alarm while John kicked his horse into action again and roared as the Beacon's purple light pushed deeper and deeper into the pack of Orcish raiders. He saw Mub's face briefly appear near the front of the crowd as he rode hard to the group... and then he slipped into the waves of undead and crashed head first into the Beacon itself. His horse was thrown out from under him when he and the beacon swung at one another, and John himself fell beneath the sea of dead.

His shoulder took the brute **** of the fall when John finally hit the ground with bits of shattered cyrstal and rock raining all around him. He grunted and swore as the faces in the beacon above him screamed at the impact that he had dealt while the sword that his tribe had given him was flung from his grasp. He heard the metal clang and bounce off the ground over a dozen feet away from him... but he didn't need it. The first hit was dealt and now he just had to finish it off. Despite how strong the beacon was and how quickly it seemed to grow... John's level and abilities grew even faster. They grey quickly enough to even surprise him.

He barely even had time to see the damage pop-up from his attack on horseback before he was hitting it again.

-6 HP

CRITICAL HIT! 93 Damage!
CRITICAL HIT! 36 Damage!
CRITICAL HIT! 36 Damage!

Somehow... the beacon didn't even get the chance to hit John before his burning fist ripped through the center of its torso. It easily exploded in a flash of more sickly purple light, like the enemy was no longer even a threat to John anymore... and because of that, he got less experience for it too. Thankfully... he didn't need to get much more experience from it.

Level Up!
+5 Stat Points

The damage he had taken after falling from his horse was instantly regenerated. The light that the beacon had created shot up into the sky like a bolt of purple lightning... and then all hell broke loose. As soon as the opportunity came to fight back, the Orcs charged at the dead like they were hungry for the fight. Sparks rained down on John as blades clashed against broken, rusted pieces of armor and the dead lurched in place for a moment as they tried to adjust to the lack of control over them once again. The sounds of battle quickly became deafening for John as he tried to push back to his feet... and then found that killing the zombies was even easier now than it had been before.

He dealt so much damage by this point with his Infused Strike ability that he only ever needed to hit the zombies once. It was... easy... and somehow relaxing, like he was just playing video games. Headshots took them down most of the time, and John was more than happy to try and get as many of those as he could. It made his heart race again, and because he didn't feel like he was in any danger anymore, it made him laugh too.

He was back to destroying monsters and undead Naz- Well, they weren't Nazis but they were still zombies at least. The best part was that while the zombies may not have been giving him enough experience to make it worth it to kill them any longer, he could still at least get about a thousand points of experience whenever he killed one of the beacons.

He just needed to pull another group once they were done with that one.

Almost the whole day passed him by with fights like that. Beacon after Beacon after Beacon was met by John, who charged into an actual fight with glee for perhaps the first time in his entire life, and each one fell before he left. The zombies that the Beacon's had gathered around them provided a source of Mana for John whenever he used up too much of it, a supply that he could dip into thanks to the ability that his Thrall King boots gave him, and in time... he started to notice that his Orcs were gradually learning how to fight as part of a large group and refining their pack tactics, but that practice didn't go on for as long as he would have liked. Instead of grinding and fighting until they reached the point where John and his 'army' could charge through the gates of Dornwich, the group had to stop after a few hours had passed. The Orcs ran out of stamina at a point where John felt like he would have normally lost all of his energy, and Mub called for the fight to end for the time being. The Tribe walked back to camp while John read through his pop-ups and spent the stat points he had gotten from his grinding.

Level Up!
+5 Stat Points!

Your Endurance has reached 25!
You have gained the Tempered Torso feat!

New Skill: Tempered Torso. Level 1, Passive.
Tempered Torso: This change marks a new degree of Endurance within its user. This ability allows its user to withstand more vigorous weather and temperature conditions than the body might typically be able to handle. This ability does not extend to damage received from the power of an actual element. Things like fire, lightning, and ice for example will still damage the user.

Observe has leveled up!
Observe is now level 7!

+10 Undead Essences
+18 Undead Essence Shards
+1 Shadow Essences
+24 Bones
+40 Arcane Rocks
+22 Units of Tattered Gray Cloth
+$20,030

He raised his Strength and Endurance up by five points each from the two levels that he had gotten today and left all the rusted armor and weapons behind on the ground for the Orcs to sift through. The few things that he actually bothered to take were the ones that were of visible value or the things that seemed like they could be dangerous if they were left with the tribe. He rode back to the city of Duskacre while the tribe dealt with their wounds and carried twenty of their dead allies, and Mub rushed to ride alongside him. The ex-alpha was nursing a fresh wound along his burly, square jaw, a cut that looked like it might have been deep enough to slice into bone. The injured area was dark and seared like it had been cauterized to stop the bleeding and then bound with bandages, but Mub barely acknowledged it when he spoke to John.

"You still have fight in you? Energy?" the Orc asked, and John looked at him and nodded. The two of them squeezed the reins to their mounts simultaneously, and then Mub lifted one of his hands to scratch at the top of his bald green head. "How? This... fire was not in you when we fought at Duskacre... or at Eldham. You seem... endless now. What happened?"

"I uh..." It took a while for John to answer him. There wasn't much that he could think of to say. He didn't want to tell him about his powers. He considered telling Mub that he wasn't a god... but stopped just short of saying it. In the end, he merely ended up stating the obvious. "I'm getting stronger," he grunted as Mub continued staring at him. John clenched the reins in his hands even tighter and watched as the muscles in his forearm flexed taut, flashing the corded, rippling pattern beneath that became more and more apparent with every point that he put into his Strength score.

He was getting a lot stronger. It felt like he had reached the point in a video game where if he wanted to continue leveling and growing then he needed to find stronger enemies too. He had to find things that would give him more experience. He just had to make sure that those things wouldn't kill him in the process.

Thankfully, Mub didn't try talking to him much more than that. The Orc moved on and John pushed the Tribe to move faster back to the camp. They met up with all the families and slaves they left behind. People cried at the dead and... some even asked John to bless their loved ones on their journey into the afterlife, and he rushed to try and end every conversation he was pulled into as quickly as he could. He eventually made it back to his own personal tent with a soft sigh... and stepped through the entrance flap with a curt tug to the armor plating that was covering his shoulder. It pinched at his skin as he tried to move it back in place, causing the Gamer to wince, but he bared with the pain.

"Does Mub know how to do armor readjustments?" he asked to the open tent as soon as he stepped over the shelter's threshold. His voice was immediately met with silence. He stumbled like he had tripped over something and then clutched his stomach as a wave of stomach-turning nausea overcame him. Before he could stop himself, John gagged and then nearly fell over into the nearby bed as nausea turned into exhaustion. He got tired... and then warm as his eyelids slid shut... and he smiled almost instinctively when he recognized the familiar atmosphere that Hestia's home provided.

Except... when he opened his eyes, the stone built cottage was nowhere to be found. He was somewhere else.