Massively Outgunned

The list of pop-ups that appeared before John went on for ages. He tried closing out of most of them on the run up to the crystal, but an endless line of Drain notifications made that almost impossible to do while running. In the end, he simply just swiped the whole interface to the side and jumped headlong at the beacon. The air split with a horrible cracking sound as his first Infused Strike slammed into the side of the large purple crystal and a small web of fractures spread out around the impact. The crystal jerked slightly in place from where he had hit it, and John watched as the dozens of various small cracks in the side of it...

...all began to close right back up.

CRITICAL! -19 HP!
CRITICAL! -20 HP!!

Beacon Of Ruin drains you for 10 HP!
Beacon Of Ruin drains you for 11 HP!

His first couple of hits were actually... incredibly demoralizing. The flying superman punch he started with not only felt like it was less than impactful, but it also started by trying to take whatever momentum he had and all but **** him to let it go to waste. In a way, it was very similar to hitting the punching bag at the gym. Each time he did it, it was like his hits were having little to no effect, but... his pop-ups at least told him that the damage was good. Each punch still slammed into the central construct where the crystal floated and was quickly followed up with a deafening crack as he continued through with another kick. Just hitting the centerpiece of the altar seemed to count as a critical hit for John, and thanks to his new passive, each one dealt more and more damage as he chipped away at whatever armor stats it had, but it still felt like each hit was still somehow slower... and softer than the last one had been.

The fight started in his favor, even with whatever healing factor the crystal had over him. He just had to keep going, land one punch and then a kick, hit a haymaker and follow through with a roundhous-

Beacon Of Ruin successfully Summoned 6 more Undead!
Beacon Of Ruin used Summoning!
Beacon of Ruin used Blind!

CRITICAL! -19 HP!
CRITICAL! -18 HP!

He didn't get to see the zombies when they appeared. His vision was already shifting back into a familiar shade of crimson red by the time that he heard the ground around him start to crack and shift. A thin, cold, bony hand clawed and grasped at his ankle from below as dirt and mud exploded outwards from where one zombie rose from the earth. In a flash, John ripped his foot away from the monster and moved to circle around to another side of the crystal. It didn't matter that he couldn't see where the zombies were anymore, he just had to keep his hands on the crystal, and then he could never lose track of-

CRITICAL! Beacon Of Ruin drains you for 13 HP!
Zombie Villager Garett strikes you for 7 HP!
Zombie Villager Barty strikes you for 6 HP!
Beacon Of Ruin Drains you for 10 HP!

"FUCK!" John screamed and ripped his hand away from where he had been touching the crystal. He could already feel the joints in his hand cracking painfully as he tried to clench it back up into a fist. It felt like his hand had been frozen solid when the Beacon drained him. The mana or magic of it's spell stabbed into his fist like a hundred thin needles had been pressed in through his nerves, expertly aimed to pierce the areas that might cause him the most pain. He coughed and felt how his lungs constricted and wheezed from the necromancy damage he had taken, and then he went right into another round of attacks. He had to end this... fast.

CRITICAL! -21 HP!

Beacon Of Ruin drains you for 11 HP!

CRITICAL! -22 HP!

Beacon Of Ruin successfully Summoned 6 more Undead!
Beacon Of Ruin used Answer The Call!

It was casting so quickly, faster than John could swing at it... but he knew it was low. He had turned into a glass cannon so quickly, and if he was right, then he only needed one more hit... which made it all the more frustrating when he felt those same bony hands from earlier suddenly wrap around his sides. He yanked around in the Zombie’s grasp, thrashing blindly as it pulled him one step backwards... then another, and another, and John could feel his heart start to sink in his chest.

Growling, John struggled for a moment and kicked as hard as he could to step away from the zombie. He felt it's arm go limp and fall to the ground at his side as John pivoted and turned back towards his focus... but he still couldn't see it. His vision was still dead and dark for everything around him, and John couldn't do much more to bring himself towards victory other than guess. He took a step in the direction he felt like he remembered it was in and swung. His glowing, armored fist all but whistled through the air as he brought it around at the crystal in a violent backhand...

...and missed. His arm swung wide, cracking against another nearby zombie who groaned and fell to the ground before everything around him finally attacked back.

Beacon Of Ruin used Distraught!
Beacon Of Ruin used Blind!

Undead Horde attacks you for -7
Undead Horde attacks you for -6
Undead Horde attacks you for -6
Undead Horde attacks you for -7
Undead Horde attacks you for -7
Undead Horde attacks you for -6
Undead Horde attacks you for -7
Undead Horde attacks you for -6

John's health bar dropped. In an instant, his health went from a solid 80 health points... all the down to a weak twenty-eight as claw after claw of undead arms tore into his own body, ripping and tearing at his flesh before he was thrown to the ground as everything clambered towards him. The last few undead gathering nearby surged towards him as one unified, synchronous mass with a fading purple light glowing in their half-rotten eyes before John's own vision slowly started to darken again.

He got one last glimpse of everything around him before they tried to end his life and managed to flip off the crystal one last time from where it floated... almost ten feet away from his prone form with a dozen zombies between them. He was so much further away from it than he thought he had been, and now there was nothing to save him. Not Urga, not a level up... He was just stuck in the middle of a town square with his back to a familiar, broken down, brick built, defiled church waiting to be eaten and brought back as one of the Hallowed. The same church that the Crystal had been draining to dust to grow. A part of him already knew that he would have been **** to go and kill Urga after he had died, and his gut twisted at the thought. He could feel that thought solidifying with a strange sense of certainty that radiated in glowing pulses outwards from the crystal. It was an unmistakable feeling, like the feeling of the stones of the building behind him crumbling into dust at his back as he leaned against it... and suddenly grinned.

"Fuck you..." John spat blood at one of the nearby zombies as it lumbered towards him... and with his elbow, he slammed his Infused Strike into the wall behind him! The wall he was leaning against visibly lurched and bowed as the base of it exploded outwards behind John in a rain of dust and debris. The young gamer slipped and rolled backwards into the safety of the building as the whole front of the church suddenly crumbled, bell tower and all, and fell down towards the crystal and its undead horde!

The ground itself shook from the sudden impact as the weaker parts of the Church collapsed inwards around the gamer, and the crystal exploded in a giant flash of purple light lightning and dissipated into a million fine, violet sparkles as the large wrought iron bell fell on top of it. A whole chorus of voices wailed outwards from where the final blow occurred, and like the image of a small nuke going off, a mushroom-shaped cloud of rocks and dust shot up from the center of the town where the altar and the church had once been.

Over the course of what seemed like nearly a dozen minutes, the rest of the village gradually fell silent, except for the occasional pattering noises caused by falling debris. The homes and other buildings all slowly began to settle once again. The church slowly finished collapsing, and when the sound of stones drumming down against the earth finally ended, a whole other sound took its place. A sound that had been nearly forgotten; one that had not reached the small town of Bleakfield in years, but when it came, it washed the dirt and dust away with such familiar ease that it was almost like the clouds never even stopped gathering over it in the first place.

For the first time in years, the rain began to pour again, like the end of a drought that had finally come. A horrible drought... that had been so bad that everything in the area had somehow partially disintegrated...

Yeah, it didn't make much sense to John either.