[NR] Out For A Walk - Chapter 672

Jason stands on the wall as dusk arrives. “I’m going to go out and fight tonight.”

Rosha tilts her head to the side, “Why? We’re doing good up here on the wall. If anything, you should grab a bow and give it a ‘shot’, heh.”

Courtney, “What will fighting the undead provide you? This can’t be out of nowhere.”

Jason flexes his arm, which looks ridiculous, what with his preference to keep a sleek body and not bulk up like a bodybuilder. “I’ve gotten pretty strong. Great for my level, at least compared to the average player. Which sucks and I’m not growing anymore. Well, my stats aren’t.

“There is only so much exercise can do. We don’t exactly have a gravity chamber or similar to help condition my body even more. So either I need to figure out proper body cultivation or push myself in some other way. You know, such as combat.”

Courtney nods, “I can understand that. Though I thought your regular cultivation would be enough to boost your stats?”

Jason shrugs, “Oh sure, it will in the long run. I got a plus one to Strength just a day ago since I had so much spare time. Besides that, if I could figure out my three laws, I would get a massive boost from that.

“Sigh, it seems you can’t ever get away from the mind, body, and soul split so easily. Build the body, broaden the mind, and strengthen the soul. You don’t need to do all three, but that is the path to the strongest and most paths include at least a tiny bit of each.

“My cultivation and laws do cover everything. The bottleneck to reach journeyman rank in my cultivation skill might actually be directly related to figuring out my balance. As it stands, the direct skill is my mind and the laws are my soul. Exercise covered the body and of course the other two fed into the body as well.

“I even have a corner of body hidden in the skill with my movement technique, if only to a minor degree. What I really need now though is this fight. Well, that and then some resources to refine my body. Probably could go for some herb baths irl as well.”

Rosha, “Herb baths? Like a bath bomb?”

Jason laughs, “If your bath bomb includes poisons and other nasty ingredients. The point it to strain the body while healing it at the same time. Rapid cycles of destruction and reconstruction. Some of the more legendary options penetrate even to the marrow of the bones. Though that will require some mystical herbs to pop up.”

Courtney, “So for now you’re going to fight a horde of undead by yourself?”

Jason, “Well, not by myself. I’m sure I’ll gather a crowd, but most will still pass me by and get scythed down at the wall.”

Courtney sighs, “Did you at least tell Siegfried?”

Jason shrugs, “He wasn’t happy about it, but since I’m a traveller, he isn’t going to stop me.”

With that, neither could really give a reason for him to not jump into an undead horde. A horde that was soon pulling themselves out of the ground.

Of course, Jason didn’t literally throw himself into the middle of the horde. Rather, he was let down the wall by way of rope and then charged them, sans Lily as he half expected to die tonight. Not that he planned to die, but he did figure the only better time to die would have been the day before as it allowed the most chance to have revived before the end of the event.

Though his chances to not die seem higher than expected as the stakes haven’t been raised yet. Whatever was sending the undead wanted to spread the zombie based corruption a bit more. And so Jason crashes into a wall made entirely of zombies.

This honestly would not have been hard. Base zombies would easily fall to war stomp. Except that wouldn’t strain his body, so instead he focuses on Energy powered throws. Which is so much less effective.

Zombies surround Jason, reaching out to grab and bite him. Moves that he takes advantage of. With hands coated in Energy, the grasping arms are counter grabbed and the zombies go flying.

Irl, this would involve throwing them over his shoulder. With a strength north of 100? This was more a matter of tossing them around like rag dolls.

Compared to some rocks Jason would lift back in the clearing, even two zombies don’t match up. At least they wouldn’t, if you’re just comparing straight weight. That isn’t the case here.

The zombies resist, they try to bite, and they flop around. Nevermind the fact that they’re irregular masses. 

Now, while not impossible, Jason understands that just throwing zombies around isn’t going to actually win. So not every attack is a throw. Once a zombie returns for a second, go at him, the grasping hand turns into a chop or poke.

Bones shatter and holes ooze black once-blood, yet none of this would normally worry a zombie. In fact, these zombies don’t even react, not only mindless by default, but missing any sort of reaction to “surface” damage. After all, an undead as basic as a normal zombie is more a magical construct than undead. It is only the few shattered remains of what the soul left behind, which makes it with the taint that is “undead”.

As long as that core magic is fine? As long as those last shards of “once was” remain? A zombie should, in theory keep going until the very magic itself runs dry. Which means nothing as any competent necromancer can pump more power in.

Except this isn’t the deep Deep Wilds anymore. Here? The System reigns. And with the System comes a few quirks. Key for this fight being HP.

Sure, any competent necromancer could come by later and turn the bodies back into zombies or skeletons. That wouldn’t be hard. However, for the moment? They’re dead because zombies are nothing special and don’t have any magic, effects, or skills to prevent HP death despite technically still being viable as undead.