13

I didn't bother reading the notifications. It was pretty obvious what they were about. I kept on swinging that hammer. Ten swings in, and I was starting to feel the strain, but not running was a mistake. Now I was completely surrounded. I wouldn't be getting out of here without a fight, and I was starting to get physically tired. 

Mentally I was already pretty worn out. The teeth of a zombie dug into my flesh. Searing pain rushed up my arm into my body. 

You are surrounded by more then fifty zombies.

Stench of death status effect has been activated. 

Stench of death status effect has been blocked. 

I knew my strength would bleed out of me as I started to bleed more, and more. I needed a moment to breath. I gripped the head of the zombie biting me, and threw the bastard off. Mustering more strength then I thought I had. I tossed that zombie into the rest of them. 

Giving myself a brief moment to breath. I needed something else. I didn't have the skill needed to handle this many at once. Wait. Skill? 

I pulled up my status. Flipping to the skill page quickly. I didn't have time to browse the skill section. Something caught my eye. A random skill lottery?

There were three of them. I clicked on the one for a single skill point. A zombie dug his teeth into my shoulder. Pain surged through my body. 

Random skill draw 

1 skill point version

This draw will reward you with a random skill worth 1-5 skill points. Skill points cannot be refunded. Duplicate skills will be combined with current skills until the skill reaches a higher value then the skill draw. 

How many skill draws would you like to do?

1+----------5 

I slid the bar all the way to all five, and then I was completely covered in zombies. 

Congratulations you have gained the Mana manipulation skill from the skill draw

Congratulations you have gained the Basic hand to hand combat skill from the skill draw

Congratulations you have gained the Basic crafting skill from the skill draw

Congratulations you have gained the Basic archery skill from the skill draw

Congratulations you have gained the High jump skill from the skill draw

High jump? I used the skill immediately. My legs were already bent from the weight of the zombies coming down on me. It felt like I'd been hit by a bus from behind as my body was propelled upward through the zombies that had nearly completely covered my body. My left arm was mangled, and basically unusable. 

Burning pain was searing through my back from the multiple bite wounds. 

You have acquired the Mana manipulation skill required to activate enchanted hammers earth manipulation enchantment. 

Warning you lack sufficient mana. 

Would you like to sacrifice health for mana?

(Yes) (No)

This was a crafting hammer. It made sense for it to have a crafting related enchantment. There was a large group of zombies surrounding me, and I was falling down way faster then I wanted. Fine. If I was going to die anyway then I might as well sacrifice some of my health. 

I brought the hammer down with a specific goal in mind. Four foot walls shot up around me in a circle as soon as the hammer struck the ground. I could feel the drain on my health right away. I nearly collapsed from the strain, but somehow I'd made the circle big enough to be just barely out of reach. I could feel the fingers of the dead raking across the back of my shirt. 

I was shaky on my feet, but I was still alive, and the only way I was going to stay that way was to keep fighting. It didn't matter that I was bleeding so much that I was light headed. I straightened slowly. I'd been in pain like this before. Sure it was never this bad before, but I knew how to ignore pain. 

One step at a time. One task at a time. Let the task in front of me consume my full focus. Strike one zombie as hard as I could. Recover.

Then rinse, and repeat. Step one, step two, step three, and start over again. The zombies are starting to come over the wall using the bodies of those that fell before. Step one, step two, step three, and over again only faster. The longer I kept breathing the better my chances were of someone coming along to rescue me. 

I didn't have enough breath in me to shout so I wouldn't be calling attention to myself, but the zombies gathering here had to alert someone that there was a person here. I couldn't be the only nut that came here strictly for a few extra levels. Right now I was distracting a good portion of the zombies. Most of the people on my side of the park must have fled. If there was a hundred like yesterday then the huge portion of them were around me already. 

I was barely standing when I heard the gunfire. There was a lot of shooting. As soon as I realized there weren't zombies for me to hit I slid back up against one of the walls I'd created. Sliding into the slush that had collected around my feet. It was lukewarm, and that meant a good portion of the liquid I was sitting in was my own blood. 

Either that or I was a little too cold. I could feel some intense shivering coming on as the cold closed in. At least all the pain was gone now. Was this what it was like to go into shock? If it wasn't for the annoying cold it would actually be kind of nice. 

My mind got kind of fuzzy, and I vaguely heard someone coming to help me. I could feel the pressure of someone grabbing me, and being yanked out of there, but I didn't really remember anything else after that. The next time I became aware of my surroundings I felt like I hadn't slept at all, but it didn't take me long to figure out that it was already dark out. I was in a different set of clothes. Someone had stripped the blood soaked mess off of me, and put something else on me.