The hundreds of Javelins he had planted throughout the facility were already a mana expenditure that even hundreds of ordinary mages couldn’t afford. And while James could easily afford that, keeping the detonations delayed was quite straining even him. It felt like his arms were being pulled in ten different directions.

That wasn’t his only problem though. Even though the detonation of his Javelins was delayed as they were hovering near their targets, that didn’t make them invincible. Each second, agents were sacrificing themselves in order to destroy the Javelins and keep the explosion contained within their own bodies.

He hadn’t expected that. Knowing how selfish and power-hungry agents were, he thought they’d be more reluctant to sacrifice themselves.

But apparently, they stronger ones had their own method of convincing the lower-ranking guys to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Apparently, when a more powerful agent tells you what he’s going to do to you if you don’t kill yourself, you sacrifice yourself without a second thought. And you’ll do it with a smile. At least being exploded by James’s Javelins would be an instant death, and not a slow, agonizing torture session.

James knew he had to act fast.

He immediately sacrificed his health again, causing the excruciating pain that he was actually quite used to at this point. Not only did that replenish his barrier, but it gave him the effects of [Reckless Abandon].

Greatly empowered by his masochistic buff, James rushed throughout the facility, planting even more Javelins even as he was being stabbed and shot at repeatedly. Even though time was of the essence, he had to destroy as much of this energy as possible.

But he was nearing his limit. Even though his mana supply was stupidly high, there was still a limit to how much he could push himself in a short period of time. His arms were already numb, he had to look at them to make sure they were actually moving.

Worse yet, it seemed like the agents were beginning to clear the Javelins faster than he could plant them.

It was now or never.

The effects of Reckless Abandon already ran out, so he sacrificed his health again. But this time, he didn’t plant any more explosives.

He didn’t run either. Instead, he turned around and faced the hundreds of agents that were chasing him.

With stabs coming at him every second, he didn’t delay things one second longer. He sacrificed his health three more times. With [Split Mind] in place, he didn’t feel most of the pain, but he was about to collapse from dizziness and nausea alone.

But that didn’t matter. He needed all the protection he could get.

Behind his thick barriers, James closed his eyes. He involuntarily uttered a quick prayer.

With a snap of his fingers, he detonated all his Javelins.

The explosions rang out simultaneously, a blinding inferno erupting all over the facility. The fires were even hotter than anything Helios had ever put out, as thousands of containers of dark energy were fueling the fire.

The blue and dark flames immediately engulfed everything that lived and didn’t live within the facility.

The living things didn’t last for long, but nether did the non-living as the walls and floors were melting, sinking the facility further and further into the ground. Even the ground itself was melting, turning into a lava, a darkish blue in color just like the flames.

Most of the agents were evaporated instantly, only some of the more resilient ones survived for a few seconds. But soon they too were consumed by the flames.

The explosions were so loud that they stunned even James. It was the second time he had to hide behind his barrier because of explosions today. But weirdly, he didn’t feel scared. Instead, it felt like something awoke within him. It was subtle, but the louder the explosions, the stronger this feeling got.

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[Trait unlocked: Explosive numbness. Your mind remains calm near explosions, even when others would cower and tremble.]

A new trait was nice, but he didn’t have time to celebrate. He didn’t plan on killing himself along with all the scum.

Even though his barriers had been constantly stabbed at, by dodging like a madman to the point he was nauseous, he still had quite a bit of protection left. And by sacrificing HP and inflicting pain onto himself, making him even more nauseous, he had covered himself in Chaos Barriers until he was in a cocoon of red.

Still, as protected as he was, he knew that would only buy him a few seconds.

But those few seconds were something that the agents didn’t have. They all tried to cast barriers, but the fires made short work of that.

While all the agents melted around him, James capitalized on his seconds of protection to flee the inferno.

With each passing second, he could see his barriers cracking and melting in front of his eyes. Passing by the agents that were melting next to him, he could only thank God that he didn’t end up like them. Even their bones were melting, not even ash left as the fires raged on.

SARM was flinging him to the exit desperately, but he was already starting to feel the heat. He executed the plan with great confidence, but he couldn’t be entirely sure that he wouldn’t end up like them.

Luckily for him, his friends dropped their stealth and were casting barriers onto him from a distance, which bought him a few more moments of not being cooked alive. Each barrier was cracking an instant after it was cast, but even that was a great boon.

Thanks to those spare seconds, he managed to fling himself out of the inferno.

He landed right next to his friends. His clothes were a little scorched, but that was nothing compared to what had happened to the hundreds of agents whose barriers weren’t quite as sturdy.

His friends all stared at him slack-jawed, in awe of his power. His insanity was even more surprising, but if they stopped to think about that now, they wouldn’t stop staring at him for hours.

Helios and Lunaris looked a lot more conflicted. They were somewhat used to his recklessness, but also disappointed that he kept on doing such things. He even appeared to be more cautious this time around, but then he went and did that. Still, they smiled. They had realized that there was no fixing James’s penchant for suicidal moves. All they could do was be supportive and hope that their beloved friend wouldn’t cook himself alive.

James wanted to tell them lots of things, but he didn’t have time for a heartwarming reunion at the moment. Instead, he looked around.

Even though he had killed hundreds of agents, the city seemingly housed thousands. The battle was unfortunately far from over.

But despite expecting to be attacked immediately, nobody came close to them. He could feel dozens of eyes on him, including several remote viewing spells, but no attack was coming.

The group erected several barriers and turtled up, trying to take advantage of the quiet moments to think and prepare.

“Why aren’t they attacking?” Emilia asked.

“We must’ve scared them off!” Denmac shouted excitedly.

“I wouldn’t say that we scared them off.” Lunaris intervened. “But they are reluctant to jump in and get themselves killed. They did see what James’s Javelins did to their comrades. Since agents are selfish by nature, the risk benefit calculation must’ve shifted in their minds. Not even the stronger ones want to attack. Even if they think they’d win, they’d still get hurt, leaving them vulnerable to the other agents vying to take their place.”

“So what, we’re just free to leave?” Emilia asked happily.

“Doubtful.” Helios answered this time. “James just took out their precious energy reserves. For that, they’d kill us out of principle, even if it took every last one of them to do it. There are plenty of other reasons they’d want to take James out of the picture too. And the rest of us would make for a useful snack as well.” Helios spat out.

“What are they waiting for then? They aren’t so kind as to give us time to recover.” Emilia continued her questions, her bow trembling.

“If I had to guess, especially from all the things we gathered from Denmac’s memories, the different factions lead by the stronger demons must be trying to profit off of the situation.” Lunaris answered. “We must’ve killed most of their weaker agents, and even some strong ones that were protecting the facility. And thanks to James, they failed.”

Lunaris smiled happily, but as she looked at James her smile became awkward. “Oh, you reckless fool.” She shook her head. “Anyway, there are still plenty of strong ones out there, stronger than we’ve ever seen probably. So they must think they can take us out anytime they want. Now that the facility is gone, we’ve already done the worst we could’ve. They can just wait for their opportunity and attack us at any time, when it’s advantageous for them.”

“Still, even the stronger ones must respect our power, especially James’s.” Helios continued. “They also don’t know how strong the rest of us are, so that’s another factor they must consider. If they attack recklessly, they risk losing out to the other factions, or even being wiped out. If we try to get out of the city, they’d all swarm us immediately. But for now, they consider their power politics more important than just getting rid of us right away.”

“I don’t even know if that’s a good or a bad thing.” Emilia sighed.