While the rest of the group was lobbing spells from the safety of the barrier, James was surrounded by the superiors and leader of the city.

But unlike the smaller cities that had one or two dozen superiors at most, he found himself facing two hundred superior agents.

The rank-and-file agents of this city were already far stronger than the normal agents. That could only mean that the superiors were even more of a threat. Their aura was so intense that James could literally see dark vapors leaking out of their bodies, manifested just from their aura alone.

“Well, well, well. Who do we have here? If it isn’t the mysterious stranger that destroyed so many of our cities.” Their leader said. James couldn’t see him at all. He was covered in a haze of Darkness, so thick that he couldn’t see anything through it.

Even though James was more than confident in his powers, he froze when he heard the leader’s words.

The city was expecting his coming. That was both surprising to him and extremely obvious. How could they not expect him? And yet, that still didn’t make sense. If they expected a powerful enemy to attack it, why wouldn’t the Dark side send more reinforcements?

This only made him have more questions. And yet, it was also weirdly calming.

At least now they had at least a little bit of confirmation that they weren’t just being paranoid. It’s not that their rampage didn’t provoke a response, it did. But for some reason, the stalkers were still choosing to wait.

In a way, that was actually more worrying than if they did reveal themselves. Whatever nefarious scheme they were planning, that was worth even letting their cities go to waste, couldn’t possibly be good news.

But James wasn’t about to let himself be anxious. If the stalkers weren’t going to reveal themselves, then he’d just have to force them to. With every energy reserve that he slurped up, he got much stronger. Eventually, the math just wouldn’t make sense for the stalkers, no matter the reason for not attacking.

Even now, when he’s surrounded by 200 superiors, the stalkers weren’t revealing themselves. The not knowing was indeed a bit frightening even for him. He could deal with any enemy he fought, but this time, he couldn’t even see his enemy. But in a sick way, he was also a bit excited.

“Ok, so are you going to make a move, or are we just gonna stare at each other all day long?” James mocked them. “Sure, that sounds like a good deal for you, I’m pleasing to the eye! But I don’t wanna have to look at your ugly mugs, I’d rather get stabbed.”

“Don’t get too cocky, boy.” The leader snapped back. “Just because you managed to kill the morons in our weakest cities, doesn’t mean you can do anything against a proper agent.”

He beat his chest somewhat cockily, but then for some reason he bowed his head. “But wait, where are my manners? I have to thank you, actually.”

James understood what he was doing right away. “Oh, don’t start with the cartoonish villain talk again. I can’t take it anymore, a piece of me dies whenever I hear this crap.” James rolled his eyes.

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“All that energy was lying in those cities. All to be used, wasted by those lesser beings. The fact that they got killed by you proves that they didn’t deserve any of it. And they even have the gall to call themselves armies.” The leader spat. “I could kill them all with a snap of my fingers. That energy should have been given to someone like me in the first place.”

“Are you done? I want to get to the killing part already, stop it with the boring monologue shtick.” James sighed.

“Patience, dear.” He cackled. “You’ll have an eternity to be dead. Well, not quite dead. I’ll have to keep your soul in a state of perpetual torment, so I can squeeze every ounce of energy out of you. I want to at least thank you before that. Really, I couldn’t have asked for a better gift. That energy was just stuck there, and nobody was allowed to even rob those poor schmucks. It goes against our very nature to not rob and kill the lesser ones, it was preposterous! But then you came. The perfect idiot, robbing all those places, and then you even came here for some more. I can’t begin to thank you for choosing our city, I’m so happy I’m going to cry.” The leader mocked James.

“Ok, good. You’re finally done.” James groaned at the embarrassing monologue. “Let’s get to the killing part.”

Immediately, all 200 superiors except the leader rushed towards him. Thousands of dark bolts shot out, all converging on James’s location.

“Are agents incapable of learning new spells?” James smirked. “All you people have are dark daggers and dark projectiles. Get a damn spellbook for Christ’s sake.”

The spells were about to reach James, with the agents not far behind them. But James didn’t dodge.

“Come and get it.” James clenched his fists. “I’m tired of throwing Javelins. This time around, I want to see your guts get cut in half by my own two hands.”

The dark bolts were moments away from hitting him. But right before he was about to get hit, James cast 20 sacrifices in one go.

“Man, I’ll never get used to not feeling any pain, it’s so weird.” He smiled as he barely felt a slight tickle, even though the 20 sacrifices should have left him trembling from the pain.

He felt an odd energy signature beginning to gather from the leader’s direction, but he wasn’t worried about that either. Whatever they had in store for him, he could take it.

He was actually quite curious about his own defenses. He had gotten so strong that not even he knew just how powerful he was. And that could spell trouble for when he faced an actually strong enemy.

The bolts crashed into James simultaneously, but they didn’t even scratch the thick crimson barrier that enveloped him.

Thousands of projectiles that could probably pass through twenty stone walls before they stopped were crashing into the barrier one after the other, but to James they were as much of a threat as raindrops.

Not even a second later, the superiors were already at his neck. The daggers began scratching against the barrier, like nails on a blackboard.

Dozens of daggers were hitting every second. There was so much force behind the stabs that sonic booms were produced every time the superiors swung.

But James was more annoyed by the noise than the actual hits.

“Jeez, I didn’t bother dodging cause I wanted to test my barrier, but you guys are hurting my ears. I’ll get tinnitus at this rate. Time for you to die then, I guess.”

Under the effects of 20 stacks of [Reckless Abandon], casting was almost instant. He raised his hands, and mere seconds later he was surrounded by a myriad of Javelins.

In mere seconds, he had enough Javelins to turn them into a Chaos Glaive. But he didn’t casting SARM on it as usual.

No, he wanted to get up close and personal this time around. He had been grinding from city to city for way too long, it had become drudgery. Just plain old explosions without any fun at all. Seeing some guts flying around was just the thing that could spice things up.

James grabbed the Glaive and spun around. He put so much power into the spin that he involuntarily closed his eyes.

But when he opened them, he was surprised. And unlike the other surprises from the past few days, he wasn’t in awe of his own powers. It was actually the opposite. He hadn’t killed or even injured anyone!

“Huh, maybe I’m not as overpowered as I thought.”