James was about to rush towards the energy signature, but his friends were a lot more cautious.

“Wait! What if it’s an ambush?” Lunaris shouted.

“Yeah, we’re being stalked. What if they’ve set a trap?” Helios asked. “They could just pop out of nowhere and attack us.”

James was actually quite surprised. Helios was being unusually careful. Usually, he’d be almost as reckless and bloodthirsty as him.

But he understood why Helios was acting this way.

James wasn’t the same man as before. In just a few short months, his power had skyrocketed. Even though his level was still lower than theirs, his actual power was in a whole other realm. He was now basically a God if he were to compare his power to theirs. Even compared to Helios, the strongest of the rest of the group, James was already infinitely more powerful.

So their caution was justified. They were in a Stygian city after all, one that was much more dangerous than the ones they had been fighting before. And they were being stalked by some mysterious group on top of it all.

So of course the rest of them weren’t feeling as invincible as him. They weren’t the ones who possessed so much power that they could level cities within seconds.

“Relax, everything will be all right.” James reassured them. “Look, we’ll even take some precautions.”

James snapped his fingers and cast 30 sacrifices, waving his hands over their barrier. With his hand extended, James kept pumping more and more mana into the barrier, making it glow brighter by the second.

“Now there’s no reason to worry.” James exclaimed merrily. By his tone, you’d think they were at some fun little theme park, not in a Stygian city. “So let’s deal with this guy already.”

“Wait, what about you?” Lunaris asked. “You’re not immune to ambushes, you should get inside the barrier too.”

“Actually, I’m better off fully exposed.” James smirked. “That way, our stalkers might actually show themselves.”

“You actually want to be ambushed?! And you’re leaving yourself defenseless on purpose?!” Denmac was about to gasp, but when he saw James giving him the stink eye, he stopped mid-gasp.

“Look, the only reason I’m worried about our stalkers is that I can’t actually detect them. Call me overconfident, but I’m not scared. I’m even a bit excited, I’m itching for an actual challenge. And the sooner they show themselves, the quicker we’re done with all of this and we can go home.”

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Nobody said anything, despite wanting to gasp again. Only Helios was nodding and grinning enthusiastically, having returned to his usual self. “That’s right, brother! Kick their asses!”

James smiled and turned around, grabbing his friends along with the barrier by using his tentacles.

It didn’t take long to see the source of the energy signature.

“Ok, so that’s not surprising at all.” James chuckled.

It was the leader of the city, who looked totally unharmed by the explosion.

“So you survived the explosion.” James clapped. “I bet you’re feeling really tough right now. But please spare me the villain monologue cause I have a small stroke every time I hear one.”

“Don’t get too cocky.” The leader replied. “Just because you killed all that trash, doesn’t mean you can compare yourself to me. Especially now that you’ve so graciously lent me your power.”

“Am I the only one getting déjà vu here?” James asked innocently. “Anyway, what are you on about?”

“Oh, I’m actually deeply grateful to you. Not only did you let me power up as much as I wanted while you killed my men, but you also let me eat that juicy little explosion of yours.”

“So that was your doing? Can’t say I’m surprised, really.” James said with a bored expression.

Seeing James’s completely nonchalant demeanor, the leader paused for a second. But then he immediately resumed his cocky monologue. “I’ve absorbed most of the energy you left in the explosion. Millions of those saws of yours were destroyed, and all their energy went into me. And now I’ll be using it against you. More importantly, during all the time you’ve been running around and talking to your friends, I was charging up, getting stronger with every second that passed.”

“This is such an unbelievable bummer.” James sighed.

The leader instantly revealed a wide grin. “That’s right, fear me. Your own power will be your undoing.”

James sighed again. “Man, I was hoping for a challenge, or at least some fun.”

James immediately saw that this guy was a complete pushover. And that made the fact that he had to sit through all the cringy villainous threats all the more annoying.

But more importantly, he was disappointed. All this preamble for no payoff. This guy was just some random shmuck who thought he’s hot shit.

For a second, James actually questioned whether he was in some sort of Groundhog day kind of situation. Because it felt like he was doing the same thing over and over again.

There was another reason why he was disappointed. Since this guy is so weak, there was no way for him to lure out the stalkers.

James raised his hand, spawning thirty Javelins in an instant. That wasn’t much, but he was sure he didn’t need more than that to defeat this guy.

But for some reason, he froze before launching them.

“Too scared of me to even move?” The leader grinned as he threw his own spell at James.

A dark axe was flying right towards James’s head. And he wasn’t even behind a barrier.

“James, don’t play around!” Lunaris shouted right as the axe was thrown. She could feel the horrifying amount of power concentrated within that axe. The leader wasn’t lying when he said he had been charging up. That axe alone probably had more energy within itself than even James’s Javelins.

But James didn’t use SARM to dodge. And he didn’t cast a barrier either.

Instead, he slowly, very slowly moved to the side.

And because he was so slow, the swift axe quickly reached him, cutting his arm off at the shoulder.

“Ahh, the pain! I’m crippled!” James fell over, with a devious grin on his face.