Just as James was smiling, excited to finally have a challenging fight, his arm got cut off again. Lunaris’s healing had barely just managed to regrow it, and it was already gone.

But that didn’t stop his smile, because he had already accomplished something much greater. He defended his friends.

Despite the fact that it cost him his limbs, his friends were now behind a seemingly impenetrable barrier.

Just as James was getting his arm cut off again, he could see dozens of arrows crashing into the barrier. But even though the arrows were powerful enough to cut off his limbs with a mere graze, they weren’t even scratching the barrier.

In his mind, he had already won.

So what if he couldn’t see his enemies, and he was limbless yet again? His friends were safe, and that was half the victory right there.

Now he only had to figure out a way to actually beat them.

And he had to think of something fast, because the stalkers had already realized that it was pointless to keep attacking the barrier. So they all rushed towards James, sending a volley of arrows ahead of them.

This wasn’t James’s first rodeo though. SARM combined with [Reckless Abandon] could dodge all of the arrows with ease, even if he couldn’t see the shooter and barely had any time to react.

The real danger was being surrounded without knowing it and being turned into Shish Kebab since there would be no direction in which he could dodge without a potential enemy already being there waiting for him.

He had to keep moving in unpredictable patterns, constantly changing his direction so as to avoid any traps by the invisible bastards.

Even though SARM was flinging him around randomly, making him dizzy, the strategy seemed to work. Thousands of arrows were flying through the sky, craters were being formed all over, but he wasn’t getting hit at all.

So now he finally had the chance to fight back.

He didn’t know exactly how many stalkers there were, but by the looks of how many craters and arrows there were, there had to be at least 10. Therefore, James decided to it was best to try and kill them all at the same time.

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Instead of conjuring Javelins, he began casting his Chaos Flower. Millions of tiny crimson dots littered the sky immediately.

As they began to rapidly spin, James could hear the hisses of the stalkers as they were ground down by his Flower.

He was almost beginning to feel disappointed by how easy the fight was turning out to be. But then, all of the crimson dots suddenly disappeared.

“What the hell?” His spell was not only interrupted, but all the mana he had poured into it seemed to have vanished.

“Thank you for the meal.” James heard a whisper behind him.

Ten huge craters formed at his location before he could react. Luckily, SARM had flung him away already, otherwise he would’ve been a splatter on the ground. Still, not even SARM could completely protect him from danger. Half of his torso was already gone.

“So you guys can nullify magic now?” James shouted in mid-flight, not daring to stop for even a second. Lunaris’s magic was regenerating him from afar, but he was still gravely wounded.

He had had such an easy time for so long, that he had really gotten careless. In a panic, he immediately sacrificed 50 more times, casting his Chaos Barrier.

But with the sacrifices from before, he was now at 100 in total. Even though he didn’t feel pain at all, the sacrifices apparently still took a toll on him.

In trying to protect himself as much as he could, he had stunned himself briefly. SARM could fling him around without him needing to do much, but he was flying through the air, immobilized, eyes bloodshot, not even able to scream.

Even SARM seemed to be slightly affected. It stopped dodging as frequently, and immediately hundreds of arrows smacked into James’s Chaos Barrier.

But even though some cracks could already be heard, the barrier stood strong. He had done a stupid thing by getting to one hundred sacrifices so suddenly, but it wasn’t for naught.

Not only did the barrier resist, but he was already coming to. SARM immediately recovered and began zig-zagging him through the air again, avoiding the incoming arrows.

“Come on, don’t be cowards, show yourself! Let’s have a manly fight!” James taunted them.

But there was no response. On the one hand, no cringy villain monologues was a huge relief for him. On the other hand, this whole situation was still very creepy.

Worse yet, he had tried one of his strongest Area of Effect attacks, and it was completely nullified. And since there was no villain monologue, these silent bastards didn’t even explain what the hell they did.

So now James was in a fairly weird position. His friends were safe, and he was fairly safe too. But he didn’t know what to do either. If he couldn’t just kill them all in one grand attack, then he’d have to take them down one by one.

But he had a feeling that if they could nullify his big attack, they could nullify his Javelins too. They probably feigned being hit by them in the first place, so they could nullify or absorb one of the bigger spells.

But he knew what he had to do. He instructed SARM to slow down a bit. Immediately, hundreds of arrows crashed into his barriers.

The timing was tricky, but his barriers were strong enough to give him a margin of error. He still only dared to wait for just a second.

And that was plenty. Suddenly, several dark swords struck his barrier, shattering several layers instantly.

But that’s exactly what he had been waiting for.