James and Helios were perched up on their platform on top of the giant tree, scanning their surroundings.

They didn’t have to wait long to see the demons far off in the distance.

Mere seconds after the first wave of demons came into view, the duo saw the true extent of what they were about to face.

Demons as far as eye could see. So many of them that they were trampling on each other, stumbling and caving in each other’s skulls, frenzied to get a piece of the humans.

Even though there were demons of all shapes and sizes, from canines, skeletons, bats, to even humanoid creatures, there were just so many of them, so full of the power of Darkness, that it looked like a sea of buzzing black dots was marching towards them.

The land itself was already dark enough, but these creatures were oozing Darkness. A color blacker than the night, as if it was snuffing all the light out of existence. The more creatures that came into view, the less light there seemed to be in the forest. Even though it was supposed to be midday.

As they were waiting for the demons to get within striking range, James was stockpiling saws. This time around, he chose to go with a design that would deal damage over as large an area as possible.

He wouldn’t even use the saws for their usual purpose at all, they were basically just bombs at this point. But he had quite a bit of experience making saws, so at this point it barely took more than the wave of his hand for dozens of saws to be spawned. Although they were quite flimsy, he didn’t need them to be well-made, they wouldn’t be used for repeated strikes. Their only purpose was to be detonated.

He made sure to infuse them with as much fire essence as possible, in order to achieve bigger explosions. But explosions alone might not have been enough. Borrowing the designs from some of his other spells, like the Magmafrost Bullet, he placed a dense chunk of ice encased in stone at the core of the saw, in order to add dangerous shrapnel that could pierce the demons’ hides to the explosions.

In the meantime, Helios was preparing his own spells, enchanting his gear with potent fires and doing anything he could to ensure he could damage as many enemies at a time as possible . Seeing how many demons they were about to face, he decided against using his heavier and more powerful swords. What he really needed was speed, so he pulled out two long and thin twin sabres.

Those green blades were beautifully sparkling even in these lands that seemed to dim even the sunlight. But as beautiful as the swords were, they were far from his strongest weapons. What they did excel in was speed and the range of their attacks. Swinging the sabers around would allow him to quickly deal with a large number of enemies, although they weren’t as useful against stronger enemies.

The demons were quickly advancing, several stragglers that were already in the vicinity had attempted to climb the tree. But James’s saws were able to swiftly deal with them.

The demons were fast, but the boys worked even faster. Soon enough, James had thousands of tiny saws by his side. Individually, they wouldn’t do much damage. But no matter how tough those demons may be, when there were thousands of explosions, they were bound to get hurt.

Still, thousands of saws didn’t mean much. At least not when dealing with so many enemies. He would’ve felt much safer if he had tens of thousands on his side. Hell, he’d need hundreds of thousands to deal with all these demons.

He often fantasized about storing up thousands of saws. Not even flimsy ones, but well-made ones that he would spend a lot of time individually crafting. And he would take them out when needed and unleash them upon his foes. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible. Their biggest drawback was that they expired fairly quickly. Even Razorice Saws that he spent a lot more effort on, would just dissipate soon after.

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He didn’t have any time to fantasize though, these saws were all he’d get for now. The demons were already within range.

“Take cover!” James told Helios, having learned his lesson to not just blow stuff up without telling his allies.

Even if the demons turned out to be extraordinarily sturdy and resistant to his blasts, James didn’t plan to explode his saws one by one.

He extended his palm and the saws were launched. They didn’t immediately attack the demons that were at the frontlines, they flew above the demons for a few moments, to maximize the area of attack.

James snapped his fingers symbolically.

And thus the battle started. With one big bang.

The saws all exploded simultaneously. It was a very fortunate thing that the guys were used to wearing earplugs, because even plugged, the blast was so loud that it could be heard even dozens of miles away.

The sound was the only thing that confirmed that the detonation was successful, because neither James nor Helios could look. They were hunkering down, hidden beneath a shield.

There was more shrapnel than ever before, flying with such force that they were hitting Helios’s shield as if it was raining anvils, even though the blast was quite a distance away from them.

They were able to assess the damage only after the shrapnel stopped raining down a while later.

The sight made both of them smile.

Hundreds of demons lay dead, with hundreds more wounded.

“Now that’s what I call a real man’s spell.” Helios gave James a zealous fist bump. “Now it’s my turn!”

Not giving the demons time to recover, Helios jumped out of the tree.

He hadn’t told James what he was about to do, so James yelled out in shock. “What the hell?”

Jumping from that height would definitely be fatal for James. Of course, what was deadly to James was an entirely different matter to Helios. While James was a glass cannon, Helios was basically a tank.

Helios turned around mid-jump and smiled devilishly at James. He then turned around again and plunged down with all his might.

James had been too focused on his saws and hadn’t noticed all the preparations Helios had been making. His arms were covered in protective plating, covered in white hot flames.

As Helios was cannonballing towards the ground, James was conflicted. On one hand, he was too scared to look. On the other hand, he couldn’t contain his curiosity.

Looking was definitely the right choice though, because he wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own two eyes.

Helios didn’t slow down at all during his descent. On the contrary, he seemed to have accelerated with all his might, right until he plunged into the ground.

The resulting explosion seemed even louder than the one before. If Helios’s goal was to show off, he definitely succeeded.

The mere force of his plunge was enough to form a giant crater in front of the tree they were stationed on, but that wasn’t Helios’s only intent. The plates on his hands shattered after hitting the ground, an even more powerful blast erupting as the plates unleashed the energy within, waves of fire bursting forth as the white-hot fire was released.

Helios’s plunge created a deep crater in the middle, and his flames created a much shallower but much wider crater that burned hundreds of other demons in their wake. Any existing smaller trees and vegetation was wiped out along with the demons. Luckily, Helios had been able to reign in the flames before they could burn down the giant trees. The guys needed the trees for their battle, wiping them all out would be akin to suicide.

Hundreds of charred demon corpses were filling the crater, with only one living creature among them. Helios stood up and looked back at James, smiling.

As triumphant as his strike was, he didn’t want to wait around for the other thousands of demons to attack, so he quickly jumped back up the tree. James was even more impressed with how fast Helios covered the distance than the explosion. Seconds later, Helios was back next to him.

“How the hell did you even survive that?”

“Didn’t you see the platings?” Helios asked with a triumphant smile.

James gave him a puzzled look. “Plating or not, the mere force of that impact would be enough to kill any man!”

Helios was enjoying James’s disbelief. “I told you glass cannon wasn’t the way to go! There are many awesome things you can do when you’re as strong as a mountain.” Helios was grinning proudly.

But the grin was short-lived. Their initial strikes were highly successful, killing hundreds of demons. But more and more were coming. As they were perched on the tall tree, they could see the hordes dotting the land as far as eye could see. These little victories were just a drop in the bucket.

“As fun as that was, the real battle is about to begin.” Helios grabbed his sabres, the flames in his eyes growing brighter as he was staring at the seemingly endless horde closing in on them.