For James’s plan to work, the gang had to approach the agents’ base as close as they could without being detected. Every step they took greatly increased their risk, so they were scanning their surroundings like hawks.

Even though they were still a good distance away, they decided to stop. The agents were much too keen to try a stealth approach, so they would have to enact James’s so-called ‘plan’ right away.

“This looks silly. Especially considering how serious our current situation is.” Helios said with a sigh.

“It doesn’t matter how it looks. All that matters is that it will work.” James answered confidently.

James’s ‘brilliant’ plan was to be carried and then launched by Helios like a human torpedo.

“You could also be seriously injured!” Helios protested.

“Eh, so what? I’m used to pain by now. Plus, Lunaris is the dedicated support again, right? She’ll just slowly pour heals into me from a distance. I won’t die. And I’ll have my barrier up too, so that should lessen the damage I receive even more.”

“All right, all right. I see there’s no point in trying to talk you out of this. Let’s just pray for the best.” Helios acquiesced, but he was still grumpy. James most of the risk upon himself, which worried him.

Still, he didn’t have any better ideas. The existence of the Bloodwell changed things considerably, and this was the only way they could deal with it, as weird of a solution as it was. But all of James’s ideas were weird, so they were getting used to going along with it.

Helios grabbed James with one hand and began transferring mana into his own feet, preparing to sprint as fast as he could. In a way, their lives actually depended on him running as fast as possible, so Helios pumped so much mana into his feet that they were beginning to bulge from the sheer amount of mana in them.

Lunaris and Denmac would slowly approach the battlefield, supporting them from afar. Denmac’s main purpose would be to shield Lunaris. The agents would definitely try to attack the healer, so most of Denmac’s attention would be focused on negating that. Meanwhile, Lunaris would be the main support, providing the shielding, healing and buffing that was essential for a successful battle.

Now that he infused so much mana into his feet that it was starting to hurt, Helios leapt forward.

With a sonic boom, the battle had started. If the agents weren’t aware of them already, they certainly were now.

But there was no way to avoid that, so they had to try to minimize the time between the agents becoming aware of them, and striking at the Bloodwell.

Helios was so fast that it could hardly be called running. James couldn’t even see his feet, they were a blur. Not that he could see much of anything, he wasn’t used to this dizzying speed at all.

Even though they started their run miles away from the base, not even a minute had passed and they were already nearing the base.

Helios kept infusing even more mana into his feet, and just before he felt like his feet would explode, he jumped with all his might. Within moments, they were right above the agents’ base. They were launched so far up that it seemed like they were flying.

Although calling it a ‘base’ would demean the whole concept of bases. Even goblins would be ashamed of having such a base. It looked like the agents had found a long-forgotten ruin and had taken over it. It didn’t seem like they lifted even a single to repair or add anything to the ruins. The handful of stone huts that were still left standing were in a complete state of disrepair.

James might not have paid attention to the shabbiness of their so-called base if not for the contrast with what was in the middle.

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James had barely been able to adjust his eyes to the speed, when he saw it. How could he not?

The Bloodwell. The entire base was covered in faint trails of blood, all leading to the center. The trails were so faded, it looked like the agents had tried to scrub and cram every atom of blood or flesh into the Bloodwell. Not even the blood on the ground was spared, but there must have been so much of it that they couldn’t possibly get rid of all the stains.

As gruesome as the ground full of bloodstains looked, what was waiting for them in the middle of the base was even more grotesque. A bubbling well of blood and flesh, wide as a swimming pool. James didn’t even want to imagine how deep it was, the sheer quantity of suffering that must’ve been inflicted to create such a thing was unthinkable. The screams of countless souls being tortured and melted were echoing throughout the base. Even in mid-flight, far above, James could hear their screams.

The agents were already waiting for them, but not even they expected this kind of reckless approach. It was too silly to predict, but that was exactly what James had been counting on.

“Brace yourself!” Helios shouted as he prepared to launch James.

James sacrificed most of his health immediately, activating his Chaos Barrier.

The pain was excruciating, but James was able to bear it. After he had continuously tortured himself, he was slowly getting used to the sacrifices.

As soon as Helios saw that James’s barrier was up, he threw him headfirst right towards the well.

They were already flying at a dizzying speed, but with the added speed from the throw, James really had become a human torpedo.

He’d arrive at his target within moments, so he began preparing his attack.

While he had never used it in a real fight before, James knew just the skill that could do the trick.

He began conjuring the [Overloading Mana Prongs]. Right before the moment of impact, he shot the ‘Prongs’ towards the Bloodwell.

The Bloodwell contained unfathomable power. No mere human could destroy it in a few attacks.

But James was no mere human, and he didn’t need to destroy it right away either.

The immediate threat were the agents. If they allowed the agents to use the Bloodwell to power up, victory would be unlikely.

But they didn’t have to destroy the Bloodwell to make it unusable. With sufficient mana to destabilize and sully the Bloodwell, it would be rendered useless for a while. Its power was great, so it would slowly repair itself and overwhelm any foreign mana. But it would be disabled at least until after the fight was over, and that was all they needed.

It would take a lot of mana, but this was the one upside of James’s weird build. Even though he was the equivalent of a couch potato physically, mana was the one thing he had aplenty.

However, even as James was being launched towards the Bloodwell, the agents had already sprung into action.

Their corrossive dark spells were blasting James’s shield one after the other. The impact of their spells was deafening, and the mere vibrations from the collisions with his barrier were painful. But his barrier stood strong. As insane and painful as it was to conjure this barrier of his, it wasn’t a pushover. Not even agents could easily break it.

Not that they had much time to try. Even though the agents were as smart as their reputation suggested, and they had all been targeting James as soon as they saw him, James’s plan seemed to be working.

He was fast. Too fast to be stopped in time. The agents were moving and acting in fractions of seconds, but not even they could be fast enough to stop him.

In less than a few seconds since Helios had leapt over the base, James was already nearing the Bloodwell.

Seeing as their spells were being blocked by James’s barrier, the agents stopped attacking and all raced towards the Bloodwell.

In mere milliseconds, they were able to understand that they couldn’t break his barrier in time, so they were going to try the next best thing.

They would try to power up from the Bloodwell as much as they could before James could get to it.

But the human torpedo had a torpedo of his own. He wouldn’t let them have even a sip of the blood.

Even while still in mid-air, James decided to launch his attack. It would be too late if he waited to get in close range. Even letting just one agent take a single drop of blood would be too risky.

He didn’t want to risk failure, so he infused 10% of his entire mana pool just into making sure the attack would reach its destination as quickly as possible.

The [Overloading Mana Prongs] were buzzing with power. The tenth of his mana that he had sacrificed allowed the ‘Prongs’ to be catapulted forward, even faster than James. The string connecting the prongs to James were unusually long due to the sacrifice, but even more impressive than their length was their speed.

And yet, even as fast as the prongs were, the agents still wouldn’t let themselves be beaten that easily.

As monstruous and psychopathic as the agents appeared to normal people, they were apparently willing to take one for the team.

Just as the ‘Prongs’ were about to reach the Bloodwell, a neophyte intercepted them with his own body. In order to block James’s attack, it was willing to take a blow that would most likely be fatal, just to prevent the Bloodwell from being tampered with.

James couldn’t afford to fail though. If the Bloodwell didn’t get disabled, him and his friends would inevitably get overwhelmed and butchered.