After being rejuvenated, and even gaining some levels, James swiftly joined Helios.

“What’s the situation?” James asked. He could see that Helios was breathing heavily, wounds covering his entire body. But he wasn’t in critical condition. With the buff granted by James’s repeated [Chaotic healing], Helios had kept the agent at bay without taking any fatal injuries.

But even so, James couldn’t let him fight any longer. He was obviously at his limits. Even before he faced the agent, Helios had been repeatedly stabbed by all the neophytes.

“It’s all right, brother. You protected us for so long, let me shoulder that burden now. Go back, take it easy and let Lunaris heal you.” James said with a gentle voice. James considered himself too much of a man to tear up. But the sight of his friend that was always full of vitality, now exhausted and in tatters, was so saddening that it made him want to face the agent all alone.

“I can’t let you do that. As long as I’m still standing, I will aid you.” Helios paused, wincing from the pain. He wanted to hide that from James, but the many wounds made the pain unbearable.

“That is a real agent, James.” He continued. “I know that fighting this guy for a while and then killing the neophytes might’ve given you some degree of confidence, but you haven’t seen the full extent of his power.”

As they felt a wave of Darkness wash over them, Helios winced from pain again.

“You know what that is, don’t you? He’s powering up.” Helios pointed at a concentration of Darkness that was growing denser and darker. “He’s in the middle of that. Don’t even bother attacking it, I tried. Whatever that … cocoon-like layer of Darkness is, it’s impenetrable. We can’t do anything to stop it, and once he comes out of there, we’ll feel the full extent of his powers.”

“There’s always a phase two, isn’t there?” James asked sardonically, spitting out in frustration.

“You can’t face him alone.” Helios replied seriously, ignoring his joke.

James knew that it would be hard to convince Helios to back off and rest while he would do the fighting.

He would’ve done that thing he read about in books where one friend knocks out the other for his own good, to protect him from himself. But James cared about Helios too much to do that, even if it was to protect him.

“Look, you already pushed yourself beyond your limits to defend us. First the neophytes, then the agent. I don’t even want to use Chaotic Healing on you anymore, you pushed your body and mind enough. I know it will be hard, but I can do this. Too much is on the line for me to fail. You, Lunaris, even this whole world depends on my success, more or less. I’ll deal with him, so please, take care of yourself.”

James looked at Helios, his eyes displaying unquestionable empathy and care.

As reluctant as Helios was, it was impossible for anyone to say no to such pleading.

“All right, but you have to take care of yourself too. Don’t die on us you crazy bastard, we all love you.”

The moment was too full of emotions, so the two men couldn’t even look at each other anymore. Such corny emotions were too much for two guys who thought of themselves as powerful, stoic warriors. Still, they hugged. They thought of each other as brothers, how could you not hug your bother before he goes into battle, not knowing if he’ll make it back?

These feelings just made James want to protect his friends even more. His resolve was at its peak, he could feel the mana burning throughout his body, yearning to kill the one who brought him and his friends so much pain.

As Helios retreated back to where Lunaris and Denmac were stationed, James felt another pulse coming from the mass of Darkness that enveloped the agent.

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It was almost time, he could feel that with every inch of his body.

To put some distance between the agent and his friends, James went past the agent, several hundred feet in the other direction. Lunaris’s healing and buffs wouldn’t reach him, but that was ok. He wanted her to heal Helios and protect herself anyway. Lunaris was strong as well, perhaps too strong to relegate to just being a support and healer.

But she had used a lot of mana and energy to fight the neophytes and to heal the two of them for so long. She was exhausted as well.

James didn’t want to risk her well-being at all. The sheer number of spells that he and the agent would unleash on each other would decimate their surroundings, sparing no one. He didn’t want her to be caught in the cross-fire.

It was time for him to repay some of the kindness and support his friends had given him. Since the first moment he set foot in this world, his friends had gone above and beyond for him. Risking his life to fight a madman felt like nothing in comparison to all they had done for him.

James could feel that the moment of the agent’s arrival was approaching, so he began preparing as well.

The agent wasn’t the only one who could power up.

He could have prepared an army of saws, but James had a hunch that they wouldn’t be enough. Whatever the agent was doing to himself, he was bound to come out much stronger. And if his defenses would be as powerful as the aura emanating from him implied, even if he conjured thousands of saws, James wouldn’t be able to do much damage.

He needed something more. And luckily, the overbearing mass of mana flowing through his body was eager to deliver whatever he needed.

James decided to stockpile bullets. Even though the agent was proving to be even more powerful than he expected, his previous plan was still sound.

While the bullets would do even less damage than his saws, what he really needed wasn’t damage, but a way to control the fight. Even just a few seconds was a lot when in a fight, so the more bullet chains he had, the more time he could buy for himself.

James wasn’t delusional, he knew that just because it had worked on the neophytes, it didn’t guarantee it would work on the agent.

But the fact of the matter remains that a way to control your opponent is much more important than a way to damage him.

James began conjuring bullets as fast as he could. All the practice with conjuring saws made him quite proficient at conjuring many things at a time.

Instead of bundling them up however, James ran around the agent’s ‘cocoon’ and placed the bullets haphazardly.

The arrogant monster thinks he can just turtle up and power up without consequences? That’s not how the world works. The more he stayed in that cocoon, the more he’d have to pay for underestimating James.

Although James could feel the agent’s power growing stronger and stronger by the second, he wasn’t afraid.

Even after conjuring hundreds of bullets, James could feel his mana almost overflowing. He was barely able to keep it inside his body. He kept running around and spawning bullets, but it barely made a dent in his mana. Even his regeneration seemed to have gone in overdrive, a bullet’s mana cost being regenerated in fractions of a second.

Each bullet and chain would have little effect on the agent, so James kept stockpiling more and more. With each second, the agent was getting stronger, but James was doing his part as well, adding so many bullets that he couldn’t even keep track of them anymore.

Before long, there were thousands of bullets around the agent’s cocoon. James couldn’t even feel a dent in his mana pool though. He was more exhausted from running around than the mana expenditure.

Finally, James heard a loud crack.

“So it’s finally time, huh?” James clenched his fists.

A wave of Darkness exploded forth, and the agent emerged. Immediately, he looked at James with an icy stare.

“I’m surprised you’re still standing, you little pest.” The agent’s face distorted in a creepy smile. “But I’m happy to see you. I’m going to enjoy breaking you down. You’ve caused us quite a bit of trouble.” The agent spat out. “You just had to spawn into this world, didn’t you? If not for you, I’d still be sabotaging that place from the inside.”

The agent then shrieked loudly, and the sky turned even darker. James’s skin felt like it was burning from the mere aura surrounding him.

Without another word, tens of shadowy tendrils rushed from the agent towards James.

But James was prepared. As soon as he saw the tendrils moving, he raised his hand and a dozen bullets flew towards the agent.

The agent’s speed was much higher than before, but it didn’t matter. There were so many bullets scattered all over that it was impossible to dodge. With another flick of James’s wrist, another ten bullets shot at the agent.

Dozens of chains sprang forth from the bullets, stunning the agent for a fraction of second.

It wasn’t much, but the tendrils stopped in their tracks. No matter how strong the agent now was, he could still be stunned.

The stun didn’t even last a second, but before the agent could reissue the attack, James launched another wave of a dozen bullets at him.

Seeing as his plan was somewhat successful, James decided to go on the offensive.