Losing a head would probably hurt quite a bit. If anything, it should be a major loss. But that logic didn’t apply to the Chimeras.

With one head gone, the other two seemed to be morphing. The trio could clearly see the transformations taking place in real time, every second something about the chimeras changed. It was as if the sacrifice of the goat head made them power up.

The lion part's teeth were getting bigger and more serrated, the paws were expanding till they doubled in size. The snake parts of their bodies were becoming longer by the second. Their eyes were getting darker, their stone bodies were now almost pitch black.

The three didn’t wait around for the chimeras to power up. James rushed to prepare even more saws. Now that the ten he had before have been destroyed, he clearly needed more. Taking advantage of the creatures’ transformations, he prepared 15 saws this time around.

Helios had noticed the effectiveness of the lava saws, so he took out a new sword, which he enchanted and infused with the power of fire.

Lunaris was applying enchantments to James’s saws as he was producing them, hoping to increase their durability.

But the chimeras’ transformations didn’t take long. A few seconds later, their battle shrieks rang out through the room again.

Helios was ready sooner than James, so he sent his fiery sword flying straight into the body of a chimera.

The speed and force of the sword was extraordinary, and yet the chimera was not only able to dodge it, but using its long snake tail it was able to actually grab the sword as Helios was trying to pull it back with his spell.

The chimeras’ transformations had apparently come with a large increase in speed and power. Otherwise such a feat would have been impossible.

Helios was trying to pull back his sword with all his might, but it was not budging an inch.

“Damn bird! God damn it! Do you even know how much that sword costs?” Helios shouted angrily.

"That's not a bird, bro." James chuckled as he was preparing his saws.

"When he's that angry, nuance and detail go out the window. If you threw a rock right now, he'd call it a bird too, just cause it's flying."

Helios was angry enough, but at least he could just pull out another sword and recover that one after the fight. But then the chimera began absorbing the sword.

“Oh you can do that, can you?” Helios was seething. Not only was that sword very expensive, but if he let the chimera absorb it, it would become much stronger by inheriting the properties of the sword.

With a heavy heart, Helios quickly made the decision to detonate the sword. Luckily, he had quite a lot of his own mana imbued into it, through various enchantments and inscriptions. He was able to use that mana to make it detonate.

As the chimera was in the process of absorbing the sword, it was hit at point blank. It was impossible to dodge this kind of attack.

The detonation was larger than anything James had ever seen. It was so powerful and bright that it blinded him for a second. But it gave him an idea for later. One more nugget of an idea was now germinating in James's mind, to be used in the arcane simulation when the situation called for it.

“So that’s the might of a high level item?” James was flabbergasted, but he didn’t have the time to gawk.

Even though Helios had successfully taken care of one chimera, there were nine left, which were flying at them at that very moment.

Having had time to complete the 15 saws, James launched them at the chimeras. He wasn’t expecting to kill them with just the saws, but he was hoping they’d have to sacrifice another head to deal with the saws. Or at least he hoped the saws could tank for them while the trio bombarded the chimeras with their spells.

But the chimeras soon proved to him how foolish a notion that was.

The same trick wouldn't work twice, not even with five more saws than before. The transformations had buffed the chimeras to an unrecognizable degree. As if the saws were merely some annoying flies, they swiftly hit the saws with their tails.

The elongated snake tails turned out to be not only more flexible, but a lot more durable as well. As the tails hit the saws, they immediately chipped fragments out of the saws, and wobbled them to the point they couldn’t even attack again without James infusing more mana into them to stabilize their flight.

The tails weren’t even damaged more than a scratch and a singe.

It didn’t take more than three seconds, and ten saws were already damaged. James thought there was a small silver lining at the very least. The five extra saws were able to perform two attacks each onto the chimeras, before they were swiftly dealt with as well. But there was no silver lining after all, the attacks did negligible damage.

Now James had no saws, and they were facing nine chimeras who couldn’t wait to rip them apart.

But James would have to be an absolute fool to put all his eggs in one basket. Just how many times did he make his own life harder by not being prepared enough?

He was warned that the Soul Grinder was a vicious place that even Helios feared. He wouldn’t dare take it lightly.

“Welp, there goes plan A. Time for plan B, I suppose.” James snickered, as if the shrieking chimeras charging towards them weren't sending a chill down his spine.

Luckily for James, he had been able to save quite a bit of mana in his necklace during the first phase of the fight. And in a way that made Helios proud, he would use it all at the first opportunity.

“I think I have a way to deal with them, I just need a few seconds.” James said.

There was no time for further discussion, so Helios sprang into action.

“Then you’ll have them, mate. Just don’t take too long, I don’t know how well this will work.” He blurted out quickly, without any hesitation. “Cover your ears though.”

As soon as James and Lunaris covered their ears, Helios released a taunting shout. So powerful were the vibrations from the shout that they made the ground shake. He then bolted away at full speed.

Helios would've prepared not to use this strategy which made him a moving target, but he trusted that James would take care of the chimeras before he would become their lunch.

The chimeras stopped in the middle of their attack and rerouted to focus solely on Helios. The creatures were already enraged, but Helios’s shout seemed to have even influenced their minds. A red aura seemed to envelop their heads, their dark eyes started glowing red. They were now in a mad scramble to go after Helios, completely forgetting about the existence of James or Lunaris.

Lunaris immediately cast a speed buff on Helios, just in case, so that he’d be able to run and dodge with less of a chance of seeing the insides of a chimera's stomach. If they even had one.

James didn’t waste a second of the valuable time Helios had bought for him. The powerful chimera bodies would only be destroyed by a powerful weapon. He wouldn’t have enough time for a Razorice Saw, but he had taken that into consideration.

The Lava Saws were great, they were a relatively quick cast, and they were powerful and relatively durable.

But they were still flawed. To make them work, James had to further change their designs.

James threw his hands forward and instantaneously spawned what looked like hundreds of lumps of dirt. They were tiny and uneven, one could hardly imagine that these could ever be a weapon.

Each lump must’ve been less than a third of the size of a Lava Saw. But what they lacked in size, power and durability, they made up for in numbers. A simple wave of his hands was all it took to spawn them, although that wasn't exactly a surprise, anybody could spawn lumps of dirt.

With another wave of his hand, each lump was turned into the saw shape he had become so familiar with. He waved his hands towards them one more time, and he imbued them with fire. And with a final wave of his hands, he placed SARM on the saws.

The initial mana cost of placing SARM on so many saws was somewhat high, but at least there was no continuous expenditure, allowing James to have a veritable army of saws.

[Skill unlocked: Lava Saw Army]

With one last thrust of his hands, James imbued mana into the saws and sent them flying.

It had only been a few seconds. The chimeras hadn’t even been able to reach Helios, who was running away with all his might in order to distract them.

Given their tiny size, James’s push had sent them flying at a speed much higher than the other types of saws. Less than a second later, they reached the chimeras.

The tiny saws did very little damage. Each individual attack was almost negligible. But considering their sheer number, it wasn’t something the chimeras could ignore.

They couldn’t dodge the saws either, they were so fast and zooming around in all directions.

With one swipe of a tail or a paw, several saws were destroyed.

But that wasn’t a problem. It only took the wave of a hand to create many more.

James was draining the mana saved up in his necklace with every wave of his hands. But it would be worth it.

The enraged chimeras couldn’t even afford to chase after Helios, because each one of them was being bombarded by dozens of tiny saws.

The chimeras were unable to do anything to defend themselves. Even though their attacks were very successful at destroying the saws, James was throwing them out like he was feeding pigeons in the park.

Soon, the room was swarming with saws. What must’ve been thousands of saws were buzzing around the chimeras.

The tiny saws did even less damage than the 15 Lava Saws that barely even scratched the tails of the chimeras.

But even though dealing 0.01% damage was absolutely insignificant, if that amount of damage was inflicted ten thousand times, it would take any foe down.

Their shrieks were getting louder and louder as the despair was setting in. Each wave of the chimeras' tails destroyed many saws. The lion's teeth and paws were attacking frantically, their might enough to crush the saws with merely a touch.

But no matter how strong the chimeras were, the saws were just too numerous. James was throwing out saws like a farmer throwing out seeds by the handful onto his fields.

The saws were covering the the chimeras like a bee colony swarming and stinging the threats to their colony. There were so many of them that the lion part of the chimeras couldn't even open their mouths to use their fangs, because the saws would get inside their bodies and do a lot more damage.

The tiny saws that barely did any damage had won, even though they started out as weak and pathetic lumps of dirt.

Death by a thousand cuts.