James knew that [Reckless Abandon] was supposed to increase his reaction time. But now that he actually got to try it out in battle, he realized it did so much more. Sacrificing so much of his HP increased his speed to the point he saw the world in slow motion.

The speed-up effect only lasted a few seconds though.

“Too good to be true, huh?” James whispered to himself. The skill was incredibly powerful, but it was equally short-lived. The other effects were still present though, he could feel that his magic power was still a lot stronger than usual. But the main effect was already gone.

However, his Chaos Barrier was still protecting him. He could see it getting weaker very slowly, but given that it was still absorbing the hundreds of spells constantly being thrown at it, it was doing a hell of a job.

Even in the face of so many enemies, his barrier bought him time. And that was all James needed in order to fight back.

There was a small problem though. He never expected to have to fight tens of thousands of enemies. He had mostly focused on developing spells that would deal with one powerful opponent, not a whole horde of demons.

Even though he was sick of his damn saws already, when it came to big AoE attacks that could deal with many enemies at the same time, his saws were pretty much his only option that was worth a damn.

He drooled at the thought of using the Chaos Flower again, it could definitely evaporate any demon that showed up. But it was just way above his level. It did too much damage to himself, and it drained him beyond belief. Fighting a horde of enemies was a marathon, not a sprint. So he had to pace himself.

Although he didn’t have time to replicate the huge army of saws he prepared previously, he was still a master of saws.

James waved his hand, and spawned a dozen saws.

James began waving his hands frantically. With each wave of his hand, he would spawn as many saws as he could, quantity over quality. And with another wave, he’d send them off to explode in the middle of the demon horde.

With the Chaos Barrier protecting him, he could stare at the horde even as they were launching an unending barrage at him. It was a surreal experience to see the terrifying, skull-shaped dark spells flowing right at his head, inches away from his face. And yet, James could just look at them as they did nothing, just slowly eat away at his barrier. It was like looking down the barrel of a gun as it was shooting. But James wasn’t even flinching.

He kept waving his hands around, sending wave after wave of saws. Dozens of explosions were echoing throughout the battlefield as hundreds of demons fell prey to the saws.

But a short while later, James noticed a strange phenomenon. The more demons he killed, the less effective each explosion turned out to be.

It seemed like the demons that arrived first were the weaker ones.

A few minutes later, after culling the first few waves of demons, it had gotten to the point that James’s saws weren’t doing any damage anymore. He’d send out a wave, and the detonation wouldn’t kill any demons at all.

Even the spells that were being launched at him had gotten stronger. The crimson barrier was now noticeably fading away much quicker than before, losing color and getting thinner by the second.

With his own spells not working and his defenses fading away, James knew he had to do something drastic.

He knew what he had to do, but he was reluctant. He had seen what [Reckless Abandon] could accomplish. The rewards were great, and the situation definitely called for it. But even in the dire predicament he was in, the pain was just too great. Sacrificing his health for this spell was one of the most painful things he had ever experienced.

But he had to be a man. His friends were counting on him.

His whole being recoiled at the though of sacrificing his HP again. But the effects of the spell were just too great to not use it again. If it were just the slow-motion effect, he’d be a lot more hesitant. But that wasn’t even the only effect of [Reckless Abandon], just its most powerful and obvious one. The other effects were more subtle, but just as important. More mana, more regeneration, more power. It was everything he needed.

Power, he needed power to defeat these other waves of demons. And that’s exactly what [Reckless Abandon] could give him.

He hadn’t recovered much health, so there wasn’t much to sacrifice. But even if he didn’t get the full effects, it would still give him the edge he needed to deal with the demons.

With his mind made up, he took off his shirt, rolled it up, put it in his mouth and then bit into it. He didn’t really know what he was doing, but e saw people doing it in the movies. He thought maybe that would help with enduring the pain at least a little bit.

He barely recovered from his previous sacrifice, but he had no other choice. There were still what looked like at least several thousand demons left. If he didn’t man up and do it, the demons would do unspeakable things to his friends. And with no one to kill the neophyte agents, countless more lives would be lost.

He wanted to do it, but his body seemed to be fighting him. Every inch of his flesh seemed to be trembling, unwilling to put itself through that.

But James cared about his friends too much to let his chicken-shit body and subconscious prevent him from keeping them safe. Without giving it another thought, James sacrificed his health yet again.

The pain which seemed so debilitating the last time around was even greater now. He couldn’t even imagine a pain stronger than the one which he experienced the first time around, but reality proved to be a lot crazier and more creative than his imagination.

It was as if his body was still sore from the first HP sacrifice, so doing another sacrifice was like adding salt on the wound. And then stabbing that wound repeatedly.

James fell down to his knees, biting the shirt like his life depended on it. The pain was so great that he instinctively moved into the fetal position, holding his stomach. Every single neuron in his body felt like it had been set on fire, dipped in acid, and then set on fire again.

He could barely think because of the pain, but he still remembered that he was in the middle of a battle. Helios was still fighting, so he had to do his part as well.

As the seconds passed, the pain didn’t subside much. But he was fighting through it, because he had a job to do.

James didn’t remove the shirt from his mouth, he decided he’d do go through the rest of the battle like this. It wasn’t much of a pain relief, but psychologically it helped a little. His entire body was shaking, every muscle in his body was tense. But at least all that shaking and tensing meant that there were other signals his brain was receiving, other than the unrelenting barrage of pain.

Not a lot of his health had regenerated before his second sacrifice. Despite that, the crimson barrier which was slowly fading from the continuous bombardment, was now even thicker than before.

It seemed like his barrier and [Reckless Abandon] weren’t being fed by the sacrificed HP, as much as the actual pain of the sacrifice.

On the one hand, it was good news. The effects of [Reckless Abandon] were back in full-swing, his barrier was even tougher than before. But on the other hand, it meant that his greatest spells required him to literally torture himself.

To distract himself from that grim though, James decided to test out his powers. He was really curious about just how much stronger he became under the effects of [Reckless Abandon].

James prepared the same kind of saws as before and launched another wave.

Even though he saw things through his slow-mo, the saws were quite quick. In a flash, they flew to an area where the concentration of demons was the highest, and then they detonated.

The last wave before the sacrifice did almost no damage to the demons, not killing even just one. But with the increase in power that came from [Reckless Abandon], this time around the detonation killed at twenty demons.

The stronger demons with much tougher defenses than before had been obliterated by a single wave of saws. A flick of his wrist, and the demons were dead.

He was so amazed by the stark difference in power that he forgot to keep biting on the shirt, and it fell out of his mouth. He quickly picked it up and wiped it off. There were many demons left. Unfortunately, that meant he’d still need the dreaded shirt. It wasn’t even the demons that terrified him, but the pain that his own spells caused him.

But even though the effect was very powerful, it was also short-lived. He could tell it was already ending, as the slow-mo was fading and everything was speeding up again.

Meanwhile, Helios was also having a tough time. The demons that were climbing the tree were also stronger, he could no longer just cut them down in one or two swings of his sword.

He had to resort to using more and more fire magic in his attacks, to the point the tree couldn’t take much more of it, even though he was extinguishing the fires after every attack.

“James, let’s switch trees!”

Helios climbed to the top of the tree and took James on his back. In the middle of battle, surrounded by a horde of demons, even just switching from one tree to another was quite the task. James definitely didn’t have the athleticism, agility or strength for it, but Helios was strong enough for the both of them.

The giant trees weren’t exactly close to one another, they were hundreds of feet apart. They had chosen such a tree on purpose, so the demons couldn’t just jump at them from the next tree over.

While James was on his back, Helios noticed that he was trembling uncontrollably. He knew James’s awakening skills required a sacrifice, but he didn’t expect it to be this bad.

James was shivering involuntarily. Even though he wanted to hide it, the physiological effects of this much pain were just impossible to control.

Helios didn’t like it one bit. It was very upsetting to see his friend in such pain. This was a man that had become like a brother to him, that he loved like family. But he couldn’t do anything about it at the moment.

The only thing he could do for him right now was to switch trees.

Charging mana into his feet, Helios leapt. The distance was way too big, so he couldn’t make it to the other tree in one go. But even though what awaited below were hordes of angry demons, they were actually a much better cushion than the ground.

Helios chose the biggest demon he could see and landed right on top of it, crushing its skull with his knee. Without giving the demons around them time to react, he leapt again, using the demon’s shattered cranium as a springboard.

As bizarre as the scenes were for James, the experience was quite fun. Even the pain seemed to slightly lessen as he flew through the air on Helios’s back. For a second, he thought that maybe an intellect-based glass canon wasn’t the way to go. Strength and agility seemed to be really fun, and there was no weird masochistic ritual that strength-types had to go through.

But then he looked around at the hordes of demons. As torturous as his build was, it seemed like the only thing that could save them right now.

After a few of Helios’s leaps, they landed on top of the tree.

Helios quickly dropped James off. He had to hurry and get to his position, but he couldn’t help but look at James one more time. He was worried, he knew that this was just the beginning, and the thought of what James might do to himself frightened him.

But he couldn’t do anything for him. He could hear the legions of demons climbing the tree already. He didn’t even have time to say anything, Helios immediately dropped halfway down the tree to intercept the demons that were ascending.

Helios wasn’t the only one who knew his role. Even though the pain made it hard to even move, James immediately conjured another wave of saws and launched it. But the effects had worn off, without the buffing effects of [Reckless Abandon], the explosions didn’t kill any demons at all.

It felt frustrating. James had his single target spells that could probably take down any demon on this whole damn continent, but that wouldn’t help when there were still thousands of them waiting to tear him apart.

So what he had to do was obvious to him. Even though he’d rather die than put himself through that pain again, there was much more at stake than his own life. Without giving it another thought, James grabbed his shirt again.