The sight was so shocking to Lunaris that she froze in place for a few seconds. An enormous cloud of blades was shooting at James. Each time the dark blades crashed into the barrier, a thunderous sound shook the surroundings, with sparks shooting out in all directions as the crimson barrier destroyed the blades.

But even though the sight was terrifying to Lunaris, James, who was the victim of the attack, was smiling.

The barrier was holding!

It took three consecutive health sacrifices to conjure such a strong barrier, but it was doing its job perfectly, even against a relentless stream of blades.

Within seconds, what must’ve been at least 300 blades already crashed into the barrier. And even though many more remained, the barrier only had a few cracks in it so far.

As if that wasn’t good enough, he didn’t even feel the sacrifices! Three whole sacrifices, one after the other, should’ve left him moaning on the ground in the fetus position, begging for death. But he didn’t feel a thing. He didn’t even care that he couldn’t use an arm, leg and eye. The lack of pain was more than worth it.

“Is dodging and shielding all you can do? Well, that works for me.” Seeing that James’s barrier wouldn’t crack, the agent taunted James.

Although the giant stream of blades already cost him quite a bit of mana, the agent was on his home turf. While James was absorbing the blows, the agent was absorbing Darkness from his surroundings in order to replenish his reserves.

As unfortunate as it was that the agent was able to use the Darkness in their surroundings as fuel, James could only thank the gods that he managed to disable the Bloodwell. Whatever energy the agent regenerated now couldn’t compare to what would’ve happened if they could just use the Bloodwell.

But this was still a problem. The agent was right, all he was doing was dodging and shielding. That’s not how you win a fight.

The agent already started sending streams of blades at him.

More and more cracks began forming on the barrier, so James had to sacrifice all the health he recovered yet again.

The barrier regained its opacity and dark crimson color, and all the cracks immediately healed.

But that was still just a temporary solution. Even if he couldn’t feel the pain, his body was still being drained by the sacrifices. He couldn’t keep defending forever, he had to strike back at the agent. And he had to hurry, Helios was still tanking the neophytes, being stabbed repeatedly.

So James had to counterattack. But even though he had a large arsenal of spells, he wasn’t sure what could be the right choice. What could possibly touch this guy?

A Chaos Javelin would definitely hurt the bastard, he’d certainly feel that. But that would leave him unable to use any spells at all for at least a few hours. He couldn’t risk it, if he didn’t manage to kill the agent with a single Javelin, then he would be the one to die, leaving his friends at the mercy of these psychopaths.

The Overloading Mana Prongs certainly had the power to take down even the agent. That was the whole point of the spell, he could pump a whole lot of mana through it. It’d probably take his whole damn mana pool, but he had more than enough power.

The problem was speed. Even though with [Reckless Abandon], he was quite fast, the agent had an answer even to that. That was the biggest weakness of his build. He could do just fine without strength, stamina or durability. But speed was his real weakness.

It was a deadlock, and time wasn’t on his side.

Unlike the times in the past where he had to quickly find a solution in the middle of battle, James knew that coming up with a new spell won’t work this time.

They weren’t fighting monsters anymore. These were intelligent beings, trained for murder.

Even though they were life and death fights, the struggles up until now felt like child’s play in comparison. Going into dingy dungeons and battling mindless ‘monsters’. No wonder he was able to drift off into simulations and meditations. He wasn’t battling cunning assassins who can actually pose a challenge to a smart opponent. Even now, as he thought, his barrier was being bombarded with an endless stream of blades.

But that was ok. All his past battles built him into the mage he was today. They weren’t exactly easy either, he would’ve died a hundred deaths by now if not for his friends.

So it was time to actually use those past experiences. No more relying on new spells, he had to actually use the arsenal he had built up until now with his sweat and blood.

The situation was extremely frustrating though. He had the power he needed, but he couldn’t reach his target? It’s like he had a gun and no bullets.

And just like that, by coming up with a useless metaphor during his inner monologue, he thought of a solution.

Bullets! He had bullets! At first, he created the Magmafrost Bullet as an offensive spell. But it quickly grew obsolete. Even with his current spell power, it would probably do no damage to the agent. Hell, it probably wouldn’t even hurt the neophytes.

Even back in the Soul Grinder it was useless. But it was for that reason that he combined it with his Mana Chains.

His Bullet Chains were just what he needed. They would do no damage, but they were quick.

When he was under the effects of [Reckless Abandon], his speed was greatly increased. The agent could match that speed, so his speed gain is immediately cancelled out. But the bullets were even faster than his other spells.

His Overloading Mana Prongs were fast, but not as fast as the agent. He could make them faster by launching them with even more mana, but the agent was still too quick. The Prongs would be unlikely to succeed on their own, and he’d only waste mana by trying such a simple plan.

So if he couldn’t beat the agent in speed, his only answer was to slow him down. While his fast bullets were useless when it came to damage, they could slow the agent down or even stun him for a few moments. And that’s all he really needed, a few moments so he could launch the prongs right into the agent.

But even so, the plan was still not complete. James knew that the bullets weren’t exactly reliable. Even though he did go through all his spells when he trained, and he did practice with them just like with any other spell, he didn’t use them very much. They weren’t very powerful, so even if they did stun the agent, it would likely be the world’s shortest stun.

But these opponents weren’t going to fall for mediocre skills. Only true expertise could be used to beat such assassins.

Naturally, he didn’t have time to get really good with the bullets, or level them up a whole lot.

But what he did have was mana. Lots and lots of mana, and a high mana regeneration rate. Even after all the times Helios had insisted he train some other attribute too, James had still stuck to his glass cannon ways.

While there wasn’t exactly a level cap in the world, other people at his level would have spent a considerable percentage of their efforts on various different things. Strength, toughness, stamina, agility. There were so many other attributes to improve in order to be an effective combatant.

But even though James was as impressive as a soggy paper bag with holes in it when it came to overall fitness, well-being and balance, he had mana and spell power like no other at his level. Most people that were even three times his level wouldn’t have his amount of mana, but that’s because most people would be wise enough to listen when they are given advice. They’d at least lift a dumbbell and do a pull-up every now and then. Even kids were told to balance their stats.

But the more encounters James survived, the more he became entrenched in his ways. His patchwork build that required coming up with weird ass spells to cover for his weaknesses had been working so far. He had weak defenses, so he came up with SARM and the Chaos barrier. And when he was about to listen to Helios and train something else, the lazy part of his mind told him that he’d just come up with impromptu answers for any other weakness he’d discover in his build. It was a confidence borne of repeatedly coming out alive of deadly battles, and chronic laziness. He was already working so hard though, his laziness was bound to leak through somehow.

But in this moment, he was glad that his build was the way it was. No normal person could deal with an agent this way.

He needed bullets. One bullet wouldn’t do the trick. That creep wouldn’t live up to the name of an agent if he would be taken down by that. Not even several bullets would be enough.

Luckily, his large mana reserves allowed for far more than that. If five, ten, or twenty bullets wouldn’t be enough, then he’d just have to conjure many more. Thousands if need be.

As the blades were bombarding him ceaselessly and slowly cracking his shield, James smiled. For once, he had confidence in himself.

The agent's onslaught wasn't ending though. With the advantage of absorbing Darkness from his surroundings, he was able to keep up the stream of blades seemingly with no pause. But with a plan in mind, James wasn't worried. All he needed to do was to wait for an opportunity.

Or maybe he would just have to create one. Hearing Helios's valiant battle against the neophytes in the distance, with incessant screams filled with pain and bravery, was giving James an idea.