Three superior agents were left. But even though James wiped out more than half of them already, he didn’t feel relieved at all. The ones that were left were the strongest of them all.

The first superior shrieked as he looked at the corpses of his allies he had just killed with his own spell. Without a word, he turned around, his eye beam already gearing up to attack James.

James prepared himself to dodge, but then he noticed the other two superiors gathering beams of their own. Even though they paled in comparison to the first superior, the aura he felt from their beams was strong enough to make him worry.

It would be one thing if they were aiming at him. But even in their mad frenzy, the superiors were following a strategy. The two decided to attack James’s friends, while the first superior would keep him occupied.

This time, he knew he had very few options left.

He had been reluctant to go all out. Garantep still hadn’t shown himself, and that was undoubtedly on purpose. By not showing himself, he was putting James in a really bad position.

By the time he did come out, James would be exhausted and drained. In order to prevent that, James tried to avoid using the last spell he had invented.

But now, he had no choice.

Not only were the two superiors about to attack his friends, but with the constant barrage of spells from the hundreds of ordinary agents, the barriers was probably weak enough already that they wouldn’t be able to withstand the attacks for long.

So James couldn’t keep trying to conserve his powers. He had to use it now.

“Mana-Starved Bloody Pox!” James shouted. His head snapped back as a wave of crimson energy shot out of his body.

But it didn’t attack the superiors. Instead, the wave zoomed towards the rank and file agents.

“Just hold on for a little while.” James whispered as he prayed for his friends.

He didn’t have time to help his friends directly either though, as the first superior’s beam was already upon him.

It was obvious that he couldn’t afford to get hit by it, so he had to rely on SARM and the speed of his newly enhanced body to dodge.

Luckily, his newfound speed wasn’t lacking. If he focused entirely on dodging, he could avoid the beam and the other attacks the first superior threw at him. Unfortunately, that also meant he couldn’t reach his friends either.

However, his spell had already been launched. Mana was being violently ripped out of him, but James smiled. It didn’t require any more manual input from him. If his friends could only survive for a few more seconds, the spell would do its job on its own.

While he was dodging the superior’s beam, the other two superiors were attacking the barrier. There were four people reinforcing it, so the barrier didn’t fall immediately. But cracks were forming all over.

“James, we need your help!” Emilia shouted as she shot the superiors, interrupting their eye beams with each shot.

She wasn’t a pushover, but these weren’t ordinary agents. She unleashed a torrent of arrows right into their eyes. She could see her mana trying to skewer into their heads.

But even with her spells clearly hitting the target, the beams were stopped for just a fraction of a second. It didn’t buy them nearly enough time.

“It’s about to break!” The three dwarves shouted in unison.

As he was frantically dodging the beam and a bunch of other spells, James didn’t even have time to look at his friends. He knew they were in dire straits, but he couldn’t help them right away.

A few Javelins would do nothing to these superiors. He could sense their durability from just a glance. The mana and darkness were so thick around their bodies that he could probably bombard them with ten empowered Javelins, and they’d still be strong enough to fight back. And he didn’t even have the luxury of spawning that many Javelins while trying to avoid the unrelenting beam unleashed upon him by the first superior.

But he didn’t actually need Javelins at all.

While he had been dodging, his mana pool had been depleting rapidly. With his regeneration being so high, it was replenished within seconds, only to be sucked dry again.

As problematic as the expenditure was, James smiled. The mana being ripped out of him meant that his spell was working. He didn’t even have the time to look, but he could feel it working. He could feel it killing.

The Pox. Once he had unleashed it, it was out of his hands. Consuming more of his mana with each passing second, the Pox had been mercilessly spreading among the agents.

As soon as he had unleashed the Pox, it penetrated the agents’ barrier as if it didn’t exist. It infected the first agent it encountered, and the speed of its spread only increased from there.

Without the superiors even noticing, the normal agents had been dying left and right.

Besides sucking mana out of James, it had also been preying on its infected. Consuming not only their mana, but even their Darkness, every source of energy and power within their body was turning against them, fueling the very thing that was killing them.

And the more it spread, the more powerful it had been getting.

As if it were a conscious organism, the Pox was feeding some of the power that it absorbed into its main body. A noxious cloud of crimson energy, standing far above the agents, being fed half of the power it was forcefully ripping out of their bodies.

The agents began falling one by one, their bodies left dry, withered husks, devoid of any trace of mana, aura, Darkness or energy. Even their husks cracked and turned to dust as the crimson cloud kept growing, turning the very ground beneath them into desolate, colorless dust.

James didn’t even need to feed his own mana to the Pox any more. It had sucked more than enough mana from the agents, it didn’t need any more.

The two superiors that were attacking his friends had broken the barrier.

But without them knowing, it was already too late.

Hundreds of their agents were lying dead on the ground, and even the ground was sinking, taking the dust that was once their bodies with them. Without the hundreds of agents bombarding the group, if they managed to erect another barrier, it would be much more durable.

But the real trouble was the crimson cloud that was now careening towards the superiors. Red lightning was crackling, coalesced blood was dripping as it leaked some of the energy it had consumed.

Before the superiors could even take advantage of the fact that they had broken the barrier, the cloud was already upon them.

Crimson waves launched from the cloud towards them. But unlike the regular agents, the wave couldn’t penetrate them right away.

Still, they couldn’t attack the group anymore. The superiors turned around and conjured their barriers. They grew black scales, dripping in a black liquid, as they focused all their power into defense.

They could feel the enormity of the power that was now upon them, and they didn’t dare underestimate it.

A new set of dark scales grew on top of the existing ones. And then another set was conjured, the Darkness within them seemingly having no end.

But no matter how many layers of defenses they put up, the Pox would not relent.

James had decided to send the Pox towards the rank and file agents for a reason. He could’ve just attacked the superiors directly, but he wanted to make sure it would be strong enough. It needed to feed first. And after crushing and consuming the lives and essences of what used to be hundreds of agents, it was now a weapon that couldn’t easily be blocked by their defenses.