“You know, the tension is starting to get to me.” Denmac sighed. “We’re being stalked by enemies that we can’t see, and yet they aren’t attacking us either.”

“At first, every second we gained was working in our favor.” Helios seethed. “And yet, somehow the tables have turned. We’ve been running around for hours and there’s still no sign of them. I’m starting to doubt my own sanity, are we even being pursued?”

“I’m not tense, but I would like to just get it over with.” James growled. “The problem is that my Glaives and Javelins aren’t eternal. I have fifty Glaives now, but there’s no point in making more. I don’t know when they’ll attack, but if it’s not soon then my Glaives will just end up fading away.”

“Well, fifty Glaives cost more than ten thousand Javelins, so I can see why you’re mindful of the mana expenditure.” Denmac nodded.

“No, it’s not that.” James shook his head. “At this point I have so much mana I could cast a thousand Glaives and it would barely make a dent in my mana pool.”

Denmac almost gasped, but he reminded himself of his promise to not get surprised by James’s insane deeds anymore. James had poured so much mana into the Glaives that Denmac was about to faint from the pressure alone, and yet this amount of mana was still nothing to him?

“The problem is that no matter how far I expand my search radius, no matter how much mana I pump into my eyes, ears or even just pumping mana straight into the air to detect any fluctuations, I can’t find any trace of them. It’s like they just don’t exist. And it’s not like I can just keep casting Glaives endlessly. I might not run out of mana, but I sure as hell can get tired. All they have to do is to wait for when I do get tired and the Glaives fade out, and I will have exhausted myself for no reason.”

“So we can’t go back to Hedonia, but we can’t attack them either, cause we don’t know where they are.” Helios clenched his fists. “What do we do then?”

“It might seem counter-productive, and the opposite of what we should be doing, but I think we have to go deeper into their lands. Back to destroying their cities.” Lunaris sighed. “It’s our only option, unfortunately. The upside is that it allows us to actually complete our mission. But it means essentially going deeper into the belly of the beast. It doesn’t seem like we can outrun or hide from our pursuers, so taunting them into attacking us is the only way.”

“They definitely know that we know that we’re being stalked by now. So shouldn’t that be enough to make them attack?” James asked. “Clearly we would never go back home if we know we’re being followed.”

“I know, it’s making me doubt my own sanity as well.” Lunaris nodded. “But that’s part of it. This is psychological warfare. In their eyes, we’re formidable enemies that destroyed many of their cities. They’re taking their time, analyzing us, so they can catch us at our weakest. And if they keep hiding, we might just think it was all in our minds, just like how we’re doubting ourselves now. And that’s when we go back to Hedonia, and they call in reinforcements and kill everybody there.”

As grim as that sounded, a few seconds later James realized that the situation is even grimmer.

“I just thought of something.” James said. “Even if we do kill him, or them, or however many are stalking us. How will we know that that’s it? There’s basically no trace of them even existing. So if we fight one, or two, or five, how do we know that there isn’t another one still stalking us, waiting to relay the information that would get the entirety of Hedonia killed?”

The group grew silent for several minutes upon hearing that.

“An unknown number of visible enemies, able to chase us no matter where we go.” Lunaris broke the silence. “There’s no way to ever be sure that we’ve gotten rid of them all. So even if we manage to provoke them into attacking us, we’ll still be endangering Hedonia if we win and return home safe and sound. Essentially, we can never return.”

Emilia gasped, and the mood got even worse. An unbearable silence settled over them.

Eventually, Helios looked at James. He saw him squinting his eyes and rubbing his chin.

Helios knew his brother well. He was a bit crazy, but he always had ways of getting them out of impossible situations. “Out with it, brother!” He smiled. “I know you have some crazy idea, don’t get shy on us now.”

James chuckled. He had spent so much time with Helios and Lunaris that they could basically read his mind. “That’s the problem though, my idea is crazy. It’s downright moronic, even I’m unsure about it. So I’d like to hear some saner ideas first.”

Lunaris sighed and shook her head. “Even if we beat them, we’ll never be sure that we’re not followed. The stakes are too high, the entirety of Hedonia could be wiped out. So at this point, I think insanity is our only option. And you’re an expert at doing insane things, so let’s hear it.”

“Well then, thank you for having faith in me.” James curtsied jokingly. “My idea is simple. Going into the belly of the beast doesn’t really solve anything, because even if we beat all the pursuers, we could still be followed, right? Then let’s go even deeper, way, way deeper into the belly of the beast.”

“What does that accomplish?” Emilia asked, her face already white from the mere mention of the idea.

“If we destroy another 10 cities and steal their energy, I will have enough mana to fuel Hedonia’s needs all by myself. Cadmus probably already prepared the spells and tools needed to create the pocket dimension and to teleport the entirety of Hedonia there. But it’ll still take time to actually do it.”

“Yeah, that was the original plan.” Emilia replied. “But how does destroying the cities solve our problem? Even if we are attacked by our pursuers, we won’t know if all of them have revealed themselves. Just one of them surviving could spell disaster for Hedonia.”

“That’s right.” James nodded. “No matter what, we’re screwed. So then let’s get as crazy as possible. Instead of robbing another 10 of these smaller cities, let’s go after a few big ones. Let’s hit them where it really hurts, where they hold a lot more energy than in these peripheral shitholes.”

“That is insane!” Emilia gasped yet again. “Not only are those cities much more dangerous, but how does it help us? Yes, I can see how it will enrage our pursuers a lot more, making it much more likely they’ll show themselves. But our whole problem is that they could still have someone lying in wait. Even if you are able to kill them all, we’re still stuck in the same conundrum we are in now. Except we’re risking even more by going to the much more dangerous cities.”

“That’s true, but you haven’t considered one thing.” James cackled. “The more dangerous the city, the more energy they will have in storage. And the stronger I’ll get after stealing it.”

“Does that mean what I think it means?” Lunaris’s eyes widened.

“Yep!” James laughed. “We’re doubling down on the insanity. 40 cities worth of energy? That’s nothing. Let’s get 80 cities worth. 160. 320. I don’t care, we’re taking everything we can get. One of those bigger cities is probably worth dozens of smaller ones. And I’ll steal every drop of energy they can get. By the time we get back to Hedonia, it’ll take me mere minutes to fuel the spells.” James smiled devilishly.