Before anyone else could even feel any hint of the enemy, James had already begun conjuring Javelins. No one could sense the enemy at all, but since James was already making a move, they all quickly got into their positions and put up the barrier.

Despite the rest of them being terrified, an evil glint betrayed the fact that James was actually enjoying the situation. Slowly, even a smile formed on his face.

“Can you feel it guys?” James roared. “We’re close to the end. We either die, or we finally get to go home. No other options.” He announced while cackling maniacally and pouring mana into the barrier.

But instead of leaving the barrier, this time he stood behind the barrier alongside his friends.

“Wait, you’re not going out there?” Emilia asked.

“Nope, not this time. I need to buy a little bit of time.” James answered.

“Why didn’t you just do this in the previous fight then? You were out there getting chopped up when you could’ve stayed behind the barrier all along!” Denmac pointed out the inconsistency in James’s strategies.

“I couldn’t. I didn’t have a way to deal with those invisible bastards, I had to improvise and wait till I figured out a way to kill them. If I had stayed behind the barrier, then they would’ve just focused their attacks and eventually cracked it, leaving you vulnerable. So I had to fly around to keep them away from concentrating all their efforts on the barrier.”

“Doesn’t that mean that this time they’ll focus on the barrier and kill us all right away?” Emilia readied an arrow with shaking hands. But she didn’t even know what to shoot at.

“Nope.” James answered with a bloodthirsty smile still on his lips. “Because now I know exactly what to do. I only need some time.” Immediately, James cast his sacrifices and dozens of Javelins began spawning around him every second.

“How can you know what to do when we can’t even see the enemy?” Denmac asked innocently.

“Because the enemy doesn’t matter.” James replied. “They’re strong, the strongest I’ve ever faced. That’s all I need to know. But it’s not I who must fear their powers. They must fear mine.” Within seconds, the barrier was already crowded with Javelins. Hundreds of the crimson rods were aching to be released.

“Did these past few cities make such a big difference?” Denmac almost gasped at James’s confidence, but then he remembered his promise to himself not to do that anymore.

“At this point, the word mana kind of lost its true meaning to me.” James replied as he was expanding the barrier just to fit more Javelins inside. “Getting more mana doesn’t just give me more of it to use. It’s hard to explain, but it feels like the more my mana pool expands, the more things I can do with mana. It changes way more than my mana pool alone, it’s as if all my powers are being slowly altered. It’s a true transformation.”

“And… what did you transform into?” Bacchus the dwarf asked curiously. The three dwarves were almost salivating with fascination as they were watching James.

“Into the only thing that can kill these monsters.” James flashed his evil grin. “Another monster.”

The seven were now barely able to cling onto their consciousness from the sheer amount of power James’s Javelins were radiating.

There had to be thousands of them already, but he wasn’t slowing down. He actually kept sacrificing, adding to his stacks of [Reckless Abandon] so he could conjure Javelins even faster.

“Don’t worry guys, these things will be gone soon.” James said when he saw that the rest of the group was barely even able to stand on their feet. But he kept conjuring at full speed, not stopping for even a second.

“I’m having déjà vu.” Denmac said while lying on the ground. “Are these guys invisible too? Who the hell are we fighting?”

“They’re not invisible.” James shook his head. “They’re just very far away right now.”

“How come you can sense them and I can’t?” Helios asked. “My ability to perceive used to be much more sensitive than yours. And yet I feel nothing.”

“It’s all this energy I’ve absorbed.” James answered. “It’s made me so sensitive to mana, I can feel them from hundreds of miles away.”

“That’s good news, then.” Denmac breathed a sigh of relief. “They won’t expect the fact that you’re already waiting for them.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong.” James chuckled. “I’m not sensing them because I’m that much better than them. I’m sensing them because they want to be sensed. And they’re sensing us too.”

Emilia and Denmac immediately turned white. “You mean they’re so strong that they don’t even care about the element of surprise?”

“Nope.” James replied. “But I don’t either.”

James had conjured so many Javelins that the air around them began to distort.

He was finally ready.

But his friends were not. They began passing out one by one, only Lunaris and Helios were barely conscious.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.” James smiled and slowly walked towards his friends, laying them down gently on the ground.

“It’s better this way.” He said as he watched all of his friends sleeping on the ground, protected by the barrier.

He felt a bit guilty for making them feel sick, but he was also relieved. While he was confident that he’d win, he was also certain that it would another sickening carnage. And he didn’t want to expose them to such sights again.

It was better this way. He could handle the gore and insanity, but his friends were normal people who weren’t quite as twisted. He had already exposed them to many ugly things, so he was happy that at least this once they could be spared from having to witness the grotesque exhibition of his fighting style.

He took one last look at his friends, and then he began sending mana to his mouth.

“Welcome, gentlemen. I’ve been waiting for you.” James’s voice echoed through the skies.