While James had been enduring the onslaught of blades, contemplating his next moves from behind his barrier, Lunaris had been working hard on healing Helios, and also straining herself to toss heals towards James, even though he was almost out of the range of her spells.

Denmac was channeling the barrier that protected him and Lunaris, still pretending that it was almost faltering in order to keep the one neophyte that was attacking it focused on them and not on Helios.

Even while enduring the agent’s onslaught, James was worriedly peeking at his friends’ situation. Knowing that they were holding on was a huge relief. But Helios's situation was still quite dire.

But James finally knew what he had to do, he just had to wait for a good opportunity.

The agent had been relentlessly launching blades at him for a while. With Lunaris’s constant healing, he was able to replenish his barrier at the cost of his own health, resisting the attacks. He couldn’t keep doing it much longer, but he didn’t need to. All he needed now was to wait for the appropriate moment to launch his counterattack.

But the agent still didn’t seem to stop.

James was sure that sooner or later he’d have to stop for at least a few seconds, but the attacks kept coming.

Based on the way the agent had conjured the blades before, James was sure he’d need at least a little break to stockpile some more. This unending chain of blades should’ve been unsustainable.

But James hadn’t been attentive enough. Perception was never his strong suit, Helios and Lunaris were always better at that, and they’d always warn him. But Helios couldn’t do that now. Although James did sense the agent drawing on the Darkness around him, he hadn’t noticed the small shifts in the agent’s attitude, aura and strategy.

The agent was now continuously launching blades at James as soon as he conjured them. It was like a machine gun being fired without stop, but James was still assuming that the blades would run out at a certain point. He was too absorbed in thoughts, trying to think of a solution. It’s also hard to notice some things when you’re being struck by blades constantly. Even if a barrier is protecting you, the noises and sparks are quite distracting.

With the blades constantly crashing into him, he had a hard time noticing anything at all. Could anyone really blame him? He wasn’t a machine. He only had so much mental bandwidth. A battle was a very confusing situation, just the sights and sounds of all those spells flying around were enough to discombobulate a normal person. It was a miracle James noticed any changes at all.

But as if the agent’s powers increasing wasn’t enough, James was beginning to feel woozy.

Split mind or not, sacrificing his health so often was becoming unsustainable. He was forced to, since the stream of blades was not ending. But even though he didn’t feel the pain at all, and Lunaris was healing him and replenishing the strength of his body, there was still a limit to how much he could sacrifice.

He couldn’t keep hiding behind his barrier any more, and the agent didn’t look like he was going to run out of juice anytime soon. The blades kept coming one after the other without stop.

If anything, he looked like he was slowly getting stronger, more used to his role as a humanoid gatling gun.

They had really underestimated the home turf advantage. Even without a Bloodwell, the agent was way too powerful. He was not only not running out of mana, he was actually getting stronger.

Even the blades themselves seemed to have more power, each one piercing more and more into James’s barrier. The cracks were slowly becoming irreparable.

It was now or never. He didn’t have any more time left.

James was already feeling woozy, but he was going to risk yet another sacrifice. Doing the same thing over and over was insanity, and replenishing his barrier wasn’t giving him any advantage in this fight. So he decided to use what felt like the last sacrifice he could afford on something else.

Even though SARM was a spell that didn’t even really use much mana anymore, James infused it with a lot, and he launched himself uncontrollably in Helios’s direction.

The landing would probably be nasty, but that didn’t matter at the moment. He needed the extra speed.

The agent immediately followed after him, but just a second of a head start was all that he needed.

James and the agent were fighting away from Helios and the neophytes, so James decided to shorten the distance.

He was happy to keep his distance before, he didn’t want the agent throwing something at Helios, he was already busy with the many neophytes. So them fighting away from Helios was ideal.

But now he needed to combine their forces. In order for his plan of using his [Bullet Chains] to stun the agent to work, he’d need some time to set it up. He needed to conjure thousand of bullets, and the agent just wasn’t giving him the time he needed to that.

And the added benefit was that he’d be able to aid Helios at the same time. Every time he took a glance at his situation, he was feeling guilty for letting him take on all those neophytes by himself.

And his solution was to launch himself like a missile towards Helios.

Even though the agent didn’t know what he had prepared, but he wouldn’t let James have his way just like that.

James was fast, but his flight was obviously unsteady. It’s like he launched himself out of a cannon. Even though he had gained speed, he didn’t exactly have much ability to dodge. Especially without the use of an arm and leg.

The agent stopped sending blades at James, and instead he began conjuring earth balls. Not exactly damaging, but if one of them hit him, James would be knocked out of his trajectory, away from Helios. Although at that speed, he was actually counting on James just killing himself from the impact of crashing into something. All he had to do was make him dodge recklessly.

James wasn’t that far from Helios, but all of a sudden, tens of boulders were dropping in front of him. If he didn’t dodge now, he’d surely be crushed by one.

But if he used SARM to dodge, he’d be launched away from Helios.

James’s plan was counting on Helios, so he definitely had to push forward. And if he didn’t, the agent definitely would attack Helios before he could get to him, now that he showed his intention to rejoin with him.

So instead of dodging away from the falling boulders, James used SARM to push himself forward once again.

His speed became even greater. But the boulders were unavoidable, there were just too many of them.

Without any other choice, James crashed into a boulder headfirst. What remained of his barrier had been shattered, and even though it definitely lessened the damage, the mere force of the impact was enough to disorient James.

However, he was still being launched ahead. Even in his concussed and confused state, James had one thought in mind: Helios!

Due to the impact and the speed he was flying at, his eyes were barely able to distinguish his surroundings. But his mind was focused, and he saw a blur that he would recognize anywhere. He reached his target.

As he was zooming past Helios as quickly as he got to him, James put another part of his plan into action. This is what he decided to use his sacrifice on.

“Chaotic Healing!” James shouted.

James sacrificed most of his remaining health to heal his friend. Even though he had already sacrificed many times, to the point he was seriously worried about the consequences, he really wanted to heal Helios.

Helios had been receiving healing from Lunaris, but it was just barely keeping up with the damage the nine neophytes were inflicting. Even though he dodged and blocked many attacks, there was only so much you could avoid when nine foes were attacking you.

But the moment he received James’s healing, the situation changed completely.

James could’ve used the sacrifice to cast one final barrier onto himself. But he really wanted to help his friend. Besides, he couldn’t win this fight all by himself. Helios being blocked by all the neophytes was seriously lowering the chances of them winning the battle.

Helios was not only feeling much better, but it was as if he had shed his old body and had regrown another one. Every muscle, every cell felt full of energy and mana. None of his wounds hurt anymore, it was as if he had been relaxing at a comfy spa instead of fighting gruesome battles up until now.

Helios felt more powerful than ever before. He was already buffed to the gills, they wouldn’t have dared fight these psychopaths without being properly buffed. But those other buffs were like child’s play in comparison to what James had just granted him.

Turns out that even though James was garbage at normal healing, his Chaotic Healing was different. It was an awakening skill after all, but they didn’t expect it to be quite so strong. James himself was mostly counting on healing Helios, but the degree to which he buffed him was a surprise even to him.

Although James wasn’t exactly in the position to consider all of that at the moment.

He used SARM twice to propel himself forward. But with two useless limbs, landing would be quite difficult to say the least. Worse yet, his barrier had shattered, so if he crashed, it could even be fatal, considering he sacrificed his health to heal Helios.

He could feel Lunaris’s desperate healing working on him already, but it still wouldn’t heal him enough in time. He would crash very soon.

His one saving grace was Reckless Abandon. After he sacrificed his health for Helios, his HP was low enough to reactive it.

But no matter how enhanced his speed and reflexes were, he still only had the use of one arm and leg. He tried to slow himself down with his working limbs, but he was going too fast. He couldn’t figure out how to stop, he physically couldn’t.

“Lunaris, take care of the neophyte attacking us.” Denmac said.

Without a word, Lunaris nodded and took action. She didn’t know what Denmac had planned, but she knew that there was no time to discuss it, as James was uncontrollably cannonballing towards his demise.

She did as she was told, dropping her attempts to heal and instead taking control of her butterfly directly.

The true agent had dealt with the butterfly in a swift second, and it wasn’t doing all that much against the neophytes either. But if she focused her magic on enhancing and controlling the butterfly directly, it would be an entirely different matter altogether.

She had synthesized the spell after analyzing James’s dark flower. It was a spell designed to target Darkness, and they were fighting enemies full of it. If only she could pump more power into it, it could actually be a good weapon.

With Helios now fully healed and even buffed up, he was fighting the neophytes with unprecedented success. So Lunaris didn’t even need to heal Helios anymore. Thus, she was actually able to focus on the butterfly, pouring more mana into it.

Denmac had to release the barrier protecting the two of them so he could begin casting a spell in James’s direction.

Neither Lunaris nor Helios could do anything to prevent James from turning his bones into powder from crashing at that speed, so she had to keep Denmac safe.

As soon as the barrier was down, the neophyte immediately tried to stab at Denmac. But with Lunaris pouring all her efforts and magic into the butterfly, it was able to quickly pounce on him before that.