The three agents were growing by the second as they were consuming the energy from the broken container.

James had to act fast. He conjured a Chaos Javelin and unleashed it into the biggest of the agents.

The red lightning flashed and struck the agent in an instant.

But to everybody’s surprise, unlike James’s previous targets, the agent didn’t just drop dead.

He didn’t even turn around to look at who hit him.

Instead, the agents were gorging themselves without stopping, as if nothing had happened.

The Chaos Javelin wasn’t a spell that anybody could ignore. In fact, the agent now had a huge hole where his heart should be.

But instead of the agent being on death’s bed, the hole was closing as quickly as the agent was growing.

James unleashed two more Chaos Javelins on the same agent, but the results weren’t any different. He didn’t even flinch. One Javelin hit him in the head, and another one in the stomach. And yet, the two fresh holes were already closing, while the hole around its heart was already fully healed.

Meanwhile, the agents had been growing so much that they now towered over the group. They must’ve been at least twenty feet tall already, and yet they were still growing.

“What the hell is going on? How can someone have three giant holes in their vital areas and still be alive?” Helios shouted in disbelief.

“No wonder we managed to enter the facility so easily. This must be the real defensive measure.” Lunaris replied. “These three didn’t even attempt to block us, instead they rushed towards the energy container so they could empower themselves."

"I’ve never seen anything like it. Are they immortal? How can they heal like that?” Helios asked.

“I doubt they’re immortal.” Lunaris shook her head. “But these energy reserves are very rich. Even if they’re consuming just one container out of thousands, that’s still way more energy than they need. Idk what their deal is, but they seem to have special abilities that can make use of all that energy, that must be why they were stationed here. We’re on their home turf. Surrounded by all these energy sources, they’re almost invincible.”

The entire group was in awe as they were witnessing the unthinkable. The agents were now forty feet tall, and even though they stopped growing physically, their auras were still getting stronger by the second.

Even though his Javelins were ignored as if they were toothpicks, James wasn’t discouraged. He felt a strong sense of responsibility towards his friends and the entire group. They were counting on him to be the heavy hitter. More importantly, they were counting on him to lead.

After dropping agents like flies, this was their first big obstacle. It would’ve been nice if things continued to be as easy as before, but life never worked that way.

And yet, this was also an opportunity. The sense of shock that the group felt at the sight of these seemingly immortal beings would only make beating them so much more impressive. It would be the second time he awed them, and this time it would be even more beneficial to their morale.

But the group hadn’t forgotten the last time either. As shocked as they were, they were also charging their spells as much as they could, waiting for James to give them the go ahead. Nobody dared to slack off in front of the enemy.

Even though the agents were growing more powerful with each passing moment, James had been doing some powering up of his own.

Instead of hitting them with Chaos Javelins one after the other, which they could apparently easily regenerate, he chose to pile up the Javelins.

With each passing second, another Javelin was added to his arsenal.

It even felt weird that he now had a whole stockpile of the spell that just a few months ago he could barely cast even once.

But while it felt weird to him, for those around him it felt downright frightening. As oppressive as the aura and weight of the Darkness was inside this city, the amount of power his many Javelins were radiating was even more imposing. Even his friends were uncomfortable, the power of the chaos energy that was being radiated felt like it was scorching their skin.

They weren’t the only ones that felt it though. Despite having ignored everything else, the agents finally seemed to react when they felt the aura of that many Javelins.

But that wasn’t the only reason they finally turned. They had accomplished their objective too, having consumed the entirety of the energy held in the container.

Having gorged themselves to the point they were deformed and empowered to disturbing extremes, they were finally ready to deal with the intruders.

The undeniable power of James’s Javelins was clear even to them, but so much energy was now flowing through them that they didn’t care.

Instead of attacking right away, the agents smiled. The creepy, intimidating smile that agents were known for seemed even more horrifying now that it was coming from these deformed giants whose mere auras were probably enough to kill a lesser being.

James didn’t react to their taunt. He only said one thing.

“Bacchus, block the sound.”

He pointed his finger at the agents, and all his Javelins flew at once.

Thirty Javelins struck their targets in an instance, while the rest of the group’s spells were providing assistance. The sound waves alone would’ve been enough to deafen them all, loud enough to be heard from miles away. Bacchus’s veins were bulging as he was infusing mana into his noise devouring runes.

A thick cloud of Darkness covered the room as the agents were hit. So thick that even after sending mana into their eyes, nobody could see through it.

Helios planted himself in front of the group, ready to block any attack that would target his allies.

But no attack came yet.

They couldn’t see or hear anything through the thick cloud of Darkness. As powerful as James’s attack had been, they were still expecting for the agents to come leaping out of the cloud to attack them.

Seconds passed by while the entire group was on edge, stockpiling even more spells to throw at the agents, worried that the agents were doing the same thing.

The seconds turned into minutes, but no attack came. They didn’t hear so much as a peep.

“What could they be doing? Are they gorging themselves on another container?” Helios shouted. His patience was reaching its limit as he was standing there for minutes on end, anticipating an attack that didn’t come.

“Let’s take care of this cloud.” Lunaris decided. She couldn’t risk removing the cloud in the middle of battle, but now that minutes had passed and it was obvious that something weird was happening, they needed to get rid of it as soon as possible.

Lunaris conjured her butterfly that immediately began pouring its light onto the cloud of Darkness.

The rest of the group began channeling wind spells to push the cloud away, but the Darkness was too potent to be pushed away by mere wind spells. Instead, they had to wait for Lunaris’s butterfly to slowly dissolve it.

Another few minutes passed by until they could finally see beyond the cloud.

But what they saw was far more surprising than what they had expected.

The agents were all dead.

“That’s … incredibly anticlimactic.” Helios said as he was scanning his surroundings in confusion.

“Is it a trap? Is it an illusion?” Lunaris tried to calculate all the possibilities. Despite the possibility of it being a trap, she moved ahead and poked the agent’s corpses. She even sniffed them, but they seemed completely real.

“So it’s not a trap?” Lunaris looked around incredulously. “Or are these corpses a decoy or something, as they secretly escaped through some hidden tunnels to alert their bosses?”

Denmac was still on full alert, ready to intercept any messages.

Only after a few minutes he finally dared to lower his guard.

As he looked around, he didn’t know what to make of the situation either. “I scanned this facility with my divination. There aren’t any hidden tunnels, that’s for sure.”

“Please check their memories.” James asked. “This is so anticlimactic that it’s scarier than if they were instead trying to stab me at this very moment.”

Denmac approached the corpses, but before he could even touch them, the paranormal instincts of a diviner screamed at him.

“Everybody put up barriers, now!” He shrieked with mana in his voice. A shriek so desperate and panicked, that everybody listened to him without question, activating each and every shield or barrier spell they had available.

Just seconds later, the rest of the group sensed it too. The unmistakable feeling of impending doom.

Huddled up together beneath countless layers of barriers, their lives flashed before their eyes as they saw the three corpses explode, releasing the entirety of the energy that they had consumed through the explosion.