There were hundreds, if not thousands of agents against them, God knows how many superior ones lying in wait, and then there was Garantep – their target that didn’t even bother showing up yet.

James knew that he couldn’t spend too much of his mana on the regular agents. They were easy to take down, but there were just too many of them. By the time he killed them all, he’d be exhausted, allowing the superior agents to finish the job.

He did have an insane mana regeneration rate, so he could just take it slowly and pick them off one by one, waiting for the spent mana to regenerate in-between casts. But not even he could just cast a big nuke without leaving himself vulnerable.

No, he knew he had to think things through. He couldn’t go with too simple a plan. In this game of chess, his moves had to be a lot more sophisticated than that, otherwise his opponents would be the ones with the clever moves. And then the checkmate would be inevitable.

So he knew he needed to tip the scales of the battlefield both swiftly and without leaving himself drained and exhausted.

And he knew just how to do it.

He had a good hunch. These rank and file agents were just the pawns. As a target, they were relatively valueless. Smartly, the king and queen and the other pieces were staying hidden, not even showing their faces. And they used their pawns to threaten, distract and exhaust James’s group.

But unlike chess, James didn’t necessarily have to go through the pawns to get to the heavy hitters. If they weren’t going to bring the fight to him, then he would just have to bring the fight to them.

In a way he was lucky. Due to Helios’s and Lunaris’s brilliance, one of their first recruited allies was a diviner. With Denmac’s help, he could follow the remote viewing spells that the superior agents were using in order to find their location.

But once he made that move, the battlefield would truly change. If the superior agents didn’t feel safe by staying away from the fight anymore, that might just be enough to unite them and make them attack him at the same time.

He realized he needed to make the most out of the first strike. He had to tip the scales enough so that when the inevitable all-out war broke out, their side would be weakened enough that he could deal with whoever came at him.

The agents wouldn’t let them get out of this city until every last one of them was dead anyway. Conversely, if they wanted to go home, it wouldn’t end until there weren’t any more agents left to stop them.

He was cool-headed enough to realize that the strategy the agents were employing was to slowly wear him down. And the only response to that was a swift attack that would leave their side crippled enough that he could deal with them with whatever power he had left.

“Denmac, can you track the location of those who are using the remote viewing spells?” James asked.

“I sure can.” Denmac stopped fueling the barrier and answered decisively. “But there is one problem though. It’s impossible to hide it. They’ll know we’re tracking them right away.”

“That’s not a problem.” James answered with a devilish grin. “They won’t be alive for long anyway.”

“Should I track all of them?” Denmac asked as he probed the surroundings with his senses, his eyes completely closed. “There’s so many of them, I can feel at least fifteen remote viewing spells watching us right now.”

“No!” James replied swiftly. “Track the eight that seem weaker than the others. Send their location into my head as soon as you find it.”

Denmac nodded and got to work right away. Remote viewing was a useful spell, but it wasn’t exactly a stealthy one. Even James could feel all the eyes on them, so for a diviner like Denmac it wasn’t that hard to find the source.

“Hey, can you guys hold the barrier all by yourselves?” James asked the dwarves.

“Sure can, boss!” Eruditus exclaimed as he intensely poured mana into the barrier.

That was good news, but James didn’t have time to thank them. While Denmac was divining, James made his own preparations.

He knew he only had one shot until all hell would break loose, so he had to make it count.

“Can anyone obfuscate what I’m doing right now?” James asked as he began conjuring Chaos Javelins. “The obfuscation doesn’t have to last long, just a few minutes at most.”

“I can do that!” Lunaris answered gleefully, glad to be able to do something other than just healing.

But Lunaris didn’t know what she was getting into. James began conjuring Javelins one after the other. Every second a new Javelin was added to his arsenal, locked and loaded, ready for Denmac to give the go ahead.

At first, Lunaris was able to obfuscate their presence easily. But then the Javelins just kept piling up. James was moving like a madman, conjuring as many as he could with crazed movements. In just two minutes, he had prepared fifty-six of them.

It seemed as if leveling up had indeed made him stronger. He was casting faster than Lunaris could even obfuscate the energy that the spells were emanating.

James’s hand were trembling as he was spending mana to physically hold the Javelins in place. But Lunaris was trembling even harder as she was focusing on obfuscating their presence. A single Javelin was enough of a threat, but 56 of them was in another realm entirely, especially when James was packing even more mana into each one of them than usual. It was like trying to hide the presence of a nuke.

Suddenly, Denmac snapped his eyes open, and the information was immediately transferred into James’s head.

“Thank you, mate. Keep channeling the information into my mind.” James nodded. He could now see the agents in his mind, as if they were right next to him. “And thank you too, Lunaris. I couldn’t have done this without you.” James wanted to thank them a lot more, but he barely had time for a nod.

The agents weren’t stupid. They definitely knew that James was preparing something. Tracking them down through their remote viewing spells was enough to tell them all they needed to know.

But they had already shown how hesitant they were to act. Even if the obfuscation and the divining were enough to make them pull the trigger and strike against him in unison, there’s no way that they’d do it in time. Their egoism and lack of teamwork was their weakness.

And James was ready to take advantage of it.

As soon as Denmac relayed the information to him, James’s trembling hands released the volatile artillery.

Fifty-six Javelins, each and every single one of them equipped with a SARM of their own. SARM could only work when James could subconsciously guide it with his mind, but he knew the locations of the agents, and Denmac was showing him the live feed directly into his mind.

As soon as the obfuscation was lifted from the artillery, even James had to cover his eyes. The sheer light from so many Javelins was blinding. As they flew out, they spread into eight directions, headed straight to their targets.

The superior agents weren’t stupid, they reacted right away. They felt the power of whatever was heading their way, and they knew they couldn’t afford getting hit by it.

But unlike their trash subordinates, the proud superior agents were not panicked. Instead, James could see each and every one of them smiling.

Knowing he could see them through Denmac, they all mocked and taunted him.

“How much mana did this cost you, moron?” An agent smirked.

“You’ll regret this.” Another one of the targets snickered scornfully as it erected its barriers.

As if they were carbon copies of each other, all eight of the targets hunkered down, activating their barriers as they were mocking James.

But despite being the target of graphic death threats and mockery from eight agents whose auras were a hundred times that of the trash he had been fighting before, James was grinning from ear to ear.

His hands were trembling. But not from fear. The sheer power that he had just unleashed was still echoing through his hands. Even though he had already launched the spells, their imprint was so strong that it still felt like he was holding onto them.