Garantep’s body was warping in and out of reality as he poured more and more power into his crescents that now covered the entire sky. Not only were they growing bigger, but they were incredibly dense as well, to the point that clumps of dirt and rocks were flying towards the crescents, pulled by their gravity.

James couldn’t let himself get killed like this, not while he still had resources he could use. If beating Garantep meant that he’d have to disintegrate his own body, then he’d do that too.

Having stacked [Reckless Abandon] so many times from the consecutive sacrifices, James was seeing everything in slow motion. Even his thoughts were sped up, and while he could barely move his body, he had plenty of time to calculate his next moves.

He had never sacrificed this many times before, not even close. So he didn’t know what exactly would happen. At this point, how much faster and stronger could the sacrifices even make him?

And he got his answer right away. One that he didn’t expect though. Instead of the first twenty effects of [Reckless Abandon] continuing to fade away like they usually did, the second set of twenty sacrifices seemed to have refreshed the effects entirely. He was expecting to have twenty times the effect of [Reckless Abandon], and yet he definitely felt like he was under the effect of 40.

It crippled him to the point he could hardly even move, and yet he had so much power that SARM could move him faster than he ever could. But more important than the speed at which he moved was the speed of his thoughts.

Despite all that, he knew he was still losing. One as sensible to mana as him didn’t even have to attack Garantep to know that he wouldn’t be able to do much to him, not even under 40 stacks of [Reckless Abandon]. But at least it allowed him to have the time needed to think about how he could turn things around.

He could feel the forces that were brewing above him. Garantep’s crescents wouldn’t be avoidable for much longer. He was imbuing them with so much power that they defied the very laws of gravity.

James realized he had to push himself even harder. Even though he had cast so many sacrifices that his eyes were bleeding, that wasn’t enough. To beat a madman that was putting everything on the line, he’d have to do that too.

Barely even able to move his hand, James used his mana to levitate a stick into his mouth, bracing himself for what was about to come. Even though he was used to pain and had more than one skill to numb it, he knew where this was going, and he needed any help he could get to make it bearable. Even if it was just a stick. He already sacrificed way more than he even though was possible, and he was about to do it a whole lot more.

Without hesitation, James sacrificed twenty-five more times.

The number defied any logic. By sacrificing this much, he was more likely to end up dead than anything else.

But James didn’t need logic right now, he needed power.

Time seemed to freeze. For a second he thought he was dead, but to his pleasant surprise, he was still alive. For a few seconds at the very least, there didn’t even seem to be any side-effects.

But he knew that wouldn’t last long.

And it didn’t.

Suddenly, his whole body began convulsing. His heart was thumping so loud it felt like it was going to burst out of his chest. The pain was overwhelming even through [Split Mind], but at least he was still alive and able to fight.

He felt the world slowing down to a crawl. The effects of his previous sacrifices were refreshed yet again. He had now applied more stacks of [Reckless Abandon] than what should even be possible.

But as he was about to look around to see just how powerful the effects were, his world turned black.

He couldn’t see at all anymore.

He didn’t need to wonder if it would pass after a few seconds. He realized right away that casting this many sacrifices would have countless negative effects. Apparently, losing his eyesight completely was one of those.

But that didn’t matter. As freaked out as he should’ve been by the fact that he had lost his vision, he had much bigger fish to fry. He could only hope that the advantages of this many sacrifices would outweigh the disadvantages.

Even though he couldn’t actually see anything with his eyes, he was still a highly specialized mage. He could feel the streams of mana and all the other energies flowing around him.

He could feel his Glaives flying around. Enhanced by the effects of almost 65 concurrent [Reckless Abandon] stacks, they were so fast that it seemed as if they were popping in and out of reality, striking at the crescents with a force that shook the heavens.

And yet, that was still just a dent in the mass of power that Garantep was conjuring. Those Glaives were enough to kill all the enemies James had ever faced put together, and yet they couldn’t compare to just how much energy Garantep was burning off on this attack.

Garantep really wanted him gone. And the more formidable an opponent James proved to be, the more Garantep wanted his soul.

Even though James’s world slowed down to a crawl, he could still feel Garantep’s crescents growing larger with each passing moment. The mind boggled at the thought of just how fast they were growing. They weren’t even blades any more, their size dwarfed even the trees that they were slashing down in passing.

Even though he could probably conjure a Glaive in seconds now, he wasn’t sure anymore even if that would even do anything. The crescents had more than doubled in number at this point, and they had gotten so much stronger. No number of Glaives could fight them all. Even if he used every ounce of speed and power granted to him by [Reckless Abandon] and conjured a hundred of them, it still wouldn’t be enough.

Worse yet, he couldn’t even hit Garantep directly. Every time his Glaives targeted him, he was long gone by the time they reached him, no matter how much faster they were from [Reckless Abandon].

No, he needed much more. He had to use every single ounce of energy he had left within him, all in one go. One big attack to wipe everything out at once, the crescents as well as Garantep.

The deck seemed to be stacked against him, but he still had plenty of fight left in him.

Even though James was now a frail cripple who couldn’t even see or move by himself, he was at the peak of his powers. He had been thinking for what seemed like eternity, and yet not even seconds had passed, so fast he had become from the effects of [Reckless Abandon].

And he still had plenty of mana within him. If anything, his natural regeneration was so high, even more so now that he was under so many stacks of buffs, that he now actually had more mana left than when he began fighting Garantep.

But this was his one chance. [Reckless Abandon] would still run out eventually. He couldn’t keep trying to hurt Garantep with mediocre attacks. He had to put it all on the line right now.

He still had one Chaos spell left. One that he had only used once in an actual battle. One that he didn’t even particularly have all that much faith in. But it sure as hell could burn through his mana.

He knew he had to take advantage of every single millisecond of [Reckless Abandon] he had left, so he didn’t hesitate any longer.

Garantep’s Darkness had filled the sky and earth, suffocating reality itself with the density of his powers.

But suddenly, red sparks appeared within the Darkness. Within seconds, from hundreds they became thousands, from thousands they became millions. Like fireflies among the night sky, they glowed brightly within the Darkness.

The sparks were growing larger and larger as they started spinning. The Darkness attacked the millions of crimson sparks, seemingly trying to swallow them. But the harder it tried to snuff them out, the faster the sparks were spinning.

Chaos Flower. This spell had gotten them out of the Soul Grinder, and yet James had never used it in an actual battle again. He trained with it, but the chance to actually use it never presented itself.

It was inconvenient. It took time to properly cast. And it consumed way too much mana.

But those weren’t a problem right now. If anything, the spell’s disadvantages were precisely why he needed it right now. He needed to burn through mana, and he had sacrificed so many times that casting speed was not a factor anymore.

James wasn’t about to spare any mana. He had boundless oceans of mana within him, but if the spell demanded it, he’d use it all.

In fact, that’s what he actually wanted.