The group was flying through the forests on their carpet, finally making their way back home. It had only been a few days, but they felt like months had passed on this mission.

As eager as they were to get home, they were even more excited to hear from James about what the hell happened.

“Come on, tell us already! Why were you just a head?” Emilia kept asking.

James wanted to tell them, but he was too preoccupied with moving his fingers. It felt weird to have a body again, after being just a head. He kept flexing his every muscle, suddenly very appreciative for the little things in life. Just having hands again was a divine feeling.

“Come on brother, tell us!” Helios laughed.

He didn’t want to keep Helios and Lunaris waiting, so he forced himself to snap out of his obsession with his own fingers. But he kept curiously touching his hands as he spoke.

“Well … I blew myself up.” James smiled awkwardly. He knew that saying this wouldn’t come across very well.

“What?” Lunaris and Helios said in unison, their jaws frozen from the shock.

The rest of the group wasn’t faring much better. They looked at him like he had just escaped from the mental hospital.

“You did that on purpose?!” Emilia shouted as she stared at him with wide open eyes.

“Well, it’s not as crazy as it seems.” James giggled.

“No, it’s crazy. That’s crazy.” Denmac interjected.

“Hey, I did it for a reason. That was the only way of not only taking full advantage of every ounce of power I had within me, but also of delivering it straight into the target. There was no dodging it, it was a direct, concentrated attack. It was the only thing that I could do to kill the bastard.”

At this point, Lunaris and Helios were a lot more acquainted with James’s insanity than the others. They got over their shock relatively quickly, even as the others were still reeling from what they had just heard.

They knew he did what had to be done, so they didn’t scold him for his recklessness. But they were still curious about what happened.

“How did you survive though?” Lunaris asked the question that was on everyone’s minds.

“Well, thanks to your healing, I managed to cast my sacrifices several times. So I cast my Chaos Barrier on my most important organs, the heart and the brain. I figured if those survived, maybe I could live long enough for you to heal me. And you did!” James smiled innocently as if he weren’t saying insane things.

“But you didn’t even have the heart when we found you!” Lunaris replied in disbelief. “How could you possibly survive without a heart?”

They all nodded their heads and looked at James without blinking. It really didn’t make any sense. The man had accomplished a lot of impossible things, things that they never thought they’d hear about, much less actually be a witness to. But even more impossible than killing thousands of agents, an entire city as well as their leader, was surviving not only without a body, but without even a heart.

“Well, I actually put most of my Chaos Barriers on my brain. I realized that if my brain was gone, then that was it. One can imitate the functions of the heart, but if you lose your brain, you’re gone for good. Lights out, done.”

“Yeah, but you still die without a heart. How could you have possible survived that, brother? You literally had no heart!” Helios asked. But even though the topic was morbid, he was beaming with pride as he listened to his brother’s impossible feats.

“For that, I have to thank my good friend SARM, my mana exoskeleton.” James chuckled. “I realized that if I can automate dodging, then I can probably automate a heartbeat too. My self-detonation was bound to be incredibly destructive, so I knew right away that the few barriers on my heart were unlikely to keep it from being destroyed. So I focused most of my barriers on the more important organ, and I poured a whole lot of mana into SARM, attaching it to my head and making it pump and oxygenate blood.”

Even after hearing the explanation, they didn’t think it was any less insane. The entire group was staring at him with wide open eyes.

“Well, enough about me.” James chuckled. “Thank you guys for saving me. If it were anyone else, I’d probably be dead right about now. But you came through. You’re the real heroes, my friends.” James bowed to all of them.

“Anyway.” Lunaris coughed and changed the subject, feeling awkward since James was bowing to her and Helios way more than to the rest of them. “Are you sure Garantep is dead?”

“Yep, I made sure of it. I could feel his essence being disintegrated as I was blowing myself up. Well, he did try to take over my soul, but that’s no big deal. He’s gone for good, I’m sure of that.” James then smiled.

“What?! He tried to take over your soul? Don’t just gloss over that!” Lunaris protested. Granted, someone trying to hijack James’s mind or soul was a fairly regular occurrence, but it was far from a normal event. But James was as nonchalant as you can get.

“I mean, at this point they tried to take over my mind and soul like half a dozen times. I’m used to it.” James chuckled again. “He popped into my mindspace, but I felt him immediately. He didn’t even have a body anymore, cause I had blown him up already at that point. Before he could even do anything, I swallowed him up. And that was the end of him.”

Helios was so satisfied that the bastard was gone that he almost fell off the carpet while cackling like a madman. “And you’re sure he’s gone for good?”

“Well, there’s still a remnant of him within me, cause I did swallow him up in my mindspace.” James said just as nonchalantly, which made Lunaris stare daggers at him. “But if anything, that’s actually a good thing. Denmac can probably inspect him or something, maybe we can squeeze some info out of him. Unfortunately, keeping his body intact wasn’t a priority when I disintegrated him with my explosion.” James rubbed his head, feeling slightly guilty about missing out on extracting whatever they could out of the monster’s body.

But then he smiled. “He’s definitely dead though. There’s another little thing that confirms his death.”

“You leveled up!” Lunaris and Helios realized what he meant right away, and they were already beaming proudly, immediately moving past the fact that some of Garantep’s essence remained inside James’s mindspace. But now was the time for jubilation, not worrying.

“I’m level 270, to be precise!” James announced merrily.

The entire group froze as their brains tried to process the number. This was the same man that was level 185 before they entered the city!

But as he looked at them, James noticed that Lunaris and Helios had a stronger aura as well. “You leveled up too!”

“Your eyes have become quite keen, brother!” Helios clapped. “Indeed, we’ve both leveled up. We haven’t done nearly as much as you in this battle, but it seems that the system has blessed us with plenty of progress.”

“Don’t keep me waiting, how much did you gain?”

Helios blushed, lacking his usual brazenness. “Well, I’m lvl 315.”

“And I’m lvl 312.” Lunaris blushed as well.

“Well, it looks like all three of us have to go through an awakening then!” James began dancing, even while they were travelling on the carpet. His movements were awkward, but he was happier about his friends leveling up than he was about his own progress.

“Wait, what about the curse? Is it gone? Can you use your Darkness powers?” Lunaris asked.

“Hmm, I don’t really feel any different. Let’s see.”

James extended his hand and shot out a Chaos Javelin. But instead of just his usual crimson bolt of lightning, there was a thick streak of Darkness running through it.

The carpet was flying over an open field, so James launched the Javelin at a dead tree several miles away.

He knew the power of his Javelin, so he was expecting the tree to blow up, and that would be the end of it.

But as soon as the Javelin reached its target, several explosions were heard. Not only did the tree blow up, but the Javelin kept exploding repeatedly, as if he had thrown a dozen of them instead of just one.

The shockwaves were reaching all the way back to the carpet. The ground was shaking as if the explosions had caused an earthquake. Worst of all was the sound. Even while it was streaking though the air, the Dark Javelin sounded like nails on a chalkboard. And even though the explosions were miles away, it felt like cannons were shooting right into their ears.

“Well, I guess my powers did return.” James laughed awkwardly as they were all forced to put their earplugs on again.

But even though their eardrums had ruptured again, Lunaris and Helios were incredibly happy. It had been so long since he was cursed. They didn’t even care about his Darkness powers, no matter how useful they’d be. They were just happy that he wasn’t cursed anymore.