It didn’t take long for all hell to break loose. By the time their chit-chat was over, thousands of agents were already descending upon the group.

“Oh my God, I’ve never seen anything like this.” Emilia said with a trembling voice.

“Their aura, it’s blinding!” Denmac began trembling as well.

“Stop cowering, open your eyes, and start getting some of that xp! Otherwise, I’ll just end up robbing you of all the xp again.” James shouted. “I want you guys to level up, so don’t slack off!”

“How are we supposed to kill those?” Emilia asked. “Even just one of them is probably stronger than me. And there are thousands! Look, even more keep popping up every second, the sky is filled with agents, and the streets are crowded with these psychopaths that are stepping over each other just to get a chance at killing us.”

“Eh, you’ll be fine.” James laughed. “Just sit behind the barrier I’ve made for you and throw spells at them. Or poke them with a long stick or something, I don’t know.”

“Anyway. Helios, Lunaris, I’ll leave you in charge of the children. This might take me a bit longer than usual, so make sure everybody stays within the barrier.”

As soon as he finished his sentence, James vanished. And the next second, hundreds of explosions rang out within the city.

“Oh my God, he actually left us here with all of them.” Emilia shrieked as hundreds of demons were closing in on the barrier.

“Hey, brother would never put is in danger.” Helios replied. “He knows what he’s doing, so I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

The barrier rippled as dozens of projectiles were beginning to bombard it every second from above. The agents on the ground also reached the group, stabbing and slashing from every possible angle. Some were even climbing on the backs of others to stab at the barrier, because there wasn’t even any space left around it.

“How can you all be so calm when you’re standing just a few feet away from a horde of snarling agents that are waiting to stab us to death?” Emilia began hyperventilating.

“Because of that.” Lunaris pointed at the barrier with a smile. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice it?”

“Notice what?” Emilia asked.

“Look at it.” Lunaris beamed gleefully. “You’ve been so terrified of the agents, that you haven’t even noticed that the barrier isn’t cracking at all. They’ve been bombarding and stabbing at it for nearly a minute now, and there’s no sign of it shattering any time soon.”

“Oh, you’re right.” Color immediately returned to Emilia’s face. “The ground is shaking from their attacks, and yet the barrier isn’t fading one bit.” She just stood there with her jaw dropped. “I can’t believe it!”

“Well, you’d better believe it quickly, or James will just swoop in and we’ll leave empty-handed again.” Helios smiled. “Let’s start killing some agents!”

Helios turned himself into a molten wrecking ball again, sprinting outside the barrier to smash into the nearest group of agents.

But as soon as he stepped out, he felt dozens of stabs all over his body.

He crashed into an agent as usual. But unlike his previous opponents, they didn’t explode into a pile of charred flesh. The agents still grimaced in pain, severely burned by his attack. But they were alive and well, already about to stick their daggers into Helios again.

Helios jumped back into the barrier in an instant, bleeding all over.

“Ok, that was a big mistake.” He laughed awkwardly. “This city is definitely a huge step up in difficulty.” He said as he looked at the cuts all over his body. “I hope James isn’t underestimating the danger level. If the rank-and-file ones are so strong, I shudder to even think about the power level of the upper echelon.”

Lunaris rushed to his side and began healing him. “I’d call you reckless, but not even I expected them to be so strong. They stabbed you so quickly, with so much power that your defenses barely did anything. What do we do now?”

“What James told us to do.” Helios chuckled. “We take our spells and our pointy sticks, and we attack them from inside the barrier.”

Helios pulled out spears and handed them to everyone. “That’s in case you run out of mana, since not all of us have an infinite god damn supply like James.” He shook his head and laughed.

“Now do as I do.” Helios shouted as he walked to the edge of the barrier. Waves of blue fire shot out of his hands, moving freely through the barrier towards the agents that were stabbing it furiously.

The agents shrieked, but they didn’t die either. The flames engulfed their bodies, something that would’ve been a death sentence for most of the agents Helios had been fighting up until now. But these ones were different. Within seconds, dark waves of energy were released from the agents’ bodies, extinguishing the fires completely.

But Helios wasn’t discouraged that easily either. His fires weren’t killing the agents, but they definitely weren’t a pleasant experience either. He began running along the edge of the barrier, spraying fire at any agent that got too close.

Dozens of agents were now on fire. Within seconds, the fires would vanish, and the agents would be back at stabbing the barrier. But their snarling frenzy was visibly reduced.

It wasn’t the killing fiesta Helios wanted, but it was a start. Bit by bit, the fires were grinding the agents down, eating away at their bodies each time their were set ablaze.

But Helios wasn’t alone either. The dwarves, Emilia, and even Denmac and Lunaris were running around within the barrier, stabbing and throwing their spells at their enemies. They weren’t even targeting any specific agent, choosing to follow Helios’s lead and attack everybody who was within range.

“I wonder how James is doing.” Lunaris worried.

And then they heard an explosion so big that they nearly fell over from the shockwave.