Fear had a funny habit of finding the smallest insecurities, the tiniest of concerns, the most unrealistic of imagined scenarios and it made them... real.

One after another the encirclement of armed-guards lowered their weapons and their arms trembled while their eyes shook.

Former-mayor Aston Rickley spun his head around and wore a furious expression on his face. "What are you all doing?! He can't keep that barrier up forever, and I've already identified it! It is solid, so while we can't break it, he also can't leave it! Keep your guns trained on him and blast him to pieces the second that stupid barrier falls!"

Daz smiled in amusement. Nothing really mattered here. It would be nice to get the soldiers on his side, but even if they didn't agree with him, he had already become the new ruler of Las Vegas at absolutely no cost to himself.

"What the..." Daz glanced down at his little sister who had suddenly spoken in confusion. Her face was filled with uncertainty and she was clearly puzzled by something on her laptop.

"You okay?" Daz asked.

"I... I don't know." She began furiously typing then added, "Wrap this up quickly. Something or someone has blocked me from accessing certain information. It's gonna take me a few minutes to rip the code to pieces and find out who exactly is paying the system to make me blind to... something."

Daz, aware of the gravity in his sister's tone, nodded. "Don't look up no matter what you do, and Mr Barrier, if you wouldn't mind, could you only protect Rose? I need to leave your barrier for a moment."

"As if I have the time to look away from my laptop right now," Rose snapped.

As for Mr Barrier, the furry blue blob floated up from Rose's head of platinum-blonde hair and brushed against Daz's cheek but it didn't move the barrier like he had asked it too.

"I'll be fine, trust me. I know Maddy told you to protect us both, but really, it's unneeded. I'll give you a shout if I need your help, 'kay?" Daz offered.

He was lucky that Aston Rickley was still trying his best to pressure his men to continue to point their weapons at Daz, so he hadn't been listening to him nor to Rose, though Jim Tucker and Lizzy had been intently absorbing every sentence to see if they could somehow use any information to help them out of what was - in their opinion - a situation that could go either horribly or rather well, especially so for Jim since he'd already indirectly attacked them with his coin flip.

Mr Barrier purred strangely then rubbed against Daz's face again before floating back to Rose's head. The creature then instantaneously withdrew the existing barrier and created a new one around only Rose.

Daz was tempted to use his Archreaper's Aura here, but he couldn't target specific people with that skill of his, and hence, Rose would be affected too. He had no doubts that Mr Barrier was either at the pinnacle of whatever species he was or he simply wouldn't be affected by the aura since he was technically an item, but regardless, if Daz could avoid it, he would ideally not force Rose to get the urge to treat him like a god.

With himself no longer being protected by Mr Barrier, naturally, neither was Hamson. The shovel had been peacefully floating behind him ever since he'd gotten out of his car, and while most people in the room had lumped it in with his retinue of gems as a simple harmless decoration, it was still perhaps one of the most powerful weapons on Earth. Daz raised his hand and brought it down like a general signalling for his troops to attack.

Hamson cut through the air like a bullet. Not a moment later, a loud snapping sound could be heard.

The shovel's razor-sharp edge which could easily cut through Crusher's skin or even steel had stopped at Aston Rickey's neck and he was now wearing one less ring on his fingers.

The portly man had a golden ring on every one of his digits, thumbs included, and one had snapped clean in two and clattered onto the floor.

Rose, without looking up from her laptop, said, "You never checked his items? Each ring gives him an extra life. They're consumables though so if you're gonna kill him, just try another ten times. It's as simple as that."

"I see," Daz replied then raised his hand again.

"E-Everyone! Attack him!" Aston Rickley yelled with no small amount of dread in his tone.

He hadn't even seen the shovel move let alone see it approach his neck. Aston hadn't invested into physical stats but into stats of the mind and into stats that boosted his luck and ability to persuade others. He was certain that if his soldiers kept hesitating, Daz would slowly eat through all of his protective rings and then kill him.

Aston Rickley had met many people in his life and he was confident that Daz was not one that he could ever convince to do something that he had no interest in doing. Call it intuition, but he could feel it. No matter what he said or tried, he would never be able to convince the reaper to not end his life, and thus, his only remaining option was to kill the young man before he had his own life cut short.

'I knew I should have bought some teleportation talismans! If only they weren't so expensive then maybe I would have gotten them along with my rings! Fuck!' Aston hated himself for being such a miser.

'A good solid show of force should be enough to convince them that resistance is futile,' Daz decided. "Death Energy Manifestation, Crystallisation."

Eight deep grey arms that were twice as long and twice as thick as Daz's own arms grew from his spine and wrapped around his body like spider legs. The next moment, the astral arms and his entire body turned into the same material that GriD CrosS was made out of.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Well, almost his entire body. Daz had been talking to the massive purple crystal whenever he visited Fort Sky and he had also been consulting with the system and his sister in regards to what both the dishonest crystal and Rimmy actually were and what they were made out of, with limited success.

Rimmy remained a complete mystery while Daz knew enough about Grid now to not be embarrassed should a pop-quiz about Fort Sky's core ever come up.

Every visible part of his body had been transformed into a deep shade of reflective purple. His hair, his eyes, his face, his neck, his hands, his right leg, and, luckily, all eight of his death energy arms.

'So long as they think I turned into a ten-armed crystal man then that's all that matters. They're already starting to freak out,' Daz thought.

The host has successfully become 43% of a [Minuscule Gravitas Crystal Sapient]. This change will limit some of this host's species-specific and race-specific skills but will also grant access to some new ones.

The transformation shall only last for [10-minutes].

Daz had already experimented a fair amount with this over the past week so he was more than aware of what he was now capable of.

Aston Rickley was immediately on guard upon seeing Daz's foreign change. He had no information about this from his investigations nor from the reaper's actions during the system's auction, so he wasn't wholly sure how to react.

Ideally, he'd have loved to calmly analysed Daz to learn how to best counter him via his Grand Identification, however, as he was already aware, that skill would never work on the young man without his consent.

Trapped between a rock and a hard place, Aston Rickley saw no other choice than to simply continue to attack. If he foolishly kept trying to persuade his cowardly men to help him, then before he knew it, his head would be looking up at his own body.

"Bedazzling Blindness," the portly man invoked a skill then raised his hand, "Rainy Slots! Hoard's Protection!"

Daz's eyes turned into golden coins with dollar signed stamped into them as three massive slot machines of mystical designs appeared above his head. The activation levers of these machines all got pulled at once resulting in a shower of coins spilling out from them towards Daz at an alarming speed.

While this was going on, once again, hundreds of coins flooded out of Aston Rickley's sleeves and rocketed towards Daz.

'I'm blinded, huh?' Daz thought as he raised his hand slowly. 'No matter. Extreme Gravity Field, Limit: None.'

Daz had used the ability that GriD CrosS was perpetually using to keep Fort Sky in the air, however, he had used it without any of its limits. Naturally, he had set specific parameters for it, namely; the space above himself, the area where Aston's coins were, and, of course, all of the former-mayor himself.

The magical slot machines and their coins imploded violently along with the coins that Aston was controlling. The sheer pressure from the unrestricted gravity being placed on them had forced them to explode inwardly.

Aston, on the other hand, instantly topped over as his rings began imploding one by one, shattering his fingers. They weren't even breaking to save his life, no, their durability simply couldn't withstand the additional gravity.

Clearly, some of the accessories had more durability than others since they weren't all imploding at the same time, and this gave the former-mayor a chance to speak.

"S-Stop!" Aston Rickley begged at the top of his lungs. "I-I'll hand over Vegas! I-I won't question your rule! I swear! L-Let me live!"

Daz remained silent as more and more of the former mayor's rings broke, reducing the man's potential spare life-count.

An eerie silence of terror overtook everyone as they listened to the portly man who once lorded over them writhe about in pain as he pleaded his best for Daz to spare him, alas, to no avail.

Once the man had finally breathed his last, succumbing to his internal injuries after enduring Daz's Extreme Gravity Field, the reaper cancelled both the gravity field and his Crystallisation before the skill's 10-minute duration had run out.

Daz didn't look happy at the fact that he had killed another person, another of his people. He shook his head and then reached into the man's body with one of his death energy arms. Grasping onto the man's soul, he let it go, allowing it to disperse and enter one of Earth's circles of reincarnation now that it wasn't attached to his body any longer.

"I hope you find peace in the afterlife, wherever or whatever that may be for you," Daz whispered almost the exact same thing he had said when he had killed Jeremy Glove.

"Daz," Rose called.

He looked back at her and saw her staring at her laptop's screens intently. She glanced up at him then gestured to her laptop's central screen with her eyes.

Mr Barrier dropped his blue protective shield for Daz when he approached. The moment he looked at what Rose had wanted to show him, however, his face took on a look of pure rage and upset, startling the still fearful guards, Lizzy, and Jim.

Storming up to Jim and snatching his dice from Altros' set off of the man, Daz looked him in the eye and said, "You can steal luck, yes? Can you also return it if you've stolen it or do I need to kill you to do that?"

"I-I can return it! I can give my luck to others but only up to what is actually theirs! I can't increase anyone's luck past their natural limit except for myself!" Jim hurriedly answered.

He was an arrogant man but he wasn't a foolish one. He was confident that if Daz was certain that ending his life would restore his missing luck then he would kill him without even a shred of hesitation.

"Good. Next question. Does this place have a teleportation relay?" Daz asked the entire room.

Lizzy found the courage to answer with, "No. There was no need to get any means of long-distance transportation, really. Aston was too busy trying to maintain his position as the city's mayor. His rivals, Alek and Amanda, weren't exactly letting him rest."

"Damn it. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to use what little merit and base points Vegas still has to buy one." Daz pointed at Lizzy and said, "You. You're in charge for now. I'll be back tomorrow, but for now, I have business to attend to. And you," he said as his finger moved to Jim. "You're coming with us."

"W-What?!" Jim Tucker wanted to be anywhere but by Daz's side. 'How the hell am I meant to skip town if he's right next to me?! I don't know how, but with those stupid dice of his there's no way that I can beat him! I have no idea how he's making bad luck into good luck, but I don't want to be involved with him at all!'

"No questions. Follow us or die. You're too dangerous to leave alive with that esper power of yours. The only exception is if you're with me. I owe at least that much to your sister," Daz said in a no-nonsense tone.

"My sister? You know Harriot?" Jim was beyond confused now.

He wasn't the only one, to be fair. Neither Lizzy nor the guards were aware of what esper powers were or that one such ability was how Jim had been able to steal luck. They had all merely assumed it was something he could do thanks to the system, however, Daz's wording seemed to imply that wasn't exactly the case.

Regardless, Lizzy quickly accepted Daz's order. She wasn't one to ignore the power he wielded and how she could benefit if she served him well. On the flip side, Jim reluctantly followed the man and his sister out of the room since he had been left with little to no other choice.