Daz quickly unsummoned his clones as well as Rimmy before returning to the diamond crater.

He'd have loved to have kept Alpha around to keep Las Vegas in order, however, doing so was pointless when he and Mu could have their access to the system stripped from them in only a few hours.

It made more sense to Daz to leave his warning and let the existing powers in Las Vegas figure things out on their own for now. It was doubtful that anything would really change. After all, it was only Alek and his men that had broken the laws, not everyone in the city.

Daz was a bit surprised upon arriving to see everyone but Mu sat on their knees with slightly worried or respectful gazes being pointed towards him.

About 20 or so of the diamond miners were unconscious as well, though none were dead, which was a relief to Daz.

"What's this about?" he asked Mu as he stepped off of Hamson.

"Ah, Brother. Welcome back," Mu happily greeted from atop his Cloud of Tartarus that was only a few feet off the ground. "The leader over there received a video call through your sister's new network system. He showed everyone your speech and how you made an example out of that fool."

Daz raised an eyebrow. "Well, that's certainly helpful."

"Indeed. It also spiked their fear and suffering. A handful even tried to kill themselves. I was forced to incapacitate them before I could train my Embers," Mu claimed as he pointed to the pile of 20 unconscious illegal diamond miners.

"I see. Fools will always be fools. I suppose if they thought it was reasonable to mine my diamond crater without my express permission then they would also assume that after killing that Alek guy that I'd also want to end their lives too," Daz said coldly, sending a shiver down Szymon's spine.

'Shit! I told them that wasn't the case! The Asian boy said the same thing but they didn't listen! Is he going to kill us now since that's what 'we' thought would happen?! Does he think that'll be just tying another loose end?! Fuck! I always wanted to die doing something amazing like sky-diving into a bus, not being offed by some kid with a freakin' halo!' Szymon had a rather active imagination, that was for certain.

Daz stroked his jaw thoughtfully as he looked around at the stacks of diamond chucks.

"I had the more sensible ones gather what was here. I assumed you would wish to reaffix the loose diamonds to the greater structure. Ignore it if that was not your intent, Brother," Mu said as he bopped his head around a bit oddly.

It was only then that Daz noticed the earplugs in his fellow reaper's ears and a small cassette player in his hand. "Where'd you get that?"

"It was his," Mu said as he pointed at Szymon. "He has rather good taste in music. If you don't plan to kill them - which I imagine you do not - then I would like to take him as a subordinate. He can help me restore the music industry to New Earth if nothing else."

Daz sighed. "You really are too strange for me at times. You and Crusher both... Sure, do as you please. I'll be making them all prisoners back at Fort Home. He can serve his community service under you."

"Fantastic. Thank you, Brother. I appreciate this," Mu said with a smile before he closed his eyes and immersed himself into his tunes once again.

Daz looked back at the large chunks of pure diamond before he shook his head and said, "I may as well just use some of this to make myself 50 needles and then yeah, I can put the rest back."

He laid his eyes on the men sitting on the floor. "You lot, you will stay here for the next week or two. You will protect this place with your lives. It should be clear by now to everyone in Las Vegas that this crater holds no worldly value anymore, so I would be shocked to find out that someone was so stupid as to steal from it again."

His gaze hardened as he followed up with, "If a single one of you is not present when I and Mu return, you will all die. I know all of your names now and it takes nothing more than a question to the system to find your location since you are all my 'precious citizens'."

Szymon shivered when he felt Daz's eyes drift to him and lock onto him. "If any of you dare leave my kingdom and try to flee, I will use all of my resources to hunt you down and kill you in both body and soul."

Daz didn't really mean that since he had no reason to destroy nor consume a human soul. Souls were innocent in his opinion, after all. However, a little white lie here or there never hurt anyone.

After that rather intimidating threat, everyone did as Daz had asked.

A few hours passed before Daz had repaired all of the damage to the crater. He did what he could with the present mined chunks of diamonds, but he had to do most of the repairing with water.

He felt rather fortunate that he'd had the foresight to store 50,000-cubic-meters of seawater back when had obtained his Industrial Item Box at Atlantis.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

It was easy enough to quickly release the water to the mined areas and then immediately crystalise it, turning it into pure diamonds.

Unfortunately, even with Daz's high Luck stat, some of his attempts to turn the water into diamonds failed, resulting in a massive body of water pooling at the bottom of the crater.

There was already a small collection of rainwater there and now it was roughly the size of four swimming pools.

'It doesn't increase the chances of the sinkhole coming back and if this place fills up with water then maybe that'll tempt fewer people to mine it all up,' Daz thought as he looked at the failed Crystallisation attempts in a positive light.

Not long after that, he and Mu were done. With no other reason to remain in Nevada, they left the soon-to-be-criminals and headed towards New York. Of course, Daz had made sure to get himself 50 diamond needles before departing.

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"Wow," Daz muttered as he and Mu approached the former jewel of the east coast.

The city walls that had been erected to help against the monster waves during the first tests of the system were now nothing more than a crumbling heap of scrap metal.

Most of the buildings past them had been reduced to ash, it would seem. Only a handful of structures near the city's centre remained mostly unaffected.

Thankfully, Daz could detect a few thousand souls in that central hub, so while late he and Mu may be; too late, they were not.

Mu sighed in disappointment as he and Daz got out of the Ridomochi a few hundred feet away from the central hub of buildings.

Mu was wearing a pair of sunglasses and a large hat to protect himself from the sun while Daz was holding a large black metal suitcase.

"I was hoping to see the city which never sleeps in its full splendour. Such a shame," Mu said as he shook his head sadly.

"You will one day. Just as soon as we deal with the Truthians and gain this city for ourselves," Daz said very matter-of-factly.

Mu lightly nodded. "Yes, I suppose so... There is much lingering suffering here. The air is thick in its Ember."

"That sounds about right," Daz said nonchalantly. "I hope Emma is still alive. She works for my father, but she seemed to have a logical head on her shoulders at the very least."

"We can only hope. I do wonder how they survived at all if all they could use to fight this fanatical cult was the old modern weapons of our former civilisation," Mu pondered aloud.

"I bet we'll find out soon," Daz said. "You can feel them too, right?"

"Indeed, Brother. 30 or so souls are approaching us. Fingers crossed for a warm reception, no?" Mu said with a playful smile on his face.

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Less than a minute later Daz and Mu found themselves surrounded by exactly 36 men and women, all holding various guns.

They had tensely surrounded the two reapers until one of them said, "Who are you?! More agents of Danielle's?!"

Daz slowly used his hand not holding his suitcase to point above his head. "Recognise this halo?"

A few seconds of silence befell the encirclement of armed individuals. "... You're Darenzo Hamilio..."

"I go by Daz or King Daz, thank you very much. Is Emma Cromwell still alive or should I be meeting someone else to discuss ridding our planet of the Truthians?" Daz asked plainly and with neither fear nor worry in his tone.

Mu was just lazily scratching his leg with his sandalled foot as he always did when he was bored.

A few of the people glanced between each other in concern before one said, "She's alive. We, uh, never thought you'd come back, to be honest."

Daz gave the one speaking a funny look. "I gave my word I'd return in 2-weeks. It's been 2-weeks and now here I am. Lead us to Emma then if she's still around. I need to talk to her before Mu and I join the fight."

"O-Okay." Even though they knew the Truthians could somehow nullify system changes or system-related things, these people still saw hope from Daz's arrival.

After all, he was hailed worldwide as being one of the most powerful survivors after the system's arrival. This went doubly so for those who knew of his relation to Davido and how the man valued his son.

As Daz and Mu were escorted to and through the remaining hub of buildings Daz asked, "How is this little enclave still standing? Logic dictates that once the walls fell you should have lost pretty damned fast. Are the Truthians keeping you lot alive or something?"

Mu nodded in realisation. "That is a very good point. This may be a trap, Brother."

Daz shook his head. "It isn't, trust me."

"I see..." Mu had no reason to doubt his friend's instincts, so he kept quiet as one of the men answered Daz.

"Master Sorola. He can... uh, how does he put it... He protects this place with a flame?" the man said.

A woman sighed and corrected him, "Not a flame, an Ember."

Both Daz and Mu's eyes narrowed. "Well now, that's one hell of a coincidence," the king of New Earth whispered.

'I wonder if I can learn anything from a fellow Ember wielder?' Mu thought hopefully.

"Can we meet this 'Master Sorola?" Daz asked.

"Uh, you'll have to. He's the one keeping Miss Cromwell alive," one of the people escorting the two reapers said.

"So she's in critical condition?" Daz questioned. 'Interesting. I can certainly use that to my advantage. She's absolutely an esper. My instincts told me as much both times we met previously. If she has an injury that the system can't heal or that she can't afford, I can absolutely use that as leverage to more easily recruit her and this Master Sorola person.'

"That's putting it lightly," someone replied.

Reika noticed the look in Daz's eyes as she was resting on his halo with her head drooping down in front of the man's face.

'You look evil,' she commented as she flailed her arms about lazily.

Both Daz and Mu ignored the dead demon princess. The two reaper brothers had come to learn that it was usually wise to not pay attention to spirits when they weren't saying anything of any help.

Whether this was a good attitude to have or not was easily up for debate, though it certainly kept Reika quiet most of the time.

The spirit began making silly faces in an attempt to get a laugh out of Daz but he only smiled faintly and whispered, "Behave, please."

'Hmpf! You shall likely lose your access to the system again soon, and thus, lose access to me! We do not like the domain in Hamson, so we merely wish to engage with you a bit before that happens! Who knows how long you will be without us? Surely, you will get very lonely,' Reika arrogantly claimed.

Much to her surprise, that earned her a chuckled from Daz. 'Will I be lonely or will you? Stupid girl. She has Mofolo. They can talk all they like and get to know each other better while Mu and I are busy fighting a fanatical cult.'

Regardless of the demon princess' protests the two reapers soon found themselves to be in the lobby of a former hotel-turned-emergency camp.

It was time for Daz to meet Emma Cromwell once again to fulfil his promise.