Daz took a single step forward and said, "First, they are not my puppets. One is my future wife and the other is a valued friend who I owe a lot to."

A second step and his Archreaper's Aura exploded out of him and pressed down upon Lord Lit'ur. "Second, we shall not dance, I shall walk and you shall fall to the ground beneath my feet. You are not my match no matter how odd you are."

Lord Lit'ur raised an eyebrow. He wasn't forced down to his knees like most. He instead rolled his shoulders, making his heavy armour clink around.

"Interesting. A suppressive force that is more effective the further one's race is from the peak of their species. I see I still have some growing to do since it affects me. Despite how hard to notice the effects are," the pale man noted.

"I thought you seemed different to normal humans," Daz said before he smiled. "Although, it affects even you a bit? The mysterious lord of a mythical city who can turn people to ice and control the corpses of the fallen? Shame. I guess no one will ever surpass John."

"John? Who is this John you speak of?" Lord Lit'ur questioned casually.

"A dog," Daz answered honestly as he took a third step. "He's the partner of a subordinate of mine."

At this point, streams of Owned were flooding past him and towards Madison, Ellie, and the barrier.

Briefly glancing back to his companions, Daz could see Madison slicing through the transformed humans with ease. Mr Barrier was also keeping the sleeping twins safe from all harm.

'I need to find a treat for him like the chestnuts with the gnomes,' Daz thought. 'He's very friendly and helpful despite not being able to talk.'

Ellie, on the other hand, was waving her right hand like a conductor might as she controlled her robots telekinetically to massacre all who came within five metres of her.

Occasionally, the purple shroud of energy that surrounded her lashed out like a whip and completely obliterated a whole group of Owned, seemingly severing their link to Lord Lit'ur.

With them so handily dealing with the frosty lord's minions, Daz had nothing else to worry about.

"A dog, you say? I see. So my kind pales in comparison to a mere animal of yours. The world truly is vast and mysterious," Lord Lit'ur said with nary a scrap of offence to be seen on his expression or in his tone.

Daz shrugging, taking a fourth, fifth and sixth step. "I was surprised too. It's not a normal dog."

"I can't imagine it is." Lord Lit'ur remained stationary as he waited just in front of his throne for Daz.

Once the reaper had taken his fifteenth step, the icy man moved.

Daz controlled Hamson to barely block the sword that had come within centimetres of his neck.

"Capture us, huh?" Daz asked as he moved to punch Lord Lit'ur in the face.

Not having to use his hands to wield Hamson was great for expanding his battle options. It was definitely the right choice to focus on that when he had formed his Quintessential Shovel Art.

The Ember of Digging he had infused into Hamson's blade, while far less effective on something that wasn't a natural resource like dirt or stone, still gave the already insanely powerful shovel an extra edge against the sword.

Lord Lit'ur, feeling himself getting overpowered by Hamson and seeing the incoming strikes from Daz, gracefully leapt back, completely dodging the incoming fist. His sword was damaged from the encounter but it seemed to repair itself as a swirl of icicles surrounded it.

"I had a feeling you'd be fine even with such a swift attack aiming for a vital," the lord reasoned. "Consider it an honour of sorts that I thought you would survive. Now, it seems I must get serious. It wouldn't be a stretch to say I lost that exchange. That simply cannot do."

After hearing those words, Daz immediately felt his body get incredibly cold and stiff. Icicles began forming in his hair and on his eyebrows. His skin frosted over and his teeth began chattering.

"You can harness the s-storm?" Daz asked as he shivered, snow and frozen chunks of ice pelting his body all the while.

Lord Lit'ur's eyes glowing a brilliant icy blue as he nodded. "To some extent, yes. Now, to end this."

"Reflective Chains of J-Justice," Daz spoke calmly, ignoring the stutter the sudden decline in temperature had given him.

Instantly, hundreds upon hundreds of deep grey and large ghostly chains spiralled out of the floor. Each one rapidly making its way towards Lord Lit'ur.

"I thought so. K-Killing people merely for entering your land, even if w-without permission, is a criminal act in my ever-judging eyes. I would never do such a th-thing in my kingdom. Y-You've lost," Daz said through the biting cold.

Advanced Cold Resistance has reached Level 2.

'A boon from the frostbite Regeneration and Lifeforce Dependancy are fighting off, if nothing else,' he thought humorously.

The Champion of Control frowned but didn't panic. He instead raised a hand and commanded, "Leave."

The chains hesitated midair as if considering what to do. Some even started to recede back to from whence they had come.

'He can directly control something as abstract as my astral chains? His God-ranked skill is more annoying than I had initially assumed,' Daz remarked internally as he began to think up a solution.

"Even your skills are difficult to enforce my will upon," Lord Lit'ur commented. "Less challenging than you, yourself, however. I've never met a person with such high willpower before. You have a strong natural resistance to my attempts as well. A skill, perhaps?"

"R-Racial trait," Daz answered honestly.

He then poured some of his Justice stat into the chains. This was a technique he could use to have the chains apply to people with no crimes on their crime list but he had a thought.

What if that extra facet of the skill was actually just strengthening it to the point that it could affect perfectly law-abiding people instead of actually altering the skill's abilities?

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If that were the case, then surely it would help with fighting off Lord Lit'ur's will that threatened to render one of his strongest trump cards inert.

And, lo and behold, Daz's guesses quickly proved to be right. The receding chains emerged from the depths to once again attempt to wrap themselves around the icy man.

All signs of their former reluctance were gone and back was the gloomy and overbearing astral chains that spared no one from Daz's punishments.

He smiled at that. He then controlled Hamson to attack Lord Lit'ur while he, himself, fired two Death Beams at him from his palms.

Lord Lit'ur frowned. "How annoying." The power of the snowstorm tripled around him as he slowed the chains with both his control and with his ice.

Even going so far as to directly freeze the Death Energy contained within the incoming Death Beams, resulting in them violently slamming into the ground and shattering.

Hamson, however, cut straight through the cold like a .50 bullet would to air.

'As if anything can really resist Hamson. It's got my champion God-ranked skill tied to it and it's fused with an imitation of an actual god's secondary weapon. That door fled the moment it got damaged by my shovel and the Qunjara it summoned thought Hamson could harm it. How will you react, Lord Lit'ur?' Daz thought as he sealed off the man's possible escape routes with his chains and another set of Death Beams.

'This should take his sword-wielding arm off. Maddy and Ellie are wrapping up too it seems. We've won, not that I expected anything else,' Daz thought before something happened that surprised him greatly.

Lord Lit'ur reached out and directly grabbed Hamson's shaft with his free hand. He slid back several metres, even slammed the back of his knees on his throne just to endure the force of the shovel.

"I'd like to see you try to attack me with this thing now, High King Crowthorne," Lord Lit'ur provoked with a victorious smile on his handsome face. "My power to control is amplified greatly upon touch. I doubt whatever skill you use to move this thing can overcome mine."

"Ha-ah..." Daz sighed deeply. "I d-didn't expect that, I'll be hon-honest. I didn't want t-t-to kill you before a-at least interrogat-t-ting you first. Oh well, y-you should be stronger t-than Matt was. Don't become a m-m-mere shell of a soul, will y-you? I have questions t-t-to ask you."

Advanced Cold Resistance has reached Level 3.

Not only Lord Lit'ur but even Ellie and Madison - who had completely cleaned up their end of the battle by now and were just spectating while avoiding the storm - looked confused by Daz's odd statement.

'They'll understand in a second,' Daz thought as he crossed his arms and endured the still raging frigid bite of winter that was being hammered down upon him.

Advanced Cold Resistance has reached Level 4.

Lord Lit'ur scoffed a little. "Delusions. I thought more of you than to say basel- Wait. What's going on?"

What had caused him to interrupt himself was his hand disappearing entirely, having been drawn into Hamson and the rest of his body was slowly inching towards that fate as well.

Lord Lit'ur tried to let go of the thing but his hand was already missing so that was impossible. "Explain!"

Daz shrugged. "No one b-bar me can wield H-Hamson. Your God-ranked skill lets y-you control things through your will a-and your words. Mine lets me, s-s-specifically, do nothing. Instead, it empowers m-my shovel. Hamson has a will, and that will, L-Lord Lit'ur, consumes anyone that holds it who isn't m-me. It's a bit possessive and it doesn't like to be touched by strangers."

Advanced Cold Resistance has reached Level 5.

"What nonsense!" A creeping panic was spreading through the white-haired man's face but he quickly steeled himself.

He brought his sword up to his shoulder and immediately severed his own arm to remove contact with Hamson. He lacked hesitation and didn't even wince as blood began gushing out of his new, gaping wound.

'So the sword has the power to cut through his armour too? A nice upgrade for Maddy, then,' Daz thought as he shook his head. "A valiant attempt, but it's a-a rather c-conclusive action, trying to hold H-Hamson that is."

He had only seen it happen once with Matt Bleak almost a full year ago. Granted, that man was an ant to Daz then and even less than that now.

He was such a nothing person that his soul didn't even have enough will nor structure to retain his personality within Hamson.

Still, the experience of watching him being sucked into the shovel had been something Daz would never forget.

It wasn't something that could be avoided, that was the feeling Daz got from it. 'I'll be very impressed if Lord Lit'ur can somehow escape Hamson though I doubt it's possible.'

As if to validate his thoughts, A strong gravital force shot out of the crimson blade of Hamson's scoop and Lord Lit'ur was swept off of his feet.

Within a mere second, the icy man had been entirely consumed, leaving nothing behind to prove he existed bar his sword and his armour.

Daz controlled Hamson and grabbed the shovel with his branded hand. "Good. I'd have been upset if you destroyed the sword. Maddy needs that. I could use the armour too since he was roughly my size and Altros' gear is useless."

Reika flew out of her representing skull on Hamson's shaft and took her place atop Daz's halo. 'Hamson is smart and suuuuper loyal. The last thing it wants to do is annoy you, you insolent fool.'

Slowly, the snowstorm that Lord Lit'ur had summoned receded and at the same time, an icy white skull formed on Hamson's shaft just beneath Mofolo's ocean blue one.

Madison and Ellie approached him as he replied to the demoness spirit. "Oh? I knew Hamson had a will. The One Shovel to Rule Them All birthed it but it's conscious of upsetting me?"

Reika nodded in a bored manner. 'It can't speak but it tries to make the space in the shovel conformable for us and that stinky fish. I'm looking forward to it beating that newbie into shape. It gets pretty violent if we ever want to not serve you with all of our heart. We're pretty sure it wouldn't even consume your lover nor your sister if they picked it up, so loyal to you is it.'

"Yeah, I'm not testing that," Daz replied as he finally felt his body warming up a little.

'I didn't expect him to have power over the storm like that but I suppose it makes sense upon thinking about it a little,' he thought.

"Who, talk, to?" Madison asked with a cock of the head.

Meanwhile, Ellie was looking off into space while the purple aura around her disappeared, signalling the end of the effects of her god-ranked skill, Only If You Need Me.

Daz pointed to the top of his head. "Reika."

Madison looked confused before she softly hit her fist against her open palm. "Ah. Invisible, spirit."

"She isn't invisible, she's just not visible without the right tools, my eyes being one such tool. There's a bit of a difference," he chuckled as he leaned down and picked up the long thin sword that had belonged to Lord Lit'ur.

He held it out towards his future wife. "This is yours, I believe."

Madison radiated joy from her eyes as she took the blade from him, hugging it to her chest. "Thanks. Will, merge, with, Family, when, safe."

Daz nodded. "Let's bring the girls closer to the throne, shall we?"

He stretched then added, "I want them next to me when we learn more about this place from the other people that were here earlier."

Madison tilted her head to the side again. "Not, liberated, yet?"

Daz nodded. "Sadly not. I'm pretty confident all I need to do now is to become this place's true owner. I intend to learn how to do that from the citizens here."

"Okay," Madison replied before stepping back and instantly appearing right next to the girls within Mr Barrier's shield.

'She can move quickly,' Daz noted. "And you, Ellie? What do you want to do for now? I assume you've finished your quest."

"I can't leave here if the storm is still raging outside of this palace. I did complete my quest though but got a secondary quest right after and I'd like to complete it if you don't mind me wandering off for a bit," Ellie requested.

Daz saw no reason to refuse her. "Go ahead. Just don't kill anyone without a good reason, please. That's all I ask."

"I won't. I'm not a cold-blooded murderer," Ellie replied before she immediately left the throne room via a side door.

Daz ran a hand through his light grey hair as he sighed. He stored the deceased lord's armour and took a seat upon the throne of ice. 'Was that a jab at me, I wonder?'

He could do nothing to help with Ellie's mood nor did he really want to. She was justified in her recent changes in personality.

So long as she remained loyal to him and New Earth, she could question her king as much as she wished to. He could allow at least that much considering how catastrophically he had failed her in the past.