I collected the rest of the priests on top of the ice wall, making my way around my fortress, and placed the light stones on their stands inside my Pocket Dimension as I went.

There was only one bit of excitement, the twenty third priest we came across agreed to be collected and then tried to push me off the ice wall when I grabbed his light stone stand. I easily beheaded him and pushed his body off the wall on the opposite side to my fortress.

I kept Sam close by as we made our circuit, and the rest of the priests formed into ranks four wide. When we got back to the gap in the wall where my stairs descended through I built a second stone bridge back to my stairs and led the priests across. Sam and I were several steps up and I kept a count of the number of priests as I sent them down the stairs to the pavilion at the bottom.

My count ended at ninety seven, plus Sam. One was missing from the count I'd made as I was collecting them.

"You go down too, Sam." I said. "I'll be down in a few minutes and we will talk with whoever is in charge here."

Sam left and I headed back across to the top of the ice wall. A quick sprint around the wall and I found the missing priest, he was on the opposite side of the fortress to my stairs and he had his hands down against the ice wall, chanting.

The only good chanting priest was a dead chanting priest... That didn't really work, as dead priests couldn't chant. But the thought remained. The priest didn't even see me coming, a quick double slash cut through his heart and then his neck and he was dead. I didn't even check my stride, continuing my sprint around to the original bridge to my stairs.

Sam was just reaching the bottom when I caught up with him, and the rest of the priests were marching in formation to the right. We followed after them and just around the curve of the wall there was a large blue tent set up, it looked like an exact copy of the tent that was destroyed at the failed negotiation with the last head priest of winter, twenty meters square and five meters tall, including the same ice stairs up. This meeting would go better than the last one did, at least for me. I was stronger than I was before.

The low ranked priests that I had escorted down from the ice wall formed up in two lines leading to the entrance of the tent, and Sam joined the line on the right placing him the furthest from the tent. I walked down the line of priests and then up the stairs, pushing the flap of the tent open.

Six high ranked priests in their gold trimmed robes were in the middle of the open room facing me and they began to chant as I entered the tent. They were using the old spell, though, the one that made ice shards, and I hadn't ever been hit by one of them.

Since they were so low threat I decided to try a new defence I'd thought of. I pulled out my larger pocket portal from my left pocket and resized it to a fifty centimeter wide circle, holding it along my left arm like a buckler shield with the leftover thread of the portal as the handle. I redirected the exit of the portal in my Pocket Dimension so that any projectiles would go into empty space and settled in a fighting stance with the portal facing downwards. It took me about ten seconds to be ready.

The priests were still chanting, charging up their ice shards. I gave them another five seconds before coming out of my fighting stance.

"You know you would all be dead if I were being serious, right?" I asked. "I mean, I appreciate the opportunity to try out new things, but you aren't close to my level."

They finished their chanting with a shout and six ice shards came towards me. They were well targeted and would have struck me equally spaced from my head to my shins. I could have dodged easily by simply stepping to the side, which was the flaw in such high accuracy shots. Instead I stepped forward two steps and swung my shield to completely catch the first one that was aimed at my head. Half a step backwards and I repeated it for the next one down.

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By the time I'd caught the last ice shard I was kneeling on the top step of the stairs outside, the flap of the tent closing in front of me. I still had half of the energy in my arms in reserve and that was recovering quickly. All in all a successful result, though a full tower shield would work even better, I think I would need to back it with stone or metal in the Pocket Dimension so that it would stop anything unwanted getting in...

I stepped back through the flap into the tent and found the six priests chanting again, bringing up another six ice shards.

"You're kidding." I said. "Oh well, some people are too stupid to live I guess."

I drew my sword from my back and settled down into a sprinter's crouch. I was just considering whether I should cut through three of them and turn, or take a few moments to make throwing blades, when a priest came into the main room of the tent from a room at the back.

"Stand down." He said.

The priests stopped chanting, their ice shards falling to the carpeted floor of the tent.

"I remember you." I said. "You were the one Ryan looked to for orders when I went through last time. You're in charge?"

"I am." He said. "You are here to talk?"

"I am." I said. "Though whether it remains at just talk will likely depend on your choices."

I returned my sword to its sheath and my shield to my pocket. The priests moved to stand at the edges of the room as the priest in charge formed a table and chairs out of ice, taking a seat and gesturing for me to do the same.

I hesitated for a moment, considering how I would escape if the ice turned out to be a trap. In the worst case he would be able to channel his divine cold spell through the chair. I would be able to sever the affected parts and then kill him before it became dangerous.

I sat down and created a plate of stone on the table and filled it with some of the bread and berries that I had left over from feeding Veya's people. I sliced the bread into thin slices and made a sandwich of the berries and took a bite.

I hadn't eaten anything myself in quite some time, refreshing my muscles and body seemed to have lowered my requirement for food, and the constant pain I had been enduring had killed my appetite. The priest looked surprised at the food but quickly made a sandwich of his own. I finished my first sandwich and made a second one, placing it on the table in front of me.

"I had an issue with Jeremiah, as I'm sure you know." I said. "He orchestrated the kidnapping of someone close to me, so I killed him."

The priest choked on the bite of sandwich he had taken, coughing.

"We fought within the winter realm, and your god had given Jeremiah his aspect." I said. "I say this to give you an understanding of where I would be placed relative to the combined power of all of the priests on my land."

He nodded, placing his sandwich on the table. "I think I understand." He said. "I would agree that the distance between our levels is insurmountable."

"Good." I said. "Before I killed him Jeremiah said that you had a tactical spell set up around my fortress. Threatened me with it, in fact. I believe one of your priests tried to set it off when I collected them from your ice wall. He, and one other who tried to push me from the wall, are dead. The remaining ninety eight are unharmed outside."

"I thank you for your restraint." He said. "But why are you showing it?"

"I have no animosity towards your people." I said. "Your god is planning to end the world, turning the neutral realm into a second winter realm, but I am confident I can protect my people from that. My reason for talking with you now is that I will not tolerate a threat against my people, and your tactical spell qualifies. I am giving you the option to leave."

"My orders are still to stop you from leaving." He said.

"And yet you let me leave before rather than die needlessly." I said. "I spoke with Ryan a few hours ago, he was promoted if you didn't know, he told me that the unofficial order from Francis, your new head priest, was to not throw any more high ranked priests at me. I will be destroying the ice wall that is around my fortress, as I assume that is a critical component of the tactical spell. Any priests that try to stop me will die, and any priests that are still on my land without my permission when I've finished will die."

The simplest way to remove the wall would be to heat the ground underneath it. After running some calculations I worked out that it would take me half an hour of flooding the ground with enough heat to melt the four hundred meter long forty meter tall wall. The area would be flooded with water, but I didn't much care about that.

"You have half an hour from when I start." I said. "And I'm starting now."

I left the tent and approached the ice wall. Starting here would inconvenience the priests when the area flooded, but so long as they were on their way out of my lands when I'd finished I wouldn't chase them. I soaked my power into the soil and began pushing vast amounts of heat into it, slowly walking towards my stairs and pushing more heat into the ground as I approached it.