Shovels In Spades

It took Daz and his companions an hour and a half to reach Middletown on foot. This was incredible. Essentially, Daz and everyone with him was running at one-hundred-miles-per-hour. This was maybe the first time that Daz had ever actually felt the change that stats provided so clearly.

Crusher had been holding back immensely and claimed that they were going too slow. She had resorted to carrying both Lyle and Dorian who could only run at a max of sixty-miles-per-hour comfortably.

Once the group had arrived at Middletown's outskirts, they took a couple of minutes to catch their breath. Naturally, Crusher didn't need this, but Daz, Madison and Edward weren't Titans, so even they needed a moment of respite before charging into battle.

Crusher tapped her foot impatiently on the hard concrete road, making it crack. "I wanna crush some skulls. How long are you guys gonna sit here 'resting'?"

Daz just waved at her dismissively. "Go then. I'm not stopping you. You three go and fight off the raiders, the monsters, or split up and do both. Just don't complete the wild event before we're ready. I'll clean up everyone when my body can finally move properly."

"Fair enough." Crusher turned towards Lyle and Dorian. "You two go fight the monsters. I'll be enough for the people. Besides the snake, I doubt you have the balls to kill folk, Ahab."

"Of course, Crusher." Lyle could hardly refuse when the woman had been kind enough to carry him most of the way here, and he was mature enough to ignore the woman's insulting nickname for him. He was sure she'd have a more inventive one ready for him in a few days anyway.

Dorian just shrugged. He was used to being called a coward by the gargantuan woman by now. "Not like it really matters. You'll mop up those raiders pretty quickly, I bet."

Crusher grinned. "We'll see." With that said, she sprinted off.

Lyle and Dorian soon followed after her. Luckily for them, it was clear as day to see where the monster and the raiders were, so it was near-impossible to make a mistake in regards to where they were supposed to be going.

Daz flopped his body onto the road and panted heavily. The first to recover out of him, Madison, and Edward, was actually Edward. It would seem that his constitution was a bit higher than Daz's because Daz was the next person who was ready after him.

Five minutes later, and Madison was good to go. "Sorry, wait."

Daz shook his head. "It's fine. Let's go."

The three ran to the crater that encapsulated Gem Kingdom, Ben's base. Once they were there, they saw the monsters that were endangering all of Ben's people. Two liches were firing spell volley after spell volley as their armies of undead pushed ever closer to the heart of Gem Kingdom.

"Liches, huh? Interesting," Daz muttered as he sprinted towards the closest one. Madison and Edward made towards the further Lich. Daz could see Dorian was busy protecting the fighters of Gem Kingdom while Lyle was helping Adam, the Smoke Manipulator and Daz's ex-coworker, to decimate the undead forces.

The Lich Daz was charging towards had obviously spotted him approaching it. Pointing one of its hands towards him, the Lich fired off several soul-based attacks. Daz could see the nature of this attack and just smirked. He did nothing to defend himself and let the spells hit him.

The Lich was shocked beyond belief that the man quickly advancing towards itself had been unscathed by its magic which would have killed any ordinary person with ease. "What are you? You are no Human."

The Lich's voice seemed to invade the mind and drown out the senses. Daz supposed that this was the only way for the Lich to communicate since it was just a pile of moving bones and possessed no vocal cords.

"I'm an Archreaper, and I'm immune to soul attacks. I do have to wonder though, are you immune to soul attacks?" Daz asked as he activated his Justice Chains skill. "Though even immunity won't block this."

Exactly two-hundred and fifty-four chains appeared and wrapped themselves around the Lich. Immediately, the vile and horrendous screams of the Lich filled the battlefield. It lost control of its subordinates, so they all turned to dust.

"Wow, now that I look at your status, you're evil as well. So that means you'll be stuck there for a little over two hours, huh? Hmm, Lichs have phylacteries, it seems. Can you concentrate enough to escape to yours? Probably not. Well, best end this now and move on," Daz said to himself more so than to the Lich.

He employed the use of his skill, Absolute Harvest, and ripped the Lich's soul right out of its skeletal body. Without hesitating and without taking notice of the soul's attempts to flee, Daz absorbed it.