An expression lacking any emotions clouded Daz's face as he hovered in the air, standing atop two diamond needles.

Beneath him, his other 48 needles were entering eyeballs, eviscerating stomachs and cutting off limbs.

At this point, he had killed hundreds upon hundreds of Truthians and had directly saved the lives of thousands of his citizens. Of course, though, his presence was no secret to those he was slaughtering.

Daz was just floating in the air out in the open. Countless bullets from the ground rained down upon him. Did he care? No. He was out of the range of their power to sever his connection to the system.

He just ignored the hail of lead and even magical metals as the shots harmlessly bounced off of him. Occasionally, some of his needles would be destroyed and turned into ash though he didn't care. He just pulled more out of his Industrial Item Box to replace them.

'So much destruction and death...' Things seemed to be calming down a bit now that a good half-hour had passed since the start of the attack.

He had Ember-wielders in every major city and Rose had been relaying reports from them to him via his earpiece.

So far, two Ember-wielders had died in the fighting but upwards of a dozen powerful and high ranking members of the Church of Truth had met the same fate.

An unfortunate but welcome trade, Daz felt. 'Still, even with their attention being centred on us few that can fight back, there are too many of them... How did they all sneak into Fort Home? The death toll must be catastrophic...'

His eyes narrowed as he felt his powers fading. All at once, his Halo and Reika disappeared, his hair and eyes returned to their original colours, his muscles shrank a bit though they retained their compact state.

He also found it a bit harder to balance on his diamond needles now but it wasn't that big of a challenge. Doing so just needed some focus instead of being instinctual.

The next moment, a person flew towards him back-first - a person he recognised. Daz moved with his needles and grabbed the person out of the air, straining his arms in the process since they were moving so fast.

"What happened, Mu?" Daz asked the heavily injured man he was supporting.

"They sent a cardinal. I killed a dozen or so bishops but I'm no match for her with only my Embers available to me," Mu explained quickly as he pointed at a figure that was rapidly getting closer. "I have to be too defensive or I risk turning to ash."

Daz nodded. "You did well. Brace yourself," he said before putting a diamond needle in Mu's shirt.

It spread from shoulder to shoulder and held him in place a bit like a scarecrow. "I'll get you out of their range so you can self-heal. If you see me struggling, help. If not, focus on rescue and extermination efforts."

"You can count on me, Brother," Mu said. "Show them they've made a grave error in judgement by attacking us."

"Oh, I will," Daz responded with power in his voice before controlling Mu's needle, sending him shooting off.

Not a moment later, the unfriendly end of a flail was swung towards his head. Scoffing slightly, Daz moved a needle to deflect the spiked lump of metal, changing its momentum and sending it back towards the hand which held it.

A woman with ordinary features but wings made of gold upon her back casually grabbed the weapon with her free hand, stopping it from hurting her. "So you really are immune... Incredible."

'So this is a cardinal, huh? I feel it. She's stronger than me... Stronger, but not necessarily smarter. Strength doesn't always dictate the conclusion of combat,' Daz thought as he recalled the power structure of the Church of Truth Rose had explained in detail to him a few weeks ago.

The church has a total of seven military ranks, each more attuned to the 'Lord' than the last. Naturally, as they grew more powerful and climbed the ranks, the members of each proceeding rank grew rarer and rarer.

Of the seven ranks, the weakest was the simple priest. From Rose's research, these members could wield the power to turn those into ash and they had a trickle of holy power in them but they were no stronger than normal system enhanced people.

After priests came the high priest. Daz had identified and killed over a dozen of them in New Earth alone. So while they led groups of priests, they weren't a huge threat.

Next were the bishops and high bishops. Both of these ranks were to be feared. The thing about bishops was that they could turn things to ash with half the concentration a priest needed and twice as fast.

Bishops and high bishops were also much more heavily empowered by the system and more difficult to kill than their lesser counterparts.

Fifth on the list were the cardinals, of which, Daz was facing one of their number right now. According to Rose's research, exactly 7 cardinals existed but despite having so few, each one was a force to be reckoned with.

Honestly, it was a miracle Mu wasn't already dead since one of these people had been sent to New Earth.

They were the strongest forces of the church. Above them stood the popes and archpope Mother Danielle herself.

"Does your faith not condone the usage of the system?" Daz asked. "Hypocritical seeing as how you are flying with its help right now."

"You do not know of my faith to the Lord nor do you know of our commandments and believes. Do not pretend to," the cardinal scorned. "I was warned to be cautious should I face you but I don't see why. You don't seem very... threatening."

Daz didn't answer with words but instead by controlling over 40 of his diamond needles to speed through the air and attack the cardinal all at once. He also, oddly enough, glanced straight up for a fraction of a second.

That action seemed to be without reason though and the cardinal clearly took no note of it as she casually swung her flail around, batting the needles out of the air, shattering many of them.

This didn't phase Daz at all. He simple controlled the shattered parts instead. The cardinal grew frustrated at this before long and charged forward right at him.

'She's fast,' he thought as he listened to Survivor's Instinct and moved himself via the needles he was standing on to just barely avoid the supersonic punch aimed at his head.

"And here I was thinking we were two peaceful entities growing separately as we tolerated each other. You know, I was quite surprised to see your cult acting so cowardly. Is it commonplace for your 'lord' to direct you to kill innocents and only declare war when you've actually started massacring like baseless and evil criminals?" It was a challenge to dodge attack after attack as he hurled his well-founded insults, but doing so was important.

Even though it increased the ferocity of the cardinal's attacks, he needed to upset her as much as he could as she followed him and threw her fist, used her skills and tried to slam her flail into his side.

"I see you are just as quick as your tongue is sharp, Crowthorne," the cardinal said as a smile edged on her lips. "I'm honestly surprised to see you last longer than the Chinese boy. He was more skilled than you. Despite being fully susceptible to our divine power, he actually tried to attack me, unlike the rabbit before me."

Daz couldn't avoid her next attack due to him getting slightly distracted by her taunt. Emotions sure were a tricky thing to possess.

Her flail slammed into his chest, sending him rocketing through the air like a bullet, though the woman made sure not to leave his side, preventing the system from returning to him.

Daz frowned a little as he felt the pain coursing through his body but his Defense had preserved his life and his Regeneration was already busy undoing the damage.

"You have the gall to call me a 'rabbit' when you and your god are so weak and afraid that you must strip others down to their original selves without doing the same? That's the problem with religion. It's chock-full of hypocrisy. Well, it is when the members are nothing but self-serving," Daz retorted.

"Says the man who supports several religions to false gods. If you detest faith so much, why condone it?" the cardinal sneered. "I feel like we've chatted quite enough as is already. I've finished playing around with you and it's about time to retreat. You did well to resist us this long."

"Give your lord my regards then. I'll be coming for him too soon enough after what you've done today," Daz said, completely ignoring the menacing tone and threatening aura the robed woman was emitting.

"Have you deluded yourself into thinking you have somehow won? I know not how you gained the power to resist us so strongly, Crowthorne, but that resistance ends here," the cardinal said as she raised her flail.

She held out her free hand and then closed it in a grasping motion. Daz felt his body constricting as if bound by tight ropes. "Interesting. I wonder why you didn't do this earlier..."

"The Lord gives me the opportunity to savour the hunt, so savour it I did," the cardinal said with a wide and malicious grin. She licked her lips slowly but Daz seemed unphased.

"Right about..." A thunderous sound pierced his ears as something flashed in front of him like a lightning bolt. "... now."

A massive boom rang through the air as something smashed into the ground beneath Daz. Whatever skill was restricting him had been dispelled, so he stretched his body as he stared down.

From within a crater, a slender figure of cyan clambered out. Well, mostly cyan. Half of it was covered in a red paste of sorts.

"Rimmy's core plus gravity equals a pretty good counter to cardinals, huh? Thanks for field testing that one," Daz muttered as he felt his powers returning to him. "Stupid of you to not realise I was only assaulting you with 49 needles at most."

The relatively distant core of Rimmy tilted its head back to look up at Daz before it gave him a big thumbs up. It then ran off to go fight the remaining priests.

"Heh," Daz chuckled. "He's always so upbeat... There are some souls in that building over there... Souls I recognise and ones I don't. I hope I'm not too late..."

Ellie slowly opened her eyes in confusion. 'I... I'm not dead?'

She felt something warm on her chin and it was only then that she realised a person was standing right next to her with his hand jammed between the barrel of her father's revolver and her jaw.

Not a few moments later and she felt her system powers flooding back into her body.

"I've dealt with all of the Truthians in the building but you're still weak. Stay here while I check for survivors, okay?" Daz requested of her.

"Idris and Sandy are in there! I left them in a-an office a long time ago!... They... They're probabl-"

"Don't assume anything until it's confirmed. I can see their souls and they aren't grey just yet so they could still be alive. I'll go check up on them. Wait right here, okay?" Daz asked once more as his eyes glowed grey.

Ellie bit her lip in despair and worry but she ultimately nodded. She didn't have any abilities or skills centred on healing, so while her life wasn't in any danger anymore now that she had her stats back, she was in no condition to be moving about freely.

She sat there as she watched Daz open the mostly destroyed roof door. He walked past a set of bodies as crystal-clear needles followed alongside him.

Her arms felt limp as they hung by her side. All of the sounds of the world were assaulting her at once now that she had her hearing back. It was... nauseating.

Not too long after, Daz returned to the rooftop but no one was with him bar the frown on his face. Ellie smiled as she closed her eyes.

It wasn't a smile of joy but one of pure hopelessness. Tears spilt out of her eyes as she curled up into her knees and wept.

Daz's face and him choosing not to say anything upon his return confirmed all of her worst fears. She was alone again.