The soldier stepped back in grim satisfaction as Wrath's head toppled from his shoulders, dismissing the Crucible as he did. The Sin's flesh steamed ferociously, blood spitting and simmering as it hit the ground. Rolling towards him, the decapitated head slowly came to a stop, its horns stopping its movement.

Wrath's colossal body keeled over, slamming into the ground with a loud crunch, limbs going limp. After a moment, his own weight pulled him over to slump to his back. Leaning down, the soldier picked the head up, examining it. He looked... confused, as if he wasn't sure what had just happened. Past the horns and jutting fangs, the soldier was surprised to see a hint of more human features. It made it a lot easier to make out the stunned expression on his face.

A notification board startled him back to reality.

Anyway... you qualified for a Significant Action Perk, same as Envy. Here are your options.

Physical Perfection

Basically, whenever you level up, your stats increase by thirty instead of twenty. It even takes your previous levels into account and remedies the difference! A remarkably good deal, if I'm honest. Pretty powerful and has good long-term and short-term results - kind of perfect for you, basically.

Supreme Armaments

To be honest, I don't really know what this one does. It only showed up after the Murder Machine class appeared, and nobody's managed to get it yet. You'd be the first if you decided to grab it, but I would advise against it. It's not a good idea to waste a Significant Action Perk on something when we have no idea what it might do.

At any rate, the choice is all up to you. What do you want to do?

The soldier thought about it for only a few moments before promptly selecting . As he remembered during his fight with Envy, there were certain abilities that reduced his stats, so simply blasting them into a crater before they could do that was a far better option to whatever alternatives could think of.

The Perk flooded into his mind, and he patiently waited for the process to end. After it was done, he tried to activate it.

The soldier frowned and tried again, only to receive the same message. He glared at it, and a normal board popped into existence just above it, wavering slightly.

The soldier wasn't unduly worried. He'd had to deal with far worse problems than not being able to use something the moment he'd gotten it, after all. More to the point, he wasn't entirely sure what to do at the moment. He'd slain Wrath, and Satan hadn't showed up this time. Part of him had been hoping that goat-head would appear so he could shoot him, but he knew that the BFG wouldn't work. He'd have to figure out a different strategy later on.

Daisy walked up to him, nudging his back. "Yo, Doom. I don't think Tagral's doing too good. Do you think you could do that punching thing where it fixes him instead of killing him?"

Turning, the soldier appraised the battered demon making his way towards him. A remarkably large portion of his face was missing, burned off when the soldier had used the BFG for the second time on Wrath's face. Along with that, he was suffering from a genuinely incredible number of scratches and gashes. It was honestly impressive that he was still standing at all.

The soldier summoned a shotgun and blew his head off.

Daisy nearly jumped out of her fur in shock, staring up at him with wide eyes. "What did you do that for!? He didn't break his-"

Patting her head, the soldier pointed at the ground, which was beginning to bubble. A few seconds later, a fully healed Tagral was chucked out of it, slamming into the ground with an audible whuf of displaced air. He started sitting up, shaking his head as he caught his breath.

The soldier stared somewhat warily at Tagral as he got to his feet, checking all of his limbs in mild surprise. Looking up at the soldier, he grinned. "Man, thanks for that! Didn't think it'd work so well. No hard feelings on the whole Oath, by the way - I don't really mind it if ya kill me, so long as I'm comin' back afterwards."

The soldier paused briefly. This could be his opportunity to slay Tagral once and for all, taking one more demon off the total count. It was incredibly tempting... but Tagral had, at least for now, proven that he could almost be minimally... not trusted. Tolerated. He still didn't like him at all, but he'd protected Daisy twice now. He didn't owe him anything, but he could... respect, maybe? Respect his honesty.

He accepted it without saying anything else, and sensed more than anything else 's approval.

That aside, he'd now slain two of the Sins. He was going to work through all of them until he could take down whichever of them happened to be the ninth, and then he'd go after Satan. Whatever happened after that could wait until later.

Daisy pulled at his arm, looking confused. "Wait, so you killed him so he'd be fine afterwards? Why didn't you just heal him?"

The soldier merely shrugged, not bothering to tell her that it was because he'd simply wanted to shotgun Tagral in the face ever since he'd met him.

Startling both of them, Tagral clapped his hands together. "Well! All that aside, you've done in two of the most powerful entities in all of Hell. No way I'm even going to try and stab in you in the back after that. Common sense aside, I enjoy hanging around you. I get to kill a lot more stuff than demonic culture encourages. I mean, yeah, we kill each other, but they put a limit on it after the riots and everything." He blinked as he saw their expressions and promptly changed tacks. "Anyway, we're in luck. Sloth's domain is actually really close to here. It's the only place in all of Hell where the Sin's kingdoms are less than twenty miles or so, and the only reason Despair was built so close to Brimstone was because of human trafficking. Wrath gets slaves and Envy gets a lot of satisfaction out of it."

He pointed towards a distant tunnel, several bright warning signs marking the outside. "You ready to go?"

The soldier paused for a moment, then picked up Wrath's head, examining it once again. used a much smaller board than normal, choosing to place it directly inside the soldier's helmet.

for now, and you can get it back whenever you want.>

The soldier wasn't sure why he passed the decapitated head to , watching it disappear into a crimson-tinged crack in the air, but he had a feeling he could probably use it for something later on. Maybe an ornament?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Tagral hadn't been kidding when he said Sloth's realm was close. They hadn't left Despair for more than twenty minutes when the corpses started piling up. Demons of all kinds, slumped on top of each other and completely motionless. Despite this, a path led down the middle, a full eight feet wide of clear space where even Isabeld could walk without needing to stretch. Aside from their footsteps, the entire area was encompassed in absolute silence. It was eerie to say the least.

Finally, the path opened up, leading to a small clearing of ornately wrought-iron benches, a curtained entrance on one side. Blue light filtered gently through the tough linen fabric, illuminating the resting place they stood in.

The soldier began to head through the curtain, but Tagral raised his hands, looking around with a tinge of nervousness in his eyes. "You guys go on ahead, I'll wait here. I get that you want to kill all the Sins - and I'm totally on board with it - but count me out of this one. I've heard some serious stuff about Sloth."

Pausing for a moment, the soldier turned around and cautiously headed through the curtain.