The endless crimson road of stones and jagged stalactites was beginning to get boring, the soldier decided.

With no demons to slay, he was getting itchy. Not the normal kind of itchy, either. It was the type of scratch that he could only reach with an extremely dangerous weapon, carving through miles and miles of neverending demon hordes with a smile on his face.

Looking behind him, his eyes narrowed once again at the demon quietly following Isabeld and Daisy. He was ensuring that his body language was as submissive and nonthreatening as possible, but the soldier only had to recall how he'd treated his fellow hellspawn and he wanted to blast him in the face with a super shotgun.

Well, to be fair, he wanted to do that with or without the demon's actions. If it had red skin and horns, there was a good chance he was going to blow its head off its shoulders sooner or later. Until Tagral made a move, though, the soldier would stick with the agreement he made. It would be nice if the thing would just go ahead and betray them already - that itch was getting worse as they walked.

Daisy was fast asleep on Isabeld's broad back, and Isabelle was keeping an eye on her while Eld navigated. The soldier still hadn't seen the Orthrus fight since they got the new armor, and he was curious to see how much of an improvement there'd be. As for Daisy herself, the soldier was slightly worried about her. The Lepori was relatively small when compared to the soldier or even Aliss, and while she'd displayed remarkable speed before, her ribs were still visible. Even after the soldier's Healing Punch, he could see the faintest vestiges of scars wrapping around her stomach. It made him want to go back to Keldren, find that slaver, and turn his ribcage into a coat rack.

Tagral coughed loudly, and the soldier nearly shotgunned him right there. "If ya don't mind my askin', where are we going?"

The soldier looked around for a moment and found a signpost aiming down the huge tunnel they were traversing. It happily read, "Five miles to Despair! If you want to live, this isn't the place to do it!"

Nodding thoughtfully, Tagral added, "And we're just going to walk on in and start murdering everything, yes?"

Every word the demon spoke made sparks hurtle around the soldier's boots. It wasn't that he was being rude or violent. Except it actually was, the soldier realized. This demon didn't sprint towards him full-tilt, arms outstretched and teeth bared for a fight to the end. He didn't stand back and hurl plasma at the soldier, only to run when the soldier inevitably chased after him. Tagral didn't so much as growl at him. It was so unlike the demons the soldier had been fighting that he genuinely didn't know what do about him. Was he faking it? He had to be planning something.

They hadn't run into any foot traffic on their way through the tunnel. In fact, they hadn't seen so much as a forked tail. The soldier reassured himself that he could rip and tear all he wanted once he made it to Despair, and then that thirst for blood would be slaked for even a few hours.

They continued along their way for several minutes before Tagral asked again, "So, do you have a plan for when we get there?"

The soldier didn't even turn around. "Rip and tear." If he saw that demon's face one more time he was pretty sure he'd take it off his head.

Tagral nodded once again. "And do you think this plan will work?"

Daisy snapped into awakeness, looking around blearily. "Whaaa... whass goin' on?"

Walking up next to her, Tagral politely told her, "We were discussing the plan for how to take out the entire city of Despair. All we've got so far is 'rip and tear'."

Rubbing at her eyes, Daisy sat up on Isabeld's back, yawning. "Well, it worked for Brimstone, didn't it?"

He agreed, "True, but Despair has quite a lot more security. I'm aware you defeated Envy, but I'm fairly sure you didn't know that she and her subjects are widely considered to be at the bottom of the ladder when it comes to demons in general. This is Wrath's territory, and he and his allies are considerably less... squishy. Are you quite sure your weapons are capable of handling the stronger enemies?"

The soldier was completely certain, yes. With a BFG and a Super Shotgun, anything with a pulse and two horns would be rendered dead with extreme prejudice in a few seconds.

Looking up, he saw something unusual. A checkpoint in the distance, consisting of a simple bar across the tunnel and two booths at either end. A demon sat in each one, lightly armored and dozing.

They might as well been wrapped and tied up with a bow for Christmas. Pacing forward, the soldier leaned into a full run and pounded towards them.

They noticed him pretty quickly, and one of them practically hurled himself at something behind one of the booths. A faint shimmer of purple laid itself across the tunnel, stretching from one side to the other and spanning all the way to the ceiling. The soldier charged towards it, and a moment later, made contact.

He practically bounced off of it, the light rippling as though a stone had been hurled into a lake, and the soldier stumbled backward. Glaring at the barrier for a moment, he watched the two demons nervously exit their booths and take a look at the soldier. They started laughing, and one of them shouted, "Yeah, how ya like that? Try and kill us from there, monster!"

The soldier obliged. Stomping towards the barrier, he removed his chaingun and set the barrels spinning. Seconds later, he unloaded a barrage of bullets into the violet light, sending rapid-fire ripples blasting across it. The noise was immense, and Daisy held her ears close to her body, hugging them tightly with both arms. Isabeld put their paws over their ears. Tagral seemed unaffected.

deactivated!>

His chaingun dissolved into crimson energy and fueled back into the soldier mere seconds after he'd started firing. He'd forgotten that the thing used his Mana as an energy source - due to his Perk, he'd gotten used to slaying enough demons that it refilled instantly. Apparently that wouldn't work here.

Most would have given up there and tried to talk their way in. The soldier was far from being most people.

Grabbing the blue notification, he experimentally stabbed it into the purple light, and it went through without resistance. Pleasantly surprised, the soldier waited.

Seizing the second board, the soldier used it to cut through the barrier again, and the smiles on the demons' faces began to fade. The soldier kept adding more and more boards as continued to talk, and after the tenth one, a hole appeared in the light, rimmed by notification boards.

The soldier stepped through, and the demons wet themselves.