The soldier kicked the demon's legs out from underneath him, seized his head, and tore the demon's entire skull from his shoulders with one easy pull. A gout of blood, along with the majority of the demon's spine, exploded from the severed joint, and the soldier took a few steps back. Hunkering down onto one knee, he patiently waited for the demon's body to reform.

The instant the demon was back to being alive, he began to cry. "Please," he begged. "Just kill me already." The soldier happily obliged. Summoning his pump-action shotgun (the weapon least likely to level the surrounding area), he spun around and brought his leg up in a thunderous backwards kick, connecting with the chin of the helpless demon. The sound of shattering bone followed the impact, and the soldier rolled forward, ending up flat on his back. Aiming upwards at the demon soaring through the air, the soldier pulled the trigger, and blood rained down on him.

At this point, the only people still present were the two moderators and Daisy. The thin man slumped in his chair with a dull expression of despair, while the normal-looking one simply sat, one leg folded on top of the other, taking notes on a clipboard. As for Daisy, she was taking a nap on an abandoned row of bleachers. She was snoring with incredible volume for such a small frame.

His thoughts were distracted as he realized that the demon was back, and he switched to using his hands again. This session, long as it had been, was proving incredibly educational.

Pacing forward, the soldier yanked the demon to his feet and punched one hand straight through his gut. Three kidneys, popping one by one. A dual stomach, its acid dealing no damage to the soldier. Bringing his arm further and further up, the soldier seized the demon's gnarled heart and yanked. A small explosion of gore followed the cardiological removal, but this time the soldier discarded the organ, summoned a grenade, and placed it where the demon's heart should be.

Six seconds of the demon screaming later, the grenade blew, and the already blood-soaked mat was once again showered with further gore. He hadn't tried that yet.

The slightest pang of sadness struck the soldier as he remembered that wasn't around anymore, but he tapped 'Yes' regardless. Two options appeared, and his eyes slowly widened as he saw the top one. Without hesitating, he selected it, and felt that familiar surge of knowledge and power flood into him.

Turning to the demon's summarily obliterated corpse, the soldier waited for a moment, and then frowned. Why wasn't he coming back?

The blood soaked into the mat began to glow a honeyed sheen, rising into the air in small gobbets. Collecting into the center of the ring, right above where the soldier had tossed the demon's heart aside, it formed into a shining golden amulet. A crystalline ruby the size of a child's fist was set into its center, and the soldier poked it curiously.

It is said that Sol's favor is purified and concentrated into the gem in this amulet, and that the old deity will forever smile upon its user, whoever that may be. This Artifact, once consumed, will permit the user to be unkillable so long as it is daytime. This Artifact has a one-month cooldown, and will automatically activate upon death.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Do you want to absorb Sol's Solace?

The soldier was enormously disappointed. It looked as though the demon was dead for good now. Now he couldn't try his new Perk! Who knew how long it'd be before he could use it? He wanted to kill something with it, not wait to kill something with it! It'd let him use one of his very favorite weapons, and... would it let him do that?

Pausing for a moment, the soldier extended one hand, and blue light suffused the surrounding area.

< activated. Melee Weapon "Ukelele" cataloged and ready for immediate use.>

A small wooden instrument appeared in the soldier's hand, and he stared at it in delight. He hadn't played a ukelele in so long! Folding it into the crook of his arm, he prepared to run a hand across the metal strings.

Daisy sat up with a sudden scream of panic and terror, shouting, "NO! Don't! I'll do... it... instead." She stared around the fighting ring wide-eyed, her ordinarily floppy ears flat against the back of her head. Her pupils were enormous, and every limb was shivering in fear.

The soldier started in surprise, dismissing the ukelele immediately. Walking forward, he paused as he recalled that he'd welded the cage shut so the demon couldn't escape. It looked as though he would get to use his new Perk after all.

< activated. Melee Weapon "Crucible" cataloged and ready for immediate use.

The seven-foot long spiked blade of red energy sitting comfortably in the soldier's hand felt familiar. He wasn't completely sure when the last time he'd used it was, or perhaps if he hadn't used it yet... Hell had ruined his sense of time, but he didn't care. What mattered was that he presently was wielding a very cool sword, one that he knew for a fact could cut through just about anything. He'd probably keep the chainsaw for the next time he ran into demons.

At any rate, the Crucible cut through the chain-link mesh with such ease that a knife through hot butter would have looked like using a pillow to hack through steel in comparison. Once an appropriately sized rectangle had been cut, the soldier paused and grabbed the Sol's Solace, almost as an afterthought, and then sprinted up the bleachers to Daisy.

She was already calming down, but still was clearly in fight-or-flight mode, one lengthy foot rapidly tapping at the floor as she looked up at the soldier. With a half-hearted grin, she said, "Sorry. Just a nightmare, I'll be fine."

The soldier was aware that she would be fine. She was in his immediate vicinity, after all. There wasn't a living thing with an IQ higher than ten that thought that annoying him was a good idea. Regardless, he wasn't sure how to make her feel better. He wasn't exactly a master with words.

A thought occurred to him. He didn't really need the Sol's Solace. His Resilience was high enough at this point that he was confident he could take a hit from most of his own guns, although probably not the Super Shotgun, and definitely not the BFG.

With that in mind, the soldier didn't hesitate in punching Daisy in the forehead with the artifact.

Instead of sending her through the side of the arena, the gem-crusted amulet froze, then slowly soaked into her head. Daisy frantically clutched at it, asking in obvious alarm, "Whoa, what!? The heck was..." Her mouth slowly fell open as she read her invisible board, and then glanced up at the soldier. "You... you have no idea how much that was worth. That was a Mythic grade Artifact! You could have sold that for tens of thousands of gold, or-or-or used it on yourself, or - why would you waste that on me!?"

The soldier patted her shoulder, ignoring the mediators checking on the extremely dead Jans'steahd and the carnage he'd wreaked on his way up the stairs. "Not a waste."

Nobody, and he meant nobody, was going to kill his rabbit.

Well, not twice, at any rate.