To kill a Divine is easy. There is no challenge in putting a God to a sword, apart from driving that sword through the God’s chest. The real thing that o be sidered is the reination. Kassandora be killed of course, but what happens to the Of War? What about Arascus? At least in the past, Pride could have been sidered as a virtue iain aspects. Now, Arascus has dirtied his own demesne, anything Divihat would take on his mantle would no doubt be far worse in character than the man himself.

  This is how the theoes for every Divine, Saranael, of Knowledge was the first to ceive of it: The more of a reputation one builds up, the more powerful one’s reination will be. Of course, not a single one of us is mad enough to actually kill ourselves in some attempt at forced evolution. Whether he is correct will only be proven through another flict. Personally, I do not know whether I agree or not. Abstracts rarely reform into simir beings and typically get broken up before they mao reform.

  Still though, it’s an iing thought. What would happen if a Divine built up a reputation, died, and reformed based off its reputation?

  - Excerpt from Alsaria’s Diary, Untitled.

  “And here I wao kick my feet up.” Erik moahrough the radio as Captain Dougs pushed Raptor One further. Erik’s ow, with its fe engines fixed to the chassis of the pne, was s just o Doug’s. Painted bck, two red eyes just behind the cockpit, the tip of the pne painted yellow like an eagle’s hooked beak. A on stig from within the tre of that beak.

  Dougs moved the trol stick to the left a his pilt. Flying without ammunition was a blessing beyond blessings. The pne was manoeuvrable like a sparrowhawk hunting through the sky, whereas when it was loaded up, it felt more like trying to steer a rowboat through jelly. “We get there, ictures, we fly back.” Dougs said. Frankly, he had nothing to add, he was just as annoyed as Erik.

  The fact the was far too warm didn’t help. But the terrible heater would either cook him alive or freeze him to death, as least if he was cooking, he could undo the front zipper of his jumpsuit to cool off. “Fug sending us off for what exactly?” Erik moaned again.

  “Just shut the fuck up and take the pictures man.” Dougs said.

  “o get pissy with me.”

  “I’m as happy as you are about it.” Dougs said bato his microphone. “pining only makes it worse.”

  “Alright.” Erik somehow acquiesced. “I’ll shut up.”

  “Thank you.” Dougs forced out. He turhe po the side and watched the green o below them. That was the dreaded Arikan Jungle. Dougs thought about the Clerics, trying to rescue people from it. The evacuations of vilges, the tears of people forced away from their homes. The times when the Clerics would get somewhere too te, and all that would be found were empty homes and footprints leading into the Jungle. Frankly, that was ohing he was not jealous for. “Have you ever gone in?” Everyone in the army had tested themselves against the woods at this point, it was almost impossible to be part of the Recmation War and not.

  “Tell me about it.” Erik said. “I only did it once.”

  “Who pulled you out?”

  “I tied myself to a rope. Was driven out.” Erik said with ughter. “I don’t know how the Clerics did it.”

  “I doher, I tell you that.” Dougs said as he looked down. “Twie. Both times, the Ambelee girl pulled me out.” Eril ughed through the speakers.

  “I don’t know what’s worse.”

  “She pulled me out, threw me in when I didn’t thank her enough, then pulled me out again.” Dougs said. He remembered the Jungle’s pull. Kassandora had told them both to get to know the Jungle, so that they would know not to fly too close. Now, they were far above the cloud-yer, if there were any clouds down there.

  “Not jealous of that.” Erik replied quickly. “I’ll sweep the north, you aim south, alright?”

  “Will do.” Dougs said as he flicked another trol stick, this one trolled the on, although it had temporarily been re-wired to trol the dire the camera in the underside ointing in. “Holy, I feel bad for the Clerics.” Dougs said and Erik ughed over the speakers.

  “Who doesn’t?” He asked farcically, the words breaking up for a moment because of the shoddy e. “Is there anyone who does, ho question that?”

  “I don’t know.” Dougs said. “No one probably. It’s just…” He didn’t know what to say.

  “Just what?” Erik asked.

  “Not clusive.” Dougs replied. “You know…?” Dougs didn’t know how to phrase it frankly. The Clerics did their job well, but…

  “I do.” Erik said. “They’ve been here how long? It’s been Jungle, Jungle, Jungle and then Kassandora came along.” Dougs smiled in his cramped . Erik had phrased it far better than he could.

  “And she did it.” Dougs said.

  “She fug annihited them.” Erik said. “Burn it down, it’s so simple that it’s fug embarrassing not a single one of them thought about it.”

  “They did he artillery though.” Dougs only argued back for the sake of versation. He agreed entirely with Erik, everyone who was a Cleri Arika before Kassandora came felt the same. It was a simple travesty that Kassandora had done in a few weeks what their entire Holy Orders could not do in a few turies.

  “They did, but don’t tell me it would have been impossible to design something like the Binturong.” Erik said. “Hell, we even do bombing runs now, why couldn’t they have dohat back then?”

  “Just depressing.” Dougs said, his tone low.

  “Just fug embarrassing.” Erik added. “Just a fug travesty. Holy, I don’t know how more of them have stay with Kavaa.”

  “Priorities probably.” Dougs said. The Clerics were good soldiers, and they were popur in the army, but the Recmation War was starting to drain their morale as much as it was improving Kirinyaa’s. It was ohing to save a try, it was ao save a try so effortlessly when others could not. “Not my problem though.”

  “True enough.” Erik said. “My problem today is a horse-race.”

  “There’s one on today?” Dougs asked in surprise.

  “It is Friday.” Erik replied and Dougs blihese daily scouting runs had basically killed whatever internal clock he had inside him. The days now sisted entirely of waking up, having a drink, a smoke, getting into the , flying, nding, shower, dinner and sleep. A.

  “I’ll go wi…” Dougs trailed off as he blihe Jungle below him was an o of green, a magnifit, beihat would call and whisper. It was untouchable, save by the fmes that tore it down. It would climb over mountain and it would i ravine and drain ke and river, no matter how grand. Yet today, that green carpet below him was torn. It had patches of brown.

  “You alive?” Erik asked.

  “I am.”

  “Just cheg.”

  “You see that?” Dougs asked. The jets on Erik’s parted to scream louder as the man turned his own vehicle to the side.

  “See wha…” Erik trailed off. “I see it.”

  “Yeah.” Dougs said. That was the Jungle, yet something had made marks within the Ju wasn’t a case of some exposed rock, or a cliffside that only had vines instead of the ever-present trees. No. They were both gazing down at great brown scars. “I’m taking pictures.” The same a man would make if he was to wade through tall grass, yet what would wade through the Jungle like that?

  “Same.” Erik said quietly. “Not a fan of that.”

  “You scared?”

  “Not for myself.” The man said quickly and they both chuckled. “But no pining now.”

  “Looks like we were needed.” Dougs said with a smile. Scouting the ground endlessly may have had its uses, that was true. Terrain did o be mapped out and the ttors had several times the range of any KAF p was simply obvious that they would be the ones for this job. Yet it was mundane work. It almost made Dougs feel like a servant. Not now though.

  “Hey Doug.” Erik said. Raptor two spun in the air and veered in a circle.

  “What?”

  “You see that?” Erik asked.

  “Where?”

  “South of your position, turn…” Erik thought for a moment. “Three hundred degrees about.” Dougs turned his head a his breath catch. The previous tracks had been odd holes, a dozen trees felled in a circle, as if a single napalm shell had mao fly all the way here. Yet now, they were looking at something else entirely. “You see it?”

  “I fug it see.” Dougs couldn’t help himself with the swearing. What he was looking at now wasn’t tracks as if something had walked through the Jungle. What he was looking at now were two massive lines. One slithering and curling from side to side, the other thrice as wide, with craters left behind in odd spots. It was thick too, stupendously so.

  “We’ve not beeing any neons, have we?” Erik asked.

  “Have we?” Dougs said.

  “I asked you first.” Erik said.

  “I don’t think so.” Dougs replied as the two jets passed over the two massive lines. “Which way?”

  “We’re not splitting up?” Erik asked. Dougs sighed. That would be the best course of a, but no one had told him about what they would find. They didn’t even have ammunition for the ons, that had been taken out for increase the fuel efficy.

  “Do you want?” Dougs asked.

  “Not really.” Erik replied and Dougs ughed. That se did not have to be repeated. Frankly, splitting up like that was only asking for trouble. They had made it through the entire White Pantheon invasion of Kirinyaa as a pair, they weren’t about to start making stupid decisions now.

  “East, both of us?” Dougs asked.

  “Sounds like a pn.” Erik affirmed. East, back to the frontline, back to the front. They had their images. And they weren’t about to… Dougs looked down. “Do you see that? I’m snapping photos.” Erik said over the microphohey both gazed at that moving bck… mass on the ground, so dark it looked like a… Dougs blinked and cursed himself. What a fug idiot, it was a shadow! Simply flowing over trees instead of harming them, huge, easily the size of several tainer ships put together…

  Wait. It was a shadow. Dougs moved his eyes up towards that pale-blue Kirinyaan sky. The Sun was shining above them, but he fot to squint. He could he anyway? There was a bird with a wingspan as rge as all of tral Requisitions. And it was above them. “Erik…” Dougs said.

  “I see it Doug.” Erik said in awe. “What the fuck is that?”

  “I…” Dougs blinked as the pne malfuned and started snapping its own pictures. Standard procedure, faulty eleics, this had happened several times already. It was annoying, but it had a tendency of happening just as he was bnking it. “Is it getting bigger?”

  “It’s ing down at us!” Erik shouted.

  “EVADE!” Doug shouted more for himself, to get his own body moving rather than to issue an order for Erik. He made a harsh break to the right, Erik went to the left, both Raptors screamed as their engines fred. Red fire burst from their jets, two supersonic explosions shook the Jungle below them, and the two pnes broke the sound barrier as that massive vulture dived at the spot where they had been.

  It turned and twisted in mid-air. Its massive wings made a tiny hurrie underh it and the trees below were blown away. “PULL UP!” Erik shouted. “AS HIGH AS POSSIBLE!” Dougs pulled up immediately, for a moment, he was an arrow shooting straight up into the sky. For only a moment, the jets stalled and he had to level the p before it fell.

  “We’re flying back, right?”

  “Fug Hell we are! I don’t care what and says. That thing is still looking at us!” Erik shouted into the radio and Dougs turned his phat massive vulture was resting on the ground, it had fell the trees around without a care in the world. The beast must have sidered them simple bdes of grass rather than enormous trees that had a opy so thick they blotted out the Sun.

  It twitched its head. That dark red eye blihe pupil followed Dougs’s Raptor. The afterburner roared, the jet accelerated even further. There had been days that Dougs had spent longer above the Jungle, and even though he knew he could not have been followed, the ma watched for every single sed he spent above the Jungle.