Zac felt like he had been shoved into a blender full of topsoil.
He was flying through the earth at hyperspeed, a subterranean bullet train crashing through the crust of the Pit. Jagged stones and thick, gnarly roots whipped past him, glancing off his body with dull thuds. The sheer velocity of their subterranean transit created a drag so intense Zac felt like he was going to be ripped right off the saddle. He leaned forward with all his might, wrapping his arms around Leonardo's massive, rocky shell, desperately trying to reduce his wind resistance… or, dirt resistance, as it were.
It wasn't enough. The friction pushed him backward, flattening him against the saddle until the back of his head slammed hard against the Aspidochelone's carapace with a jarring clack.
Just as suddenly as the demonic subway ride began, it ended. They burst upward through the crust of the earth, popping out into the open air like a cork from a champagne bottle.
"PFFFFT!"
Zac violently spat out a mouthful of gritty earth, coughing and hacking. He reached up to wipe the grime from his eyes, fully expecting to look like a swamp monster, but as his hands swept over his fleece onesie, he paused. He looked down at himself. He patted his chest, his arms, his face.
He was completely, immaculately clean. Bune's necromantic fast-travel apparently came with a built-in detailing service.
I hate commuting, Zac thought, rubbing his neck. But if Bune hadn't put that seatbelt on me, I would have flown right off and gotten entombed in the earth forever. And if I didn't have this evil papal crown on, I'd probably be missing the back half of my skull right now.
Zac slowly sat up in his saddle, adjusting his lopsided, jewel-encrusted helmet, and rubbed his eyes.
He looked around and his jaw dropped.
They were perched high on a jagged, obsidian ridge overlooking a battlefield so massive it defied human comprehension. Down in the sprawling valley, the eternal war was raging in full, horrifying HD. Massive explosions of holy light and green hellfire blossomed like deadly fireworks. The roar of a million screams, the clash of steel, and the thunder of magical artillery filtered up to the ridge in a deafening, physical wave of sound. Winding through the center of the carnage was a wide river, its rushing waters stained a deep, arterial red from the blood of the fallen.
Zac gagged as a sudden updraft hit him. The smell was atrocious, a nauseating cocktail of burning ozone, voided bowels, and scorched flesh. As he leaned over Leonardo's neck to dry-heave, a decapitated demon head, its eyes still blinking in surprise, flew in a perfect arc right past Zac's nose and plummeted down the cliff.
Zac swallowed hard and turned his head to the left. A few dozen yards away, lined up perfectly at the very edge of the sheer precipice, was the Broken Antler warband. The five demons sat atop their respective mounts, looking down at the slaughter with cold, professional intensity.
"Hey guys, I made it!" Zac yelled, waving a leopard-print arm.
His voice was completely swallowed by the ambient cacophony of the holy war. None of them even twitched.
"Mush, Leo," Zac muttered, giving the turtle a tap with the riding crop. "Let's go join the cool kids."
As Leonardo began his agonizingly slow, tectonic crawl toward the group, Marchosias's rough, gravelly howl suddenly cut through the din of death, echoing over the ridge with supernatural clarity.
"We will eliminate the simulacrum!" the Wolf Captain roared to his lieutenants, his midnight cape whipping in the bloody wind. "We will show those holy hypocrites that their verisimilitudinous angel is no match for us!"
The others let out a collective, bloodthirsty cheer, their roars joining the thunder of the battlefield.
Marchosias drew his longsword, holding the dark steel high above his head. The blade caught the flashes of explosions from below. "Their resistance is a joke! We will make them regret!"
Zac smiled, kicking his feet happily in the stirrups. Oh, that feels nice, he thought. A sudden, radiant warmth was washing over his back, cutting through the chill of the ridge. It felt like standing in front of a giant, heavenly heat lamp. Are they giving off an aura of pure badassery?
He sat there, oggling the demons. They looked so dangerous, so professional, their muscles coiled and ready to charge down into the fray.
But as Zac stared, he noticed something odd. He was casting a very long, very distinct shadow directly over Leonardo's neck. A shadow that was currently pointing toward the battle.
Zac's dopey smile slowly faded. The sky above the battlefield was covered in black smoke. There was no sun to cast a shadow like that.
The warmth on his back was growing hotter.
Zac turned around, his movements stiff and slow.
His eyes went wide.
Standing only a few yards behind him, hovering inches above the rocky ground, was REPENTANCE.
The angelic construct was breathtakingly terrifying. Its body was smooth and featureless, carved from a flawless, unmarred white porcelain that radiated a blinding, serene light. It had no face, only a smooth, sloping visor of solid gold. Floating detached behind its back were six massive, geometric wings made entirely of intricate stained glass, refracting the fires of Hell into a thousand shattered rainbows. Held effortlessly in its pale, perfect hands was a wooden gavel the size of a fridge.