Taking to the skies, Marie led everyone else towards the Great Divide. Aziz could feel a sense of mounting dread as he drew closer and closer to the black wall. At the same time, he could see the huge fortifications that had sprouted up at the landbridge, and all of them were bustling with soldiers. The fortress was a huge one, one that blocked out the entire landbridge that led to the black wall towards the sky, and right now, the walls were full of armed soldiers staring at the Great Divide.

An impressive sight, to be sure.

The troops at the Great Divide weren’t blind, after all. Even though the Display’s ability to connect to Monocle Online’s Internet wasn’t working here, such a development would have alerted even the most oblivious of officers, let alone the elites sent to man the defences here.

“Still, it is a bit jarring to think that our troops aren’t considered as elites, though,” Aziz muttered.

“Huh?”

“I was just thinking out loud,” Aziz replied. He didn’t want to think about what the Human God’s passing would mean for the Five Lands at all, so the colonel had latched on to the most convenient topic he saw.

“Well, we are only a few hours away from the Great Divide if we fly at maximum speed,” Marie replied. “The First Aerial and Ark City’s squadrons are the first reinforcements if the Great Divide falls before schedule, right?”

“Yeah, but I kinda get the feeling that we are missing out on the ‘elite’ label,” Aziz replied glumly. “Shouldn’t we get something like that? This is making feel me sad for some reason.”

“So, it’s indeed true that once a person’s material needs are satisfied, they seek to fulfil their spiritual ones.” Marie rolled her eyes. “Why do you even care about that label?”

“It’s not just me,” Aziz replied. Turning to the officers behind him, he asked, “Do you guys want to be elites too? The cream of the crop, the best ones out there?”

A wave of assent was the answer.

“See?” Aziz gestured, satisfied. “Everyone wants to be an elite.”

“But we are elite,” Marie replied. “You lot just want to be known as elites.”

“It’s just two words,” said Aziz, “but they make such a difference.”

Most career soldiers usually fought for something intangible. For pride. To be recognised as someone important or skilled. It was the same for virtually any job, but soldiers usually doubled down on the intangible side of things. The above was severely lacking in the Second Extermination, however. For Aziz, the Second Extermination was about the defence of his homeland, of the nation and the people that had welcomed him.

It was the same for the upcoming war, but there was now an element of glory to it. Who didn’t want to be remembered as an elite of the Five Lands?

“Maybe.” Marie’s eyes were distant, pulling away from the others behind her.

Curious, Aziz sped up and asked, “Why did you join the military?”

“Why did I join the military?” Marie spoke these words slowly, as if she was thinking of something. “I wonder. Long ago, I would have said that it was for revenge, revenge against the Southern Assembly. But can it really be called revenge now? I’ve forgotten the names of everyone in my graduating class, of my first unit.”

Aziz had never seen this side of Marie before. He’d asked a few times, but she had always fobbed him off. Now that he thought about it, the Human God’s passing had obviously evoked her own memories of the Second Extermination.

It wasn’t just him after all.

Marie continued on. “In fact, I cannot even remember the first city I was stationed at. The memories of my first deployment were a mess. We were getting crushed by the Constellations, entire units at a time. I only remember the mad scramble to escape the battlefield, after the Constellation Heroes cut down our first defences.”

Aziz racked his brains, trying to remember the opening shots of the Second Extermination. The information coming in from the front back then was fragmented, inaccurate, and most of all, dated, so there really wasn’t much he could work with. What he could remember was that half of the beastfolk cities fell within a year or so, spearheaded by the Constellations.

“We lost lots of people in that year, didn’t we?” Aziz rubbed his head in an attempt to assuage the headache he felt.

“Yes. And yet, the war ended without us being able to take revenge,” Marie replied. “The Human God achieved his goal of a near-complete slaughter of the beastfolk, making use of the Southern Assembly and the Holy Temple to achieve his aims.”

“Marie…” Looking at the unusually cold marshal, Aziz instantly knew that the Human God’s passing had finally affected her. It was something he’d seen in other soldiers; they would approach certain events with utmost rationality until a few hours or even a few days later, at which point their emotions would react. It was, plainly put, a delayed emotional response.

“I’m sorry, Aziz.” Marie shook her head. “You’re right. I…the Human God didn’t deserve such a quick death.”

Aziz didn’t quite know how to react to this sudden change, so he bobbed his head in agreement, while trying to analyse Marie’s state of mind right now. It was fortunate that he had some experience in talking to soldiers who had lost people in the Second Extermination; he would at least not bring up bad topics of conversation this way.

“Like you said, it’s really not something we can control,” said Aziz, whose mind was now working on overdrive. “After all, is it even possible to say, imprison the Human God? Do some good old-fashioned corporal punishment on him? Doing anything but killing a great god is going to be next to impossible.

Marie paused. “True. So…they killed him out of necessity, not justice?”

“I mean, look at the state he was in while fighting. That looks something right out of Horror City. So many eyeballs and all,” Aziz mused out loud. “Maybe he turned insane from eating something bad, so he had to be put down.”

“Besides,” Aziz added, “how would you punish a single person for huge crimes? Torture him? Put him in life imprisonment?”

Marie was silent. “Funny how our positions swapped, isn’t it?”

“After the initial emotional outburst…” Aziz shook his head. “Gone’s gone. If we dwell on the past, we’ll find it harder to move on. Or…Marie, did you really move on from the Second Extermination? Or did you just forget about it all?”

“That is a question I wish I knew the answer to,” Marie replied. “But don’t worry about me. I keep my personal emotions and my work life separate. And besides…I’m probably the last officer of my batch alive. Can’t let their flag vanish like that.”

For some reason, the marshal looked exceptionally dazzling in that moment.