[OVERDRIVE CLOCK: 00:16.5]
In the ancient cosmological archives of the pre-Rift world, the Three-Legged Golden Crow was revered not as a simple beast of the air, but as the living chariot of the sun. An ancient sovereign whose feathers carried the unquenchable fire of nuclear fusion.
Pip was only in his backup evolutionary stage. But within his compact, three-legged frame beat the pure, old family pulse of that sky lineage.
As he fell from the cloud layer, Pip didn’t spread his wings to brake. He folded them flush against his wind-cutting torso. He tucked his third center talon into his breast feathers like the point of a golden arrowhead. He sped up through the dense fog. His descent crossed the sound barrier at Mach 1.5, then Mach 2.0, and finally stabilizing at a blistering end-post speed of Mach 2.2.
An ear-splitting, double-sonic boom cracked across the valley like an artillery duel.
Surrounding Pip’s falling body was a shimmering, diamond-shaped shock-envelope of tightly packed, spark-charged air. The friction of the air against his golden plumage didn’t singe his feathers. It ignited them. The Three-Legged Crow drank the friction. That turned the sky moving drag directly into pure, blazing bright solar star-fire.
