Chapter Nine: Death's past - The Pale Rider's respect!
"To be honest, I do not even know how I was born. All I know is that I am a hybrid of both angels and demons. I am also one of the oldest Nephilim, been born of the first generation of that particular race. My brother, Absalom, was the oldest Nephilim to date, being the first Nephilim to come out from the dust, with me being the second. The Nephilims used to live peacefully in Eden when one day..." Death explained.
Eons ago...
The Charred Council were three stone head statues with sharp jagged teethes and Jack-o-Lantern eyes.
"Hear us! We, the Charred Council, have foreseen an important event in the history of Creation. We foretold that in the future, the first group of humans would soon set foot upon Earth. Although they might seem weak, we reckon that they will be integral to the Balance! It is the decree of the Charred Council and the vision, that the Humans will have Eden as their home. Place the Nephilims in exile until further notice! No questions asked!"
"This is absurd! Eden belongs to us; we are the ones who make Eden our home, and now you have the rights to take it away from us?" Absalom, the huge, muscular Nephilim with the same jagged teethes and a spiky bone crown and bony jaws, snapped.
"The Council's decision is final, Nephilim! It is in the name of the Balance that we exile your race!" the left stone head figure warned.
"This isn't fair! Of all the realms you could exile, why us?" Absalom shot back.
"SILENCE!" the Center Charred Council's eyes glowed as Absalom was tortured in an excruciating painful flame and thrown through the hallway by the Charred Councils' telekinesis. The flame dug deep in Absalom's flesh, causing him to grit his teeth in excruciating pain as sweat poured down his forehead. Death, in worry, rushed towards Absalom to help him up.
"The flame is no ordinary flame, Absalom. It is from the Abyss; you will be wise if you do not go against the will of the Council, or dire consequences shall be swift! NOW GO!" the Charred Councils bellowed.
"My brother was furious. He believed that Humans did nothing to earn their place as the inhabitants of Eden and therefore unfair to exile the Nephilim. To the Nephilims, Eden is what we call our precious home. However, for the sake of the Balance, I relented. My brother, though...initiated a mass genocide. They put countless realms to the sword, and burned them to ashes." Death sighed.
"Absalom, what in Samsareal's name...You are disrupting the force of Balance by slaying every creation in existence!" Death frowned.
"The Humans are weak and pathetic; they have no claims to Eden! If all the Council cares about is the Balance itself, then i say to hell with them! Look at these ashes upon us, the ashes of whom we have slayed!"
Death looked at the latest races to be completely eliminated, the Elven Race; their bodies strewn across chasms, hills, towns and upon the burning pits. There was nothing that was left in the cities of the Elven aside from the Nephillims' roar of victory.
"We will destroy everything in existence to prove that we are the superior race! Even if it means the end of Earth is near! It will justify all means!" Absalom boomed.
"Absalom was once a serious leader; taking pride towards his work in guarding Eden against intruders, all anything that will disrupt the Balance. However, pride had driven and he became what he was fighting against - the threat to Balance itself. I knew that the Nephilims' conquest would imperil the Balance, so I took three siblings with me to see the Charred Councils." Death explained.
"War, Strife, and Fury, right?" Chris asked.
Death nodded. "They themselves, too, knew that the Balance will be at stake. I rallied to the three, with War the youngest, and paid an audience to the Charred Council."
The Charred Council...
"So...you four Nephilims realized that your race's conquest will destroy the Balance. Better late never, we suppose." the Center Charred Council calmly spoke.
"We Four, however, cannot simply take on such a massive number of Nephilims at once, unless you are willing to help us, Old Ones." Death replied.
"And how, one of the oldest Nephilims, will you expect us to help you? We will help you, but there must be a price to pay for such power and decision you are about to make." the left Charred Council followed.
"We will serve you in maintaining the Balance. In exchange, give us the power needed to combat the hordes of Nephilims destroying the Balance! We simply cannot stand upon the shattered remains of every race we have slayed, knowing the Balance will collapse soon if no action is taken." Death persuaded.
The Charred Councils put their head together and moments later, the Center Charred Council's mouth burst with fire as it responded...
"A brave decision...Very well. We will give you the necessary powers needed to combat against your race. From then on, you will be the Four Horsemen, dedicated to bring about the Balance intact. Kill anyone who dares to defy the law!" it replied.
"So...the Charred Council gave you the powers and weapons to defeat the Nephilims." Chris summarized.
"Right. Chaoseater for War, Harvestor for me, Redemption and Mercy for Strife, and Rage for Fury. After we obtained our powers, our first task is rather straightforward...slaying the Nephilims. Eventually...my scythes cross with Absalom's axe..." Death sighed.
The Four Horsemen charged into the fray along with the White City's army.
Blades ripped the Nephilims' body apart, spines were strewn apart, causalities from both sides of the battlefield and the Four Horsemen slayed most of the Nephilims within a short time.
Screams of pain, anguish and hatred echoed upon the wide, bloody, dusty battlefield as Death slayed his kin.
Hiding his anguish, regret, and sadness in his skull-like mask, Death drove his Harvestor through the guts of several Nephilims at one moment, unleashed a fatal sweeping slash the next, and sliced through the necks and blood vessels of fast approaching Nephilims charging onto him in anger.
With every Nephilim he killed, anguish swept through his face and body, his guilt building up with every fallen ones. His mask hid all there was to it, his true emotions as the Executioner as he knew that no other ways to stop Balance's destruction aside from destroying those that are responsible.
Soon, Death stood among the corpse of the brothers and sisters whom he slayed, face to face with his brother Absalom. The wounds engraved upon his body as a solemn reminder of his supposed 'betrayal'...
"Death!" Absalom's anger echoed through the ruined wastelands.
The estranged Pale Rider's eyes met his older brother.
"Why do you betray your own?!" Absalom shot out.
Death, sticking to his belief about protecting the Balance despite his guilt, interjected, "The Nephilims have no claim to Eden."
"There are realms for angels and demons, WHY NOT FOR US?" Absalom screamed.
"Eden belongs to Man!" Death shot out as his Harvestor clashed with Absalom's giant axe - Absolution.
"It belongs to those who take it!" Absalom's veins bulged from his temples, his rage blinded all but his pride.
"We don't have to do this, Absalom! There are other ways to approach this!" Death shot out.
"After all that you have done? NOT A SINGLE CHANCE!" Absalom roared.
"Your pride will be your downfall, Absalom. Stop this!" Death persuaded while their weapons clashed.
As War, Strife, Fury, and the Angels mauled every remaining Nephilims in existence, Absalom's eyes widened in shock at the results.
Death, sensing an opening, forced his blade upon Absalom's Absolution in a final clash, before Death's strength as one of the Four Horsemen gave him the edge and impaled his blade fatally down Absalom's chest.
Absalom's cries of death rang through the dark battlefield as War, Strife, Fury, and the White Cities' troops diverted their attention towards the fallen Absalom and the Pale Rider.
Absalom's body slumped on the floor, a black mass substance crawled out of the ground from which he fell and attempted to drag him down into oblivion.
"Brother..." Absalom raised his right hands, struggling to reach out to his brethren with rasped breath.
Knowing that the black substance would drag his brother down dead, Death quickly grabbed Absalom's right hand and attempted to rescue his brother from falling into oblivion.
However, the suction was far too strong for even the likes of the Pale Rider to overcome, and soon, the black substance pulled Death's brother away from the former's grip.
Absalom's chilling scream rang Death's ears as the Pale Rider watched helplessly. The black substance dragging Absalom's rotten body into whatever the Abyss could take him.
The Pale Rider fell on his two knees as many green souls hovered upon him, his honeycomb-shaped amulet glowed green as it absorbed the souls, with the Pale Rider letting out a cry of anguish and pain...
"AAAAAAAHHHHHRRRRRGGGHHHH!"
"I could have saved him...I thought he repented because he reached out to me in the last-minute before the black substance dragged him down...I wished there could be other ways to prevent the Nephilims' extinction..." Death sighed.
Chris looked at the Pale Rider with forlorn eyes.
"So...that's how your mask came to be, the Mask of the Executioner?" Chris asked.
"From that day on...I am known as the Kinslayer; Death, the Destroyer of Worlds...The old me is dead, replaced by what you are seeing right now. All I have left is Fury, Strife, and War. I will protect them and am willing to storm through the White City if any of my brothers is framed; I do not want another repeat of history to happen again." Death replied calmly.
Death looked at Chris and Alio's forlorn eyes. "Now do you see why I said that I respect you? I thought my kind would be the only race that would experience such deprivation, never to know that humans could experience that pain too. My kind was infected, just like your family. Except that while your family contracted bacterium, our race became mad by the exile."
Chris looked at the Pale Rider and saw him in a new light.
"And I thought Death simply indulges in mindless killing all along..." Chris looked down and exhaled deeply, closing her eyes as she soothed any emotions threatening to sweep her icy heart.
"Trust me...I would have given everything just to see them alive or an alternative solution to the problems we faced eons ago, but they contracted with an infectious, and terminal, madness that only War, Strife, Fury, and I resisted. We have no other choice...Sometimes I even wonder if I am doing the right thing. I thought that no one could understand me, because even until the last of Creation became dust in the state of nothingness, I reckon there would be no one who could understand just how deprived we Nephillims were." Death replied.
He continued, "I would not have shared it, but both of you have the same premise of how your parents died - illness and war. Both of you are warriors of honor, willing to protect the Makers from Corruption and rescue my brother War to carry on your loved ones' last will of 'protecting innocent being come what may.'."
The Pale Rider walked back to where Karn was, while Chris and Alito looked on.
"My Lady, are you okay?" Alito wondered.
Chris took a deep breath as she looked at the Pale Rider with forlorn eyes.
"And to think that he has to go through eons after eons, thinking that he betrayed his kind."
As Chris, Alito, Karn, and Death continued their journey to the Drenchfort through the abandoned structures in the snowy lands of the Fjord, Chris spoke...
"There's a difference between you and me...Death..."
"What is it?" Death wondered.
"You have no other choice as the Balance walked on thin ice...While I could have done something with my intelligence to cure my loved ones." Chris replied.
"Why do you think so?" Death wondered.
"The Charred Council decreed it, isn't it?" Chris asked. Death sighed and nodded.
"You said that you had no other choice even if you thought there could be other ways. For me...I could have prevented it. I invented things that could benefit mankind in travelling from one place to another and yet...I can't invent a vaccine to combat E-Coli until recently..." Chris shook her head once more.
"As for me...I could have directed everyone from my family down to a bomb shelter. Yet civil war still claimed the life of them in the end due to my indecision." Alito followed.
"Your guilt isn't about whether you could have done something else to prevent the Nephilims' near-extinction; it's more about your assumption that you betrayed your kind even when you know there's no other choice. As for us, there were other ways we could have dealt with things, but now they are only 'could have been'." Chris looked away, with Alito placing her left arm on the Icy Maiden's right shoulder.
Death grunted in a low tone...
"Maybe Chris was right...The Charred Council had foretold that the Nephilims will fall to save the Balance; there is no solution, or why did the Charred Councils ordered the Nephilims' execution if there's other ways to deal with the matters at hand? While Chris has to be tormented with the thought that she could have saved her loved ones from Oblivion..."
Death conceded, "Maybe...maybe it isn't my fault that the Nephilims had to die to maintain the balance. There is not much of a choice. Still...I do not think that their loved ones' deaths are faults of hers."