Phase Three of Darksiders: Frozen Assets
Author: Hanayo Koizumi
Co-Author: Maki Nishikino
Illustrator: Rin Hoshizora, Nico Yazawa
Chapter 19: Absolute Shock - The darkness that lurked within!
Early Morning - Stonefather's Valley
The birds chirped, swooping down as they attempted to catch the fresh worms poking out of the earth. The ambient sunrays shone through the skies as daylight broke, signifying a brand new day. the calm, rush of the waterfall calmed the air as it echoed throughout the Forge Lands.
Peace finally arrived for the first time in the Forge Lands since the death of the Corrupted Eyes yesterday.
"Well, this is it! Go forth and prove your brother's innocence, Horsemen! As for Chris and Alito, please help us rid the world of Corruption; we will do whatever we can for the makers to survive!" Alya nodded.
"We will not let your efforts down, Alya!" Alito nodded.
"Karn?" Chris shot out.
"Heheh...yeah?" the bald Maker laughed sheepishly.
"Do not cause any trouble for the makers, alright? It's fine to be the hero once in a while, but going way too far will lose what made you, you. Mm?" Chris asked in a soft, gentle tone, waving her right index finger while shaking her head.
"Well, with so much things happening nowadays, I will moderate it, that's for sure!" Karn grinned.
Valus approached the two Maidens and gave them a bear hug once more, nearly crushing Chris and Alito's circuits.
"Owowowowow! Easy there, Valus!" Alito chuckled.
"You have saved our realms, Death. For that, you have our gratitude. But be forewarned, you will be walking further into the depths of darkness from now on, and learn things that you haven't learn before through the lifetime despite your age; whether you can accept it is a matter of choice." Muira nodded.
"Rest assured, Shaman, there is nothing that can past through me. You do what you can for your kin, old one, and I do so for mine." Death replied in kind.
"As will I, Horseman. And as for you both..." the Shaman nodded as she turned her attention towards Chris and Alito, who just got out of Valus's bear hug.
"Yes?" Chris and Alito replied.
"Your journey to solace begins, Chris and Alito. I hope all the best that the both of you achieve the peace you so desire in the years to come." Muira nodded.
Chris and Alito nodded as they held each other's hands.
"So the time has come...Good luck, and may the spirits of the makers be with you." the Lost Temple's Warden spoke calmly.
"Rest assured, with the Makers' Chronicles, the surviving makers will thrive through!" Oran nodded.
"So long, Makers! Hope we can make again!" Chris waved goodbye.
"May the Stonefather be with you, Horsemen and the two women!" Alya shot out as she waved goodbye.
The trio waved goodbye as they left for the Tree of Life.
Path leading to the Tree of Life
"Argul...the mad King, huh? So you think that he's been conspired against to be mad, right?" Chris wondered.
"If what Thane said is true, it could be. Besides, I know a bit of Argul. Though it's not much, I know enough to think that he might be conspired." Death frowned.
"How?" Alito wondered.
"Argul has the element of Ice, thus he has the power of the chilling Abyss. If Thane said that Argul is fair and just while ruling the Land of the Dead, despite possessing the power of the Abyss, then he should not be afraid of us. Someone must have conspired against Argul to go mad at the mention of the Four Horsemen, or taken advantage of Argul's weakened mentality during an illness, maybe?" Death replied.
"I see..." Chris nodded.
"Where do you think the Tree will lead us?" Alito wondered.
"Only time will tell but the greatest risk is to do nothing." Death replied.
Tree of Life
The Tree loomed ahead as a huge metal door was seen in front of the team. Huge, thick roots branched out and dug deep into the ground with flowers growing out of its roots. In the middle of the door lay a hatch that has the sign of a sun's face.
"Why do I feel that's not going to be that easy?" Chris wondered, feeling a slight shiver upon her spine.
It was.
All of a sudden, black liquid suddenly oozed out of the hatch and before anyone can react, the liquid spewed out several branches of Corruption and wrapped the trio around their waists!
"Death, watch out!" Chris shot out.
Try as they might the grip of Corruption proved too strong. The 'arms' of Corruption quickly pulled the trio into the trees, giving them no time to scream for help...
Black Void
Chris, Alito, and Death soon came face to face with a black, muscular silhouette with tubes of Corruption attached on his back and a huge, sharp jaw.
The surroundings were nothing but fragments of Corruption vapour rising out of the thick, black, gooey floor. Corruption reigned supreme in this area.
"And so you have come, bearing your sin like a badge of honor. Well, and what do we have here? Two women whom I knew nothing about...From what I have seen, you must be humans. What is it that you three seek?" a deep, ominous, and growling voice came out of the silhouette's mouth.
"The return of mankind." Death frowned.
"You must be the perpetrator who caused all of this hoo-hah. We are here to destroy you!" Chris shot out as she commanded Alito to transform to Lifebane and charged forth.
The silhouette smirked as a huge tower of Corruption erupted from the ground and struck the Icy Maiden by surprise!
"GAHHH!" Chris and Lifebane were thrown back into a thick, black wall. Cracks started forming on its side as Chris fell down on her knees with blood on her lips.
"Damn it...this Corruption is not any kind of Corruption we have seen before...took me by surprise there. Not gonna repeat that mistake again." Chris winced, but keeled down later from the after-effects of the impact. The Project Tundra recorded the mistakes Chris made to make sure she anticipates it next time round.
"Heh...To a barren planet, shorn of life?" the silhouette grunted, "As for you two, you two pathetic humans...what makes you think you can defeat me? Humans are weak and simple they would not survive this resurrection - nor do they deserve it!"
"That is no ours to judge. I do this to spare War from the Council's punishment." Death replied firmly.
Chris's Project Tundra quickly recovered itself and managed to get a detailed sight of the silhouette.
Her eyes widened - the scans revealed exactly the same detail as the monstrosity that she met in her nightmare!
Alito attempted to charge forth once more but Chris managed to stop her.
"Don't." Chris shook her head. "Something tells me that the silhouette is related to Death."
Alito wondered why as she scanned through the daunting figure with her Project Ventus, her eyes widened shortly after.
"The exact figure that we seen in our nightmare...and its details are exactly what Death described during his recount of the Eden War!" she gasped.
"Let's not take action first; it's sometimes wise to get some info relating the two. Besides, given our injuries now, going against it will be suicide." Chris frowned.
"Roger, my Lady." Alito nodded.
Meanwhile...
"And what of the Nephilim? Would you save but one, and not the rest?" the silhouette grunted.
"The Nephilim are a threat to the Balance." Death replied.
"If we had taken Eden, none of this would have happened. Yet you rode against us - slaughtered our flesh, then bound our souls in your amulet!" the silhouette bellowed.
"Ha, got you right where we want!" Chris smirked as she quickly recovered from her injuries thanks to her 'Quattro Sentinel EX Cardiovertor Defibrillator' augmented upon its heart to regenerate health.
"What?!" the silhouette's eyes widened, stunned.
"Cardiovertor Defibrillator - this biological augments from my heart allows me to regenerate my wounds using bio-electrical energy! You're not taking us down easily...Absalom!" Chris frowned.
"What?! Absalom?" Death's eyes widened.
"How is it that you know who I am? The one that Death used to call me...'Brother'..." the silhouette squinted to take a closer look at Chris and Alito, then bellowed in anger.
"You! You both must be the ones whom I have attempted to infect your dreams!" the silhouette roared.
"Wait, how'd you know it's him?" Death asked.
Chris replied, "Remember when the Warden of the Lost Temple told us about going into my nightmare? After I am freed from the Corruption's grip thanks to Alito, we managed to get a clear look at the one's responsible for my nightmare. The avatar looked the same as you have described for Absalom during your Eden War's recount. The same axe, same body structure, same voices, same jaws, same crown, same spike on his back, everything points towards one possibility..."
Chris and Alito then pointed their left and right index fingers at the silhouette. "You are Absalom!"
The silhouette looked down and gradually broke into a loud and deep, dark, and evil laughter.
"So you are Absalom..." Death frowned.
"Ah...I have forsaken that name. Now I am Corruption. The day you raised your scythe against us, I was born. And soon, I will be all. The Tree of Life has fallen to my darkness, from withered root to fruitless limb - and even Death himself cannot escape it!" Absalom summoned several Corruption Vines from his side once more.
"This time...I WILL END YOUR LIVES!" Absalom roared.
*WARNING. WARNING. BOSS FIGHT INTIATED - ABSALOM*
"Not anymore ya not!" Chris smirked as she nodded to Death, who nodded in return. Alito promptly transformed into Lifebane once more.
Thanks to the mistakes that were recorded into Chris's Project Tundra, Chris managed to dodge past the Corruption Vines with Death.
"What?" Absalom, blinded by his past feud with his brother, failed to see Chris's ability to learn from her mistakes using bio-augmentations and only managed to block Chris's attack with his Absolution.
Death managed to dodge past all the incoming Corruption Vines with his flips and leaps, slashed past several of them, and managed to join Chris in the fray.
The force of the three weapons' collision was so strong that despite the standstill, a huge burst of energy broke through, destroying all the surrounding Corrupted vines with ease.
Chris and Alito's daggers that Valus gave them as a present gradually brightened up, resonating with Chris's glowing blue eyes and Lifebane's glowing hilt.
"What?! Impossible! Not that light in the nightmare again!" Absalom's eyes widened, been unable to anticipate the light once more.
Chris and Death nodded. "NOW!"
Both parties let out their battle cries as they did a powerful cleave with their weapons, inflicting two large slashes across Absalom's chest.
Absalom roared in pain as Chris and Death landed few strides from the Corrupted Avatar.
"That's strange...he's easily destructible for us, why?" Death wondered.
"He's not the real deal." Chris frowned.
"Run this by me again?" Death wondered.
"We're not at the source of Corruption yet. The Tree of life is just another station for him to manifest his silhouette, his true self could be in another place." Alito explained.
Chris, Alito, and Death heard a loud grumble as they turned their attention to the dying Absalom's afterimage.
"Ahhahahaha...Chris, Alito...you humans who reckoned yourselves as 'not humans', we will meet again! As for the Pale Rider, know the very day that Corruption will overtake the realm of the living, and other dimensions as well! Corruption will devour everything in sight, so savour this victory while it last...brother!" Absalom roared as a flash of light engulfed the trio.
Within seconds, the trio shook her head as they gathered their senses back.
The horizon right in front of him was nothing but a desert devoid of life. Skies and sands were grey and dusty, clouds blocked out the sunlight with dry winds bringing forth mini dust storms occasionally.
Skeletons roamed from afar, giving dry, parched groans. Branches of dry, spooky dead trees swayed in mid air as skeleton bones scattered throughout the lands like pepper.
"The Land of the Dead..." Death frowned.
"What?" Chris and Alito wondered.
"The Land of the Dead is a place where living things go when they die, as souls that is." Death explained.
"Alright, so this is the Land of the Dead. Since the Tree brought us here, we might as well find out why." Chris suggested.
"What do you mean? I thought the Tree's purpose was to bring us to our destination! This is not where we are supposed to go!" Death protested.
"Death, let's calm down! Calm your Reaper Energies down, for the love of Samsarel!" Alito shot out.
Death exhaled deeply and managed to calm his breathing after a few minutes.
"Look, we have to summarize the info we got until now. Absalom is the Avatar representing Corruption, the forces of darkness that threaten to overtake all of Creation eventually if we don't make it history." Chris spoke.
"Darn it...that means the way to rescue the Red Rider will fall too if we don't destroy Corruption. It seems we have to change our focus for a while." the Pale Rider sighed.
"Problem is, someone must have caused the Nephilims to go bonkers when Absalom received the news about his kind's exile from Eden." Alito frowned.
"Why do you think so?" Death wondered.
"Think about it, Corruption is Hate given life, right?" Chris explained.
Death nodded.
"Hate is just an abstract thing - it cannot be brought to life unless a medium exists." Chris explained.
"Absalom is the medium...The meaning of living, breathing, Hate! Absalom is Corruption!" Death replied.
Chris snapped her fingers and nodded.
"But even then...it's not enough for him to turn into this big, black, gooey substance that consumed Creation as we know it, right? When he dies, hate dies with him. I ended his hate, right?" Death asked.
"That's when 'That Certain Someone' comes in." Alito replied. "Someone might have instilled enough hate on Absalom by spouting words that probably drove him mad. Absalom's words as a leader, and his convincing tone should be enough to rally the entire Nephilim into a killing spree."
"As time goes on, that 'certain someone' might have encouraged Absalom in secret to continue his rampage and convinced him that he was doing the right thing. That 'Certain Someone' will then use some black magic to turn the Nephilim and Absalom's excessive Corruption into the black gooey substances, which broke free when you killed their bodies." Chris explained.
"That might be true...but where do we find that certain someone?" Death wondered.
"Someone who, A - Is outside of the race yet knows Absalom and the Nephilims well, B - someone who knows strong, black magic from the Abyss, and C - Knows Eden." Alito replied.
"So...since Absalom consumes all, it's most likely he will anticipate my movement and try to be one step ahead of me. Thing is...where are we supposed to go now?" Death wondered.
The trio looked around to see any signs of the living and they saw one moving figure from some distance.
"Well...at least someone lives here." Death frowned.