Chapter 30: Earth - Could have been worse.
Special Guests recounting the events: Uriel
Earth
Upon reaching Earth, the trio found themselves in a grey, dilapidated building with a statue and two stairs behind them. Crumbled rocks scattered across the floors like droppings of a bird.
Outside, rains were descending like fallen angels upon the dark skies. Multiple undeads began crawling around the ruined surfaces Earth, rummaging through rubbish bins and cars, screeching towards the despondent skies.
"That's...dark..." Chris's eyes widened.
"A century sure has passed in this devastated Earth..." Death frowned.
"That probably might happen if Corruption took over...and we certainly don't want that to happen" Alito clenched her fists and frowned.
*Caw...*
"Quiet..." Death hushed. "There are more than corpses about."
Chris's Project Tundra scanned through the surroundings, surveying the swarming zombies roaming around a statue when a blast killed a zombie with a headshot.
The Trio looked up the skies and saw a silver and golden armor-clad woman with tanned skin hovering in the skies. She has long silver hair, tanned skin, a rune upon her forehead, and long, golden wings.
"Uriel? What are the Hellguard doing on Earth?" Death frowned.
"Who's she?" Alito wondered.
"The commander of the Hellguards after Abaddon died in the premature Apocalypse. She's a hard head, but can be powerful when the time calls for it." Death frowned.
A group of Hellguards followed Uriel as the female commander raised her blade.
"For Abaddon!" she let out a war cry as the Hellguards cheered and descended upon the living dead.
Lands of the living dead strewn across the battle area as the Hellguards impaled, sliced, diced, and blasted the swarming zombies into smithereens.
However, a huge rock was thrown towards a group of Hellguards. The ground shook and rumbled as a repulsive six-legged abomination came charging to the fray pass several towering walls.
It has a purple skin made of hate and suffering, great big jaws, and skeleton upon its big, muscular feet. Its head consisted of human skull-like growths.
The abomination quickly swept the Hellguard troops apart as Uriel frownedand attempted to fight the beast head on. The commander fought well, but despite her heavy strikes, upon the Suffering, the beast delivered a swift left hook that caught her by surprise.
Uriel was thrown back across a road; blood splattered and stained her armor as she struggled to get up and recovered her blade. The Suffering came charging towards Uriel.
Death looked beside him when he saw that Chris and Alito disappeared. He looked ahead and saw the two maidens charging towards the Abomination, picking up two Salvations Cannons along the way. The Salvation Cannons have four 'petals' on the barrels, blue hammer and brown gun body.
Weapon Data: Salvation Cannons
Description: Salvation fires off concentrated arcane light energies in a rapid-fire. Thanks to the pressurized barrels inside the rifles' bodies, up to 500 bullets per minute can be shot from the barrels before cooling down from overheating. The guns, despite heavy firepower, are easy to operate like a normal rocket launcher.
"Damn it..." Death shook his head. "Wait up!"
Chris and Alito calmly shot high concentrations of light energies towards the abomination, who roared and called forth more swarms of zombies. The abomination retreated by jumping across one of the ruined buildings.
"Swarms ahead! Hellguards, to me!" Uriel commanded.
The surviving Hellguards picked themselves up as Chris, Alito, and Death summoned their arcane troops to aid the Hellguards.
Chris and Alito found themselves able to summon three troops each with their respective elemental skins wrapped around the; Ice for Chris's skeleton, and Wind for Alito's wind skeletons.
Process Update: Due to the Dead Lord's present - arcane orb - imbued upon your bodies, arcane magic and biological augmentations have been upgraded. Unlocked skills are stored in the 'skills' section for later reference.
"That's something..." Chris raised her eyebrows.
The team swarmed through the zombie hordes with relative ease thanks to the immense firepower support of Chris, Alito, and Death.
Minutes later
"I should have killed you for what your brother did here. But you saved my life. Consider us even. I suppose you two must be followers of Death. But why are you...humans?" Uriel frowned.
Chris and Alito explained their purposes of helping Death rescuing War and saving their world from a dimensional disruption.
"I see...you're from the other dimension...Thanks for saving my life." Uriel bowed.
"Be doing what we can, Uriel." Chris bowed.
"What do you know about the Rod of Arafel, Uriel?" Death wondered.
"A weapon of immense power, brought to Earth by the Archon Hestus to battle the demons on the End War. Its light is strong enough to destroy Corruption and darkness. We could have won against the demons, but Hestus fell by the hands of the Destroyer, and the Rod was shattered. The Destroyer uses its pieces to fuel its army of darkness." Uriel explained.
"What was broken can be reformed. Where are the pieces of the Rod?" Death replied.
"In the hands of the Destroyer. He has summoned creatures from the abyss, and drawn forth his Chosen - things of blasphemy who even now divide this world into their own hellish domains. The Sufferings are one such beast. They feed upon the dead of this world, and twist them into a Swarm of flesh and bone that fight as one mind. It was they who attacked us moments ago." Uriel explained.
Chris and Alito registered the name of the abomination that attacked Uriel earlier in their Project Programmes.
Morphology: Suffering
Type: Zombie
Main Weapon: Fists
Armor: Heavy
Description: Extremely Strong, this abomination is capable of demolishing towers alone with its bare hands. Its roar is capable of controlling the zombies. Its foot is super strong, capable of leaping across large chasms within a single leap, given enough momentum. Its armor is heavy, but easily seared through using the Salvation Gun - the gun used by some Hellguards, and arcane weapons.
"One mind - easily sundered." Death boasted.
"I will not risk more Hellguards to recapture the Rod of Arafel." Uriel refused. "But should you wish to undertake this fool's errand - then follow the trail of corpses left by my brethren."
"A fool's errand...well, it would not be my first." Death grunted.
"Neither does us. We faced problems like you too..." Chris sighed.
"It is at southeast of here. Good luck." Uriel nodded.
"You said the Angels were lost in this place...How many?" Alito wondered.
"Too many. But for every dead Angel there is another, kept alive against his will. Their suffering empowers the Destroyer." Uriel shook her head.
Chris looked at the scattered bodies of the Hellguards that died fighting against evil, and clenched her fists after softening up for seconds.
"We will help you." Chris frowned.
"You can? But you are just humans...despite having strong arcane magic." Uriel replied.
"When they can be rescued, do you think we are going to sit down there and do fuck all? Your brothers are trapped, tortured by the Destroyer, there is a chance to be freed, and you just put us down because we are humans?" Chris frowned, a burst of cold aura rushing through their body and froze the rain around them.
Uriel's eyes widened as she felt a chill down upon her spines.
"Believe us, Uriel. We will save your brethren. You have our words!" Chris frowned.
The Hellguard commander sighed. "If you so desire...Although I'm still concerned..."
Chris's aura calmed down. "Trust me...Uriel. I know how you feel. Your brethren destroyed by the disease of the Earth - the Swarm. But at least some of your Hellguards still lived. I have none."
Uriel nodded. "That is blessing enough."
"But why are the Hellguards on Earth? You lost, Uriel, in case you haven't noticed." Death shrugged.
"Where else would we go? All of creation saw what happened here; how the Hellguard marched before the seals were broken. The White City is closed to us. We can never go home." Uriel shook her head.
"No. Someone conspired to have the seals broken." Death frowned.
"What? But the Charred Councils said that..." Uriel uttered in disbelief.
"Do you know about the Makers?" Chris asked.
"Yes. All of us know about the builders of the world." Uriel nodded.
"Elder Eidard told us that the Wardens came into Earth when the Seals were broken. Yet when the Councils checked on the Seals, they were intact. The Wardens remained asleep unless A. The Makers Key activates them, or B. Six of the Seven Seals were broken as Elder Eidard confirmed." Chris frowned.
"You reckoned there's a conspiracy?" Uriel replied.
Alito and Chris nodded.
"It's not might...it's already a conspiracy." Death frowned.
"Still...War is partly responsible for Abaddon's death. The Red Rider must pay for what he has done." Uriel frowned.
"I will see my brother spared." Death grunted.
"So be it..." Uriel concluded.
"The Chosen? Who are they? They sound like high-commanding titles." Alito wondered.
"Of course they are. They are ancient beings, drawn from the heart of the Abyss. The most powerful serve the Destroyer, and rule in his name over flesh and bone. The rest kill everything around them." Uriel explained.
"Immense darkness, huh?" Chris mused.
"It's a wonder you've lasted this long; even the dead march against you." Death spoke in amusement.
"You speak of the Swarm. Of all the creatures that roam the wastes, they most hunger for revenge. Not even death can stop them; what is dead can be replaced again." Uriel frowned.
Downloading Uriel's Requested Location of the Rod of Arafel - First Piece...
Travelling to the southeast while blasting the Swarm handily...
"To think this is Earth so hard. Wonder whether my world would still suffer that fate eventually." Chris shook her head.
"Why do you think so?" Death wondered.
"Nothing is worse than having humans going against each other. You know about the Hikkimoris I mentioned? They belong to a group called Otakus - a degenerating terms for geeks or nerd that liked Japanese Animations and stay at home doing fuck all. People hated Otakus because they think that Otakus are filled with perverts, dirty thoughts, sex, and meaningless bullcrap. Those self-proclaimed 'normal' people claimed themselves to be right and the otakus as 'wrong'. Those 'normal' people never even know that there are people who loved animes because of meaningful shit." Chris took a deep breath before continuing.
"I fear that within years, a war will erupt not based on politics, but based on each liking and eventually...destruction once more between people who loved animation, and people who wanted to convince otakus not to watch animation." Chris sighed.
"There's nothing worse than Earth self-destructing themselves from the inside when people simply can't accept one another's opinion and move on. I mean, if they can accept same-sex marriage, which has been a controversial thing in the past, why not start accepting opinions about otakus?" Alito shook her head.
"Are you sure that's going to happen? You're making it sound like it's the end of the world as you know it." Death replied in amusement.
"The Charred Councils said that Humans are weak, but cunning. That is true; god knows what humans are capable of. You might think they cannot do such things...but some people just want to watch the world burn. Who knows, maybe this shattered Earth will be what our world will become if we're not careful enough." Chris frowned.
"Absalom is right to an extent...Deep down inside, humans are all beasts...waiting to destroy the world with whatever ways we can think of. He's saying humans are weak not because they can't survive. He's saying humans are weak because of self-destructive behaviours." Alito admitted.
"But we want to protect the humans still, because we know we can't just simply judge humanity based on the sins of a few. There have been kind souls, and families whom we love to spend times with; those are what Alito and I swore to protect. There have been adventurers too, who helped out newbies all around, and we respect them too." Chris said calmly.
Death nodded softly. He knew many humans and cultures back in this world; after all, he is Death, and he saw things that are exactly what Chris and Alito described.
"Could be worse. This world you are standing now, have been in wars based on politics for many, many years before the Apocalypse happened. There's no peace involved; stocks been plummeting, strikes all around, terrorist attacks all over, scandals in the entertainment industry, divorce rates on the rise, religious crap. Peace? Heh...peace is something only one could hope." the Pale Rider shrugged.
He continued, "I am sure you, Alito, and your trusted group of socialites can improve your already peaceful world by making non-fans and fans of the idol and anime culture work together without bloodshed."
Chris's mind clicked.
"It could have been worse..."
Death was right.
Chris's world now was unlike what Death's world had experienced before the apocalypse.
Her world had all the problems gradually solved thanks to the Fuschia's involvement with the governmental affairs aside from automotive affairs.
Even after the Fuschia's death, the government throughout the world carried on the Fuschia's legacy, for they had said 'We have enough bloodshed. Seriously, let peace be our ultimate goal.'
For the next twelve years, they fulfilled their promise. Chris and Alito's involvement during the last two years helped as a catalyst too.
Terrorists were virtually eliminated.
Stocks were finally stable; economy was stable too.
Racial slurs were outdated.
It goes for religious overtones; gone were the extremists.
Same-sex marriages were on the verge of being legalized throughout the entire world.
Did Death's world experience any of these before the Apocalypse?
None...Zilch...Nada.
Frankly speaking, Chris's world could have been worse.
If she, along with the officials, can deal with the global political matters, what was to stop her and Alito from achieving social peace?
It was hard for Death to give respect to anyone.
For Death to show respect to both Chris and Alito meant one thing...Death believed them.
Chris and Alito found themselves gradually smiling.
"Thanks, Death. You are certainly wise for your age." Chris gave a thumb up. Alito nodded along.
"Of course I should be; I'm eons older than you. You would want to keep this to yourself though." Death grunted in satisfaction.
Chris gave a small chuckle and shook her head. "Always boasting about your abilities...but hey, what can I say? You are Death, the Pale Rider. Where you roam, no one can defeat you."
By then, they had reached a long stretch of road from a town square. A huge screech pierced the dark, silent air as a towering creature with two long legs and two long arms walking in the distance.
The tall creature has corrupted growths across its body and two green eyes. Screeches filled the air once more, as swarms of stingers flew to the trio.
"Ready?" Death frowned as he placed the Salvation Cannon and summoned the three ghouls.
"Blast 'em!" Chris and Alito nodded.