Hybris
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The name "Aurum Empire" can no longer be found on any existing map of Esperia. Only by poring over ancient fragments preserved in the Dark Forest, or listening to the rambling of the mad old drunks in the Noble Tavern, can one piece together even a rough outline of what it once was. According to legends, it was a magnificent empire built upon gold and ivory, with towers as numerous as trees and bells that never ceased to ring. Its wealth and glory surpassed many kingdoms of its time, and even the nobles of Ranhorn once considered it an honor to be invited to its palace banquets. Yet, it was completely erased at the height of its prosperity. No ruins remain for posterity to mourn over, no survivors sing of its former glory in foreign lands, and even its very name was stripped away. All that remains are scattered rumors and a crimson figure appearing in different versions of the tale. The final golden age of the Aurum Empire began in a summer of particularly fierce sunlight. The young monarch Theodore sat upon his throne. This is a seat forged from a thousand enemy swords, bearing the cruel majesty of a conqueror, symbolizing centuries of Aurum's arrogance and might. Yet Theodore himself always felt restless upon it. He was a mortal ruler tormented by ambition, yearning to surpass his ancestors and even to be revered like the goddess Dura, but was deeply wounded by his own mediocrity. Before him knelt envoys from a neighboring kingdom, prostrating themselves and begging Theodore to reduce a tribute so steep it threatened to break their treasury. By the calculus of a "benevolent ruler," he ought to have agreed, as it would have calmed the resentment along the borders and won the empire a name for magnanimity. But a hand in a velvet glove silently came to rest on the back of his chair. Hybris, the advisor who never revealed his true face and wore a crimson robe, leaned slightly forward from the shadows. "Your Majesty, what gives you pause?" Theodore startled almost imperceptibly. There was something in Hybris's voice that brooked no doubt: "Does a god weigh the burdens carried by an ant?" Theodore slowly straightened his spine and listened as the counsel continued: "Your compassion is a desecration of the divinity in your bloodline. You are the measure by which the world is judged. If they suffer, it is merely because they were born to crawl in the mud, unworthy of basking in your radiance." Hybris's words found the most hidden crack in Theodore's heart with uncanny precision. In that instant of delusion, the vainglorious mortal felt as though he had genuinely touched the authority of the gods, and a kind of deranged will flooded the hollow vessel of his mediocre body. "I refuse," he said, waving his hand dismissively. "Guards, hang their heads at the city gates. Let them know that the majesty of the Aurum Empire is not to be provoked!" As the command fell, the hall went completely silent, only to be filled moments later with the anguished cries of the envoys. Hybris retreated into the shadows, his lips curling into a barely perceptible smile. In his eyes, Theodore on the throne was no longer a sovereign, but merely an ornate husk being slowly inflated by the breath of pride. In the years that followed, the Aurum Empire became nothing but a vast machine for grinding flesh. Hybris was no longer merely a counselor. Theodore bestowed upon him the title of "Holy Teacher" and allowed him a hand in every matter of state. Though he never drew so much as half an inch of steel, his whispered words could drive a million soldiers to flatten the western reaches of the continent and bring state after state to its knees before Aurum. He expounded truths to Theodore: a king needs no allies, only fervent believers. Royal authority needs no understanding from the world, only absolute submission. And gods are worth worshipping not for their mercy, but because all living things can only look up at them. At first Theodore still made offerings to the goddess Dura in the temple. But gradually, amid an unbroken string of victories and a flood of adulation, he began to savor a different kind of flattery. They called him the shadow of the gods made flesh, a presence more worthy of reverence than any deity. Dura's divine grace was soon cast entirely from his mind. As the Aurum Empire grew ever more powerful, Theodore grew ever more deranged. At a victory banquet, a white-haired old general rose unsteadily to his feet, and amid the clinking of golden cups and the swell of music, offered his counsel: "The borders have been bled dry by endless campaigns. The granaries are empty, the taxes cut like blades. There are even reports of people trading children for food in the countryside..." He implored Theodore to pause the campaigns, to give Aurum a chance to breathe. The hall's jubilant atmosphere suddenly fell silent. Hybris was leaning beside Theodore, holding a cup of rich wine. He did not look down at the general, but instead gazed at the color of the wine in his cup, as if it were the only thing in the entire hall worth his attention. "General," Hybris's cold voice echoed through the hall, "are you using mortal scarcity to measure divine vastness?" He walked at an unhurried pace to Theodore's side, looking down from the steps at the old man who had once won glory upon glory in battle. "His Majesty is the continuation of divine will. Beneath the feet of a god, flowers and white bones alike are nothing but paving stones. If you cannot comprehend this elevation, it can only mean that you are no longer fit to stand here." The old general was put to death before the entire court. The charge was not treason but "mediocrity". By the law Hybris had instilled in Theodore, the greatest sin was to be ordinary and still dare to raise one's eyes toward the sky. Day after day of such conditioning finally pushed Theodore to the extreme of pride. He was no longer satisfied with being a divinely blessed ruler, but sought to make himself the only thing worthy of worship. What he wanted was no longer territory, no longer songs of praise, but the sacred flame in the temple, the ash on the altar, and the unconditional awe in the eyes of the kneeling masses. And Hybris catalyzed Theodore's arrogance into a pathological faith, making the entire empire accompany a mortal in his delusion of ascending to godhood. The end came, as it always does, right on schedule. When the tyrant Theodore attempted to seize the sacred flame from the temple and crown himself the "One True God," the starving populace, the priests stripped of their divine authority, and the soldiers long since turned in their hearts all raised their torches together and surged like a tide toward the royal castle. The rebel army broke through the gates. The flames lit the night sky like the twilight of a final judgment. The once-invincible Aurum iron army crumbled like rotting wood before a mob driven by hunger and hatred. Theodore slumped on his throne, listening to the battle cries thundering beyond the hall, his face pale with terror as he looked wildly about and rasped: "Holy Teacher! Use your wisdom and save me! Save your king... your god!" The side door at the back of the great hall slowly opened, and Hybris walked in. The palace was on the verge of collapse, smoke and dust filled the air, yet not a speck of dirt clung to his crimson robe. He ignored Theodore, rolling a parchment map deliberately into its case. Only when Theodore screamed his name again, nearly broken, did Hybris slowly turn. "Save you?" He regarded the scene the way one might regard a poorly staged play whose ending was long since written. "Theodore, you seem to have misunderstood something. I have never served you." "Are you joking? You must have a way to deal with these insects... Quick! Tell me!" Theodore was on the verge of collapse. "I simply wanted to know what shape a mortal would take when he begins to believe he is fit to seize the seat of a god. Well, you have given me my answer." "You..." Theodore froze, then let out a shattered cry. "It was you! You ruined me!" "No." Hybris corrected him softly, his tone as gentle as a man forgiving a dim-witted child. "I merely held up a mirror. It was you who fell hopelessly in love with the false giant reflected in the glass." He paused, calmly delivering the final verdict: "Your ruin was not caused by pride itself. It was caused by the fact that your power was never equal to your pride." As his words faded, the dome collapsed with a thunderous crash. Flames and broken beams rained down, burying the throne and the man who had once aspired to godhood deep beneath the rubble. The last ruler of the Aurum Empire died beneath the altar he had built with his own hands. Hybris wandered alone through the destroyed court, where shattered statues, blackened banners, and ashes in the wind all mingled with the scent of blood. To anyone else it would have been the stench of a dynasty's decay, but he closed his eyes slightly, as though breathing in the scent of a rose in bloom. A fragment of stone engraved with the name "Theodore" rolled to a stop at his feet. Without even glancing down, he simply stepped on it. In the eyes of this Hypogean who viewed himself as the measure of all things, ruins that had lost their entertainment value were no different from roadside dust. "Too fragile." There was a trace of regret in Hybris's voice. "Humans are always like this. The slightest breath of wind, and they believe themselves fit to stand beside the gods. One gentle push, and they are less than dust..." He stopped walking, unrolled the map, and let his long fingers trace slowly along the edges of the continent until they came to rest on a particular spot. "Perhaps I should pay the Lightbearer Empire a visit," he said mildly. "I hear the knights there place great stock in oaths and glory... If one were to set that sort of pride alight, it would surely burn hotter than the fire here." With that, he folded the map, pulled his ever-spotless crimson robe around him, and walked toward the horizon. The windswept sand quickly swallowed his footprints. The setting sun stretched his shadow long across the ruins behind him, like a silent and ominous prophecy. And the Aurum Empire was left with nothing but a faded name, drifting between tavern rumors and the crumbling pages of old scrolls. No one could say with any certainty whether it fell to war, to famine, or to a Hypogean's passing whim with the word "pride".
Title
Mirror of Kings
Max ascension
Ascended 5★
How Hybris compares · vs 25 Hypogeans Heroes
Closest Heroes · nearest on ATK
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