The False Samsara

Disaster / Destruction

Hybris Penumbra tries to bypass the foretold prophecy of the Samsara and take over the world on his own terms.

After the repeated back and forth between the Forces of Light and The Cult of Achlys, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides, Hybris announced that he will enact The Samsara through his own power. Though he is repeatedly chastised by Srejj Goonth, who informs him that trying to bypass the traditional Samsara requirements would be extremely dangerous for everyone involved, he continued to boast that he will succeed where Sinister failed. As the event drew closer, Hybris became more and more paranoid, even going so far as to lock all of his cultists inside the Obelisk Obscura while he observed the Enclave of Dusk from his Thetaspace. A few days before the cataclysmic event, Hybris performed a ritual with twelve of The Sisters singing in Greek on the shores of the Enclave.      While they sang of an old Greek tale about a thirsty eagle, a dying tree and the God of Love (Ksenitia tou Erota), Hybris emerged from The Masters Dojo with a dead heart. At the end of the The Sisters' song, Hybris stood amongst them and sacrificed them one by one in order to revive the strange heart. Though there were attempts to try and enter the Obelisk or even prevent Hybris from initiating his version of The Samsara, his paranoia was intense enough to see through any tricks people had for him and his ilk. The day of the event, The Obelisk Obscura was launched through multiple atmospheres above Earth and detonated as a slow, dirty bomb, spreading Nether smog throughout the entire Archipelago. Meanwhile, Hybris awaited the inevitable approach of the heroes on the Enclave while, with every passing second, the Nether smog worked to destabilize the dimensional barriers between the Elysium dimension and that of The Wilderness.      Two groups were immediately formed after Apollo City's Aether shield helped delay the destruction of Hybris' plan --- one team ventured to The Kingdom of Dawn to find a way to stop the smog and one team raced to fight against Hybris. The former soon encountered one of the guardian swans, Jerry, who, upon finding that they were worthy of entering the Dwelling of Zeus, begrudgingly led them into the purest area of Aether in the entire Archipelago. Though initially only able to quack out a sound that sounded like a crude formation of his name, he took on a gruff, New Yorker accent and explained that the Aether helps with his "speech impediment". There, he informed Gwen, Scaith, Arhant, Augustus and Emeric that the Greek Pantheon foretold of Sinister's attempt to absorb the universe and created the failsafe of the Aether Avatar in order to keep him in check. If the Aether Avatar is defeated, the universe would be lost but if the Aether Avatar was strong enough, they could keep Sinister in an eternal state of equilibrium.      However, he stated that the Elysium universe was different than many others because it acted as a nexus between all others. This gave Sinister an unprecedented advantage against the Pantheon, which was abused in the form of Savage Ken's possession and rampage. Because of this, he told them that this universe would require a team of Aether Avatars in order to keep Sinister from absorbing this nexus universe, asking who would be willing to sacrifice themselves to save the world. Although all were initially hesitant, except for Emeric, who believed it to be witchcraft, Scaith, Arhant and Augustus ultimately stepped into the Aether Pool and emerged as the very first champions of Apollo City. With their new power, Arhant and Augustus joined Nick and Trevor to deactivate the floating remnant of the Obelisk. There, they faced off against waves of undead cultists, Brother Niell and Cultist Richard. While the cultists were easilyt dispatched, Brother Niell and Richard were found to be formidable, especially in their hidden 'Blackout' transformations that turned them into horrific creatures.     Arhant sent her brother to deal with Brother Niell, defeating him in a mutually destructive effort that began with antimatter cannons from an aerial warship and ended with a hellacious bolt of green lightning. Richard took on Augustus, Nick, Trevor and his Watchdogs with concussive belches, Netheric vomit and even an attempt to eat them alive. However, with their combined teamwork and Augustus' newfound power as an Aether Guardian, they were able to reduce him to a gory mess. Arhant capped off their victory by sacrificing herself in order to fossilize the Obelisk completely, fracturing it into chunks of stone and dust that rendered the main engine of Hybris' Samsara inert. Elsewhere, Scaith joined Sakuya, Gwen, Emeric, Katrina and Heren to take down Hybris once and for all. Hybris' daughter, Arete, tried to keep the heroes from approaching her father, believing they weren't even worthy of facing him. But Katrina's immense strength and Aether blade proved the youth wrong, slicing her in two before stepping forward to face the deranged cult leader.      Initially, the fight went in the favor of Hybris and his Louisville Slugger, dodging multiple points of attack while holding back the brunt of their assault. But it was Emeric's explosive shell ordinance that turned the tables in the heroes' favor, allowing them to trade blows with the dangerous cult leader and driving him into the crater the Obelisk once occupied. After a short series of assaults in their favor, Hybris knew that he was outmatched when he discovered that Scaith had become an Aether Guardian and that Gwen knew how to utilize technology that could disrupt his preternatural perception. Hybris used his strength and speed to momentarily overwhelm the heroes in an escape toward the Ebony Shores. Mayor Katrina failed to stop his escape but did manage to eviscerate the lower half of his body with her Aether Sword, leaving Hybris to crawl on the black sands of his beach in a frenzy. Luckily for him, the Nether-infused Japanese spider crabs and sea urchins started to amass from the dark waters as an animal army, ready to protect their leader and buy him enough time to turn the tides of battle.     The heroes all tried to fight through wave after wave of the terrible crustaceans but only succeeded in summoning the Queen Nether Crab that towered over everyone and demanded vengeance for her murdered children. The heroes worked to fight against the swarm of sea creatures and stop Hybris from trying to gather enough Nether to avoid his appointment with death. Katrina managed to use her brute strength to force the Queen Nether Crab to retreat back into the ocean while Sakuya, Gwen, Scaith and Heren not only decimated the crabs' ranks but launched a final assault against Hybris himself, though at the cost of Emeric falling to the sins of the battlefield. On the cusp of declaring victory, however, they were all drawn into a pocket dimension where Hybris underwent an extreme transformation into his true form The Catalyst of Madness, Yaedah Hiphil. Fully indulging in the disgusting body horror of his new form while literally hurling a facsimile of the Archipelago at the heroes, he had hoped to murder them all and emerge from the dimension as the twisted messiah. But with Heren blinding his sensitive new eyes and Scaith and Katrina severing the puppeteer strings of his new form, he was forced to undergo one final attempt to destroy the heroes of Apollo.      But even the implosion of the dimension and his attempt to crush them with islands were miraculously defeated by their own counterattack, initiated by the Hyrule hero, Link, initiating a courageous bout of archery to blind his dimensional eyes while Heren split open the dimension itself for them to escape. With one final Shoryuken, Katrina decimated the last remaining fragment of Hybris' transformative state, ejecting them all onto the bloodied shores of the Enclave. Although they hoped to finally claim victory, they were unaware that one of Hybris' most fervent followers, and one of his most dangerous, Rias, was trying to destroy the Aether Shield of Apollo City and at least wipe the whole island off the face of the Earth. Albedo, Sesshomaru, Asuka and Sol raced to Apollo's defense against the cultist to try to try and stop Hybris' backup plan.     Soon enough, Arthur and Augustus also join in the fight but found Rias's offensive capabilities and immense speed overwhelming. To this end, Sol drained the heat of the area around Rias while Sesshomaru bound Rias with a light whip in an attempt to trap her and force a stationary engagement. This allowed Augustus and Arthur to land blows to force Rias on the defensive but she lashed out in anger to punch a hole clear through the noble knight Arthur. During their scuffle, both Rias and Arthur were flung into a nearby warehouse as Sol and Sesshomaru followed suit, dealing out enough damage to keep the cultist on the defensive. To try and end the fight, Asuka launched the Spear of Longinus. However, when the smoke cleared, Rias was nowhere to be found. Although her fate was unknown, the heroes of Apollo, after multiple sacrifices, had saved the Arch and the world. For now.