Hollow Knight Fanfic - Honor and Blood

Prologue - Trajedia.

¨Countless ages in the past, Hallownest was nothing but a dark, empty place. One of the many cracks that saturated this world. Then he arrived.

His awakening marked the beginning of everything. A new silver era for Hallownest. A new beginning. His light encompassed every corner of that empty hole, and with it, his wisdom. He was known by many names. The first of all. The emperor. The great Wyrm.

Under her beautiful wings, Hallownest achieved a glory that no one would ever be able to imagine. All the bugs united under one flag, all under wisdom and the gift of mind and thinking.

Cities rose, technology, agriculture, and metallurgy developed. The great king's mind had no boundaries, and seeing his people grow was his greatest passion. Passion that he shared with all those who were willing to listen to him. However, that silver age was not eternal.

Still eager to bring much more light to this kingdom, the Wyrm fell victim to a serious illness. An unknown disease, which no doctor in Hallownest was capable of curing. His agony became his purgatory, and the great Emperor died writhing in the pain of madness. Surrounded by his loved ones and closest friends.

No one knows what was the fate of his wife, the White Empress, faithful companion of the Wyrm and his best confidant. Some believe he fled far away. Others think she shared a similar fate with her husband. Others think he was another victim of the internal conflicts and power plays that broke out within the White Palace after Wyrm's death.

Now, the firstborn of the Wyrm was the one who sat on the silver throne, surrounded by vipers and dangerous eminences who only craved power. An internal struggle that divided the court, in order to gain the favor of the Hollow prince and thus control the kingdom under the shadows.

This disastrous power struggle within the palace was reflected in the kingdom itself, and the warlords loyal to the Wyrn made the fateful decision to secede from the kingdom. A rupture that would lead to the war for supremacy that has lasted seven years after the fall of the Wyrm. What was once a glorious empire was now nothing more than remnants, spread across the seven kingdoms of Hallownest:

In the depths of the kingdom, stood the White Palace, capital of the Pale Empire, where the great City of Tears still demonstrated its former grandeur. A kingdom consumed by power plays and murders within the court, in a constant struggle for control between loyalists led by Luriel, minister of the Left, and the master, minister of the right and highest religious authority of the Pale Empire: The Cult of the Soul.

In the other corner of Hallownest, stands proud the nation of the Crimson Silk, led by the matriarch and warlord Herrak, the beast. A nation that thrived in the dark, narrow passages of the ancient Deep Nest. The weavers were the closest allies of the ancient Wyrm, and were the first to declare their independence from the kingdom when they saw all the rot that spread through the recesses of the palace.

The mantis did not hesitate to separate after the outbreak of the conflict. His people were proud, and the way of the warrior did not allow them to tolerate such misdeeds within their capital. Led by the Board of Three Lords, the mantids stand firm under the banner of the Claw of Honor, the nation that will defend their pride and traditions.

Another kingdom that could not tolerate the court vipers were the bees. Queen Vespa had given up her crown to grow alongside the Pale Emperor's prosperity, but this rot that corrupted the silver throne is not even a shadow of its former light. The nation of the Golden Honeycomb is an impenetrable fortress. Her people prospered under the rule of their queen, and did not view strangers favorably.

The Green Path was a cult of life, whose doctrines were separated from the roots of the Cult of the Soul by preferring a way of venerating their ancestors based on meditation and personal improvement, and not on the rest to a higher entity. Their cities were divided by the lush vegetation that grew along their canals, and their moss warriors were masters of ambushes. Entering their territory without adequate preparation would be suicide. And yet, no one knows exactly who rules over the lands of the Green Path, although some speculate that it is the demigod Unn himself.