King Sisyphus

This article is about the role of Sisyphus in the lore of ULTRAKILL. For his Prime Soul form, see Sisyphus Prime. For the soldier of his army and the miniboss of 4-2: GOD DAMN THE SUN, see Sisyphean Insurrectionist. For the King of Lust who led a renaissance, see King Minos.

King Sisyphus was a previous resident of the Greed layer, the leader and tyrant of the insurrection within the same layer, and is later reborn as a Prime Soul known as Sisyphus Prime in P:2 WAIT OF THE WORLD.

Portrait of King Sisyphus, shown in 4-4: CLAIR DE SOLEIL.

Sisyphus is first mentioned in 4-2: GOD DAMN THE SUN in a book detailing the growing insurrection in the wake of the angels' departure.

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TEXT SCANNED - UNIQUE PASSAGE:

"It has been days since we last saw any angels. Without their
oppression, there is no need for us to carry on our punishment. Even
the meekest of the damned have abandoned their penance to take up
arms. All can see how they have robbed us of our minds, bodies, and
souls, leaving us only the hopes of a salvation that will never
come, but no longer.

King Sisyphus has acted in secret until now, amassing an army
whose strength and numbers swell, but now there is no need to hide
anymore. We have lived in the shadow of Heaven long enough to forget
the taste of fear. Now the Sisyphean Insurrectionists prepare for
war.

I have heard of Minos beginning a peaceful revolution, but our
King Sisyphus knows such pacificity will gain no favor form our
cruel captors. He knows that one can only fight power with power,
and he shall lead us to freedom.

If only we knew the suffering that would befall us next..."

REMAINING TEXT: IRRELEVANT.

Next, the corpse of Sisyphus can be seen in 4-4: CLAIR DE SOLEIL after the first jump pad, accessible via shooting the water in the Temple of the Mouse and the Rodent (the room to the left) and heading back straight through the now-open door. The headless body of Sisyphus hangs from the darkness by his hands. In front of it is a platform where the player can find the Sawblade Launcher and a portrait of the husk of Sisyphus, surrounded by murals of his killer, Gabriel.

Sisyphus is last seen as a Prime Soul (as Sisyphus Prime) in P-2: WAIT OF THE WORLD as he breaks free of the Flesh Panopticon before battling V1.

Appearance

As a husk, Sisyphus was a large, burly, dark-skinned man with a beard and long dreadlocks. He wears a blindfold over his eyes, which cover streaks of molten gold.

His corpse is very similar to The Corpse of King Minos, in that it is incredibly large, long and thin, black with decay, laced with barbed wire, and metallic blocks around the neck area.

As a Prime Soul, he appears as a towering golden translucent humanoid. He retains his bulky physique as a husk and has a visible circulatory system underneath. His neck is severed, with the head instead being a radiant solar glow with lines contouring a vague facial structure. His lower arms and legs are stained red with blood. When Sisyphus Prime is damaged enough, he grows his beard and dreadlocks, and his limbs are further stained with blood.

Backstory

It is unknown if this is the same Sisyphus in Ancient Greek mythology. If so, this Sisyphus was the founder and king of Ephyra, the supposed original name of Corinth. Sisyphus, avaricious and deceitful, maintained an iron-fisted rule by killing guests to his palace and taking pleasure in it. He cheated death twice: once by tricking his captor Thanatos to trap him instead, and twice by fooling his wife into intentionally disrespecting his body and feigning offense so that Persephone would release his spirit to the real world again. After this, he was forcibly dragged down to the underworld by Hermes. Here Hades would punish Sisyphus by giving him an impossible task: to roll a boulder up a hill, only for it fall to the bottom just before it peaked, repeating this action for an eternity.

The last line of Sisyphus Prime's terminal entry ("One must imagine Sisyphus happy") takes ULTRAKILL's characterization of Sisyphus from The Myth of Sisyphus, a 1942 philosophical essay by Albert Camus. It describes a viewpoint of absurdism, how to live by it, and how it manifests -- in this case, Sisyphus is aware of the futility of his punishment, and his acceptance of this allows him to continue on out of pure spite and contentedness. Indeed, it is these traits that encouraged many of Sisyphus's actions in ULTRAKILL.

Within ULTRAKILL's lore, Sisyphus was likely just another large husk in Hell undergoing punishment in the layer of Greed, presumably the same one he carried out in Tartarus. He later took advantage of the angels being distracted by God's disappearance and the subsequent chaos in Heaven by gathering the husks of Greed that were intelligent and/or strong enough to fight and trained them, killing the demons still acting as wardens to the layer. When the angels returned with new order, the archangel Gabriel led an army and met with the Sisyphean Insurrection. While the fight was on a massive scale, the husks were slowly losing due to the better strategy and experience of the angels.

When Gabriel realized the insurrectionists relied on the radiance and guidance of Sisyphus to a fault, he ordered a focus fire on the king. Gabriel unsheathed his two swords, Justice and Splendor, and beheaded the king. Without their beloved leader, the insurrectionists fell submissive to Heaven's rule once again. All allies to the rebellion were cleaved into pieces so they could suffer their original punishment still but were less inclined to rebel once more.

Almost immediately after his death, the soul of Sisyphus began to form into a Prime Soul. The angels constructed the Flesh Panopticon out of fear and trapped Sisyphus inside, hoping he would not awaken to finish his ascension. Any other husks that did not submit were also taken down to the Panopticon's quarters, in the City of Dis in Heresy.

Within the Panopticon, he lied dormant, frozen in his ascension until an unwitting machine awakened both it and him.

In-Game

As a husk, his portrait is seen in front of his corpse in 4-4: CLAIR DE SOLEIL. This is seen at the top of the page.

Sisyphus Prime in the second phase of his fight, showing his dreadlocks, a beard, more toned and gritty skin layer, and blood on his extremities -- similar to his appearance as a husk.

As a Prime Soul, Sisyphus Prime can be encountered after all levels in Chapter 2 (Greed, Wrath, Heresy) have a P-Rank and P-1 has been completed. It is not necessary to P-Rank P-1. Once this is achieved, the door just off the path in 6-2: AESTHETICS OF HATE will become open to the player.

After an intense gauntlet to truly test the best of the player's skills, the player can encounter the Flesh Panopticon that has held Sisyphus ever since his defeat in Greed. Due to V1 awakening and firing upon the Panopticon, Sisyphus becomes a Prime Soul within it and breaks out. He monologues on his impending destruction upon Heaven, but his curiosity of V1's skills is brought up after he notices "the blood of Minos" on it. He threatens the machine to the death and the two fight. After a long battle, Sisyphus is eventually defeated, and he reminisces on his meaningless life and the joy he feels for it, laughing maniacally before dying for the final time.

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