In the world of Lobotomy Corporation, an unceasing river of the mind flowed beneath the world. The minds and consciousnesses of everyone, living and dead, gathered there to form that river.
Upon the wasteland of the old world, twenty-six companies known as the "Wings of the World" established humanity's last "City." What they relied upon was technology that surpassed magic-Singularities. Time manipulation, the tearing of space, and, after glimpsing the "river," endless clean energy as a by-product...
Cogito, Lobotomy Corporation's Singularity, was a substance extracted from the subconscious, a wondrous existence that manifested as the "materialization of the mind." Its purpose was not to extract energy from Abnormalities, but to create Abnormalities directly.
Once injected into a human body, it would gradually tear apart the person's will, truly exposing their inner self and transforming them into a "well."
That well would then serve as a passage for dredging the primordial river/sea of consciousness, drawing out extracts such as emotions and concepts from humanity's subconscious. (See the Lobotomy Corporation setting book.)
Finally, the recipient's body, mind, and very existence would become the extract's physical shell. The entity born through this process was an Abnormality.
The tremendous emotions produced while tearing apart the will and exposing the inner self would become clean energy that could be refined.
In Hollow Knight, meanwhile, dreams were a world above reality, an eternal space between body and soul.
The Little Knight's Dream Nail was a divine artifact crafted by the Moth Tribe, who had mastered dream essence. Not only could it read thoughts, it could also cut through the veil of reality, allowing its wielder to enter the eternal space above reality-dreams.
Dreams and the primordial river/sea both originated from minds and consciousness, then formed realms of their own, transcending reality. They were like twins.
Then what wondrous sight would appear if he struck E.G.O. with the Dream Nail, cutting through an Abnormality's physical shell?
Growing increasingly curious, Shen Yu picked an employee at random and summoned him to the Manager's office.
After issuing the order, Shen Yu squeezed the Little Knight's round hand and discovered that it did not have the strange texture he had imagined. Instead, it was soft as cotton.
Paying closer attention, Shen Yu discovered an inexplicable link between himself and the Little Knight, one through which he could control the Little Knight's movements.
Shen Yu also took the opportunity to inspect the Charms the Little Knight had equipped:
Fragile Strength (increased Nail damage), Quick Slash (increased attack speed), Mark of Pride (increased attack range), Nailmaster's Glory (accelerated the charging of "Nail Arts"), Dream Wielder (accelerated the charging of the "Dream Nail").
Yep, my favorite brute-force build.
While waiting, Shen Yu first tested whether his current authority was sufficient to strip Angela of her surveillance and dispatch privileges. The answer, of course, was no.
Then I'll have to do this the old-fashioned way.
Shen Yu concentrated on touching his link with the Little Knight. Suddenly, his perspective changed to a third-person view centered on the Little Knight.
Good thing it's not the game's side-scrolling view. I couldn't even imagine how that would work. Would it have to start by flattening everything into two dimensions?
Shen Yu controlled the Little Knight, making the Little Knight jump down from him and move around. Once he had grown accustomed to the controls from this perspective, the "Little Knight" looked up at the camera in the upper-right corner.
Then the Little Knight leaped onto the wall. At the same time, fishhook-like Mantis Claws thrust out from the Little Knight's round hands and feet, gripping the wall firmly and providing leverage to jump higher.
Once close to the camera, Shen Yu made the Little Knight leap directly beneath it.
Then the Little Knight's Shade Cloak dissolved into tendrils of the Abyss that spread in all directions. Void covered the mask, pale eyes peering out from within, while a mixture of Soul and void spilled from where the mouth would have been, becoming countless howling ghosts of black and white.-Spell: Abyss Shriek (image)
The Little Knight then landed steadily. Through his third-person view, Shen Yu clearly saw the devastation within the attack's range.
The camera had already dissolved. A large hole had melted into the once smooth, pristine wall, its interior riddled with uneven pits. The nearby blue patterns had gone dark, as though drained of life.
Looking at the scene before him, Shen Yu could not help feeling astonished.
That shouldn't happen. The Little Knight's Shade spells did more damage, sure, but they never used to dissolve things.
Besides, Lobotomy Corporation itself was a product extracted from someone's consciousness after they had been injected with Cogito. In a sense, it was one enormous Abnormality.
The Manager's office, which even the nearly godlike ALEPH-class Abnormalities could not breach, had actually melted so easily.
Could the Little Knight have accidentally crossed worlds after ascending, causing a bug and gaining some of the Void God's properties?
At that thought, delight suddenly stirred in Shen Yu's heart. If void can eat away at the company, doesn't that mean I can pack up and get the hell out?
Hiss... no. Shen Yu frowned.
Judging by the ending cinematic, Lobotomy Corporation's headquarters lay who knew how deep underground. Even if he broke through the facility, he would never climb out in his lifetime.
Looks like I'll have to reach the true ending, then smash through a wall and escape once the company reaches the surface.
Shen Yu glanced at the screen and felt a headache coming on.
Of course I had to be the obsessive kind of Manager who wants every employee alive and an S-rank evaluation every day. How many resets is that going to take?
Terry was an ordinary level II employee of the Control Department. At that moment, he was enjoying a wonderful dream of leaving the ranks of low-level employees behind and savoring a delicious, juicy steak in the cafeteria.
But just moments earlier, an electric current through his arm had shattered that dream. He opened his bleary eyes and looked at his wristwatch, only for the message on it to send him into a cold sweat.
A summons from the Manager!
Had this happened when he first joined the company, he might have been happy. Now, all he felt was worry and fear.
That Manager was as cold and efficient as a machine, with collecting energy as his foremost objective.
To prevent Abnormalities from escaping, he could personally execute every employee with "Execution Bullets," trading low-level employees' lives for information on managing Abnormalities.
In fact, every department had emergency exits for employees to escape through. It was just that those exits had never been opened.
Terry had once seen a clerk crawling along, dragging a broken leg, sobbing and begging the Manager to open the exit. In the end, the giant dog Abnormality behind the clerk had chewed the clerk apart, bite by bite, and dug out the ▇▇.
In the Manager's eyes, company employees were merely cheap expendables. Only level V employees warranted even a little attention.
But even with level V employees, the Manager would not hesitate when it was time to expend them.
A summons from a company's manager might bring good news or bad. But this was Lobotomy Corporation, and their Manager was like a machine, so the odds of good news were less than one percent.
Many employees had received summons from the Manager. Most of the time, however, they went missing, disappearing completely.
But Terry knew he could not disobey. If he defied an order, Execution Bullets would be the easy outcome. Far more terrifying was being "dismissed."
Yesterday, the level V veteran who had been run over and killed by the "train" had once told him:
The veteran had seen a "dismissed" employee among [Nameless Fetus]'s food. And from the Abnormality Containment Unit housing [Spider Nest], faint, miserable cries for help could always be heard...
Terry glanced at the TETH-class E.G.O. beside his bed, Solitude, and grew even more pessimistic about his fate.
E.G.O. was prototype equipment transformed from cores extracted from Abnormalities, used by Lobotomy Corporation employees to work with and suppress Abnormalities.
E.G.O. equipment possessed terrifying potential. It was said that anyone who fully unleashed it could even defeat the beings that ruled The City.
But Terry was not that kind of exceptional person, so he had no right to refuse. He could only put on his E.G.O., open the protective door of the employee dormitory with his wristwatch, and enter the facility.
A few lamps illuminated the facility. Severed limbs lay scattered across the floor, and blood had congealed into a dark red, giving off a sickly-sweet metallic smell. The walls were covered in claw marks and dents from impacts, with tiny fragments of human tissue embedded in them.
The cleaning staff silently dealt with the aftermath, carefully picking up scraps of flesh and organs from the floor and sweeping them into carts. Their faces showed little expression, as though they had long since grown accustomed to it.
A mountain of corpses had already piled up in the Central Headquarters Rest Room. After tipping the shredded flesh from their carts onto it, the cleaners turned and headed elsewhere.
Terry glanced at the mountain of corpses and could not help remembering yesterday. His body trembled with fear, and he instinctively quickened his pace.
Just yesterday, a level-three alarm had sounded throughout the company, and large numbers of Abnormalities had escaped. Yet the instructions from that almost invariably correct Manager had been utterly chaotic.
According to the surviving high-level employees, the Manager's Cognitive Filter had unexpectedly failed, causing him to look directly at the Abnormality in its Containment Room, O-03-89 [Data Deleted].
If even that Manager could be driven mad by an Abnormality, how much longer could I possibly survive? Head lowered, Terry trudged toward the passage outside the Rest Room.
After Terry left, the mountain of corpses stood alone under the dim lights. Suddenly, the corpse on the far left began to move. Then a blood-red iron hook burst out of it...
When Terry reached the door to the Manager's office, he found the beautiful assistant standing quietly outside. But he had no attention to spare for admiring her now. He could only drag his heavy feet over and tell her why he had come.
She did not stop him. After offering a few words of encouragement, she opened the door.
At last, Terry got to see the Manager. Yet the man looked utterly ordinary-so ordinary that Terry could not find a single distinguishing feature to describe him.
That struck him as strange, because Abnormalities like [Old Lady], whom he worked with, shared that same quality.
Shen Yu looked at the slightly trembling employee before him. Recalling the setting of Lobotomy Corporation, he offered a smile.
"Don't worry. I'm not going to 'dispose of' you or send you on a mission. I called you here because I wanted to study the E.G.O. you use.
"So," Shen Yu patted his shoulder and pointed toward the Rest Room nearby.
"Lend me the E.G.O. you're wearing, then go get some sleep. That's all."
"Huh?" Terry blinked. "Th-that's it?"
"What?" A smile tugged at Shen Yu's lips. "Were you hoping for a promotion?"
"No, absolutely not." Terry waved his hands repeatedly, feeling immense terror at the word "promotion."
He promptly obeyed the order, taking off his E.G.O. before heading toward the Rest Room in his suit.
Hehe, I get to live another day. Praise God-no, praise the Manager!
Secretly delighted, Terry walked toward the Rest Room with light steps. But halfway there, he caught a dark shape on the wall to his left out of the corner of his eye. When he searched more carefully, however, he found nothing.
Ah, I'm being paranoid. How could there be an Abnormality in the Manager's office? This is the one truly safe place in the whole company.
Terry stretched, opened the Rest Room door, and flopped onto the incredibly comfortable bed.
Watching the door close, Shen Yu immediately used his authority to lock down the Rest Room. The Little Knight then dropped down from above and approached the E.G.O.
"This company really is rotten." Shen Yu glanced toward the Rest Room, recalling Terry's earlier expression of foolish delight.
It made him feel a little guilty, sitting in his office as the Manager with a beautiful woman by his side.
Shen Yu looked away and had the Little Knight use the Dream Nail on E.G.O. Solitude.
The Little Knight hunched over and took out an object shaped rather like a maraca. But at its tip was a core engraved with intricate patterns, giving off a dreamy, ethereal lavender glow.
The ethereal light gathered in the core. With a "ding," intricate circular patterns burst forth, forming a radiant, dreamlike long nail that struck the E.G.O. with a clang.
As the Dream Nail collided with the E.G.O., countless circular wheels bearing different patterns erupted, illuminating the entire office.
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