Empty Nest Cabin

When the endless darkness faded, Shen Yu found himself inside a house.

Yes, for some unknown reason, he had been separated from Little Knight and regained his original form, leaving him standing alone in this cabin.

Shen Yu took a deep breath and began surveying his surroundings.

The wooden door was shut tight, its hinges rusted. The room was dim, with a few strands of sunlight filtering through cracks in the walls to illuminate the unsettling scene.

The old floorboards, rotten and blackened, creaked and gave off a moldy smell. The plaster peeled from the walls, exposing damp, blackened adobe beneath.

Tattered curtains hung on the walls, thick with cobwebs and dust.

The old woman was the room's sole occupant, her face withered, her whole body radiating an air of death.

She seemed to have become one with the cold, gloomy cabin, a part of this desolate space. Her creaking rocking chair was her only companion, breaking the deathly silence with its squeaking rhythm.

Strange objects lay piled haphazardly around the room: a broken old clock, battered boxes, an aged hyacinth vase, and more.

Spiders spun webs in the corners, where indistinct objects lay heaped. The air smelled of rot and mildew, mingled with a strange, sweet tang of blood.

The entire house was shrouded in silent loneliness, cut off from the world, as though forgotten in a corner of time.

Suddenly, the rocking chair stopped creaking. Old Lady slowly turned her head, fixing her hollow eye sockets on Shen Yu as the corners of her mouth pulled upward.

"Dear, would you like to hear a story?"

"Sorry, I don't want to hear it." Shen Yu clamped his hands over his ears and backed away.

He had read the work logs in the game. Old Lady knew every story on Earth, and some that weren't even from Earth... and those stories could melt a person's brain.

But Old Lady paid him no mind. She merely began speaking slowly in her hoarse voice:

"Beneath the azure sky, upon the boundless ocean..."

"You rowed out to sea in a black boat covered by a white shell...

"The sky was no longer blue, the ocean lost its calm, and your fragile little boat could not withstand the wind and waves...

"You fell into the world's forgotten reaches, lost in the primordial ocean...

A bleak sorrow spread through Shen Yu's heart, almost robbing him of breath. It was endless loneliness and grief.

At the same time, EGO Solitude at Shen Yu's waist turned into black smoke and constricted tightly around him.

He could feel the excruciating pain in his waist, but when he tried to pull it away with his hands, they passed straight through as though touching smoke.

Seeing that this was useless, Shen Yu grabbed the old clock beside him and hurled it at her.

Clang! The old clock struck Old Lady's head and shattered into a heap of parts, but she continued telling her story.

Gritting his teeth, Shen Yu lifted a wooden box from the floor and suppressed the loneliness in his heart. Using the technique [Aerial Dash], he leaped into the air and brought the box smashing down on her head, accelerating with gravity.

Crash! The wooden box drove Old Lady straight into the floor. Her rocking chair instantly burst apart, scattering fragments everywhere, but the story continued.

Shen Yu raised the wooden box and slammed it down again and again, yet he still could not stop the story.

"The shattered white shell could not be repaired in time, and the empty black boat could no longer support your body...

"Seawater filled your lungs, and seawater melted your brain..."

"You would ultimately drown in the primordial ocean..."

Suddenly, Shen Yu realized he was holding an oar slick with water. After a moment's thought, he decisively raised it and smashed it down on Old Lady's head.

"Sorry, I don't believe in fate. If I dropped dead just because you said so, wouldn't that make me look pathetic?"

As time passed, Shen Yu's vision gradually blurred. He could no longer breathe, and his body staggered, but he kept raising the oar and bringing it down on her.

"Damn it, this thing has way too much HP." Shen Yu panted, struggling to lift the oar above his head.

Even if I'm about to die, I'll get a few more hits in to vent my anger.

Boom! The entire Empty Nest Cabin suddenly shook violently. Shen Yu braced himself with the oar to keep from falling. After briefly assessing the situation, he realized the impact had come from above.

Shen Yu looked up and discovered that countless black patches had appeared across the roof. A drop of pitch-black liquid seeped through a crack and fell onto Old Lady's face.

The words coming from Old Lady's mouth instantly became a jumble of noise. A hole melted into her face as though molten lava had dripped onto it, bringing her never-ending story to a halt.

With the second impact, the ceiling suddenly burst apart. A dazzling streak of pale light plummeted down and exploded against the floor, tearing the rotten boards apart as the nothingness of the Abyss erupted. Spell-Descending Dark.

When matter filled the nothingness, Shen Yu saw Little Knight beside Old Lady. Two pairs of hollow nostrils-scratch that, eyes-met.

Shen Yu immediately reached for their link, switching his consciousness to Little Knight's control perspective to escape the corrosion of "loneliness."

A pitch-black hole had appeared in Old Lady's chest. Her body trembled as she called out in a hoarse voice:

"Child, would you like to hear a story?"

Little Knight did not answer, and could not answer. Silently, Little Knight jumped and slashed her head with the Nail, then bounced back up from the impact. Repeating the downward strikes kept Little Knight airborne.-A Hollow Knight specialty: pogoing.

After bouncing off another strike, Little Knight flapped the Monarch Wings and flew higher.

Countless pale motes rapidly streamed into Little Knight's body. Then the motion abruptly accelerated, even tracing a circular outline. As Little Knight descended to Old Lady's level, Little Knight began spinning at tremendous speed, the Nail slicing rapidly through her like a bladed wheel.-Nail art: Cyclone Slash.

Charging a nail art ordinarily took a long time, but the Charm "Nailmaster's Glory" could greatly speed up the process.

When Cyclone Slash ended, Shen Yu controlled Little Knight to land another Nail strike and retreat with the recoil, intending to finish her with the spell "Shade Soul."

Void enveloped Little Knight's body, and pale light shone from Little Knight's eyes as Little Knight assumed a shadow form. Then a mass of shadow with pale eyes shot forth and engulfed Old Lady's head.

But the Abnormality [Old Lady] still did not die. The stump left by the Void's corrosion pulsed, swelling and shrinking as though something were about to burst out.

At that moment, Little Knight bent forward. Pale beams rose around Little Knight's body, drawing in the surrounding energy.-Ability: Focus.

Brilliant rays burst out of Old Lady's body one after another and streamed into Little Knight.

To Shen Yu's astonishment, the ground beneath him rapidly melted and was swallowed by deep darkness. The entire house melted like chocolate, dissolving into endless nothingness. Finally, his consciousness faded as well.

When Shen Yu regained consciousness, he found himself back in the Containment Room, but there was nothing beside him except Little Knight. The Abnormality Old Lady had vanished, leaving only a puddle of liquid that swallowed all light.

Just then, a piece of information suddenly appeared in Shen Yu's mind:

Obtained: [Lonesome]

0-01-12 [Old Lady] Attunement Rate: 80%

E.G.O. manifestation: weapon and armor templates customizable.

E.G.O. display:

[Lonesome Dust]: consumes 30% of the wielder's Sanity to release Lonesome Dust at a target. Once the target is entangled by "loneliness," they take 4-6 mental damage every 6 seconds for 30 seconds and cannot move. Cost: the first use each day requires no payment. Each subsequent use subjects the mind to 3 months of loneliness.

[Story]: tells stories that do not belong to this world, melting the listeners' brains.

E.G.O. release:

Partial release: [Empty Nest Cabin]

The wielder consumes X% Sanity to summon [1-10-12-1] [Empty Nest Cabin], imprisoning the target for X/10 minutes. While imprisoned, the target takes 12-18 mental damage per second. Cost: the mind endures X years of loneliness.

Full release: unlocked at 100% Attunement Rate.

E.G.O. awakening:

1. Attunement Rate: 112%

2. 0-01-12 [Old Lady] origin-[Lonesome] (obtained)

After receiving this information, Shen Yu froze for a moment, then began questioning whether it was real.

He drew the revolver-shaped E.G.O. weapon Lonesome from his waist and began picturing a form in his mind.

Following Shen Yu's thoughts, the revolver gradually elongated, finally transforming into a rust-covered, long-handled scythe.

E.G.O.: [Lonesome] Class: THTE Damage type: mental

Template: other

Attack: 3-4, attack speed: fast, range: average

After briefly trying it out, Shen Yu discovered that each attack could only deal four instances of mental damage. It did not have the special attacks of the ALEPH-Class E.G.O. Da Capo.

Still, its damage had finally improved, and the E.G.O.'s psychological punishment was not applied immediately, but settled at midnight that day.

"Depression FM?" Shen Yu quipped, slinging the "budget" Da Capo onto his back as he thought.

It now seemed that entering an Abnormality's world with Little Knight's Dream Nail and defeating it could greatly increase its Attunement Rate.

Furthermore, E.G.O. manifestation allowed him to customize its template. In other words, his plan to raise [Spider Nest]'s Attunement Rate and obtain "Silk Thread," an essential component of Hornet's combat techniques, was entirely feasible.

Still, the disappearance of such a large Abnormality was no small matter. He would have to deal with it. Shen Yu turned to Little Knight and said:

"Can you spit out a little of the one you just swallowed?"

Little Knight tilted their head at his words, then hunched over. Before long, two streams of black tears flowed from their nostrils-ahem, eyes-and turned into dust on the floor.

Thanks to his increased Attunement Rate, Shen Yu had learned a great deal about [Old Lady]. Drawing on his close connection to the dust on the floor, he decisively began "sculpting a person."

As Shen Yu shaped [Old Lady], grains of dust drifted from the E.G.O. he wore, passing through his skin and burrowing into his flesh. They finally settled on his heart, encasing it in a dull gray shell...

Finally, Shen Yu shook out his aching hands and nodded in satisfaction at [Old Lady], who had reappeared in the Containment Room.

This newly formed [Old Lady] had the same physiological responses as before, and interactions with her worked normally. She was essentially a split-off of the original. Her energy production might just be a tiny bit lower.

"Done." Shen Yu left the Containment Room, called Harvey over from outside, and headed with him to [Spider Nest]'s Containment Unit in the Intelligence Department.

After Shen Yu left, only the lonely Old Lady remained in the Containment Room once more. At some point, a small damp patch appeared on the rocking chair beneath her. Then cloudy liquid began seeping from its seat and backrest.

The murky liquid slowly seeped from every part of the chair, trickling down its legs and forming sticky puddles. Suddenly, deathly pale roots emerged between the floorboards and gradually absorbed the liquid, leaving no trace.

"Old Lady" rocked her chair back and forth. Faint sounds hid beneath its creaking: the burble of water. An ancient river flowed quietly, following the opening cut by the Dream Nail into reality.

In the deathly still darkness, a piercing bzzt suddenly rang out. A screen lit up, illuminating the winding patterns crawling across the white walls.

The screen flickered, displaying information:

[█████ acquired, condition 2 fulfilled, First Directive amended, "Seed of Light" Script amended]

The progress bar on the screen slowly advanced, its numbers climbing one after another:

[1%]

[6%]

...

[Amendment complete, "Seed of Light" updated to "Light of █"]

[Notice: if no further action is taken, this record will be deleted in 3 seconds]

[3]

[2]

[1]

[Deletion complete]

The screen gave another bzzt and went dark, plunging the space into pitch-blackness once more. Above it, the cart transporting corpses continued to creak.