HSR Lore and Notes

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====== Nihility (The Human Comedy) ======

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==== Night Watch ====
When Wintersweet-II turned into a black hole due to gravitational collapse, drawing numerous onlookers, you suddenly had the urge to open the protective barrier of the sightseeing ship and take a leap toward the event horizon of the intertwining light and darkness. Death is always tempting — it is like a carnivorous plant with the brightest colors in the forest that lures the lost insects yet cut off their path.

Where should life lead? You have no clue, but you are certain death is not the answer. You listen to each sorrowful tale, seeing them seep into the crevices in the cosmos, making the hopeless journey seem insurmountable. Even so, you will still yearn to be a guardian at the edge of the black hole. You want to stop the children who intend to plunge into nihility and tell them, "The future lies in the other direction."

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==== Sin Thirster ====
When they send you the target's information, they only watch you from afar and dread to come closer. Hailed as a moving dagger, you are assigned to eliminate enemies efficiently with no sense of self. You suppress your presence, avoiding the sight of both humans and machines. You complete the assignment swiftly, as it is a walk in the park for you. You try to recall the target's expression — shock and fear. A vicious assassin might find pleasure in this, but you see your own end within.

Once all enemies have been eradicated, the assassin will no longer be needed. You should not have chose this path from the beginning. Under Freya's ensanguined suppression, no one has lent you a helping hand, and the fallen detective has never given you a choice. When your employer's servants knock on your door, you get up as usual and head toward the exit to accept the fact that you are already dead.

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==== Common Mortal ====
When you accept the flower from the young man, his antennae twitch slowly, sending subtle electromagnetic waves to your sensors that convey how much he doesn't want to let go. The humble Hymenoptera residents still see you as their friend, even though they can hardly accept someone without compound eyes as one of them. They bring you along as they go back and forth between the honey fields and their nests. In your book, they are described as a group even more savage and despicable than the Annihilation Gang.

You can't help wondering what constitutes the truth. Pride and prejudice have seeped into knowledge, forming a "perfect" model of the universe, so much that it diminishes the value of knowledge, turning it into a mere illusion anyone can tamper with.

You know you are lost, but there is no way to find your bearings. Whenever you think the next planet can offer you the answer, it only leaves you more confused than ever.

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==== Sizzling Thunder ====
Standing in the middle of the stage, you stare at the bleak shade of red in the sky, knowing what will happen next. The much-awaited future will never come. The sorrowful past will fade into the White dwarf star's vortex, and sheer silence will ensue. Timid lords will escape by star ships, and helpless children will weep on the streets. As for you, you will remain standing here until the last ounce of your life is ablaze in conflagration.

You know everything has lost its meaning, and no one can rewrite how things end. Yet, you insist on singing for this planet you hate vehemently, for it is rotten but warm. You want to sing for the sun that kills, for it is glaring yet gorgeous.

Even though everything is coming to an end, you want to express your love for this damned world one last time. With the song's thunderous echo, you let the entire universe know that a band and a planet named Emerald-III once existed.

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==== Jester of Anatta ====
You swallow a Tami Protozoa's egg, which explodes like a bomb in your mouth the moment it comes into contact with your saliva. The audience cracks up at the sight and applauds your funny look, but they will soon forget about you and turn their attention to more exciting shows. You need to find something more eye-catching for your performance.

It can be blowing up the farm in Hyai'i Federation, setting the Nosewalkers free to run on the streets. It can be stealing a tycoon's pocket watch, and being pursued by the private guards of the Capital of Passion. It is self-destructive and meaningless, but everyone will cheer for your absurd actions. They will burst into laughter, as they watch the funniest clown in the universe. When the stage crumbles in self-destruction, the audience leaves in disappointment. Lying in rags and debris, you mock your pathetic self.

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==== Self-Proof Institute ====
The mercilessness of the universe is in the annihilation of the soul. When people reach the end, they walk towards that void — there is no future, no new life. They bring nothing with them, as if they've come to this world from the future. This is why death is oh-so horrifying. But even so, people can still leave something behind, a symbol of the fight against nihility, and as proof that certain names once existed.

You have answered riddles that stumped the world, etching your name using formulae and history. You have treated plagues that ravaged stars, where white crystalline statues erected in your honor will far outlive you. Time is too short, thus your mind and hands never stop for a moment, proposing axioms and creating machines. The people worship your relentless diligence, but never sense your fear.

Faster, even faster, creating even more, leaving behind even more, until you'll never be forgotten.

[[divergent:nihility.extrapolation.spi|Extrapolation Rewind]]
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==== Self-Annihilator ====
The spiraling, fathomless abyss hovers in the misted dream, deeper and darker than the dimmest corner of the world, where even the lightless background can also cast slices of shadows on it. You gaze at the vortex, your life infinitely extended, diced into shards that flow and fall, from the ground into the sky. You jump up, hoping to keep your doppelganger. But when you stretch out your hand to touch it, all you can feel is a cold wall.

This is your home, but it may also not be, your memories full of holes gradually rotting away. You see your other self walk out, open the door, but fall right into darkness with one step. You try to rush over and catch him, but you just can't seem to find your vanished arms.

You raise your head in bewilderment — the sun has sunk into the great sea, and like melted flakes of snow, you also start to melt. You are fading into yourself — perhaps you are the sun? You once again fall into the abyss.

[[divergent:nihility.extrapolation.sa|Extrapolation Rewind]]
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==== Rescuer ====
You see that your every move is being predicted with flawless precision. You understand that everything you do is no more than a fixed trajectory. The silhouette of Nihility envelops you. You may struggle or accept it, but they will all eventually annihilate in a pre-written storybook.

Will you accept this? All you have to do is forget, and spend the rest of your life in uncaring bliss. No! You must fight back! You must raise a battle cry! You must raise the flag of rebellion against this tragic universe and save people from the prewritten conclusion. Massacre. Destruction. You point the mouth of the cannon at the ones you love the most. No hesitation. No suffering. Just close your eyes for a second and you can help them escape this world where life is worse than death. However, you must still bear the torture of staying alive, as there are many more that wait for Destruction's salvation.

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==== Death Denier ====
You awaken in your cold hospital bed as the sweet smell of food makes you nearly sick. Trans-Kersti Syndrome is a complete breakdown of the body starting with the immune system. As you look over to the side of your bed, you see the water tank that held Purlang's cephalopod patient not long ago, whose non-stop mumbling in the tank would keep you awake all night. The scholars on the news are showing viewers bottles that load black holes, but black holes are so far from you and you cannot leave your hospital room. Anything outside of this cube is a space that may as well not exist to you.

Survival is like an endless struggle. Some win, some lose, and some choose to quit. Even though death is always patiently waiting at the end, you remain resolute that you will take your first victory before you meet it.

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==== Doctors of Chaos ====
"Nihility" is a relentless disease embodied within "existence," gnawing at consciousness, life, and the very fabric off the universe. The gloomy abyss consumes the bodies of self-annihilators, while the fog of self-doubt pulls civilization into black holes. How profoundly tragic THEIR being is, and how diminutive you are in comparison!

You will mend the flaws THEY left behind, filling the hollow chambers of the human heart with jigsaw pieces of meaning. You will hold those who wander in a delicate trance, using clouds and potions to calm the world's aching void. You will catch every soul about to jump into the whirlpool and soothe every spirit fallen into annihilation. At last, you will prove the existence of the self and show that everything holds meaning.

One day, you will stand face to face with that dark celestial body and heal the god who "exists" within this world.

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==== Executor of Vengeance ====
Information of the commission sinks into the depths of the crystal, delivering precise and unambiguous coordinates. You navigate through the shielding of the cognitive recognition field, purchase a ticket to the outskirts of the city and access rights to ten cubic meters of oxygen before ascending the creaky stairs to the rickety apartment. An Intellitron with less than 10,000 system hours of runtime — a young man. Is it a vendetta, a love affair, or a business feud? You pass through the quarantine door, gun aimed squarely at his brow.

Confused, his logic circuits rapidly process the situation. He knows who is trying to kill him — and why. So, he pays you handsomely. You return with a core and leave with two heads. If revenge breeds more revenge, then let death end the chain of hatred. It's not curiosity driving you. You're merely fulfilling their wishes.

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==== Relative Tracer ====
What a magnificent aphorism — the concept of "relative cognition" lost to history. You became a devout disciple of this bygone school of thought when you clutched that straw as your ego fell. You know that so-called reality is merely an island formed amidst chaotic cognitive fluid, and that the world will shift according to your imagination as long as your beliefs are transformed.

You are no longer swayed by fancy words, choosing instead to heed the maxims that explain everything. You map your world onto a canvas devoid of abstract concepts, of gravitational forces that rend the heavens, and of absolute truths. Instead, there are only malleable cognition and the void. When you open your eyes, the world comes into being. When you close them, the world vanishes.

They scoff at your sophistry and deem you mad, so you no longer listen to their voices and kill them within your world.

[[divergent:nihility.extrapolation.rt|Extrapolation Rewind]]