A hazy fog was set over the ruins of Hintertomb. The ancient stone carved in a way that betrayed the long dead peoples rich culture that had long succumbed to beasthood and death. Foul poison infested every crevice, and the beasts here had adapted to it, thriving in the fetid environment.
Gehrman had considered using the old [Red Messenger Ribbon] which would purify the poison and enhance his resistances.
But instead he decided on a more direct approach.
The poison could not hurt him if it burned up before reaching him, after all.
From far above, one could clearly see an immolating light breaking through the haze.
The First Hunter had come to Hintertomb, and he brought unfathomable ruin.
Dozens of creatures surrounded him. Dogs with sagging, bloody skin. Rats engorged and mutated by blood and guts. And even deformed human looking things that screeched untold agony and lunged with broken weapons.
Many excreting the dire poison and dire bloodlust filled them.
Each was of the Corrupted Rank.
Each fell to one strike of the [Burial Blade].
Gehrman didn't bother creating blood-constructs, instead he saved his Essence and focused on burning brighter and hotter.
The old advantage of these Nightmares held true.
The beasts were largely simple, and with Gehrman and Johann's experiences he knew every permutation of attack they could produce.
Naturally there was a margin of error, and the more beasts there were the more difficult this whole thing would be.
However, as far as Gehrman could recall, the madness of Beasthood was pervasive enough to disallow no true intelligence, and thus, no Tyrants, Terrors, or Titan's could truly be born.
With that fact, the danger to Gehrman's life was almost non-existent.
Even as the Corrupted destroyed the ground beneath their feet with their strength, emanating a deadly miasma, Gehrman was more deadly.
In the span of 5 seconds Gehrman performed multiple swings and dodges, weaving together a dance of death.
Normally, a Transcendent Weapon would not easily cut through a Corrupted abomination. It definitely could cut them, but it would not be smooth.
There were things that could remedy this, however.
Enchantments that explicitly increased the weapons attack potency – which he had.
Additional reinforcement – which he had in the Corrupted Blood.
And pure physical power – which he had in the bloodflame around him and the weapon.
There was only so much that normal physical things could do against Nightmare Creatures, a Rail Gun was needed to even damage an Awakened, a Nuclear Bomb to kill a Fallen.
To kill a Corrupted with mundane physical phenomena one might very well need a power equal to the surface of the sun.
And right now, his flames burned damn near close to that level of heat. The atoms excited to such a point that their speed became frenzied.
Furthermore, the constant consuming of Corrupted Blood increased his Madness. And while that hindered his dexterity and acuity, it further amplified his power by removing his mental restrictions and emanating the 7th Madness which stilled each and every creature.
So even though he was a mere Ascended, Hintertomb was becoming utterly and completely devoured by the lower Ranked being.
[You have slain a Corrupted Beast, Hintertomb Madman.]
[You have slain a Corrupted Beast, Hintertomb Rabid Dog.]
[You have slain a Corrupted Monster, Hintertomb Fetid Rat.]
[You have received a Memory.]
[You have slain…]
The voice of the Nightmare Spell rang in his ears over and over, regailing him with confirmation of his conquest. Each time, he could feel the simultaneous loss of life, and thus the freedom to take the blood from them.
For the sake of efficiency, he did not bring out the [Portable Blood Imbiber], instead he cut deep gashes on areas of his body with veins and limited muscle. Then he would pull the blood into himself, thus avoiding tasting the foul stuff.
As he was doing it, his consciousness started to shudder and a sobbing laugh escaped him grabbing the edges of his hair he pulled himself, dodging another attack. Then he raised his scythe again.
And he received something more.
[You have slain…]
[You have slain…]
[You have received a Blood Chunk].
Gehrman blinked and groaned, looking for all intents and purposes totally and wholly dumbfounded.
"Eh?"
That last line…felt different. It sounded different. The voice was the same but there was something like a lacing, a slight alteration of timbre.
And after a few seconds he processed it.
A Blood Chunk.
A Blood Chunk?
The items he got from his Soul Forest?
How could he have gotten such an item from simply killing an enemy in the real world.
…the answer was obvious. Gehrman's Soul was also Paleblood's Soul.
And Paleblood, the Moon Presence, now had even greater control over the Nightmare in accordance with Gehrman's own increase in power.
So why wouldn't She be able to supply him with those materials?
Gehrman frowned and entered his Soul Sea.
Within the wooden workshop at the top of the hazy hill he looked around. The workshop was still largely sparse and nothing new stuck out.
Gehrman jerkingly made his way to the odd storage shelf. He trailed his fingers around the shelves.
Before fighting the Winter Beast, he had spent the six Blood Chunks he had in his possession to reinforce the [Greedy Bloodstone Tailsman], it had not fully become a Transcendent Memory, but it was quite a bit stronger than any Ascended Memory had the right to be.
In any case, he should have had zero Blood Chunks, and yet, there rested a new one right at its designated spot upon the shelf. Glowing with the trapped will of the horrid creature. Pale red ridges like bleeding muscles formed the solid chunk.
Tinged with madness, a low chuckle escaped from Gehrman.
"Ah, this is too much," he said in between gasping breaths.
His mind raced with possibilities. There were several Ascended Memories that he greatly wished to increase the Rank of. Obviously fully upgrading his incredible Charm would come first.
After that, the unnervingly powerful [Slothful Evelyn]. The thing had managed to crack the shell of the Winter Beast, a Corrupted Titan. Even though the bullet was of the same Rank having been fed the stored blood of a Corrupted abomination, the power it wielded was simply unreal. Though taking a heavy toll in terms of Essence, it was still very much something he'd like to see more usage of.
The [Wrathful Shaman Bone Blade] had also come in exceptionally handy in Antarctica. Gehrman was at his strongest against mad beasts, so having the option to force his enemy into that state might have been even more important than the powerful gun.
There were the other Sin Series Memories as well.
And even on top of that there were the dozens, if not a hundred Memories he was about to gain that could very well prove more worthy.
"No point in waiting then, let's get to it."
With that Gehrman returned to the real world and soon was set aflame by potent bloodflame.
From then on out, he abandoned himself to Madness.
…
Johann's memories were the things he was feeling most right now. The outside world was quiet. Beasts roared, clawed, and attacked. The terrain shattered. The violence had escalated, and Demons and Devils were now the most common foes.
But Gehrman wasn't even aware of it.
Due to the amount of blood he was taking in, he was constantly healing. So even though his limbs got severed, his guts brought to the outside world, his face smashed, he just kept getting back up.
Unstoppable.
Why did I stop then?
Perhaps due to the location, a surge of specific memories kept plaguing him. Originally it had been chaotic, but for some reason his madness had picked a point in time, a scene, from Johann's memories.
The shapes and colors of a Yharnam at dusk colored the world like a camera filter.
The tears of a little girl who had just been told her mother had died.
Gascoigne had slammed his Hunters Axe into his own love again and again, seething and blathering. The Red Jeweled Broach was the only thing he could retrieve after finally finishing off the blood drunk hunter.
He had given it to that little girl.
Later, he found Oedon Chapel, a safe haven, and he directed the girl to go there.
He didn't bring her personally, didn't protect her, and because of that she died horribly in the sewers.
And then, when the Red Moon had been revealed, under that Paleblood sky Johann had gone back to the home on a whim, finding a sister that he had not known existed.
The sister, upon learning of her family's fate, would throw herself off a ledge next to their home, killing herself.
Why did he leave her?
Why hadn't he comforted her?
Why hadn't he gone inside?
Why was there no door?
Why couldn't he have broken the window?
Why–
Suddenly he found himself in his Soul Sea. Above him the black-hole-esque blood moon hung, flanked on each side by the other six moons, Soul Cores.
His mind was a haze, and it took him several moments to figure out what was going on. Only when the stream of Red Fragments streamed from him, upward, solidifying, modifying the center moon did he recall his purpose.
How long has it been?
Before Gehrman could even think to ponder that the crushing weight of Madness assaulted him. Whispers, provacations, insults, all begging for the Truth that eluded him for so long.
In the Second Nightmare this Truth had broken him.
All that time ago he had gotten enough Blood Fragments to become a Titan, but his Core had shattered after his hundreds of deaths forced him to abandon that Truth, and move onto those of the 5th and 6th Cores.
And then he had returned to the Waking World, pondering that final stepping stone that would lead him toward…something.
Only at the very end of his adventures in Antarctica did he get an inkling of what it was. Fighting the Winter Beast, discussing the Great Ones, and crusading in the ruins of Hintertomb all helped him solidify his thought process, and his answer.
It was a simple answer.
A stupidly simple answer really.
The Truths of Madness told a story.
The birth of the Universe and all things that would come of it.
First, Frenzy, the primordial chaos that had always and never existed.
Then came Dissociation, distinction, really was also a term used. The dividing of the single Will into many, or perhaps the creation of Will itself.
When one of the first Will's denied another there was Agony.
Then, rising to meet that horrific pain was Bliss. For those who recognized Agony could know of its absence, and thus this was born of Bliss.
It was then things took a turn.
Desire was born, desire for Bliss and the escaping of Agony. This was something pure and different, those who felt it became what could only be described as the first "beings". This was not Madness, rather the opposite of it.
Of course, it was then that those primeval Wills recognized it, and though they could not understand Desire, they still felt compulsion to have it. This birthed both Control and Obsession. Things that were not wants but fundamental needs.
Thus the paradigm was set.
Corruption against Purity.
Nightmare Creatures against Awakened.
So what was left?
There was nothing else.
Nothing except for the Wills who still remained trapped in a living non-existence. Wills that knew only those 6 Truths.
There was only –
"Void."