Chapter 1055: The Mystery of the Blood Source 1
The outsider was stunned by the scene before him.
The afterglow of the setting sun dyed the streets of Yharnam a bloody red. The streets were in chaos, and strange cries echoed from time to time.
He pushed open the door of the clinic and found a beast devouring a corpse. The unarmed outsider had no strength to resist and died miserably under the beast's claws.
When the outsider woke up, he found himself in a mysterious place—the Hunter's Dream.
Here, he obtained a weapon, but still had no idea what he was supposed to do. The old hunter Gehrman told him, "Go hunt more beasts, and you will gradually come to understand everything."
So the outsider awoke at the lantern. This time, he brandished the saw cleaver and killed the werewolf, as if his previous death had been nothing but a nightmare.
In other words, the Hunter's Dream possessed a special ability: it allowed hunters to transcend death and make mistakes endlessly. No matter how many times he died, he would always awaken in the Hunter's Dream, re-engage powerful enemies, make up for his errors, and continue to advance further along the path of the hunt.
The "Night of the Hunt" had turned all of Yharnam into a living hell. All the residents stayed indoors and treated outsiders with extreme discrimination.
However, even in a Yharnam like this, there were still good people.
At a street corner lived a resident named Gilbert. He was also an outsider, but he couldn't go outside because he was suffering from blood poisoning. Later on, he would kindly give the protagonist a flamethrower to deal with the beasts outside.
When the hunter asked about the Paleblood, Gilbert didn't know what it was either, but he told the hunter to try visiting the Cathedral Ward, where there was a lot of special blood.
On the road from Central Yharnam to the Cathedral Ward, there were not only maddened Yharnamites but also two powerful werewolves.
The hunter felt overwhelmed, so he rang the Beckoning Bell, and Father Gascoigne appeared before him.
The two of them worked together to kill the werewolves on the bridge, only to find that the path to the Cathedral Ward was blocked. On the great bridge, the terrifying Cleric Beast blocked their way.
They joined forces to kill the beast and then parted ways.
The hunter continued searching for another route. He encountered a little girl who had stayed behind at home and asked him to find her parents.
The hunter found Father Gascoigne in the graveyard outside Oedon Chapel, but by then, the priest had completely gone mad due to his wife's death. Even the little girl's music box couldn't restore his sanity.
After killing Father Gascoigne, the hunter passed through the aqueduct and arrived at Oedon Chapel. A hideous-looking man in red, who always let out sinister laughs, told the hunter that if there were any survivors, they could be sent to Oedon Chapel for shelter. Because this Night of the Hunt was unusually long, the incense in the residents' homes might not be enough, but the chapel's incense would see them through the long night.
The hunter returned to Iosefka's Clinic. Since Iosefka wouldn't open the door, he could only speak with her through it.
He noticed that Iosefka's tone had become somewhat strange, but he didn't pay much attention to the difference. Iosefka also told him that he could send any surviving residents to take refuge at the clinic.
Thus, whenever the hunter encountered an NPC seeking shelter, he had two choices: either guide them to Oedon Chapel or guide them to Iosefka's Clinic.
The first person to seek shelter was that little girl. If the hunter told her to go to Oedon Chapel, she would be eaten by the pig in the aqueduct along the way. So the hunter had no choice but to resort to the save-and-load method, sending her to Iosefka's Clinic instead.
During his adventure, the hunter also met Eileen the Crow (the Crow Lady) and Alfred, a member of the "Executioners." From them, the hunter learned some of Yharnam's history, about Byrgenwerth, the Vilebloods, and so on.
The hunter came to understand that the vast majority of Yharnam's secrets originated from the organization known as "Byrgenwerth," so he decided to cross the Forbidden Woods and head to Byrgenwerth.
However, the gate to the Forbidden Woods was sealed, so the hunter went to Old Yharnam, tore down a notice that someone had posted, and explored this abandoned city.
It was said that this was originally the lower district of Yharnam, but it was burned down after the beast plague spiraled out of control. The beasts here were fragile and afraid of fire. The hunter received a warning from an unnamed hunter here.
"If you insist on hunting here, then I will hunt you."
The unnamed hunter (the Gatling Gun Guy) set up a powerful machine gun on the tower and opened fire wildly at the hunter. The hunter didn't kill any of Old Yharnam's beasts, instead running straight through, and met this unnamed hunter on the tower.
After promising the unnamed hunter that he wouldn't hunt the beasts here, the unnamed hunter was very pleased and told the hunter that the beasts of Old Yharnam were actually humans. The unnamed hunter himself had seen through the trick of the hunt and no longer wanted to enter the Hunter's Dream.
He would rather stay here and protect these original inhabitants of Old Yharnam, who had already turned into beasts.
At the end of Old Yharnam, the hunter defeated the Blood-starved Beast. After returning to the Hunter's Dream, the old hunter Gehrman in his wheelchair told the hunter to ascend to Oedon Chapel and take a look at the abandoned Hunter's Workshop.
After that, Gehrman went into the garden and stopped speaking with the hunter.
More and more people arrived at Oedon Chapel under the hunter's guidance.
There was a very obvious malice hidden here. The NPC in Oedon Chapel, the man in red, was hideous in appearance and spoke strangely—clearly a villain at first glance. But in reality, he was one of the very few completely good people in the game. Meanwhile, the doctor at Iosefka's Clinic seemed like a good person, but in truth, she was no longer the original Iosefka.
And if these people didn't come to Oedon Chapel, they would all go mad during the subsequent Blood Moon event.
These survivors were also all different. An old woman was extremely harsh to the hunter at first, but she gradually lost her mind and began to treat the hunter as her own son.
In addition, there were a prostitute, a nun, and a tsundere resident. If the hunter told this tsundere guy to go to Oedon Chapel, he would deliberately go to Iosefka's Clinic instead. His significance lay in giving the player some information, all of which, without exception, were the opposite of the truth.
Each NPC could help the hunter in some way, and they all had their own fates.
(In fact, these NPCs were spread across a very long storyline. Some wouldn't appear until the mid-game. They are grouped together here to shorten the length.)
The hunter finally arrived at the abandoned Hunter's Workshop and discovered that it was actually the prototype of the Hunter's Dream. Here, he found a hair ornament, a leg bone, and a strange object: the Third Umbilical Cord.
Clearly, this Third Umbilical Cord must have been left behind by Gehrman, because the Hunter's Workshop belonged to Gehrman, and even the Hunter's Dream was built by Gehrman based on the Hunter's Workshop.
But where exactly did Gehrman obtain this Third Umbilical Cord, and why did he leave it here?
The hunter didn't yet know that the Third Umbilical Cord in his hand represented the deepest secret of all Yharnam, and also the thing that the entire Pthumerian civilization, Byrgenwerth, and the Healing Church had exhausted everything to obtain.
After arriving at the Grand Cathedral, the hunter saw Amelia kneeling before the cathedral, weeping over a strange skull. This "Vicar" held Laurence's gold pocket watch in her right hand. It seemed she couldn't believe that Laurence had turned into a beast, and she herself had transformed into a massive goat-horned beast.
The hunter kept attacking Amelia's left hand, which held the gold watch, while using Numbing Mist to prevent Amelia from using the watch to restore her health, finally killing her.
The hunter touched the skull of Laurence, who had turned into a beast, and witnessed the scene of Laurence bidding farewell to Master Willem.