Chapter 1056: The Mystery of the Pale Blood 2
Master Willem was the leader of Byrgenwerth, and Laurence was one of his most prized students.
But in the vision the Hunter saw upon touching Laurence's skull, Laurence decided to leave Master Willem and establish his own faction, as their ideals had diverged sharply.
Master Willem wanted Laurence to remember: "Fear the Old Blood."
This phrase was the password to Byrgenwerth.
The Hunter left the Oedon Chapel, heading toward the Forbidden Woods, traversing the forest to reach Byrgenwerth and uncover the truth of the Pale Blood.
But at the chapel's entrance, a strange man in black appeared. Defeated, the Hunter did not awaken in the Hunter's Dream but was stuffed into a sack and taken to a place called Yahar'gul.
In the underground prison of Yahar'gul, many kidnapped Yharnamites were held, already on the verge of beastly transformation.
The Hunter defeated the electrified beast Paarl and returned to Old Yharnam.
This time, he could finally set foot on the path to the Forbidden Woods, where he once again encountered the "Executioner" Alfred, who was still searching for Cainhurst Castle to fulfill his mission.
The Hunter traversed the Forbidden Woods, defeating all manner of vile and chaotic creatures. At the forest's edge, he encountered three mysterious figures in cloaks, known as the Shadows of Yharnam.
These three were infested with snakes. After great effort, the Hunter defeated them and arrived at Byrgenwerth.
Byrgenwerth held even stranger monsters, the most bizarre being humanoid creatures resembling students but with heads covered in eyes, like the heads of flies. These monsters were called "Celestial Larvae."
After immense struggle, the Hunter fought through the siege and reached the top of the Byrgenwerth building, a place called the Moonside Lake.
The aged Master Willem sat in a rocking chair, staring silently at the moonlight on the lake. The Hunter tried to speak with him, hoping to learn more about the Pale Blood, but Willem merely trembled as he raised his staff, pointing toward the lake ahead.
The Hunter pored over the texts of Byrgenwerth and, through various clues, roughly deduced the reason for the Hunt's endless night.
Master Willem had used the "Spider" to trap Yharnam in time, so the night would never end, and the Hunter could never escape the nightmare.
The "Pale Blood" the Hunter had been seeking all along was actually the pale gray sky when the Blood Moon descended. In other words, only when the Blood Moon fell could the Hunter awaken from this eternal nightmare.
Thus, the Hunter leaped into the Moonside Lake and killed the "Vacuous Spider Rom," ending the infinite, unending night.
After Rom's death, the hidden secrets were revealed.
A massive red moon appeared, drawing closer from the sky. A woman in a white wedding dress, with blood seeping from her abdomen, appeared in the distance, as if weeping.
The Hunter fell unconscious. When he awoke, he found himself back in Yahar'gul, the place where the sack-wielding man had been abducting and imprisoning Yharnamites.
Countless maddened residents wandered about under the red moon's glow. Even when killed, they were revived by bell-ringing women.
The sack-carrying figures had all vanished, replaced by even more grotesque monsters.
Back at Oedon Chapel, the prostitute and the nun were clutching their heads, as if tormented by endless nightmares. The old woman had ventured out to find sedatives for the Hunter and died outside the chapel.
At the entrance of the Grand Cathedral, the Hunter encountered the Hunter Eileen, who had helped him before. She was barely alive. She had intended to hunt another Hunter but was gravely wounded.
The Hunter charged into the Grand Cathedral and fought fiercely with the Hunter wearing the silver Cainhurst mask. Fortunately, this mad Hunter had only one Blood Vial left, clearly drained by his battle with Eileen.
In the end, the Hunter completed Eileen's mission for her.
He gazed at the Blood Moon in the sky and finally understood why Master Willem had trapped Yharnam in time.
He had once thought nothing was more terrifying than an endless nightmare, but now he realized that Master Willem feared what lay beneath the Blood Moon—a nightmare worse than any nightmare.
The Hunter entered the Iosefka's Clinic through another path and was shocked to find that all the patients had turned into blue-headed, big-headed dolls.
He pushed open the innermost door, where he had once spoken with Doctor Iosefka. Suddenly, a blue-headed doll lunged at him desperately. After killing it, the Hunter discovered it had dropped Iosefka's Blood Vial.
If this was the real Iosefka, then who was the woman who had been speaking with him all along?
At that moment, the fake Iosefka lay on the operating table, groaning in pain. Clearly, she was the one who had turned the little girl and Doctor Iosefka into big-headed dolls.
The Hunter killed her in fury, and she gave birth to a strange creature, which quickly died. The Hunter was stunned to find that this bizarre creature also bore a Third Umbilical Cord.
The Hunter recalled the words: "When the red moon hangs low, the blessed womb will give birth to a child of the gods."
Could it be that the Third Umbilical Cord belonged to the gods? Then where did the one Gehrman kept in the Hunter's Workshop come from?
The Hunter arrived before the Yahar'gul chapel. He had gained enough Insight to see the strange creature called Amygdala. He showed it the Tonsil Stone he had obtained earlier and was grabbed by the monster, teleported to the lecture hall of the School of Mensis.
Master Willem, Laurence, and Micolash—these three figures were the leaders of Byrgenwerth, the Healing Church, and the School of Mensis, respectively, yet their methods were vastly different.
Clearly, each was seeking wisdom beyond humanity in their own way. In other words, they were all gambling the lives of all Yharnam's inhabitants in a game to summon the Great Ones.
Micolash, known as the Nightmare Lord, led the entire School of Mensis into a dream, hoping to summon the Blood Moon within it and complete the Great Ones' descent.
The protagonist found the Great One Amygdala in the Nightmare Frontier. Its nature was to exist in multiple forms, so it appeared atop many buildings in Yharnam. Only those with over 40 Insight could see its true form.
The Hunter killed this Amygdala and found a Cursed Chalice. He could not glean many clues from this chalice, but he stumbled upon a special item: the Eye of a Blood-drunk Hunter.
He went to Oedon Chapel and showed the Eye of a Blood-drunk Hunter to the Amygdala there, instantly being pulled into another nightmare.
It turned out the key was not the Cursed Chalice itself, but the Great One that had cursed it. In the nightmare created by this Great One, the Hunter would witness Yharnam's most hidden past.
Combining every bit of what he had seen and heard, along with the scenes in the nightmare, the events of the past began to grow clear. The Hunter deduced a truth so shocking he could hardly believe it himself.