Chapter 1058: The Truth of the Blood Source 2
Blood healing made Yharnam famous. It was a therapy capable of curing all manner of difficult and complicated diseases, so many patients who had been ill for a long time came seeking it, hoping to save their lives through blood treatment.
Thus, the city of Yharnam became a veritable "land of blood healing." Blood-letting tools, transfusion clinics, and even pungent blood cocktails emerged.
Everything in Yharnam was bound to blood.
The wealth brought by blood healing caused all of Yharnam to expand rapidly. The Cathedral Ward and Oedon Chapel were quickly built atop the old city. The Healing Church simultaneously amassed immense prestige, wealth, and manpower, becoming the new ruler of all Yharnam.
However, blood healing soon revealed the same drawbacks as Byrgenwerth's blood transfusion experiments. Those who received transfusions developed a severe dependence on blood. They began to suffer from the beastly scourge—coughing, necrosis of the lungs, destruction of their nerves—degenerating into bloodthirsty beasts that roamed about, attacking humans to seize their blood.
And so, hunters appeared.
The first hunter, Gehrman, was a friend of Laurence. He established the Hunter's Workshop, crafting specialized weapons, armor, and firearms to hunt beasts.
Every full moon, Yharnam welcomed the "Night of the Hunt." Residents locked themselves indoors, while hunters took to the night to purge the city of beasts.
To prevent the beastly scourge from destroying all of Yharnam, the hunters continued their endless hunting, and the Night of the Hunt became a tradition of the city.
Through tireless exploration, Laurence finally discovered the last secret of the Great Ones' birth within the Pthumerian tomb complex of Ihyll.
"When the red moon hangs low, the blessed womb shall give birth to a child of the gods."
The red moon, in Pthumerian texts, was also called the "Paleblood" or "Dim Blood." This description referred to the ashen-gray sky when the red moon descended, resembling a corpse drained of its blood.
However, summoning the red moon required a woman of pure Pthumerian lineage, dressed in a white wedding gown, to enter into a marriage covenant with a Great One. By now, no one knew where pure Pthumerian bloodlines still existed.
For Laurence, the glory of the Healing Church faced a terrible reversal at this point.
The ritual to summon the red moon stalled. The spread of the beastly scourge cast doubt upon the Healing Church. Even Laurence himself, due to prolonged ingestion of Oedon's blood, contracted the beastly scourge and felt his days were numbered.
Desperate to maintain the Healing Church's prestige, Laurence urgently sought more powerful means to consolidate the rule he had built through blood healing.
The original hunter group could no longer cope with the increasingly rampant beast plague. So Laurence ordered Ludwig to form the Church Hunters, using powerful weapons developed during labyrinth exploration to administer "radical treatment" to Yharnam's afflicted.
The grand hunting campaign allowed the hunter organization to develop rapidly, and different hunter schools emerged.
During the hunts, a race called Cainhurst appeared in Yharnam. Some of them joined the hunter organization.
Legend had it that Cainhurst Castle stood isolated on the sea, connected to the Yharnam highlands only by a single bridge. Its gates were always sealed, and the Cainhurst people never intermarried with outsiders.
This Cainhurst contingent came to Yharnam seeking a special kind of blood, and later joined the hunt due to the rampant beast plague.
Maria was a Cainhurst. She was as beautiful as a pure angel. She was passionate about helping the weak and deeply loathed the Cainhurst tradition of blood-based combat.
Maria became a disciple of the first hunter, Gehrman, and developed feelings of admiration for this powerful hunter.
At this time, a piece of news reignited hope in the desperate Laurence: "The Great One Kos will give birth to a child of the gods."
An expedition team discovered a small fishing village in a bay near Yharnam. The villagers worshipped a Great One named "Kos." The fishermen believed Kos was a deity dwelling in the deep sea, and that the ocean was connected to the cosmos.
According to Pthumerian records, most Great Ones were unique beings. They could not bear offspring themselves and could only use the red moon ritual to birth a child of the gods through a human womb.
But Kos was different. It could give birth through its own womb, a form of metamorphosis—shedding its old body to welcome a new childhood.
Thus, Laurence immediately decided to gather the Healing Church's armed forces to attack the fishing village, seize Kos's child, and obtain the coveted Third Umbilical Cord.
The villagers were slaughtered. Kos fought a desperate battle against the hunters but was ultimately slain. The creature it birthed also died quickly. This being, called the "Orphan of Kos," was taken away by the Healing Church, and Laurence finally obtained the Third Umbilical Cord he so desperately sought.
However, Laurence did not achieve evolution. According to the latest unearthed Pthumerian texts, a human needed three Third Umbilical Cords to ascend to godhood, become a Great One, and attain true completeness.
This was also why the Great Ones had nearly vanished—every three Great Ones could only allow one human to become an ascended being.
Laurence fell into despair once more, but clearly, his madness would not stop there. Through research on Kos and the fishing village villagers, Laurence discovered that injecting Kos parasites into the human brain could cultivate brain fluid. This brain fluid would allow humans to establish mental contact with the Great Ones.
A large number of the Healing Church's patients were injected with this brain fluid. Their heads swelled, and they began to hear the sound of dripping water. Eventually, their heads would fall off, and they would die miserably.
However, some exceptional test subjects showed progress. So the Church remained confident, believing that a messenger capable of communicating with the Great Ones would eventually appear.
Maria felt lost, sorrowful, and despondent during the hunting operation in the fishing village. She came to the Healing Church to care for the suffering patients. These patients regarded Maria as their sole solace in their miserable lives.
Four failed creations were placed in the Astral Clocktower garden. Although they had not achieved their goal, they already possessed the ability to summon cosmic power. Laurence firmly believed he would soon find more Great Ones and become an ascended being.
At this moment, an offhand thought changed the fate of the Healing Church.
"Could the isolated Cainhurst people still preserve the bloodline of the ancient Pthumerians?"
Guided by this clue, Laurence noticed the Iosefka sisters. These twin sisters were Cainhursts, adopted by the Church. The elder sister assisted with brain fluid research, while the younger sister became a powerful hunter.
Thus, Laurence secretly began preparations for the first red moon ritual.
By this time, the beast plague in the lower city had pushed the entire district to the brink of collapse. Even the hunters engaged in the hunt were constantly falling into madness. A special group differentiated itself from the hunter organization. They were all outsiders with excellent resistance to the beastly scourge. They became full-time "hunter hunters," including Eileen the Crow and the Church assassin Brador.
Eileen the Crow was the "Bird Lady" who would later help the outsider hunter many times. The Church assassin Brador used a unique weapon called the "Blood Hammer."
Hunters hunted beasts, while hunter hunters hunted mad hunters. Large Gatling guns were mounted on rooftops, and the entire lower city of Yharnam was in chaos.
And Laurence, to summon the blood moon ritual, forced his ailing body to re-enter the ancient tomb, seeking the ring that could establish a marriage covenant with a Great One, hoping to make Iosefka the bride and give birth to Oedon's child.
Genius remembers this site address in one second: