Chapter 1059: The Truth of the Blood Source 3
Fate did not give Laurence a chance. In the labyrinth, Laurence's beasthood disease transformed into the scourge of beasts, and the First Vicar Laurence became a massive Cleric Beast.
The escort squad was completely annihilated; only one person survived—the Church assassin Brador. He used a massive bloodletting hammer to kill Laurence, brought the beastly skull back to the Grand Cathedral, and then handed Laurence's pocket watch to Vicar Amelia.
As the sole survivor, Brador emerged from the tomb already insane. His claim that Laurence had turned into a beast clearly failed to convince the Church organization.
Thus, the Church imprisoned Brador in the underground jail, publicly declared Brador dead, and announced that Vicar Laurence had temporarily left due to Church affairs, with Amelia becoming his deputy during his absence.
After so many sacrifices, Amelia, to fulfill Laurence's long-cherished wish, began the ritual to summon the Red Moon. Yosefka gazed at the Oedon Blood before her, waiting only for the Red Moon to descend so she could give birth to a child of the Great Ones.
But at that moment, a man from Cainhurst suddenly burst in, used a silver flask to collect the Oedon Blood, and fled the Church.
The massive Red Moon hung high in the sky, driving all the residents into madness. The lower district of Yharnam had fallen into utter chaos. The hunters retreated step by step, eventually forced to set the entire lower district ablaze. Everywhere was thick with blackened smoke and the stench of burning corpses.
At that moment, Kos's curse echoed from the sky: Curse those fiends and their children, and their children's children, unto eternity.
The hunters locked in battle suddenly vanished, all pulled into the Hunter's Nightmare. The beast scourge in the lower district spiraled completely out of control. By sunrise, every resident of the lower district had transformed into beasts.
The residents of Central Yharnam tried to flee to the Cathedral Ward for shelter, but the bridge was sealed. A terrifying Cleric Beast lurked there, cutting off all passage.
Old Hunter Djura woke amid a pile of ashes. Seeing the tragic scene before him, he smeared white ash over his hunter's garb, hoping to mask the stench of blood.
Then, in his own way, he began to protect the monsters of Old Yharnam, for he knew full well that these monsters had once been the residents of Old Yharnam.
The Healing Church lost everything overnight. Someone had to take the blame for this terrible Red Moon disaster. The Healing Church had to shift the blame, ensuring the public never learned that they had summoned the Red Moon.
The Healing Church declared that Cainhurst had stolen a forbidden item known as the Tainted Blood, thus triggering this horrific catastrophe. The Church dispatched Logarius, leading an organization called the Executioners, to launch a retaliatory assault on Cainhurst Castle.
During their attack on Cainhurst, the Executioners encountered the powerful Queen's Guard, individuals skilled in blood-based combat techniques. The battle was exceptionally brutal. In the end, Logarius used his rotating wheel to crush the last guard member and stood before the Queen.
Queen Annalise possessed a beauty even greater than Maria's, clearly bearing the purest Pthumerian bloodline. By then, the Queen had already consumed the Oedon Blood, merging her Pthumerian bloodline with it.
Logarius discovered that even if he ground Annalise into minced flesh, she would simply be reborn upon her throne.
Logarius could never complete the task of killing the Queen. So, he locked away the Queen's beauty with a helmet forged from black iron and took his own life on the cold castle rooftop.
Cursed by the vengeful spirits of Cainhurst, Logarius became the gatekeeper of the Undead Queen. Only by defeating him and donning the crown could one see the path ahead.
During the Red Moon, Yosefka did not conceive Oedon's child, but Maria encountered the Moon Presence in a dream and became pregnant with its child.
At Gehrman's request, Maria ultimately gave birth to this child. Then she returned to the Astral Clocktower and ended her life with a cup of poisoned wine.
Gehrman was filled with regret. As a close friend of Laurence, he had directly participated in many hunts and was equally fascinated by the prospect of becoming a Great One. That was why he had wanted Maria to bear this child.
But Maria's death plunged him into an abyss of pain and remorse. In the workshop, he crafted a doll bearing Maria's likeness, but Maria herself would never live again.
Through this, Gehrman obtained a third umbilical cord. The Moon Presence then constructed a new dream, where any hunter who made a pact with it would gain the ability to revive from the dream.
Old Hunter Gehrman could not resist the Moon Presence's power and became its surrogate, guiding hunters into the dream to fulfill the Moon Presence's schemes. Yet, for some unknown reason, Gehrman did not carry that precious third umbilical cord with him but left it in the workshop, waiting for a special hunter to find it.
Many hunters were brought to the Hunter's Dream by messengers through their pacts. After dying in Yharnam, they could be reborn, as if their previous death were merely a nightmare.
Hunters who died and revived repeatedly grew stronger, but they were eternally bound to the hunt. Only the Moon Presence itself knew that these hunters had but one mission: to eliminate all its rivals.
The Healing Church collapsed following Laurence's death, the Red Moon incident, and the annihilation of the Executioners. Only Vicar Amelia remained in the Grand Cathedral, clutching the pocket watch and weeping before Laurence's beastly skull.
But the mad exploration of the Great Ones did not cease. An organization called the School of Mensis continued to probe the truth of the Great Ones in its own way.
The leader of the School of Mensis was Micolash, later known as the Nightmare of Mensis. If Laurence was an ambitious man, then Micolash was an outright madman.
He believed that Great Ones were life forms that gathered immense power. So, if no existing Great One could be found, why not simply create one? He also crafted a special metal cage helmet for himself, believing it could suppress human free will and serve as an antenna, a channel to communicate with the Great Ones.
The School of Mensis, organized by Micolash, left Byrgenwerth. They took over a village called Yahar'gul, sending kidnappers to abduct Yharnam's residents and bring them there, awaiting the ritual to create a Great One.
The School of Mensis's frenzied research produced a malformed Great One built from a pile of corpses and also found a brain covered in eyes within a dream. But these results were far from summoning a Great One—indeed, they were heading in the completely wrong direction.
Ultimately, Micolash decided to push forward with the Red Moon plan. He found another betrothal ring in the Pthumerian labyrinth. Then, along with countless cage-headed scholars, he used a ritual to extract his spirit and enter the Great One's dream. In this nightmare, the Red Moon would descend, and the Great One Mergo would be born.
Killing the soon-to-be-born Mergo was the sole goal set by the Moon Presence for the dream hunters, and the only way for hunters to escape the Hunter's Dream.
And at that moment, the foreigner, filled with longing for the land of blood healing, was rushing toward Yharnam.
Next Up: World of Warcraft
The storyline for Bloodborne wraps up tomorrow. Next up is World of Warcraft.
Regarding Bloodborne, the main highlight of this game compared to Dark Souls is its story, so I've dedicated a few chapters to it. Writing this was actually quite troublesome—I rewatched videos several times and looked up a lot of material online.
If you're not interested in this part, feel free to skip it. But this really isn't filler; this material isn't just lying around, and writing it wasn't easy at all.
While working on World of Warcraft, I'll consider weaving in two or three other games. By then, this book will essentially be nearing its end. I'm thinking of wrapping it up around the 2.5 million word mark.
I've been doing three updates a day recently, and many might think it's slow. In truth, I'm writing frantically every day because I need to stockpile 15 chapters for the five days I'll be in Japan. I do have some stockpile, but I can't release it all now—otherwise, what would I do if I have to pause updates?
If there are extra chapters left after I return from Japan, I'll release them all at once. But until then, I definitely can't increase the update pace; any extra writing will just be saved up.
So, does that mean this book will stop updating after it's finished? What about all the unresolved plot threads?
What about God of War?
What about Devil May Cry?
What about Resident Evil?
What about The Witcher?
What about Tomb Raider?
What about The Last of Us Part II?
What about Death Stranding?
What about The Elder Scrolls VI?
What about Fallout 76?
...
Yes, there are still many games I could write about. So far, it seems no other book has covered these. "Finishing" doesn't mean I'll stop updating entirely—it just means the story and tech tree of this book will stop progressing from this point. After I start a new book, these new games will be released as side stories within this book.
If you all enjoy reading them, these games will be gradually released as bonus chapters. Maybe I'll update an entire game at once—no updates for a month, then drop over ten chapters at once.
Because there are too many of these games to cram into the main storyline.
The first half of this book explored what games were like in the pre-VR era, while the second half explored what they might be like in the post-VR era.
The black technology of the Matrix Game Pod is just a way to explore a possibility: when our technology is advanced enough, what form will games take?
As for what impact these black technologies might have on social structures or human physical and mental health... that's not my concern, nor is it the theme of this book.
At this stage, the tech level is already high enough. Once games become reality, they won't drive the main plot much further. So, the main story will stop, and other games will be released as side stories.
This exploration has no end. When games become indistinguishable from reality, what will happen then? There's still plenty of room for imagination.
But Chen Mo is no longer suitable as the protagonist of this new story, because his role is essentially that of a referee—he can't keep personally stepping onto the field to beat up the contestants.
So, the next book will have some connection to this one, but it won't be very obvious—maybe not even noticeable in the early stages.
Of course, personally speaking, I'm also a bit tired of this format. The framework and structure I designed for this book at the outset determined its writing style and limits, making it hard to expand beyond the game domain. If possible, the next book will take a different approach.
Although I could keep writing this book, churning out new games until the end of time, I do have ambitions. I don't want to be satisfied with my current achievements. So, once I've filled in the World of Warcraft plot hole, I'll start thinking about the next book.
If you have any favorite games, feel free to recommend them in the comments section of this book. When I'm in a good mood, I might write about them.
Also, regarding the owed chapters: I probably won't be able to pay them all off before finishing this book, but I should be able to get it down to around 20. Then, releasing two or three side stories should cover it.
To be honest, obsessing over the debt and blindly churning out content has made me neglect some plot considerations, leading to a loss of readers. For the next book, I'll still try to update frequently, but I'll focus more on quality.
Finally, World of Warcraft is something everyone has been looking forward to. If you have any good ideas or suggestions, speak up. Many memories are already distant, but perhaps that's exactly what makes them precious.
Monthly tickets: 4800. Chapters owed: 32.