The sun was out.
That was the first detail that hit Gehrman when he returned to the Waking World. Given Antarctica's on the planet, it experienced 6 months of night and 6 months of day. It appeared that while he was gone, it had shifted over to the bright days.
Gehrman looked down at himself. His physical form had changed again, not because of the time that had passed, but because he was now Transcended. He was now more handsome than any mundane human who ever existed.
Feeling his face, he noted the smoothness and symmetry.
All those guys who think of me as The Red Judge are going to be in for a shock.
The days of immaturely wearing a "mask" were behind him. His body was still quite young, only 17, but since his features also appeared more and more influenced by Old Gehrman and Johann, he was not too dissimilar to a young 20-something. Still a bit too young to be treated immediately with fear and respect…but he was also now a Saint.
With that Rank came the pressure, awe, and respect that every human and Awakened recognized.
Gehrman was now something like the 28th Saint of Humanity, though it looked as if far, far more would be soon on their way.
Sunny, Nephis, and their cohort would undoubtedly reach Sainthood, probably within a year or two.
…Caster and his mercenary Cohort would probably follow a bit after.
As Gehrman mused about the future, he took a look around.
There was nothing as far as the eye could see.
Gehrman considered himself for a moment, realizing that he was naked in the coldest continent on earth, and yet he felt completely comfortable.
After a short debate, he decided to summon the new [Gehrman's Hunter Attire]. He didn't know what sort of Arcane Energy it could absorb, but he wasn't too worried about his protection at the moment. Gehrman figured he might as well be prepared to try and absorb some stuff in case he came upon something "Arcane".
The garb fashioned itself cleanly, and Gehrman felt a rush of warmth and coziness in it. This gear was a bit lighter and more layered. If one looked at the most base statistics, the [Hunters Attire] was better. But this Memory was more suited to Gehrman's fighting style, offering more protection for the upper body and mobility for the lower.
He partially de-summoned a bit of the Memory on his back, letting enormous blood wings form.
His blood was now Transcendent, and his Essence Reserves was now much, much deeper. In fact, unless he abused his most expensive Memories, Gehrman couldn't imagine running out.
High above, he looked around and identified the land around him.
Some parts of the environment appeared to be withered and blown to pieces while he was gone, but it was indeed exactly where he had died to the Winter Beast.
At that moment, he recalled a detail and quickly checked his runes.
Blood Fragments: [5,000/7,000]
It had not gone down. It seemed that Paleblood had indeed circumnavigated the price of revival by forcing the Spell to take the burden as it had been responsible for completing and placing the Transcendent Gehrman.
What a crafty little shit She is.
Gehrman blasted off eastward, making his way to what he hoped was Falcon Scott. It was time to see if his actions had any consequence to the Winter Beast.
…
Gehrman floated in the sky, his face devoid of emotion.
There were a bunch of Nightmare Creatures there now, prowling around the ruins of Falcon Scott.
The Siege Capital had fallen.
He wordlessly raised his hand and let a stream of blood form into a bubble above him. Gehrman was about to drop a blood-nuke on the place before his arm stiffened, and he let it go back into him.
They were ruins, not completely eviscerated.
Though everything was covered in a heavy sheet of ice, some things could maybe be salvaged.
Gehrman didn't want to risk destroying anything like that.
Instead, he dropped silently to the ground, stopping himself inches before the ground.
A Nightmare Creature instantly noticed him and roared loudly, charging.
Then it fell over, dead.
An arrow of blood had pierced it easily and now returned to hover by Gehrman's side. He continued his morbid walk through the place, imagining the panic, fear, and agony that must have run through each and every human still here.
What Gehrman was truly looking for was corpses, skeletons, or anything that might let him estimate the death toll.
He found nothing. For a moment, his heart leaped, hoping that by some impossibility everyone had escaped.
But if that was the case, there would have been no reason for the Winter Beast to have frozen this place over.
It was entirely possible that it had grown so cold that it had simply broken apart the atoms of every human who had still been here.
Another beast behind him spotted him, and then it too instantly died.
Gehrman sighed and sat down in the middle of the icy street.
He expanded his now much broader [Sixth Sense] he had a fairly good view of everything within a half a kilometer's radius. In the next few seconds, every Nightmare Creature in that range died.
[You have slain an Awakened Beast…]
[You have slain an Awakened Beast…]
[You have slain a Fallen Tyrant…]
His eyebrow raised at that last one. A Fallen Tyrant has been fairly easy to kill for a long while now. But the fact that it had gone down this easily was a bit sobering. That thing could have even caused trouble for an Irregular Cohort if they weren't careful.
Now it was barely even an insect to Gehrman.
Hell, everything in Antarctica was barely an insect to him. With the exception of the Winter Beast, he doubted there was anything that he couldn't obliterate in under a minute.
What made Nightmare Creatures so dangerous was their variety. The reason no human could ever survive alone in the Dream Realm was because there would always be some sneaky trick a random creature could pull that would counter one's own power, no matter how formidable.
But at the moment, Gehrman had passed a threshold that humanity hadn't even known existed.
The Transcendent Titan was many times more powerful than the average Saint, and there were plenty of other things that separated Gehrman from even others of his hypothetical Rank and Class.
It was no exaggeration to say he was the most powerful thing on earth…with the exception of whatever horrors lived in the Americas. (Of course, this was only the case because the Sovereigns of Humanity were elsewhere).
Gehrman pondered on that for a moment, his thoughts returning to America. A Cursed Nightmare creature, what was basically a god, had made its nest there. But it hadn't ventured out to wipe out humanity for some reason.
There were likely a great number of Great Rank abominations there too. How would Gehrman fair against them, he wondered.
It was hard to say, and it didn't really matter at the moment.
Gehrman shook his head, and pulled his blood upward, causing him to float. A surprising side effect came with Transcendence. Though his body had become much more powerful when he became a Master, it would still suffer wear and tear from being pulled around by the blood in his veins.
It seemed the era of that issue was now over.
If he moved his blood at super supersonic speeds internally it would screw him up, but floating and basic movements were as easy as moving a limb.
It was also kinda fun.
Speaking of fun, there was one other thing he wanted to do before heading over to East Antarctica to catch up with everyone.
With very little fanfare, he summoned a certain Memory.
[Cord of The Eye].
This was something that filled him with a phenomenal amount of emotion. From his past lives, he knew that these were of great importance, and could be used as "mediums" to communicate with Great Ones.
Laurence and Gehrman had even used it to summon the Moon Presence a little while after Old Yharnam fell to the poisonous beasts that defiled the streets.
Johann was familiar with it since he had uncovered the same cord used in that ritual in the Old Workshop below Upper Cathedral Ward.
Throughout the night, he came upon several others as well.
With everything he knew, he had a few theories about their nature.
At first glance it was (disturbingly) a detached umbilical cord. One of a strange dark color. It had anomalous properties, naturally, and had more Arcane potential than any ritual material Johann had ever found or used throughout his Night.
Another thing that struck him as odd was the name.
Now that Gehrman held the Memory in his hand, he was certain it was the exact same thing as it had been in Yharnam.
Yet the wording of it was off.
Johann had known it as a "Third Umbilical Cord" or "1/3 Umbilical Cord". This worked doubly as it subtly hinted at the nature of the cord (referencing a Third Eye and the idea of insight and greater understanding), while also revealing its nature as a part of a whole.
In a strange limbo-dimension fashioned out of a Byrgenwerth Lecture Hall, Johann had come across a note that read simply "Three Third Cords".
The basic message was the single most important find for him, and it allowed him to figure out that consuming three of the umbilical cords would…
Gehrman blinked.
"Still…"
Johann had killed Gehrman.
The old man had tried to offer him solace in waking up and forgetting everything, but the young foreigner refused. His rage was so great that it even managed to overwhelm the First Hunter.
And then…fog.
This was different though. The memories of what followed were not artificially blocked by the Moon Presence, instead, it felt as if what happened afterward had simply never happened.
There was something very strange going on at that moment.
In theory, the Hunters Dream would have collapsed without the host– Old Gehrman. Yet, he was fairly certain that hadn't happened.
Perhaps an Avatar of the Moon Presence – similar to the thing that Amygdala that existed in Ailing Loran – had gotten involved.
Or maybe something even more complicated occurred.
In the end, the exact details didn't matter, all that mattered was the hole-filled alien umbilical cord in his hand.
Its description was of no help, simply saying: "[1/3]" and nothing else.
It was clear what the purpose of this Memory was. Johann had consumed three of these things as that note had suggested.
The idea of eating the baby parts of a stillborn alien god was so utterly deranged that it looped right back around to being sort of logical (at least it had for Johann).
It held symbolism, eldritch properties, and was incredibly powerful.
Gehrman didn't necessarily need anymore raw power at the immediate moment. The Sovereigns of humanity were still a grave threat to him and would likely try to kill him in a few years, but he had time to prepare.
Song would use him as a weapon and protect him from Anvil, but both would eventually try to kill him to consolidate their power. The third Sovereign, the enigmatic "Dreamspawn" was a complete unknown, but he also wasn't a player at the moment. Wherever that guy was, he wasn't in a position to kill Gehrman. He hadn't even interfered with the brewing war between his fellow Sovereigns.
Gehrman did not fear he would die anytime soon.
However, what this Nightmare had taught him to fear was Paleblood.
He had thought that the Great One wouldn't be able to do anything until he became a Sacred, but She was already proving that idea incorrect.
Her power to create an Echo, invent an Aspect Legacy, and now even interfere with his new Aspect Ability showed just how much of a foothold she was getting.
Gehrman still wanted to climb the Ranks and grow more powerful, but he needed to start coming up with more direct countermeasures against that abomination.
What could possibly counteract a Great One though? The Spell could, of course, but it was already floundering. It was a bad match up for Paleblood, and at the current pace, the Void would actually manage to break into these realities and bring it to ruin.
Gehrman needed something else.
He needed the help of gods.
The whole point of him agreeing to Ki Song's offer was for the Attribute, or rather, the Divine Lineage of the Beast God.
That thing had been one of the six gods who ruled over a great many divine domains, and were undoubtedly the strongest of all creatures. They were the pinnacle of this realm before the Nightmare Spell, so much so that their "lineage" still survived to this day.
With any luck, Divine Lineage would rewrite his constitution and affinities, making him more a thing of the Dream Realm and less of the Void.
It was plausible, but most likely not enough.
However, there were no more gods in the Dream Realm, and there had never been any in the Waking World. All that was left was corrupted abominations with nothing but a maligned placement in the order of things, unfit for the Void or the Flame.
What did that leave him?
For a while, he thought it left him with nothing.
Until the Third Nightmare.
An inkling of an idea had started to seed when he had first seen all the Lake and Sea Caryll Runes available.
Now that idea had blossomed.
What could counter a Great One? Another Great One of course.
The dynamics between these eldritch beings was impossible to know, but Gehrman had surmised it was highly likely that Kos was opposed to Paleblood.
After the slaughter of the original Fishing Hamlet, Kos had laid claim to the lives of all involved, creating a Nightmare with which the Great One could torture them for all eternity. Each of the parties responsible were blood drunk maniacs, hunting and dying over and over in a hellscape of their own creation.
The very souls of the Healing Church and the Old Hunters were snatched after death and placed in this place.
Kos had even appeared to place special importance on the key figures. Laurence had become a burning beast, writhing in constant agony. Maria had been placed atop the Astral Clocktower, letting her guilt and mental anguish build from the cries of those she tried to help.
The main perpetrator though, Gehrman, was nowhere to be found.
This was because, though Old Gehrman had long left the world, his soul was not able to be fully collected, as he was ensconced in the Hunters Dream by Paleblood.
Already this created a conflict between the two Great Ones. The Moon Presence had stolen Kos's prey, after all.
What made Gehrman confident in consuming the [Cord of The Eye] was not that though, but rather, one of his Madness-induced hallucinations.
After consuming Kos's blood, he had fallen into the deepest depths of Madness. As usual, his identity and memories fractured in this state, and he became a complete mess.
However, at that time the memories felt more intentional.
Looking back, the main thing that alarmed him was the more incoherent memories. He recalled fighting the Orphan of Kos, but also fighting Johann. Screaming bloody murder and filled with anguish. It made no sense. It wasn't as if Dorian, Paleblood, or Old Gehrman could have had those memories…
Although, after Johann had killed that horrendous Orphan of Kos. The Doll had taken the initiative to tell him that Gehrman was sleeping soundly for the first time in a very, very long time.
Combined with a similar message from the Doll that occurred after he had killed Maria, it seemed as if Kos was actually trying to tell him something.
A connection between the Orphan of Kos and Old Gerhamn. Perhaps the First Hunter had had a partial bit of its Soul trapped in that Nightmare. Maybe it was exchanged for a part of Maria's soul so that Paleblood could animate the Doll.
Whatever the case, the end result was something inexplicable, but incredibly useful.
Gehrman could, in theory, be equated to and fill the symbolic role of the Orphan of Kos. He had drank the Avatar's blood, and also received a Memory for doing so.
A Memory whose corresponding rune did not have the purple hue of the Memories tampered with or created by Paleblood.
If Kos had wished him ill will, it would have created a deadlier backlash to consuming it. It did not make sense at first glance for the Great One of the oceans to favor him; Old Gehraman had committed a great heresy against Her.
But Johann, who was also Gehrman, had put an end to the Nightmare. Letting Kos sleep amidst the waves once again. Old Gehrman had also been her child for some time.
And though another Avatar (or at least the facsimile of one) had been removed, it had not necessarily been desecrated.
The Byrgenwerth Scholars, and thus Old Gehrman and Maria. Had been brutal, precise, and cold with their research. They cut open and examined the corpse of Kos.
Consuming the corpse, on the other hand, was a much more pure (if not just as disgusting) act.
All these thoughts led Gehrman to lowering his sense of taste and smell as much as possible, using blood to widen his throat, and then swallow the [Cord of The Eye].
[Your Memory has been destroyed.]
The Nightmare Spell said emotionlessly.
Gehrman blinked, a bit surprised at what he had just done. He hoped for dear life that the casual nature of him simply eating the thing was not a manipulation of Paleblood. He hoped that it was actually Kos, the Nightmare Spell, or even Johann influencing him to do this.
All the facts backed up the action, but doing it now, so suddenly, was–
It hit him then.
Insight.
Gehrman grabbed his head as an insane amount of information assaulted him. It was useless. Random numbers, calculations, impossible shapes, none of it made any damn sense. However, when it subsided, he received another notification.
This time the Nightmare Spell spoke in what Gehrman interpreted as a relieved voice.
[You have undergone alteration.]
That was all it said.
No deleting or gaining of Attributes, no grand physical mutations, just unknown "alterations". It was disconcerting to say the least.
However, the Nightmare Spell appeared to be happy with his choice, though Gehrman feared that he was simply projecting on the thing, in his Madness.
Gehrman's hand twitched and he let out a sigh.
He was fairly certain there was an easy way to check if what had just happened actually had an impact.
He looked deep within himself, searching for the new power that he had gained in becoming a Saint.
Finding it, Gehrman held off for a moment as he rose high in the air, and then rocketed away.
Despite wanting to go back to civilization, he found an empty patch of dead land further West for now.
Gehrman did not think that this Transformation would actually be bad for those around him, but he wasn't sure how big it would be nor did he trust that he would be able to handle his new body with the grace necessary to not break anything around him.
Skidding along smooth dry ground, Gehrman came to a stop a few kilometers away from the ruins of Falcon Scott.
It had taken him a matter of seconds, and Gehrman now realized that he was no longer supersonic, but hypersonic. Perhaps even faster if he really pushed it.
Perhaps even faster in this new form.
With no more delays, Gehrman activated his Transcendent Ability, [Infant Great One].