Bloodborne Eternal Beast - 49 (Patreon)

Chapter 049: In Search of the Golden Cup

Just then, the Saw Cleaver on Charles’s back, already on the verge of breaking, gave an insistent hum as though it were alive, pulling him from his thoughts.

It seemed eager to return to the Workshop’s casting table for “treatment.” Dark red bloodstains writhed across the blade like maggots beneath the flickering candlelight.

Without a word, Charles picked up two Blood Rocks brimming with dense energy and tossed them into the furnace. The instant the forging hammer fell, it was as though the gates of hell had opened. Thousands of wails burst from the patterns in the hammered metal and echoed briefly throughout the dream.

“The moon is drawing near. Tonight will be a long night of hunting. It is a fate from which there is no escape.”

From the corner came the muffled thump of Gehrman closing the thick Hunter’s Journal. He raised his head, his single eye dull and lifeless, as though he had witnessed countless cycles come and go.

A sudden eruption of blood-red flame from the furnace nearly swallowed Charles in his surprise. “The moon is getting closer... What does that mean?” he pressed. He had heard many times that this night was different, but only now, thinking it through, did he sense the currents moving beneath the seemingly calm surface.

“In the Eternal Night, a Hunter has only one task. Hunt. Don’t dwell on anything else. Take part in the Hunt, and the Blood will give you your answer.” Gehrman brushed a finger as withered as a dead branch across Charles’s brow. A chill like the cold of a grave immediately seeped into the deepest reaches of his memory. “If the Beasts ravage your mind, seek the Chalice. Just as every Hunter before you has done.”

The stale scent of age and decay seemed to cling to his whisper, filling Charles with a sense of urgency unlike anything he had felt before. “What exactly is the Chalice? What can it give me? And where am I supposed to find one?”

“The Chalice will reveal the Tomb of the Gods... There, Hunters partake in the Communion and obtain power beyond imagination.” Gehrman swept his silver Threaded Cane across the ground, tracing a shape that seemed to collapse endlessly inward, as though it could swallow light itself. “Most Chalices lie buried deep within the Tomb of the Gods. Only a handful found their way into the outside world... and even those are now being lost once more in human hands.”

Without giving Charles time to respond, he continued, “But the old legends remain... One Chalice is said to be enshrined in a small town in the Valley Hamlet.”

“You mean... Old Yharnam?” Charles watched him intently, studying every change in his expression.

“Mm. So you do know something about it.” The tip of Gehrman’s Threaded Cane suddenly pierced Charles’s unhealed chest. It did not injure him. Instead, a cold current of energy flowed into his body, helping his wounds recover. “But the city has fallen into complete chaos... The Scourge of the Beast ran rampant there. To keep it from spreading, the people burned the city to the ground. Now only scattered monsters remain.”

“That’s right. I reached its outskirts and saw the ashes left by that tragedy myself.” Charles briefly recounted what he had witnessed. “A powerful Hunter was guarding the place, so I didn’t go any farther.”

“Mr. Hunter.”

At some point, the Doll had silently approached from behind and wrapped her arms around Charles’s shoulders, which trembled with exhaustion. Her porcelain chin rested lightly against his bloodstained collar.

“Your heartbeat... is as frantic as a falling morning star.”

Her silver-threaded fingers glided across the weapon rack as though playing an instrument. Each weapon seemed to awaken at her touch, giving off faint whimpers like the cries of infants.

“Would you like to hear the Saw Cleaver’s story? It says that its previous owner once saw an... Umbilical Cord shimmering with starlight among the ruins of Hamlet...”

Gehrman studied Charles for a long moment, then smiled knowingly. “Powerful enemies, endless monsters... It sounds like a hunting ground made for Hunters, doesn’t it?”

By the time he fastened the final reinforcement plate onto the Saw Cleaver, the moonlight outside the window had quietly taken on an ominous crimson tint.

Gehrman’s pipe glowed and faded in the darkness. The lullaby he hummed shifted at one discordant note, gradually becoming a mournful dirge.

Charles knew that even without their urging, he had already been left with no other choice.

He purchased everything he needed from the Bathhouse Messengers, then allowed the Doll to guide the Blood Echoes accumulated within him and turn them into tangible strength. Once more, he stepped into cursed Yharnam.

Bones cracked sharply beneath his boots. In the distance, the long howls of Beasts tore through the night one after another.

A new Hunt had begun.

Crimson firelight seeped thickly across the Morgue Square leading to Old Yharnam. Pools of blood, black and viscous as tar, distorted the reflections of ravens circling overhead. The foul wind stirred by their wings carried a distinct, rasping bestial howl, a sound that seemed possible only from vocal cords scorched raw by red-hot iron.

The howl echoed again and again between charred beams and pillars that resembled exposed bones, weaving itself into a symphony of death.

Ssssh!

A burst of ghostly phosphorescence flared ten paces away. A many-legged creature clad in skull-like armor shot from the viscous pool of blood, its hard carapace scraping across the masonry and leaving a trail of sparks behind it.

Clang!

The instant it kicked off a broken wall in an attempt to escape, the hooked end of Charles’s Saw Cleaver lodged precisely into a gap in its shell like a scorpion’s stinger. A piercing scrape rang out, sharp as chimes made from bone, while all six pairs of its limbs hammered frantically against the ground, scattering beads of dark red blood.

Charles swiftly split open its shell, and a brilliant spray of blood-red luminescence burst from within. He wiped away the foul-smelling fluorescent slime and found three Blood Stone Shards glowing dimly among its still-twitching organs.

It was one of the peculiar creatures Hunters called a Wandering Nightmare, whose body invariably carried such rare materials.

“Woo... woo...”

To the left of the square, the melted remains of an arched bridge resembled the twisted spine of some enormous beast. A hunched figure convulsed painfully among the embers that had yet to die. When the flickering flames illuminated its completely rotted face, the Beast Patient wrapped in charred bandages let out a pitiful whimper like an infant’s cry.

Fragments of the old tragedy flooded Charles’s mind.

Its deformed claws scratched frantically at the brand on its chest, the everlasting mark left by the Church’s holy fire. The wound had never healed in all those years, and thick amber-colored pus still seeped constantly from the scar.

But between Hunter and Beast, only one could survive.

Charles’s gaze sharpened. Without hesitation, he swung his Saw Cleaver.

Splatter!

The instant the blade tore through the thick fog, the Beasts on the opposite side surged forward like floodwaters bursting through a dam, trampling over the charred corpses of their own kind.

Three hunched figures draped in filthy oilcloth lowered themselves upside down from the ruined walls. Their ragged robes fluttered in the evening wind, resembling the dangling trouser legs of corpses hanging from a gallows.

Facing the oncoming horde, Charles tensed every muscle and met them head-on.

His Saw Cleaver, ignited with Fire Paper, became a blazing wheel of light. Together with the whistling Quicksilver Bullets, it formed a whirlwind of death. One Beast Patient after another was torn apart into clouds of blood, and a path paved with severed limbs and gore rapidly stretched beneath his feet.

Pup-pup-pup!

Suddenly, a storm of Gatling Gun fire poured down from the tower above. A blazing wall of sparks instantly cut off the path ahead.