Once in Yharnam, a single event occurred that changed the lives of many people. An event that ultimately drove countless people mad and plunged them into the most terrifying and insane nightmare they could ever imagine.
And this event took place several decades ago. It was the beginning of the fall of the Healing Church, the mass madness of both people and hunters, and the gradual increase in the influence of the Great Ones. It all started on the outskirts of Yharnam, where there existed an unremarkable Fishing Hamlet — one of many. But this small fishing village hid one great secret.
The cause of this secret was a single being that the villagers worshiped. Every resident of the hamlet prayed to a goddess named Kos, who dwelled in the sea. Every day, the people of the Fishing Hamlet offered prayers to the Great Kos. This continued for a long time: the villagers lived their lives and worshiped Kos, while rumors and mysteries about the being they worshiped grew around the hamlet.
Because the Fishing Hamlet was small and located in a remote area, few people ever visited its outskirts. Most didn't even know about it or simply considered it a small fishing community living its own life. Therefore, outsiders rarely found themselves in these parts.
Still, uninvited visitors occasionally appeared in the Fishing Hamlet: merchants who took a wrong turn and ended up there by accident, sailors who drifted into the hamlet's harbor by chance, or random travelers who wandered into the area.
And everyone who happened to find themselves in this Fishing Hamlet noticed the strangeness of the place. They saw rituals by the sea, strange songs and prayers that no one understood. Those who stayed overnight could witness or hear the actual rites of worship to Kos. It left a strong impression on those who saw it with their own eyes.
And all those who found themselves there by chance would later tell stories in taverns, ports, and neighboring villages. Rumors about the strange Fishing Hamlet spread from mouth to mouth, gaining new details with each retelling.
At first, they were just rumors about strange people who looked like fish living in a closed community. Then came rumors that the residents of the Fishing Hamlet worshiped some strange sea deity.
With every new person who visited the Fishing Hamlet, the rumors gained new details: that the villagers had eyes like fish, or that they ate raw fish and sang strange songs at night.
Eventually, these rumors reached the ears of those obsessed with blood and the search for a way to Ascend. In the end, the rumors and secrets reached the Healing Church. The followers of the Healing Church were already actively seeking the power of the Great Ones, so when they heard about a sea deity that granted power to those who worshiped it, the rumors immediately sparked great interest among the Church's leadership.
They began gathering more information, sending people to the area where the strange Fishing Hamlet was rumored to be. The servants of the Healing Church, under orders from Vicar Laurence himself, observed the Fishing Hamlet day and night, collecting more and more information.
They pretended to be lost travelers who had stumbled into the area. Gradually, the Healing Church studied Kos through indirect sources and the words of the villagers themselves.
Coming to the realization that the residents of the Fishing Hamlet differed from other people because of Kos's blood — which led those who worshiped her toward Ascension — Laurence, who desperately desired to ascend, saw this as an opportunity for his research. And then one event occurred that became the key factor in the beginning of the nightmare for many.
On one moonlit night, Kos was washed ashore. No one knew how or why it happened. And no one would ever learn the answer to why Kos had been cast onto the shore, because what followed were horrific events. When rumors that the Great Kos had been washed ashore reached the Healing Church, Laurence, the first Vicar, gave the order to prepare an expedition.
Once all preparations for the expedition were complete, a group of the first and finest Hunters, led by Vicar Laurence himself, set out for the Fishing Hamlet with one goal — to seize the body of the Great Kos. This expedition included not only Laurence, but also Gehrman, Maria, Ludwig, and many other hunters.
When this group of Hunters reached the border of the Fishing Hamlet, they intended to take the body of the Great Kos. And when the villagers saw the large group of armed men, they immediately understood why these people had come. But the residents of the Fishing Hamlet had no intention of handing over the deity they worshiped and who had blessed them.
What the villagers didn't know was that these men wanted not only Kos, but them as well. On Laurence's orders, a true massacre was carried out in the Fishing Hamlet. The Hunters killed every resident and cracked open their skulls.
The sound of the slaughter echoed throughout the area, and blood flowed like a river straight into the sea beside which the Fishing Hamlet had been built. The Hunters, intoxicated by blood, reveled in the slaughter, killing everyone who lived there. While cracking open the skulls of the villagers, the Hunters found eyes that had grown from the brains of the hamlet's residents. The corpses of the slain villagers with split skulls were simply thrown onto the dirty ground.
And when the Hunters reached Kos herself, Laurence and Gehrman learned that Kos had been pregnant. They assumed that her pregnancy was the reason she had been washed ashore. The one who slit open the belly of the Great Kos was Maria herself, who also took part in the massacre, killing the residents of the Fishing Hamlet.
And when Maria opened the belly of the Great Kos, everyone saw the being she had been carrying — a creature that would eventually be known as the Orphan of Kos. When the Orphan of Kos was taken from its mother's body, Kos finally died. But with her death, she cursed everyone responsible for the massacre and the fate of her child. Only a distant echo, like the whisper of the wind, reached the ears of the Hunters who had carried out the slaughter.
"May the true fiends be cursed. May their children and their children's children be cursed for all eternity," the quiet, wind-like mournful voice of Kos rang out, cursing the guilty.
Kos's final words, like a whisper on the wind, reached the ears of those she cursed. But those upon whom her rage and curse were directed did not hear her words. And when Kos died, the massacre in the Fishing Hamlet came to an end. Those who had taken part in the slaughter stood on the blood-soaked shore.
The blood of the Fishing Hamlet's residents and the blood of Kos herself mixed with the seawater, turning it red. And everyone's eyes were fixed on Kos's body and her child, who had been taken from her. At that moment, only a few of the Hunters realized what kind of atrocity they had committed.
One of those Hunters was Maria. When the slaughter ended, she realized what they had done. A feeling of guilt instantly overwhelmed her. Maria stood among the corpses, still gripping her bloodied blade. Her hands trembled as she looked at the dead villagers — women, children, elders — and for the first time during the entire expedition, she began to understand what they had done.
Looking at her hands covered in the blood of innocent people and her clothes soaked in blood, Maria felt the full horror of the act she and the other Hunters had committed. Her guilt was so strong that she threw her weapon into a deep well. And so the feeling of guilt took root in Maria's heart, growing stronger with each passing day.
When the expedition ended, none of them even suspected what kind of horror and madness they would bring back to Yharnam with them. Kos's body and her child were to be sent for experiments, and the Hunters returned to their duties.
When the Hunters returned to Yharnam, everything was supposed to go back to normal. But it didn't. Kos's curse began to take effect. Every night, the Hunters who had participated in the massacre in the Fishing Hamlet had nightmares that wouldn't let them sleep.
Kos's curse wasn't limited to creating just one Nightmare. The Hunters who had first raised their weapons against the Great One and her child unknowingly returned to Yharnam already broken. Gradually, the Hunters began to go mad without realizing it. They started seeing images of monsters more often — monsters that turned out to be ordinary people or members of their own families.
Slowly but surely, many Hunters lost their minds to Kos's curse. Day after day, night after night, without realizing it, their minds grew more insane, and the Hunters themselves looked like living corpses suffering from insomnia and exhaustion.
Every night they saw nightmares in which a mournful child's cry rang out, driving them mad. And over time, even outside of the nightmares, they heard this mournful child's cry, filled with the resentment and rage of a child whose mother had been taken away.
But Kos's curse was far worse than mere nightmares and the maddening cry of a child. Kos wanted to take back everything that had been taken from her. More than half of the Hunters who had taken part in the expedition to the Fishing Hamlet, driven by madness and the blood overwhelming them, began a slaughter in Yharnam and started killing everyone around them.
The Hunters who had succumbed to madness could no longer distinguish reality from nightmare. They killed their own wives, children, and even their brothers in the order with their own hands. They fought with such insane fury that they could not be stopped. But their minds could not withstand this madness.
Blood flowed from their eyes, ears, and noses, and their brains literally leaked out through cracks in their skulls. They died in terrible agony, screaming about monsters that only they could see. And by dawn, the mad Hunters had perished on the streets of Yharnam. But for them, it was not the end of the nightmare, but only the beginning of an eternal imprisonment in a world of blood and madness.
The Hunters who had not gone mad understood what had caused half of them to lose their minds and start the slaughter. Some Hunters eventually simply left the Hunter order and stepped away from their duties, hoping they would not go mad. One of those Hunters was Maria.
But she left the Hunter order not out of fear of going mad, but because of the guilt that had been consuming her since the end of the massacre in the Fishing Hamlet. Maria had thrown her weapon into the well in the Fishing Hamlet so she would never again hold the weapon that had taken the lives of innocent people.
Upon returning to Yharnam, Maria left the Hunter order and joined the clinic to care for the sick. Joining the clinic run by the Healing Church, Maria thought and hoped that in this way she could atone for the innocent blood on her hands.
Day after day, Maria cared for the sick, talking to them while changing their bandages. She did everything she could to atone for her guilt. During the day, when the sun was shining, she visited the patients' wards with a gentle smile. But in the evenings, when no one was around, the guilt would return and slowly devour her from within. Even Gehrman, who saw Maria as a daughter and student, could do nothing to help her.
And Maria didn't want to accept anyone's help, believing that this guilt belonged only to her and that only she could atone for it. And when the mad residents of Yharnam began slaughtering people on the city streets, Maria was the one who cared for those who had survived the weapons of the mad Hunters.
While changing bloodied bandages on people's bodies, Maria sank even deeper into the abyss called guilt. Even when her hands trembled as she removed the blood-soaked bandages, Maria kept a smile on her face. But upon returning home, the guilt would consume her with even greater force.
Maria lived with only a small hope that one day, at some point, she would be able to atone for the murder of innocents. And then perhaps the blood of innocent people would be washed from her hands. Only this small hope of redemption was the single ray of light that kept her alive.
But at one point, that ray of light was extinguished when Maria learned a terrible truth. Maria discovered the horrifying truth hidden within the walls of the clinic where she worked and cared for the sick. With her own eyes, she saw the horrific experiments with blood being conducted on the patients she had been caring for.
And that was when she learned who was responsible for these experiments on the sick. The first Vicar Laurence had ordered experiments with the blood of the Great Ones on sick people to see what effect it would have. Upon learning this horrifying truth, Maria completely lost her last hope of redemption.
At that moment, a mournful laugh filled with bitterness, sorrow, and despair escaped her lips. She realized that everything was pointless and she would never be able to atone for her sins. Because she had not only failed to wash the blood of innocents from her hands — she had only stained them with even more innocent blood.
The sight of what had become of the clinic's patients only deepened Maria's despair. The patients who had been subjected to experiments began to change: their bodies and limbs lengthened, and their heads swelled into a tumor-like mass of skin, inside which something sloshed that resembled anything but a human face. The sight of the patients she had cared for drove her into even greater despair.
From that moment on, Maria no longer trusted anyone. She no longer trusted her teacher Gehrman. Because she knew that Gehrman was a close friend of Laurence and might have known what was happening in the clinic, hiding this horrifying truth from her. Having lost her last hope, Maria understood that this was the end she deserved for everything she had done with her own hands.
And in a fit of despair that had become unbearable, Maria decided to perform one final act of mercy for those who had become victims of the experiments. Under the cover of night, Maria sneaked into the section of the clinic where the experiments on people were being conducted.
With her own hands, she began killing those who had been experimented on. And while killing with her own hands those she had cared for, Maria repeated that it was better for them to die by her hands and stop suffering than to continue being subjected to unthinkable experiments.
After killing the last person who had been experimented on, Maria looked at her bloodied hands and thought that this might be the last good thing she would ever do. Having done this, Maria climbed to the Clock Tower, where she used to go to be alone.
Looking out the window of the Clock Tower one last time, Maria already understood that she would never be able to atone for her sin and guilt. And so she decided to end her life so that her hands would no longer be stained with the blood of innocents. She herself would become the last person killed by her own hands.
But what Maria did not know at that moment was that it was impossible to atone for guilt before the Great Kos, whose child had been taken from her. And with her act of mercy, Maria doomed those she killed to the same Nightmare in which she herself became eternally trapped in the Clock Tower, forever hearing the mournful cry of the Orphan of Kos.
Alex lay on the cold floor of the Oedon Chapel in the Hunter's Nightmare, staring at the ceiling. Above him, slightly leaning forward, sat Alucard, listening in silence.
"Well, that's roughly how it all happened…" Alex said, exhaling cigarette smoke as he continued staring at the ceiling.
They had ended up in this place right after Alex destroyed the Nightmare Frontier and killed Amygdala. The place where Alex found himself was the very Hunter's Nightmare he had told her about. Slowly smoking his cigarette and looking at the high ceiling of the Oedon Chapel, Alex shifted his gaze to his wife Alucard, who was sitting on a chair and towering over him.
Alucard sat with her legs crossed, elbow resting on her knee, cheek propped on her fist. She looked at her husband with a tired gaze. From the very beginning, he had continued lying on the floor next to the Messenger lamp, not even trying to get up while telling his story.
And once again, she had to listen to a long and boring story about what had happened here. She wasn't surprised by the greed of people who, under the guise of great goals, destroyed an entire settlement and were ultimately cursed.
And knowing her husband, Alucard assumed that his entire story boiled down to just one single moment — the part about the girl named Maria, because he had spoken about that fragment with more emotion. Continuing to rest her cheek on her fist, Alucard knew that her husband had a strange tendency to save women with tragic fates. And on one hand, it even amused her.
"Are you done? Or do you want to tell me something else?" Alucard asked, noticing that Alex had fallen silent and was simply smoking.
"I'm done telling the story… But was it really not interesting to you at all?" Alex said, sitting up and propping his cheek on his fist, lightly swaying the cigarette clenched between his teeth.
"No. The essence is the same: people kill each other, covering up their greed by calling it a great goal. They just chose the wrong being as the object of their greed," Alucard said, lazily waving her hand to show her attitude toward what she had heard.
"Ugh… And I tried so hard to share another tragic story from this world with you," Alex said, exhaling smoke and looking at his wife with an offended expression.
"The only tragic thing I heard in this long and boring story was the fate of your princess from the Clock Tower…" Alucard said, looking at Alex with an amused gaze.
"She's not my princess. Well… not yet…" Alex said, coughing into his fist and turning away.
"Then you should have just told the story of this Maria… instead of making me listen to another long story again," Alucard said, poking Alex in the forehead with her finger.
In response to Alucard's words, Alex turned away, pretending that he had to explain how this place came to be and what caused it. Seeing her husband's behavior, Alucard smiled mockingly and stood up from the chair she had been sitting on.
She no longer wanted to sit still and wished to see with her own eyes what this world of the Nightmare — created from the curse of a sea goddess — was like. Alucard extended her hand to Alex so he would finally get up from the floor and they could move on.
When Alex took her hand, Alucard pulled him sharply toward her. In the next moment, Alex found himself in Alucard's arms, and she touched his lips with her finger. Her gaze told him that she was no longer going to listen to his long stories that didn't interest her. Alex slightly pursed his lips and shrugged, showing that there was nothing more to tell about this place.
"Alright, let's go see what awaits us in this place. Or did I destroy an entire dimension for nothing?" Alex said with a cheerful smile, pulling Alucard along with him.
"We would have done it earlier if it weren't for you," Alucard said, following Alex.
Alex pretended not to hear his wife's words and left the Oedon Chapel, stepping outside. Once on the street, Alex and Alucard saw the distorted side of the Cathedral Ward, which looked as if it had been created from the fevered memories of a madman. Everything looked as though giant roots had grown through the streets, lifting the roads and buildings.
It all looked as if hundreds of years had passed in the Cathedral Ward, ultimately turning it into such an abandoned piece of land. Just like in the Nightmare Frontier, the sky was covered with heavy clouds with a reddish tint. But the most distinctive feature of this place wasn't that it looked like a madman's view of the world, but what was supposed to be the moon or the sun.
What was supposed to be the sun or moon looked more like a huge yellow clock face of a clock tower or the eye of a madman watching over this nightmare. But upon closer inspection, Alex realized that it was indeed an eye — the eye of the being that had created this world and was watching the suffering of those trapped here.
"Revenge from a being like this is not something a human can imagine," Alex said, narrowing his eyes and looking at the eye in the sky.
"So it wasn't just my imagination that something was watching us," Alucard said, standing beside Alex and looking at the same thing.
"Something like that. Better not pay attention to it. We need to look around a bit to figure out where to go," Alex said, shaking his head and turning away from the giant eye in the sky.
"I thought you already knew where to go…" Alucard said, shifting her gaze from the sky to Alex.
"More or less. We need to head toward Old Yharnam. The passage further is there," Alex said, starting to walk forward to show the way.
As they walked, Alex remembered that mad Hunters who had participated in the massacre in the Fishing Hamlet roamed this place. And the first place Alex intended to visit was the Grand Cathedral, where the body of Laurence — who had been turned into a monster and cursed to remain a mindless beast forever, experiencing the pain of burning — was located.
Even though the Cathedral Ward was distorted beyond recognition and the old paths were blocked, Alex still knew where to go. And as soon as Alex and Alucard walked a little further, they encountered the first mad Hunter, armed with a Beast Cutter. The weapon resembled a heavy one-handed axe that could transform into a heavy whip.
The Hunter was dressed in the clothing of the first-generation Hunters, but the most striking feature was his eyes, which glowed with insane yellow light. Before the Hunter could even swing his Beast Cutter, Alex was already beside him and grabbed the Hunter by the head. Twisting the mad Hunter's head 180 degrees with a disgusting crunch of a broken neck, the Hunter fell to his knees before collapsing flat onto the ground.
"New toy, hooray," Alex said, taking the Beast Cutter from the dead Hunter's hands.
Alex swung the Beast Cutter a few times to get used to the weapon. And when he turned his head to show the weapon to Alucard, he noticed she was gone. At that same moment, he heard the sound of gunshots and screams. Sighing tiredly, Alex pushed off the ground and jumped. Landing on a tilted building, Alex looked around until his gaze fell on the central square of the distorted Cathedral Ward.
He saw his wife Alucard fighting three Hunters armed with different weapons. Jumping down to get closer, Alex leaned against a tombstone and watched as Alucard easily killed the first mad Hunter.
Alucard effortlessly tore off the arm of the Hunter holding his weapon and immediately stabbed him in the chest with his own weapon. After killing the first Hunter, the death of the second didn't take long. Alucard dodged the second Hunter's attack and appeared behind his back.
She slammed the second Hunter to the ground and pressed her blunderbuss to his head. A gunshot rang out, and the second Hunter's head exploded in a bloody firework. After killing the second Hunter, Alucard's gaze shifted to the third, who was holding a Boom Hammer.
The third Hunter attacked Alucard, and right before swinging, he ignited the Boom Hammer and struck at her. Alucard raised her saw-cleaver to block the blow. When the Boom Hammer and saw-cleaver collided, Alucard was thrown backward. Sliding across the ground, Alucard hadn't expected the hammer to explode on impact and send her flying back.
Alucard's surprise was only about the weapon the Hunter was holding, not the Hunter himself wielding it. She shifted her gaze to the third Hunter, and her body suddenly blurred. In the next moment, she was already behind the Hunter with the Boom Hammer. Alucard grabbed the arm holding the Boom Hammer. With one sharp motion, she tore the Hunter's arm off.
Taking the Boom Hammer from the Hunter, Alucard repeated his motion, igniting the Boom Hammer, and struck the Hunter's head. The moment the Boom Hammer touched the Hunter's head, his body exploded. After killing the last Hunter, Alucard tossed the Boom Hammer aside as if it were useless. And before the Boom Hammer could hit the ground, Alex caught the discarded weapon.
"If you don't need it, I'll take it. Thanks, my love," Alex said, spinning the Boom Hammer in his hand.
"Enjoy," Alucard said, turning her head toward Alex.
"How did you like the first-generation Hunters?" Alex asked, storing the Boom Hammer in his inventory.
"They were quite mediocre. It wasn't even worth wasting time on them," Alucard said in a lazy tone, putting her weapons away under her cloak.
Alex nodded understandingly and wasn't even surprised by Alucard's assessment of the Hunters. Seeing no reason to linger, Alex began climbing the stairs to reach the Grand Cathedral. As they ascended, Alex and Alucard heard a bell ringing in the Grand Cathedral.
Reaching the gates of the Grand Cathedral, Alex and Alucard saw Hunters fighting a Church Giant. Not wanting to get involved in the fight, Alex and Alucard decided to simply watch. And very quickly, the Church Giant, armed with a huge iron axe, turned two Hunters into a red smear on the stairs.
Alex whistled lightly, seeing how quickly two Hunters lost to one Church Giant. The moment Alex whistled, the Church Giant turned all its attention toward them. The Church Giant began walking toward Alex and Alucard with wide, clumsy steps, gripping its huge iron axe.
Before the Church Giant could get close to Alex and Alucard, Alex pulled the Beast Cutter from his back and activated the mechanism, transforming the heavy one-handed axe into a heavy whip. Alex swung his arm, and the tip of the Beast Cutter tore off the front part of the Church Giant's head. Having lost part of its head, the Church Giant continued walking forward until it tripped and rolled down the stairs.
"Convenient weapon. But the Chainsword my little princess made is still better," Alex said, putting the Beast Cutter away on his back.
"Fatherly love for his daughters in its purest form," Alucard said with a smile as she climbed the stairs.
"I'm just stating obvious facts," Alex said, shrugging and following her up the stairs.
Passing through the gates of the Grand Cathedral, Alex and Alucard began climbing the stairs to the main hall. Upon reaching the main hall, Alex couldn't help but comment on the fact that the main hall looked exactly the same as in Yharnam, considering they were now in a distorted world.
And the only difference in this main hall was that on the altar where the monster's skull had been, the monster itself now lay. It was a huge beast, identical to the Cleric Beast that Alex and Alucard had already seen. But this monster was Laurence himself, cursed for his actions to remain a mindless beast forever, experiencing the pain of burning.
The monster's body was engulfed in flames, and it lay limply on the altar, devoid of all signs of life. Alex approached the monster and examined it more closely. His gaze fell on the monster's paw and what it was clutching. Alex took the item from the monster's paw, and it turned out to be an old silver pendant with a porcelain eye in the center.
"This will come in handy," Alex said, putting the pendant in his pocket.
"What could this be useful for? Are you planning to resurrect this creature?" Alucard asked, looking at Alex.
"That's right. Or aren't you interested in killing the first Vicar?" Alex said, turning to Alucard and giving her a thumbs-up.
"So this is him… He couldn't even turn into a proper monster. What a pathetic sight. I expected more from a man who did so much in pursuit of ascension. And in the end, he turned into this," Alucard said with contempt, looking at the monster's body.
"In the end, he'll still become your familiar. A new pet for you, and his memories for me," Alex said, shrugging.
Alucard slowly blinked as she looked at her husband and tilted her head to the side. She didn't mind having such familiars. But her contempt for Laurence remained. As she had said, she had expected more from a man who had been so consumed by his ambitions that he ended up as a mindless beast.
Alucard even thought that such a fate perfectly suited a piece of trash like Laurence, who couldn't do anything right. Finished with Laurence, Alex and Alucard moved on. Alucard — toward her new hunting target, and Alex — toward a new weapon for his collection.
To be continued...
(So you might be wondering, why the hell is he telling us about the lore of this world? Well, first of all, you need to know how all this crap happened that led to the creation of such a dimension. And I've literally simplified your task, because if you try to figure it all out yourself, it will take you a long time. But I've done all the work for you. And don't worry anymore, there won't be any lore, or there will be. Who knows. But at least now you know what the hell happened. And I'm going to go eat. Because my head is splitting from having to squeeze so much lore into such a small chunk of text. My runaway editor will answer any further questions, if you can catch him. Peace, love, and don't stick your finger in the beehive.)
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