In the Dread Ruins, Gehrman had discovered something akin to a sanctum hidden beneath the fallen Castle where the Gate of the Citadel resided.
It was hidden far below, and it seemed to only have two access points. The first was the desecrated Throne Room, and the other was hidden in a large temple that sat across from the castle.
Spiral stairs twisted downward for a few kilometers before reaching an area that seemed to be carved out by a god.
It was one giant dome, all of the ceilings and walls were covered in lightning-like cracks of gold.
Despite there being no light, the place glowed.
It might have been a most holy of places in ancient times, but now it was completely barren. Whatever shrines and murals that might have been here had been absconded with or simply disintegrated.
The whole place gave Gehrman a sense of eerie dread. It was an entirely different kind of marvel than the ancient Crimson Spire that had created an artificial sun.
The only thing that seemed to be similar to it was the Jade Palace, the capital of the Song Clan.
But that had been on a much larger scale…and it was also built by a being that went toe to toe with the dead six gods.
A Daemon.
Gehrman squinted at the place before walking over to the wall.
He punched it.
The force would have dented a mountain of decent size. But the wall did not break. Instead, a ripple seemed to go through it, the cracks of gold glowed in resonance. And then there was nothing.
It didn't seem to have been built by a Daemon, but it wasn't crafted by humans, that was certain.
Instead, it was likely at the level between Ki Song and those with true Divinity.
The beings of Sacred Rank, or in the case of Nightmare Creatures, Cursed, were considered minor gods based on what he had read.
This had been extrapolated from murals and relics of the ancient past. Entities that were decidedly above even ancient Sovereigns, but not depicted as reverently as the core six gods.
If a Sacred being was being worshiped here, or if it had simply built this place, then it made sense why this place layed in ruins.
No city would have survived worshiping other deities when the main six and the Daemons were as powerful as they were.
None of that really mattered though. All that did was the fact that it was impossible to destroy this place, no matter what happened.
He used his Aspect to observe the walls and found them to have an unfathomable sorcery running through them.
It was not the Weaves that made up Memories and the Spell, and it was not the Runes of this world either. There was no real form or pattern behind this power, it was as if a god had commanded it to never break, and thus the concept of fracture was never known to it.
The sorcery of gods.
A prickling sensation crept upon his skull, and another point of Insight was awarded to him.
He blinked in surprise. Gehrman had not expected to gain new Insight any time soon. After all, he was currently dealing with much more mundane things. But it was a welcome gift.
After all, he was about to lose several of that currency he had been hoarding, and he would undoubtedly be needing more of it eventually.
That was the reason he had been searching for a separate and safe place.
He didn't know what was about to happen.
Taking a deep breath, he entered his Soul Sea.
…
One's Aspect ability was at times intrinsically obvious. In fact, the vast majority of the time its use was natural and instictual. But in Gehrman's case there was something in the way of the seemingly easy grasping of his Aspect.
The application for both his ability to use Insight and his [Walking Workshop] ability were lost to him. The only hint he had was the feeling he felt when he had acquired the abilities.
Both of which had effects on his Soul.
Naturally, it had undergone a profound change lately. The Ascended cores were much more vibrant and had a more dominating presence over the pale sky. And now that he had claimed a Citadel, the outlines of the Dread Ruins existed in the distance. If he traveled, he could walk those halls here in his soul.
But he was not here to do that.
Gehrman was located on a small cobbled path, surrounded by flowers that were once Nightmare Creatures' abhorrent flesh.
Above him, the old Workshop of the Hunters Dream loomed like a passive ghost. He trudged upward, reaching the place and pushing open the large wooden doors.
With a creak that broke the uncanny silence he laid eyes on the familiar workshop.
It was now exactly the same as it had been in the Hunters Dream, fully furnished with all the relevant devices and tools.
He observed the empty shelves directly to his right, it had once been filled with numerous resources he had gathered through his Hunt as Johann. But now it was completely empty.
His eyes narrowed. In a moment of instinct he went back outside and grabbed a fistful of flowers. Then, he threw them onto the shelf.
In the Hunters Dream, an Arcane system let the shelf store infinite items, placing the singular item on the outside, and then summoning another of the spawned item when the first was taken.
…and that phenomenon had been replicated here.
With a very small burst of pale, purple smoke the flowers disappeared, leaving only one to rest atop the shelf.
He briefly let a face of surprise come upon him, but he composed himself quickly.
The utility of this was dubious. After all, he could not bring in outside items into his Soul Sea unless they were bonded to his Soul (like Memories were).
Why would he need to store anything?
A nagging feeling told him there was a reason, but he couldn't pin down what it was.
Shaking his head he moved on.
The Workshop Tool, the most important part of this place, allowed him to make his weapons stronger. Imbuing Trick Weapons with blood gems and augmenting them with blood shards, twin shards, chunks, and eventually rocks.
However, Gehrman had none of these things.
He had been half expecting to start receiving them instead of Memories in the Waking World. In Yharnam these rare pieces of condensed blood would appear after death as a result of an Arcane law that was universal across both Yharnam and the Chalice Dungeons.
But this was not the case, even after killing hundreds of creatures he had received nothing.
He opened and closed his hands, staring at them as if to manifest the rewards he was owed.
…nothing happened.
Gehrman scowled. The description of his [Walking Workshop] ability described augmenting of weapons. He had been hoping he could increase the Rank and Tier of the Memories he had, but there wouldn't be any of that until he found those crystallized pieces of blood (or whatever else the Spell had created to replicate it).
Sighing, he exited the Workshop.
After looking over the scenic view, he moved toward the nearest edge, the place where the manifested "Hunters Dream" ended.
Instead of peetering off into endless smoke and eldritch columns, the edge of the area simply dropped off back into his regular Soul Sea.
A plane of physical blood-like liquid and nothing else stretched on for eternity.
The corpses of Nightmare Creatures that built up into mountains before Ascending had all been transmuted into the new Soul Workshop area and the nearby forest of towering, thick trees.
He had expected new piles to appear since he had been busy handling Gate crises, but he couldn't see any. There were no corpses above or below the floor of blood.
…But there was something far, far below.
Gehrman closed his eyes shut tightly. His head pounded and anxiety ratchated through him.
His new Aspect abilities were powerful and strange, but that was largely due to the fact that they didn't belong to a simple Yharnam hunter. These powers were of another entity all together.
Paleblood.
The Great One who was also known as the Moon Presence resided in his Soul, locked in place and severely limited by the Nightmare Spell.
Gehrman had become aware of it during his first death and resurrection.
It existed below the ocean of solid blood, despite there being nothingness below it, reality and existence bent to keep it in a state of nonexistence that was held in place by Gehrman himself.
And now, he had the ability to see it for himself.
Gehrman had looked around briefly, enhancing his [Eyes on the Inside] and seeing no further hints. Thus, there was only one more option forward.
Seeking the source of these powers for answers.
Gehrman turned his gaze downward into the stalwart and unmoving floor of his Soul Sea. And then, very slowly, he pushed his Awakened Ability, allowing new information to assault his mind.
Immediately he recoiled.
A spine chilling coldness shocked his entire system as the mere sight of the depths below had brought him great pain.
A stream of thin blood ran down his nostril as a nosebleed and screaming headache hit him.
He had not even glimpsed Paleblood, only the outer layers of its cage.
What had greeted him defied all explanation.
It was a total absence of all things. No matter, energy, radiation, time, or space. It was simply Nothing.
Since it was the antithesis to "everything" Gehrman who "existed" had suffered a recoil. It would have erased any being who entered it, Gehrman suspected even Ki Song would not be safe.
Perhaps only a god could combat it…or a Great One.
As he recollected himself, he noted there was an odd familiarity to his pain. The essence of his being had encountered the non-thing before. It wasn't hard to determine where it came from.
The Void.
This was likely the reason Paleblood was able to still interfere despite what should have been an impossible cage. As it was a Void creature, it had an affinity to the Nothing.
And as his avatar, Gehrman suspected he did as well.
Only a little while later, his state returned to normal.
Gehrman debated his next course of action, and eventually decided upon a quick, high-power [Eyes on The Inside] "glance" at what lay below.
Laying eyes on Paleblood itself shouldn't immediately kill him since that creature technically was him.
But he was sure that the Spell had more countermeasures than just the Nothing.
Hopefully, in seeing how Paleblood existed and manipulated his cage, he could figure out how to manipulate Insight, and also how to use his [Walking Workshop].
He took a deep breath, and for one second he glanced below himself, allowing the truth of higher dimensions into his mind and soul.
Gehrman's brain literally shattered.
Chunks of his brain flew outward and hit his skull.
Blood poured out of every one of his orifices and he collapsed right onto the floor of his Soul Sea.
Glassy eyed and dead.
A stream of Blood Fragments poured downward from the sixth, swirling Soul Core high above.
With great speed, Gehrman quickly recovered.
His eyes flashed open merely moments later, the dried blood that stung his Soul-avatar clung to his form.
He blinked, sitting up and sitting cross legged.
He looked up into the sky and pondered deeply. Before noting how unnerving his reaction to dying was, Gehrman took time to reorganize the still image in his mind.
His head ached as he recalled the sight of Paleblood, bestial and alien in its form.
It had been looking straight up at him.
Its long, bony finger reaching out of what looked like to be a bunch of imaginary shapes that were made of Essence.
The type of Sorcery and Arcane powers used were so beyond him that he couldn't figure out a single purpose of any one thing.
All he knew was that Paleblood…was not limited to his body.
It was something similar to Ki Song's presence, her Will, but on a completely different scale. The quality of its Will was monstrous, but it was also surgical and esoteric. Poking through the cage were tiny bits of Paleblood, constantly flashing with power and strange effects.
They were not physical, but rather points of Paleblood on another dimensional plane. And on that plane, and likely several others, it picked apart its cage. Peeling it open slightly.
There was no logic behind it, only the intrinsic, cosmic, ability to alter reality to Palebloods Will.
Gehrman suddenly stopped breathing. His mind hung on that lost thought. This was, at its core, very similar to the sorcery he had just witnessed in the Dread Ruins sanctum.
Many things clicked into place at once.
Divine Sorcery.
Will.
Higher planes of thought.
Master Willem had once spoken on this.
"We are thinking on the basest of planes," he had said. "What we need, are more eyes"
Eyes. Or rather, Insight.
Eyes on the inside, was a concept Master Willem experimented with. Lining the brain with eyes was thought to allow someone to see past the "basest of planes". That plane was naturally the material world.
With his Awakened ability, he could see higher planes, and that allowed him to see Souls and hidden sorceries.
Gehrman had the Insight necessary to peer into these other realms…but he had never even thought to interact with them.
That was the domain of gods and Great Ones, after all. He would undoubtedly be trespassing.
…but if all he did was tamper with a rock on another plane of existence, which in turn made it more durable it wouldn't catch the attention of the beings that existed and lived through these planes.
Gehrman's heart pounded as he realized something important.
Though it would have to be small, this kind of manipulation of reality was wholly inaccessible to anyone and anything in this world. He was leveraging the power of the restrained Great One in his Soul to breach into higher planes.
And so for those who could not comprehend such dimensions, the things created with his Awakened Ability would be unfathomable.
This is what it meant to go beyond the basest of planes.
This is what it meant to have [Eyes on The Inside].
Five pops occurred on his brain.
His insights were recognized as worthy observations of the realities around him.