The fate of all Great Ones? The price of humanity.

- Is it time to continue?

The hunter jumped into the lake. Under the water there was a completely different world. Instead of land in this place, living creatures walked on water, and on the entire visible horizon, covered with clouds, there was only one black dot.

An elephant-sized creature that looks like a mixture of various insects and a spider. Rom, the last defender of the world, the first artificial Great One and a little girl, as a result of an experiment, born with a dead brain.

The existence of this creature makes a barrier against the influence of other Great Ones on ordinary people.

Even when the hunter came point-blank to the creature, it did not show a drop of aggression.

- Forgive me, girl. But to get rid of an elephant, you must first acknowledge its existence.

Perhaps I am putting you out of your misery. But I in no way think that this justifies me.

The cane sank into the middle of Rom's head from above. But the experiment, which according to scientists from Byrgenwerth exceeded human limits, had too much viability.

With a scream, Rom teleported into the distance and summoned a group of spiders in her image.

A battle began, wounding body and soul.

Although artificial Great One had the ability to create an energy explosion and cause meteor showers from the sky and from underwater, the hunter was able to complete hunt on the first try.

{This is for the best, I don't know if I could make multiple attempts on a creature that is essentially a child.}

Another sacred chalice appeared at the site of the girl's death. And a little further out of thin air, a Pthumerian woman dressed in a white dress materialized. From the stomach to the very hem, the clothes were soaked in blood.

- Queen Yharnam...

The woman looked at moon hanging in the sky.

Suddenly, a child's cry was heard in the air, and the moon in the sky began to grow larger and redder.

At the moment of the queen's disappearance, half of the sky was covered with a red disk.

Surprisingly everything went dark.

.....

The hunter woke up in the old temple, where Amegdala once dragged him into her nightmare.

But unlike last time, the door at the end of the hall was open.

Walking forward, Crowley suddenly discovered that he was in a familiar place. Yahar'Gul unseen village. The place where the cult of Mensis was founded, a gathering of fanatics who kidnap the inhabitants of Yharnam for inhumane experiments. They were led by Mikcolash, one of the traitors of Byrgenwerth Academy.

Once upon a time, creatures whom the teenager called Boogeymen dragged him to local prison several hundred times.

But now this place has changed, previously closed passages have opened, new types of monsters have appeared.

Incarnations of Amygdala hung on the walls of buildings, sometimes killing monsters with a beam from their eyes. After some time, this monsters rose from pools of blood to the ringing of bells in the hands of the village women.

Mountains of stuck together corpses were moving along the roads below, sticking out from one coffin. For some reason, they avoided the blessed corpses kneeling on the sides of the road.

The hunt has begun. Despite the deaths, Crowley took it quite easily morally.

After the first death, the teenager met Gilbert. Unfortunately, after the onset of the blood moon, the remaining inhabitants of the city began to turn into monsters or die. Having finished with beast, who was once a pleasant conversationalist, the teenager decided to visit all his friends.

Iosefka, like her charges, was found dead in her true form on one of the clinic's couches; one-third of the umbilical cord was recovered from her remains. The cannibal beggar left a level 2 beast rune on his body.

The prostitute Arianna was found in the basement of the chapel, at the moment of the onset of the blood moon, she gave birth to a strange creature, after which she went crazy. Deciding to save woman from suffering, Crowley pierced her heart with a blade. At the same moment, the woman's child also died, leaving behind another third of the umbilical cord.

{Children of the Great Ones always die...}

Huntress Eileen was found almost killed in a fight with another hunter, a representative of old school of hunters and the cult of vilebloods - Bloody Crow of Cainhurst.

A difficult duel, where white and slightly green fog collided. Result - the last of the vilebloods hunters fell. Unfortunately, after handing over her mission and badge to Crowley, Eileen dies from injuries.

Alfred received a letter of invitation to Cainhurst Castle and did not appear again.

It's time to resume clearing the village.

.....

*Yahar'Gul, the unseen village*

In the skies above amphitheater, a cloud of black smoke was gathering under ringing of bells.

Teenager stand at the entrance to the theater. In his right hand was a cane, improved for the ninth time, and in his right tiny tenebris the newly discovered arcane tool, that cause a line of lightning discharges.

{ I don't think I have time to interrupt the ritual. I'll have to deal with the consequences. }

And in fact, corpses fused into a single monster began to appear from the cloud of black fog.

Deciding to follow Rule 35, before the monster fully emerged from the fog, Crowley killed every bell ringer on the balconies.

Multiple attempts began to defeat the monster.

....

Among the unpleasant capabilities of the undead were: amazing vitality, spitting exploding corpses, a large supply of acid, sufficient to fill the arena, and finally bell ringers, capable of restoring missing parts of the monster.

But despite this, the creature seemed to be missing some important detail.

In the end, the undead could not cope with Crowley's endless onslaught. After death, the monster dropped three yellow blackbones.

{Another chalice material? Doesn't matter, I'll deal with it later.}

The hunter's thoughts were currently occupied with the majestic door that served as the entrance to the great looking building.

*Door above the old workshop*

But the voices that sounded more and more clearly in the teenager's head were against this idea.

- *Sigh* Okay, okay. I'm heading out now.

...

Upon reaching his destination, Crowley let out a cry of surprise.

- Another church district? It is quite possible that in the past this place was a refuge for The Chore, the leadership of the church.

The entire area was filled with kins and high-ranking hunters of the church, each of whom was capable of using a set of particularly powerful arcane tools.

In one of the courtyards filled with lumenflowers there was a group of small blue humanoids, the same ones that lived for some time in Iosefka's clinic.

However, this time, one of them was capable of increasing in size by approximately ten times. But given the general weakness of the species, he never became a dangerous adversary.

Between deaths, Crowley looked through books carelessly left around the area. As it turned out, the humanoids were children whom the church took from Yharnam under the pretext of protection during the hunt.

{ Sick bastards... The Church, the Byrgenwerth Institute, the Cult of Mensis, in the end they are all the same, on the way to what they want they forgot what it means to be human... No, even the Great Ones do not commit such acts. Humanity has nothing to do with it. }

The crusade continued, following the prompts of the voices, Crowley found the arcane tool, so popular among church hunters, as it turned out that the use of this thing was dangerous even for the caster.

After some time, the hunter reached an elevator hidden under the roof of the building, leading deep underground.

Under the old area of the church there was a cave covered with slime, at the opposite end of the entrance there was a motionless creature.

As the teenager later learns, the monster in front of him is Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos. Elder Kin, existing since the time of the Pthumerians, left by his own kind in the labyrinths thousands of years ago.

The appearance indicated that it was from him that all modern representatives of the kin species and all the arcane tools used by The Chore originated.

As Crowley approached, he saw that Ebrietas appeared to be mourning the dead creature in front of him.

{ Is it possible? ... Iosefka's child.... }

Death count - 14321.

Books read - 3500.

Body empowerment - 8.0x.