8 Masters sat in a room, eyes downcast and the air grim.
1 Master sat in that same room with his eyes to the ceiling, pondering physics.
"How hot is a lightning bolt, typically?" Gehrman asked the room.
The sour mood turned indignant at the question. Only Caster, who had been around Gehrman the most, picked up on his line of thought.
"If you are thinking of somehow burning through the Winter Beasts blizzard then forget it. Saint Tyris's lightning didn't even reach the creature itself, the storm froze it before it could reach the epicenter."
"So none of you know?" Gehrman asked tiredly. "Well, I guess that's what the internet is for."
Gehrman pulled out his communicator and quickly made a search.
It was such a mundane sight (especially because Gehrman wasn't bothering with his Red Judge "mask" anymore) that it made the others give him incredulous looks.
Gehrman's face twisted to match them as he read the result.
"30,000 Kelvin…5 times the temperature of the sun…What the actual hell."
The idea of something like that being turned into ice was simply incomprehensible. His working plan was seeming a lot less plausible now.
"And the Heart of Darkness is still missing?" Gehrman asked, leaning back in his chair.
"Ha, you really did go off the deep end," Soul Reaper Jet finally broke the morose atmosphere with a chuckle. She always had an air of nonchalance, and for some reasons Gehrman's question brought it back.
Her smirk broadened.
"Well, allow me to give a quick synopsis about what happened after you lost yourself to madness. The first thing was a rapid depletion of the Devouring Clouds forces. This caused some odd behavior in which the Beasts attacking the convoy pulled back. This was odd, since a separate Tyrant was controlling that group. As it turned out though, that was because the Tyrant was a puppet as well."
Gehrman raised his eyebrow, starting to put the pieces together. But Soul Reaper didn't let him come to his own conclusions. Putting her hands in the air in an exaggerated motion she laughed.
"Turns out the Heart of Darkness can infest Nightmare Creatures. The creature is a literal heart of elemental True Darkness, and its Terror ability manifests as insect-like creatures that are, in fact, a part of its body. Those creatures broke into the Tyrants of the Devouring Cloud and infested a great number of the Brood as well. Fortunately, they remained hidden from the officers, so by the time you started to kill those, you were already a good hour into the fight."
Then, Sunny spoke up with an important detail.
"It looked like you were going to fight over the volcano, so I used my Charm, pulling the fight further away from Erebus Fields. After a while, they all surrounded you, and you kept the momentum going, driving them further and further away. I provided cover fire, but after deactivating my Charm, they all focused on you since you had come close to the Tyrant which hosted the Heart of Darkness itself. Needless to say, you killed it. Afterwards, you were blindly rampaging and taking out the rest of the Brood so I got the hell out of there."
Gehrman blinked, a bit surprised by the news.
Wasn't one of my visions in complete darkness, me just sitting at my desk? Was that my addled mind interpreting the enemy of True Darkness or was it just a coincidence?
Either way, it didn't matter.
The Winter Beast made all of this pointless. The only thing this news gave them was assurance that they didn't have to deal with another troublesome enemy while waiting on the Corrupted Titan's arrival.
"Alright then. It sounds like I'm good to start taking some drastic measures," Gehrman stood up and cracked his neck. "You all can hold off any swarms that come this way, and I'll try to deal with the Winter Beast."
Maybe it was because he had practically single-handedly taken down two of the Champions of Antarctica, but the others didn't give him the indignant looks one might expect after making such a bold claim.
Instead, Master Jet simply smiled and shook her head.
"It'll be here in a week, so do your best."
…
In order to evacuate everyone from Falcon Scott, they needed four weeks. At the moment, it looked like they would last three weeks before everyone in the siege capital was annihilated.
Gehrman worked through multiple scenarios in which he could heroically hold off the Winter Beast for that time, but they all ended in failure.
The main issue wasn't him dying (he could come back from that). It was likely it would take a long time for him to return, and by that point, everything would already be gone.
If he could do an instant respawn like he had in the 2nd Nightmare, it wouldn't be an issue. He could just keep dying, coming back, and distracting the thing.
But in the real world…
In any case, he wouldn't be able to stall the thing effectively. Saint Tyris was able to do so because she was a natural counter to the thing's blizzard, but Gehrman had no such abilities.
Unlike the storms that could be brought on by Tyris, Gehrman would need constant circulation of blood (Corrupted blood at that) to have any chance of containing the Winter Beast as the Saint had.
So that was also out of the question.
Realistically, he either had to kill it, injure it, or somehow scare it away.
None of these options were good.
The nature of the Winter Beast meant that it didn't matter who joined him in any operation, the wide scale attack it constantly emitted would leave all of the Masters dead in a short time (though perhaps Sunny could survive by escaping through the shadows). In any case, this was something he would have to do alone.
Fortunately, he managed to scrounge up one completely ridiculous idea that had a slight chance of actually pulling the Winter Beast away for a few weeks, and maybe even damaging it.
"First things first," Gehrman muttered as he made his way into a large room deep underground.
If he wanted to survive, he needed an increase in his resistances.
He needed to bring the [Greedy Bloodstone Tailsman] to the Rank of Transcendence.
During his trip to South America and his few weeks of rest at Erebus Fields, he spent almost all of his time in the Soul Forest, hunting the old Yharnam Beasts there.
He had gotten fairly lucky during those dozens of hours, and he was now in the possession of 4 Blood Chunks.
However, he would need 6 more to make his Charm Transcendent.
But it wouldn't leave his real body doing nothing.
Naturally he couldn't move or hunt while being preoccupied with his Soul Forest, but he did still physically exist in the real world, his body simply inactive.
However, after confirming with some other Masters, the body wasn't completely turned off. The heart would still pump blood and you would still breathe whilst you were in the Soul Sea.
This was good news, because it meant that his body would continue to make up for any lost blood cells during his fun adventures in his Soul.
After doing a few calculations he determined how much blood could be safely pulled from him every day and stored in a modified boiler.
As an Ascended, it was a LOT more than a human could do. And boosted by his Caryll Runes it would help even more.
The hope was that his blood could be reconnected to his body and thus share the increased resistances of the [Greedy Bloodstone Tailsman].
…but that still would probably be enough.
Gehrman wasn't naive.
Goliath had the physical power to kill him in a single hit if it was perfectly placed, and the Winter Beast was a whole Rank above him.
Even as a Titan himself, there was no way for Gehrman to actually put a scratch on this thing…unless he was fighting fair.
The reason Gehrman was so strong was not just his experience, powerful Aspect, and keen insight.
His greatest strength was his mind.
With his brain he was able to come up with things that broke rules, crossed the boundaries between Ranks and allowed his Sleeper self to kill Ascended.
The solution lay in stacking compounding buffs. Sort of like in a video game, if one wanted to reach the highest damage possible, they would need several multipliers on themself in order to reach the most absurd power.
The [Greedy Bloodstone Tailsman], his manipulation of blood on a molecular level to excite and turn them into blood flame, and one other thing MIGHT give him a chance against this Titan.
It was something he had been theorizing for a long time, but never saw the need to experiment with.
This was, admittedly, one of his dumbest mistakes. Perhaps brought about by complacency, or perhaps out of the traumatizing experiences he had with Vermin in the 2nd Nightmare, he never explored the Vileblood way of conjuring bloodflame.
In the 2nd Nightmare, he had observed how instead of manipulating blood at a molecular level, the Vilebloods would excite the invisible Vermin inside the blood, which would in turn act as a substitute fuel in lieu of burning the blood itself.
The physics didn't completely add up since they were essentially burning something on another plane of existence…but he wasn't about to get into metaphysical fire if it worked for him.
The only problem was his lack of Vermin.
This trait had been pervasive throughout his 2nd Nightmare, and only after some reflection did he realize he was overlooking something obvious.
Back then, he didn't really have a reliable Charm, and since Yharnam was a rather vile place, he had kept on the [Red Messenger Ribbon], the Memory that served as the crux of the Nightmare.
He had rightly assumed it would be vital in his survival, and indeed it was.
Without it, he never would have been able to slaughter the countless Dormant Beasts, that were the Vermin inside the Vileblood Queen.
…But the only way he was able to do that, was because that Charm, the [Red Messenger Ribbon] destroyed poison, with it holding special potency for one specific poison.
Obviously, that poison was Vermin.
He had figured that Vermin had trouble taking route inside him due to his nature as a being from outside the Nightmare.
But now…
Gehrman switched the Oath Rune he had equipped to that of the [Impurity] rune, the oath of Valtr's League.
With a soft chuckle he watched as the writhing otherworldly entities spawned inside his blood, slowly but surely.
These things came from a Great One separate from the Moon Presence or the one who dreamed the reality in which Yharnam took place.
Naturally, its addition to the Dream (Vermin) had no place in the reality dominated by the Nightmare Spell.
The Spell was a power that surpassed Great Ones, after all, and the only reason he was able to exist was because of the Moon Presence's intrinsic ability to cause errors (much like how she had created an error in the Yharnam reality to create the Hunter's Dream and allowed for continuous revival through it).
However, because of that, Gehrman remained a glitch not totally bound to the rules of this world; because of that, the rules of the Yharnam dream reality allowed for the continued existence and generation of Vermin to take root in his blood.
His Charm, his understanding of physics and molecular manipulation, the existence of Vermin allowing for his blood flame to last nearly perpetually, that was what would allow him to have a chance at surviving the Winter Beast's blizzard.
It was also with this new understanding of bloodflame and Vermin that he was able to remedy one of his more disappointing finds in the 2nd Nightmare: the [Corruption] Oath Rune.
The oath of the Vilebloods should have granted him increased regeneration, but he found it never really worked for him.
But now the reason for this seemed abundantly obvious.
It was because Oath Rune's true power was allowing for manipulation of Vermin, the same power that allowed Vilebloods to control blood.
Gehrman tested it at that moment, and indeed (though he couldn't see it as well as he could with [Impurity], he could feel the writhing, foul Vermin.
With a thought, his blood suddenly lit into flames, causing the Awakened who was tending to him and drawing his blood to scream in alarm.
A crooked grin spread across Gehrman's face.
That could very well be the fourth multiplier.
Vermin could not only act as fuel, but in a pinch, Gehrman could fuel his blood with both Vermin and natural molecular combustion, multiplying the heat it could produce in exchange for even more absurd heat generation.
With a thought, he snuffed out the burning blood, allowing it to return to warming in the boiler pot, staying warm and ready for when he needed it.
After apologizing to the frazzled Awakened, he summoned the [Portable Blood Imbiber] and removed the [Hunter's Attire] revealing normal clothes, and rolling up his sleeves. This way, the needle of his first Ascended Memory could more easily pierce his skin.
Using that Memory, he also made a second puncture in his arm, allowing an IV drip to enter his body, keeping him hydrated and further boosting his body's ability to create blood cells.
"Alright, wake me up in four days," Gehrman said.
And without preamble he closed his eyes and entered his Soul Sea.
Summoning his weapons and attire from inside his Soul, he stalked toward the eerie woods, fiending for a worthwhile hunt.
And praying for powerful beasts to feel the same.
For if they did, the Blood Chunks would come all the faster.
…
On the third day, Gehrman was jostled back to reality. Fortunately, he hadn't been in a fight at the time, but he still glared at the person who woke him.
Seeing Caster's face though, he suppressed his glower.
"Pretty sure you woke me up early," Gehrman muttered.
Despite the poor attempt at humour, Caster's face remained dark.
"Bad news," he said. "The timetables have moved up. The Winter Beast will be here in one day."
Gehrman immediately stood up, tearing out the needles in his arms and causing the Awakened tending him (a different one than before) to squeal.
Gehrman cursed.
He had managed to get two more Blood Chunks, which gave him the ability to upgrade the [Greedy Bloodstone Talisman], but not increase its Rank. The increased potency would still make it far more powerful that any Ascended Charm, but would it be enough?
"Ah, fuck it," Gehrman didn't waste any time, quickly walking out with Caster following at his side.
"If this doesn't work, you take your cohort and run," Gehrman's tone left no room for argument, but surprisingly Caster found a way.
"I can't do that."
"I thought I told you to abandon that useless pride until you became stronger-"
"Sunless isn't leaving."
Gehrman stopped in his tracks and slowly turned to look at Caster.
To his credit, the young man did not falter.
"This isn't pride, it's responsibility. I may still be too weak. But I am a leader now. These people…everyone in Falcon Scott, I won't let them face death alone."
"That is the dumbest shit I've ever heard."
Caster paused for a moment, then smiled. It was not an arrogant smile, it was almost…friendly. Not the fake smile he would have put on in the Forgotten Shore, but a genuine one.
"I guess you'll just have to succeed in turning away a Corrupted Titan then."
Gehrman's eye twitched.
"You little shit."
He returned the smile.
"I was already planning on it."