Even with a Supreme weapon, Gehrman's vast experience, and his effectively turning the sea against these creatures, the difference in number and quality was far too vast.
Still, there was one other thing that gave him the edge.
The month killing Great creatures had taught him a valuable lesson: Madness was stupid powerful.
Of course, it was an element intertwined with the Void itself, the ability to Invoke it was simply god-like.
Coating his blows in various Madness had many different effects, but what was truly powerful was combining the different Madness to create certain effects.
Frenzy offered a powerful base to any combination, acting as an accelerant of sorts. The base of all things was naturally meant to be built upon.
From there, a few combinations worked the best in various situations.
For controlling Great Blood, it needed to be overwhelmed by Frenzy, then pacified by Bliss, and then led with Obsession. This effectively let him create the most base of manifestations with the unparalleled blood, tricking the lulled blood of long dead Great creatures into moving of what it believed to be its own will.
Combining Agony and Control was a powerful combination for wielding extremely fine control over Corrupted Blood.
And combining Frenzy, Agony, Obsession, and Dissociation proved to be a most foul and unwieldy Madness that proved catastrophic in coating his blows. The various effects compounded into creating disarray in the enemy.
Of course, the most potent and impossible Madness was Void itself.
It was a bit confusing since his Attribute described Madness as an unintended consequence of the Void, and yet Void could be wielded as a type of Madness. It didn't make any sort of sense to Gehrman.
The nature of Void was antithetical to any sort of order or logic, so in a way it was very fitting.
Needless to say the effect of emanating this impossible energy (or non-energy) was by far the most devastating.
However, it was also simply the most difficult. Even with his Attribute, invoking the final Madness had proven no easier than it had when he was filling out his Titan Core.
In other words, simply throwing it out half haphazardly was all he could manage. Even then the amount summoned was measly compared to the other types of Madness.
Still, he threw it out now. With an effort that caused his Soul to shudder under its weight he summoned a trickle of Void, reminding these so-called Great horrors of what they truly were: incomplete beings.
They yearned for the Flame so they could return to that primeval place and take their place in transcendental non-existence.
It was such a power that Gehrman was sure Paleblood herself must also be shuddering under its weight. Indeed the thing must have been shouldering 99.999% of this Attribute.
In any case, it worked.
A half seconds hesitation brought him all he needed.
With a large amount of blood under his command, he seeped it into the surrounding waters, all the way towards the surface, and all the way to the bottom. A vast column of red formed, half water and half blood.
That was enough.
Expending a great amount of Essence Gehrman let various Madness's push him and his Aspect, and that red cylinder collapsed.
Or rather, it simply vanished, rushing down and thrusting impressive weight down on the Great Monsters.
The abominations shrugged it off with relative ease, but then they found themselves falling, at the mercy of gravity.
That massive column of blood-water had sunk to the depth, pressurising the liquid to an insane degree and leaving an empty column of empty air that that the sea naturally rushed to close.
The Great Demon was not fully affected, but it too faltered, half of its considerable size suddenly hanging in the air.
And then, dozens of deep red ghostly skulls were upon it, trailing along one of its tendrils, it inevitably hit, racking the Great Demon with phantom pain it had long forgotten.
At the same time, Gehrman dismissed the Transcendent [Envious Executioner Gloves] and used one of the last flasks of Great Blood to coat his weapon.
The Supreme weapon reached its peak power.
At this level, if wielded by someone of the Supreme Rank it could even cut a Cursed, a minor god.
Gehrman was nowhere near a Supreme, but he didn't need to be.
This wasn't a god, it was 20 or so Great Monsters.
Massive blood wings formed out of his back and he thrust himself downward with immense force, breaking the Sound barrier 4 times over. The loud crack deafened the already shrieking crash of water that followed behind him, filling the impossibly empty sea.
But that column of sea water had not suddenly disappeared, despite what it seemed.
It was bubbling and steaming and the bottom of the sea.
In a fraction of a fraction of a second it would be completely submerged, but Gehrman got there before that happened.
About a foot of water had already submerged the impossibly dense and screeching blood, but that was fine.
The force it was building was so powerful that even kilometers of water wouldn't stop its momentous explosion of raw force.
And Gehrman wasn't going to simply rely on that.
With a single, elegant motion he brought the dreaded scythe in a perfect arc. Using the momentum of his falling, he performed a swing that seemed to cut this pile of steaming and radiating blood.
And then, the force was released, following the swing, the explosion of force propelled the blade upwards with speeds far surpassing anything even a Transcendent could manage.
Even if Silent Stalker or Lonesome Howl were to swing their lightest blade as fast as possible, it would not reach the same speed as Gehrman's [Burial Blade] now moved.
The power behind it was multiplied by the blood, raw physics, Madness, and the Rank of the weapon.
The Great Monsters were truly out of Gehrman's league, but they were also out of their element.
In a moment that was quick, even for them, they could feel the deadly strike coming.
Above them, the flailing Great Demon noticed the danger first and reeled itself back into the sea, away from the collapsing column of air.
However, unlike the gigantic guardian, these burly shark-like abominations had no leverage.
They were strong enough to push on the air itself and send them flying back into the water, but none of them were intelligent enough or quick enough to think of such a thing.
So instead, their vulnerable backs met the full force of the blow.
A pillar of red light exploded upwards, reaching high above the sea level to create a magnificent explosive line that pierced the heavens.
Those Great Monsters felt heavy pain and an impossibly sharp blade pierced their souls.
[You have slain a Great Monster. Engorged Shark Fiend.]
[You have slain a Great Monster. Engorged Shark Fiend.]
[You have slain a Great Monster. Engorged Shark Fiend.]
Three of them died in that attack, but there were still many more that remained whole enough to recover from the truly devastating blow.
In truth, Gehrman was hoping to take down at least half. That was the strongest attack he had ever mustered, and all it managed to do was take down three measly Monsters.
Granted, it was unlikely Master had ever killed any Great creature, so he was being a bit hard on himself.
Gehrman exploded upward, wings flaring and creating sonic booms.
The explosion had thrown the collapsing water backwards for a whole second, and his opportunity to quickly rise would soon be at an end.
The second those Shark Fiends reached the water, they would be upon him in under 2 seconds.
Before that, he would leave them a treat.
He summoned two more memories, his movements as quick as they had been when he had died in Antarctica.
Gehrman wasn't planning on dying today, but his plan was quite similar.
Leaving out the [Slothful Evelyn], he brandished the [Gluttonous Reitersplach] and [Wrathful Shaman Bone Blade], now both Transcendent.
As he flew, he pulled some of the blood shaken free from the fallen Great Monsters and created a spiraling drill that sunk into one of the tendrils of the creature, breaking it open with relative ease.
Then of course came the poisoning from the Reitersplach and the crack of the bone blade.
The jelly-fish, like Nightmare, had no lungs or anything resembling a voice creating organ, so instead it expressed its displeasure by whipping its bladed tendrils with such fervor that it caught Gehrman himself off guard.
And then it cut him in half.
It happened so fast that Gehrman couldn't even register pain, he simply was whole one moment, and then his legs would not respond in another.
Sh-Shit!
A separate tendril came down as he threw his upper-body underneath the creature, towards the beach.
It severed his right arm and a part of his leg.
Gehrman commanded the blood to seep into the water, trying to control the currents.
But the flailing creature's surprisingly quick, whip-like attacks had taken over the surrounding sea, making it impossible to control.
Utter chaos broke out, below, he sensed the Shark Fiends getting hit with some of the tendrils as well.
Though unlike Gehrman they were not cleanly severed, but instead quickly marred with various cuts.
Indeed only he was in a most dire state, and he felt death looming over him again.
No, not yet. Gehrman's mind whirred with adrenaline and determination. It's too early. I don't know how many Blood Fragments it will cost, but I don't want to pay that price yet. I need to be at my strongest for the human enemies.
All of this was just the prelude, and he was already on death's door.
Getting to Kos's corpse was supposed to be fairly easy all things considered. Instead he had burned through a third of his Essence and had to deal with hundreds of Nightmare Creatures.
Phantasm, you better be sick as hell for making me go through this shit!
As he flew through the water, moving with such speed that the molecules tore at his flesh, he escaped the zone of death that the Great Demon had developed.
In the back of his mind, Gehrman took note of this reaction.
Throughout the past month, he had been curious to how the [Wrathful Shaman Bone Blade] effected those of a higher Rank. And indeed it did seem only moderately effective. The wrath came just as brutal as it did for the others, but it averaged out to a much shorter time.
The draining of wrath from the creatures happened over time, but it usually wouldn't take more than two days for them to fully return to their senses.
If this was all that had happened, the best case scenario that his "battle" on the Winter Beast caused was the thing losing its direction, walking away from the Siege Capital, and then taking some time to return.
In other words, it was possible he bought them 3 extra days.
That was millions of lives.
It was also still well over 10 million dead.
However, there was still some hope, and that was due to the haphazard inclusion of the [Gluttonous Reitersplach] in his assault.
The thing took in the blood of its prey and then excreted a potent corrosive poison. The Winter Beast didn't have any blood, it was made of pure ice, after all. However the poison should still have gotten to it.
And against something like that Titan, corrosion would be quite effective.
Either way, none of that mattered at the moment.
All Gehrman could do was pull himself towards the sands, and cling to life as best he could.
The waters turned shallow, and somehow darker. A sharp incline in the floor let Gehrman's body float half in the water and half in the freezing air, wind blowing like blades against his many grievous open mortal wounds.
And soon he saw it sitting before him. A seemingly normal corpse that could have easily been mistaken for a whale.
The scene beyond it, the enclosed beach and the yawning cavern caused Gehrman's mind, body, and soul to shiver.
Orphan.
That word hit him again and it nearly made him lose focus and die.
Gehrman's bloodshot eyes turned to the pale grey flesh, waiting for something large to writhe within it.
But nothing did.
Of course.
The Orphan existed in a Nightmare created by Kos herself, and it was in response to the massacre of the Fishing Hamlet.
Perhaps the Orphan was being dreamed up now, but it would not be complete until the tragedy was set and the woeful prayers fully took root in the Great One.
Now it was only flesh.
The flesh of a Great One.
Pale purple sparks along with some constellations of white formed over it, and Phantasm started to flicker above it.
The thing had changed after feeding on a hundred or so Great Corpses. It's form had changed, instead of a shell, it took on the form of a contorted, warped, but undeniably human visage.
Almost like if a human had its skin painted true white and then had its bones removed.
Phantasm huddled over the corpse, and for the first time it seemed to hesitate.
Gehrman did not though.
He wasn't planning to die, and Phantasm only really needed the flesh.
Gehrman could help himself to the blood. With immense pain he started to burn the corpse, heating it with blood flame that oozed from his own orifices.
It couldn't burn the corpse, but it would heat it up.
When it did, Gehrman felt the blood for the first time.
It was unlike anything he had ever experienced, and yet it was exactly what he expected.
It did not budge. Even with Gehrman's trick of applying Madness to it and tricking it into following his commands. The blood was that of a creature akin to a god. And that god was not even wholly dead.
It's avatar lay desecrated, but its Will was still very much alive.
Fine then. A more direct approach.
Gehrman could not cut open this flesh, but it was already sagging and leaking in places. Silver blood, now heated, leaked out of the blubbery orifices of the Great One.
As it reached his tongue, Gehrman braced for the most revolting flavor of his life, and perhaps the most violent healing as well.
Only as it went down his throat did he have a brief moment of clarity.
Ah, this is probably much worse than the desecration that Old Gehrman did…I hope when I get put into a hell-nightmare again, Kos won't give me the same role as he did before. Yelling like that, fighting like that, pain like that, I don't want to feel it ever again.