Chapter 86 - #86: The Desire to Hunt

Chapter 86: Chapter #86: The Desire to Hunt

The Father Gascoigne boss fight didn’t just teach players how to parry; it forced them to watch, with their own eyes, how a happy family was violently torn apart by the plague.

We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood.

In Bloodborne, the player wasn’t a traditional hero. They could find the little girl behind the window and offer her a glimmer of hope, informing the conscious NPC about the supposed safe haven at Oedon Chapel. Of course, it was ultimately the NPC’s choice whether or not to make the dangerous trek across the city.

Most players, eager to be the savior of Yharnam, confidently told her to go to the chapel.

But the little girl never made it.

She died alone in the dark, damp aqueducts leading to Oedon Chapel, brutally devoured by the Maneater Boar—a mutated, rotting pig the size of a dump truck.

The little girl, whose father had gone insane and whose mother had been butchered, couldn’t escape the suffocating gravity of Yharnam’s curse.

When players finally cleared the path between Central Yharnam and Oedon Chapel and returned to the little girl’s window, the warm lights inside were permanently extinguished.

And when they ventured down into the sewers and killed the massive boar, they looted a single item from its bloated stomach: the Red Messenger Ribbon.

The item description was a gut punch: [It looks like something a little girl would wear.]

Staring at the blood-soaked red ribbon in their inventory, countless streamers and players fell dead silent. This horrific ending had been directly caused by their own actions. They were the ones who told her to leave the safety of her home. They were the ones who told her Oedon Chapel was safe.

As more and more players fell down the rabbit hole, they desperately began experimenting with different choices for the little girl’s questline on their second playthroughs.

They tried withholding her mother’s ruby brooch. They tried lying to her, refusing to give her directions to the chapel.

Everyone desperately wanted to find a hidden, happy ending. Because underneath the blood-soaked trench coats and the brutal slaughter, the players still harbored a genuine desire to save the residents of Yharnam.

Eventually, the community discovered that withholding the chapel information did result in a different path. By speaking to the little girl again after unlocking Iosefka’s Clinic, a new dialogue option appeared. The player could send the little girl to the clinic instead.

When players returned to the clinic door, the woman claiming to be Iosefka warmly assured them that the little girl had arrived safely and was being well cared for. She even rewarded the player with items.

But her condescending tone and deeply unsettling, manic laughter set off massive red flags.

When players finally found the secret back entrance into the clinic later in the game, the horrific truth was revealed. The little girl hadn’t been saved. The imposter Iosefka was conducting twisted, eldritch experiments.

The little girl had been transformed into a Celestial Emissary—a grotesque, blue, bulbous-headed alien monstrosity that the player was forced to put down.

As the Night of the Hunt progressed, the world constantly evolved. The manic, xenophobic laughter echoing from behind the locked doors and windows gradually mutated into agonizing screams, until finally, at the stroke of midnight, the entire city fell into a dead, suffocating silence.

The blood had completely erased the boundary between man and beast. A massive, terrifying Blood Moon hung low in the sky, casting an apocalyptic red glow across the gothic spires.

The closer the Hunter got to the eldritch truth, the deeper Yharnam plunged into absolute death.

Throughout the narrative, players witnessed the descent of madness. They saw the tragic eradication of a family, the horrifying medical atrocities of the Healing Church, and the brutal, unforgivable massacre of the Fishing Hamlet.

When players finally realized that the terrifying beasts they were slaughtering were actually just sick, corrupted humans... a dark realization set in. The Hunters themselves were slowly going blind to the horror. They were becoming blood-drunk, completely immersed in the addictive thrill of the slaughter, unable to extricate themselves from the violence.

It was a chilling reminder of Eileen the Crow’s initial warning: Do not indulge in the thrill of the hunt, lest the Hunter become the hunted.

A mournful, tragic string arrangement echoed through the menus, perfectly scoring the inescapable doom of Yharnam.

But when a player finally managed to clear the agonizing gauntlet of bosses, surviving the suffocating atmosphere to reach the end of the game... had they actually saved anyone?

You beat the final boss. You cleared the game.

But... had you truly escaped?

When the first streamers reached the ending cinematics, they sat back in their ergonomic chairs, letting out massive sighs of relief. But as the cutscenes played out, a chilling sense of dread washed over them.

The so-called "good" ending—Yharnam Sunrise—was just the protagonist falling into a brand-new layer of the nightmare.

If the player accepted Gehrman’s offer, choosing to sacrifice their life to wake up, Gehrman stood from his wheelchair and swiftly decapitated the Hunter.

For a brief, fleeting moment, it seemed like the player was finally free.

The screen faded in on the edge of the city. A warm, golden sun began to rise over the Yharnam skyline, the blinding, beautiful rays bringing a profound sense of warmth and closure.

But... the lore-obsessed community quickly noticed a terrifying detail. When the player originally started the game, they woke up in Iosefka’s Clinic wearing the Foreigner’s Garb.

But in the sunrise ending, the Hunter woke up in the Cathedral Ward, wearing the exact same blood-soaked armor they had on when Gehrman beheaded them.

Was this truly waking up? Or was it just the start of a new dream?

The absolute second the cinematic ended, the game forced the player straight into New Game Plus. The Hunter’s mission was over, and the Moon Presence simply commanded Gehrman to reset the board and wait for the next pawn.

But what if the player chose to refuse?

If the player rejected Gehrman’s mercy, the game veered into an entirely different, jaw-dropping ending.

Gehrman seemed mildly surprised, but resigned.

[Dear, oh dear. What was it? The Hunt? The Blood? Or the horrible dream? Oh, it doesn’t matter... It always comes down to the Hunter’s helper to clean up after these sort of messes.]

Gehrman slowly stood up from his wheelchair, reaching behind his back to draw a massive, terrifying Burial Blade.

The First Hunter looked up, his eyes cold and hollow.

[Tonight... Gehrman joins the hunt.]

[

shroud: NO FUCKING WAY HE JUST STOOD UP!

leo_dmc: "Tonight, Gehrman joins the hunt." HOLY CHILLS.

LordEmil: WAIT HE’S THE FINAL BOSS?! I GOT CHILLS DUD!

NoRest: THE WHEELCHAIR WAS A LIE!

TRice: This is peak gaming. Nova is an absolute god of cinema.

]

After a brutal, emotionally devastating duel, the player finally defeated Gehrman. But the victory was hollow.

Descending from the blood-red sky, the true mastermind revealed itself: the Moon Presence.

It turned out that everything that had happened in the Hunter’s Dream was just a twisted stage play for the Great One.

The Moon Presence had bound Gehrman to the dream, forcing him to guide new Hunters into the meat grinder purely for its own eldritch amusement.

Now that the player had killed Gehrman, the Moon Presence simply claimed them as its new surrogate.

The cinematic faded in on the player’s character, now bound to the wooden wheelchair, replacing Gehrman as the new puppet.

The Doll knelt beside them, and the cycle of waiting for the next Hunter began anew.

But the community quickly discovered a secret, third ending.

If the player meticulously explored the world and consumed three pieces of the ’One Third of Umbilical Cord’ before fighting Gehrman, the narrative shattered completely.

When the Moon Presence descended to claim its new puppet, the eldritch insight from the cords repelled the Great One, forcing a true final boss fight.

Players thought that by achieving the power of the Great Ones and slaying the Moon Presence, they were finally ending the nightmare.

They didn’t realize that injecting the Old Blood and consuming the cords was simply the necessary gestation process for the birth of a new god.

Upon defeating the Moon Presence, the player evolved into a new Great One—a literal infant squid.

The final cinematic showed the Doll gently scooping the squid-like protagonist off the ground, cradling them in her arms.

[Are you cold...? Oh, good hunter,] she whispered tenderly.

[

IamUgoH: ...Did we just turn into a fucking squid?

Asmongold_Bald: What the fuck did I just watch.

kindred: We ascended. We became an infant Great One. The lore implications are staggering.

jsHall: Nova’s mind is a terrifying place to be.

Syl: The Doll is now our space-squid mom? I’ll take it.

]

The instant the cinematic ended, New Game Plus began again. The player was standing right back in Iosefka’s Clinic.

The three endings were a flawless, inescapable Mobius strip. Once the cycle started, it never truly ended.

As Provost Willem stated over and over again in the game’s lore: [We are thinking on the basest of planes. What we need, are more eyes.]

And as the Doll prayed: [May you find your worth in the waking world.]

Players remembered the very first cinematic, right before they woke up on the surgical table.

They could faintly hear the Doll’s chilling whisper: [Ah, you’ve found yourself a hunter...]

It was a closed loop. No matter how hard they fought, no matter how many beasts they slaughtered, they would always be trapped in the dream.

When the global player base fully processed the lore, their minds were completely blown.

The tragic truth of Yharnam was almost too heavy to accept.

Many players decided that if the world was this deeply cursed, it was better to simply give in to the bloodlust from the very beginning.

When a player finally achieved the mechanical mastery to become a flawless, ruthless Hunter—when the towering bosses could no longer even touch them—they gained a terrifying new understanding of Yharnam’s tragedy.

Once you knew the eldritch truth, you no longer cared about being covered in blood.

Players began trying to befriend the few remaining sane NPCs, desperately clinging to their conscience to survive the endless psychological weight of the tragedy.

On their second playthroughs, veteran players traveled to Old Yharnam, expertly dodging the gatling gun fire to reach the top of the clock tower.

Instead of fighting Djura, they approached him from behind and established a truce.

Standing on the roof, wrapped in the cold pragmatism of an old veteran, Djura delivered a line of dialogue that made the players freeze in their tracks.

[I should think you still have dreams? Well, next time you dream, give some thought to the hunt, and its purpose.]

And then, his voice dropped into a heavy, mournful whisper.

[I no longer dream... but I was once a Hunter, too.]

Lore videos began flooding the internet, proposing terrifying psychological theories.

What if blood ministration was literally just a highly addictive, hallucinogenic drug?

What if the player never actually left the medical ward? What if the entire game was just the fever dream of a patient suffering from extreme psychosis?

What about the "monsters" they slaughtered?

Do you remember the beasts cowering in the shadows, covering their faces in fear as you approached?

Do you remember how quickly you surpassed Father Gascoigne, becoming a blood-drunk murderer who carved through the streets without a second thought?

The psychological implications were horrific.

The game actively punished the player’s empathy while simultaneously making the violence feel incredibly, undeniably satisfying.

And yet, despite knowing the tragic truth... despite knowing they were trapped in an endless, bloody nightmare...

Players all across the globe booted up the game again and pressed New Game Plus.

Because the desire to hunt was simply too overwhelming to suppress...

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Double Chapters for today because I love you all. RIP Patrick Stewart... Watching Doomsday is going to be a whole different vibe without him...

You can support me at patreon.com/Chaos_King and read 25! Yes, 25 advanced Chapters.