“Hah…!”

Lannor’s eyes snapped open.

A long breath tore into his lungs on pure reflex.

His breathing came hard and deep, as though his sleeping body had forgotten the act entirely and was now trying to repay every missed breath at once.

His unfocused eyes darted wildly around the room.

Only when Mentos flooded his vision with an absurdly bright series of flashing warnings did his attention finally lock back onto reality.

“Sir! You entered deep sleep, the kind of deep sleep that even I couldn’t wake you from. What exactly happened to you?!”

The familiar synthetic voice echoed through his mind.

The familiarity alone steadied him somewhat.

“I think I had a dream. Or maybe some sorcerer dragged me into an illusion.”

He pressed a hand to his forehead.

“No. I can’t tell the difference.”

“Damn it. If only there’d been a sorcerer around. At least then I’d know what kind of trick was used on me.”

His fingers dug into his temples.

The curse slipped out before he noticed.

The sleep had done nothing to ease his exhaustion. If anything, he felt as though he had endured another Deep Memory Dive.

His head throbbed.

His thoughts dragged.

When he raised a hand to his brow, he discovered his skin drenched in sweat.

“Mr. Lannor! Are you all right?”

That voice did not belong to Mentos.

It came from outside the guest room door.

Gascoigne’s wife.

Lannor pushed himself upright.

His hand moved instinctively toward the sword resting against the bedside.

The moment his fingers wrapped around the hilt of the Sword of the Lady of the Lake, cool clarity washed through his aching skull.

Golden Divine Radiance leaked from the mouth of the scabbard.

He did not need to draw the blade to know the runes along Arondight’s surface were shining.

But he had no time to investigate.

There was panic in Viola’s voice.

Real panic.

He had promised Gascoigne he would look after his family until he returned.

“I’m fine, madam. What’s happened?”

Lannor yanked open the door.

Viola stood outside.

Her face matched her voice, pale with worry.

His eyes swept across the entire house in an instant.

Then his pupils narrowed.

Sunlight poured through the windows.

But the angle was wrong.

And the color…

The light was red.

Red as fresh blood.

This was not midday sunlight.

It was sunset.

The dying light of evening.

At once, Lannor understood the source of Viola’s panic.

Gascoigne had only gone out to buy incense.

He should have returned before noon.

Even if he had traveled farther than expected, he should have been back by afternoon.

Now night was approaching.

Something had happened.

Lannor forced his breathing to steady.

“Gascoigne hasn’t returned?”

The calmness in his voice seemed to steady Viola as well.

“He… he came back once.”

She clasped her hands tightly together.

“He brought the incense and took his weapons. He told me to wake you immediately and get you out of the city as soon as possible.”

Her voice trembled.

“He looked very serious. I don’t know what happened. I was just about to wake you when someone started knocking at the door. Very loudly. I got scared, so I…”

So she woke me in a panic.

The rest of the logic assembled itself effortlessly.

Right then, another round of pounding echoed through the house.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Calling it knocking was generous.

Someone was battering the door.

Worse still, whoever stood outside simply kept striking the wood without saying a word.

A housewife alone with two children had every reason to be frightened.

Lannor narrowed his eyes at the shaking door.

“It’s all right.”

He patted Viola lightly on the shoulder.

“I’ll see who it is.”

He stepped into the hall.

The Sword of the Lady of the Lake hung at his hip.

His left hand rested against the scabbard as he approached the entrance.

Two small heads peeked cautiously around a corner.

One ribbon red.

One ribbon white.

The girls stared with wide, anxious eyes.

Lannor offered them a reassuring smile.

They nodded weakly before retreating behind the wall once more.

Reaching the door, the witcher positioned himself to one side and pulled the heavy wooden door open.

The stance kept him clear of the centerline.

If the visitor tried anything, all he needed to do was slam the door shut.

At minimum, it would trap a weapon.

With luck, it might crush a hand.

The man outside made no hostile move.

He wore a hunter’s garb unlike any Lannor had seen before.

Black.

Almost monastic.

A cloth bearing the insignia of the Healing Church hung over one shoulder. Judging by its position, it had likely been tossed there while he hammered at the door. Under normal circumstances it would have hung down his back.

Beneath a broad-brimmed hat sat a pair of gloomy eyes.

“You aren’t Gascoigne.”

True to the Yharnam tradition of sparse conversation, the hunter wasted no words.

While studying him, Lannor also noticed curious faces peering through nearby curtains and windows.

The stranger’s relentless pounding had attracted attention.

It was exactly the sort of sound that reminded people of the night.

Of things trying to get inside.

Yet none of the watching faces showed open irritation.

No one seemed willing to glare.

No one seemed willing to complain.

Even from hiding.

Healing Church hunter?

Lannor kept his expression neutral.

“I’m a friend. He asked me to watch over his family for a while. He left not long ago. Is there something you need?”

“He’s already been mobilized?”

The hunter muttered the words to himself.

Then he looked Lannor over once more.

“You look like a hunter too. I’ll pass the notice on to you as well.”

“What notice?”

The man’s lips barely moved when he spoke.

Even his voice seemed reluctant to spend energy.

“It was moved forward.”

Lannor frowned.

“What was?”

The hunter stared at him from beneath the shadow of his hat.

His eyes looked hollow.

Dark enough to swallow light.

“The Night of the Hunt.”

A pause.

“It was moved forward.”

Lannor’s brow tightened.

He had no idea what the normal interval between Hunts was.

His question came cautiously.

“Moved forward… by how much?”

A week?

Two weeks?

Surely not more than a month.

“Tonight.”

Even as an outlander, Lannor froze.

The crash came from behind him.

Porcelain shattered across the floor.

He turned.

Viola stood motionless.

A teacup, saucer, and tray had slipped from her hands and exploded into fragments across the wooden floorboards.

The answer struck everyone who heard it like a bullet leaving a gun barrel.

At last, Lannor understood why the Church hunter had been pounding on doors like a madman.

Even he felt the air tighten in his lungs.

And he was only an outsider.

The gloomy hunter offered no further explanation.

Having delivered the message, he turned and hurried away.

After the Church hunter departed, Lannor closed the door and crossed the room to Viola.

“Don’t panic yet, madam.”

The housewife looked utterly lost. Her hands trembled so badly that the shards rattled together, yet she still dropped into a crouch on instinct and began gathering the broken porcelain from the floor.

Only when Lannor rested a hand on her shoulder did she seem to awaken from a daze. The fragments slipped from her fingers and clattered back onto the floor.

“How could this happen…?”

Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

“Never… never before… Two Nights of the Hunt in a row…”

The initial shock had already passed for Lannor.

His thoughts had settled into cold practicality.

“Has Yharnam never had consecutive Nights of the Hunt?”

“Never.”

Viola shook her head immediately.

“Never.”

“How much incense did Gascoigne bring back?”

She forced herself upright, wringing her hands together.

“Five blocks. Each one burns for an entire night.”

As she spoke, some of the terror drained from her face.

The incense was something solid.

Reliable.

Something she understood.

It gave her something to hold onto.

“Then things aren’t hopeless yet,” Lannor said. “Steady yourself, madam.”

He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze before turning sharply and returning to the guest room.

The armor he had removed earlier now waited where it had been left.

Piece by piece, he began putting it back on.

Witchers, even those of the School of the Bear who favored heavy armor, did not travel with squires.

Most could not afford them.

More importantly, witcher armor was designed around the expectation that its wearer would don and remove it alone.

Steel plates rose into his hands.

Lames rattled against one another.

Mail scraped softly beneath steel.

The room filled with the familiar chorus of metal.

While fastening another section into place, he heard a hesitant voice behind him.

“Mr. Lannor…”

Viola stood in the doorway.

“Is something wrong, madam?”

Without stopping his work, Lannor turned slightly to look at her.

She stood clutching her own hands.

Twice she opened her mouth.

Twice she hesitated.

Then the words burst free.

“This may sound foolish, but… but you should leave!”

Lannor’s hand paused on a buckle.

He looked at her.

Viola swallowed hard and pressed on.

“You haven’t registered with the Church. You’re not one of Yharnam’s hunters.”

Fear flickered across her face.

“The Hunt is coming again, and something is wrong. Terribly wrong. You have no reason to stay.”

“Please. Leave.”

Her voice cracked.

“This city… even I don’t understand what’s happening anymore.”

She drew a shaky breath.

“Gascoigne brought enough incense. We’ll manage. You should get away while you still can.”

Small footsteps pattered across the floor.

Olivera and Victoria hurried over and wrapped themselves around their mother’s waist.

They looked up at Lannor.

The girls were frightened.

That much was obvious.

Yet there was no plea in their eyes asking him to stay.

No desperate hope that the armed witcher would remain and protect them.

Instead, they understood exactly what their mother was saying.

Lannor looked at the three of them.

Their expressions were earnest.

Natural.

Viola could have remained silent.

She could have accepted his protection without a word.

Yet after hearing his intention to help, she had still chosen to tell him to leave.

Gascoigne often joked that the day he settled in Yharnam was the day he stopped being a Father.

Yet somehow, despite all that, he had raised a family that still carried the shape of righteousness.

If someone else had a chance to escape danger, you did not drag them into the mire beside you.

“Madam…”

Lannor suddenly spoke.

“You aren’t saying this deliberately, are you?”

Viola blinked.

The question caught her completely off guard.

“What?”

“No, nothing.”

Lannor resumed fastening the straps of his armor.

If she had been manipulative, things would have been easier.

Far easier.

Instead…

He clicked his tongue softly.

“Mentos.”

The exchange lasted only an instant.

After so much time together, the Biological Intelligence Core understood him immediately.

Task Initialization

Timestamp: -2 Minutes

Status: Active

Analysis Directive:

Target Group: Beast Plague Subjects

Data Source: Previous Combat Logs

Processing Timeline:

Estimated Completion: 1 Hour

Output Objective:

Simplified Combat Protocol

Support Status:

Continuous Assistance: Enabled

“Leave it to you.”

A fresh progress bar appeared in the corner of his vision and began moving steadily forward.

By the time the exchange ended, Lannor had finished dressing.

He cinched the straps one final time and secured the Alchemy Sack against his lower back.

Then he smiled at Gascoigne’s family.

“Father and I had an agreement.”

The fully armored witcher crossed the room.

Each step landed with heavy, muted weight.

His mass had climbed sharply once more beneath the steel.

Stopping beside Viola, he reached out with a studded leather glove and gently ruffled the girls’ hair.

“I promised to protect his family until he returned.”

His voice remained calm.

Firm.

“I will keep that promise.”

A pause.

“I always keep my promises.”

* * *

Meanwhile, Henryk was still hounding an acquaintance within the Healing Church.

“Mark!”

The old hunter’s voice cracked like a whip.

“Tell me the truth! Give me a straight answer!”

His yellow mask was gone now, exposing a deeply lined face.

Beast blood still stained his leather coat. The dark smears had become so thick they refused to dry completely.

Red veins webbed his eyes.

Since parting ways with Lannor and Gascoigne the previous night, he had clearly never slept.

Now he stalked behind a cleric of roughly the same age, his expression hard as stone.

“Just how bad is it?”

The evening sun cast Yharnam in sickly shades of yellow and rust.

Ahead of him, the cleric moved briskly between stacks of supplies.

Quicksilver Bullets from the Healing Church Workshop.

Molotov Cocktails.

Throwing knives.

Everything needed to be distributed before the Hunt began.

“There is no degree.”

The cleric did not even slow down.

“The Church has issued a new Hunt notice. You should be preparing, Henryk.”

The man possessed a pronounced widow’s peak.

Where Church hunters borrowed elements of monastic attire while emphasizing mobility, the clerics who avoided direct combat retained more of the scholar’s robe.

All day Henryk had endured deflections.

All day he had been stonewalled.

As the sun sank lower, the knot inside his chest tightened.

Finally, he snapped.

His hand shot out and seized Mark by the shoulder.

Hunters possessed physical abilities far beyond ordinary men.

Henryk knew perfectly well he could stop him.

And he did.

Mark halted immediately.

“Tell me the truth!”

Every tiny muscle in Henryk’s face twitched.

“You examined those three abnormal corpses this morning!”

His voice dropped into a growl.

“You weren’t surprised. Not even a little.”

His bloodshot eyes bored into the cleric.

“You know exactly what they were.”

“We both do.”

“We both know where we last saw creatures like that.”

Mark met his gaze.

The look in his eyes was bleak.

“Don’t say that name, Henryk.”

His voice had become equally grim.

“That was a tragedy. None of us could stop it.”

He wanted the conversation to end there.

Wanted Henryk to let it die.

The old hunter ignored him completely.

Word by word, he spoke a name that modern Yharnam had nearly forgotten.

“Old Yharnam.”

Both men flinched.

Just slightly.

Yet neither could hide it.

“The city that’s nothing but ash and charcoal now.”

Henryk’s jaw clenched.

“The night we burned it to the ground, the greatest Night of the Hunt we’d ever seen…”

His voice grew rough.

“That was the first time we encountered patients with glowing red eyes.”

“Patients who completed the transformation in the blink of an eye.”

He stared directly into Mark’s face.

“And now those same things have appeared in Yharnam…”

“You owe me an explanation, Mark!”

Henryk gripped the cleric’s shoulder, his voice raw with agitation. Then his eyes widened. The old acquaintance in front of him shook his hand off with a single violent jerk.

That strength was not human.

“I have no explanation to give you. The Beast Plague is spreading more severely. It is harder to control. More troublesome patients are appearing. That is all.”

After throwing Henryk’s hand aside, Mark immediately tucked his own back into the sleeve of his robe and spoke with practiced calm.

By then, the place around them had begun to fill with supplies hauled out from the Healing Church Workshop. The Church had only sent notice of the Hunt to those hunters expected to work. It had not yet announced anything broadly to the public. But the residents around the supply point were neither blind nor stupid. When they saw so much equipment being transported and checked in such haste, a nervous strain began to creep across the whole district.

The hunters and clerics carrying supplies all looked worn thin. They had done the same work yesterday by daylight, then spent today dealing with corpses, pyres, and blood in the streets. Much of that had not even been finished.

And now they had to do it all over again.

Among the disorderly flow of people and the sour air of panic, Henryk and Mark still stood locked in confrontation.

“‘That is all’?” Henryk’s voice was tight with anger. “Do you remember how the two of us got out of Old Yharnam? The Healing Church sealed the road from Old Yharnam to Cathedral Ward. We slipped through the crack of the gate by a hair. They locked the infected and the uninfected together in one sea of fire.”

His fingers clenched.

“Have you forgotten what it looked like? Have you forgotten human fat boiling into liquid and running under our boots?”

Mark placed a mark on another list, his face unchanged.

“The Church had to contain a severe outbreak of the Beast Plague. There was no other way then. For the lives of the many, a choice had to be made.”

“I have tried to believe that choice was necessary,” Henryk said coldly. Then his tone lowered. “Otherwise I would not have slept a single peaceful night in decades.”

He leaned closer.

“But this time you can at least tell me where the bottom is. We are old friends, aren’t we? How far has the Beast Plague developed? People think hunters stand at the front and therefore know the most. But you and I both know the Church, the one gathering all the reports, is the only side that sees the whole picture.”

“At least tell me what kind of preparation I need for this Hunt, Mark. For the sake of all these years.”

Something in the old hunter’s voice seemed to shake the cleric. They had known each other for decades, after all, and had crossed that sea of fire together.

Mark’s lips moved several times. Then he turned and resumed walking, issuing orders as he went, sorting the distribution of supplies.

Henryk understood at once and followed close, listening without speaking.

The surrounding footsteps interfered, but his old ears caught enough.

“Red-eyed beasts… especially afraid of fire… first found three Hunts ago… Last night seventeen hunters encountered red-eyed ones. Ten survived.”

“The signs are indeed similar to Old Yharnam. That is why tonight’s Hunt was started in such haste… Whether it can be contained is hard to say…”

“Prepare for the worst. A Hunt brought forward by this much will not be…”

Before Mark could finish the words, not be easy, a bell tolled.

Clang.

A long, solemn peal rang out from the Grand Cathedral in Cathedral Ward. It rolled through Yharnam’s tangled Victorian spires and crooked roofs, then sank into the ears of every Yharnamite.

Mark and Henryk stopped at the same time. Both stared toward the bell, mouths half open.

“Moved up… again?”

It was not even night yet.

The bell that marked the formal beginning of the Hunt struck the ears of citizens who had only just survived the previous one, and the city shuddered.

For one instant, the vast mountain city fell into a silence so strange it seemed dead. People wondered whether they had misheard, whether the pressure of the Hunt had finally driven them into hearing things.

But the silence itself gave them the answer.

Everyone had heard it.

Then came the breaking wave.

Curses, sobbing, steel shutters slamming closed, heavy wooden doors crashing shut. The few residents still in the streets jolted as if struck, dropped whatever they carried, and ran for their homes as though beasts were already at their heels.

Those who knew they were too far from home threw themselves against nearby doors, begging in the lowest, most desperate voices for shelter through the night.

A Yharnamite leaning out to pull down an iron window grille spotted Mark below. His mind, already stretched near breaking, no longer had room for reverence toward a cleric of the Healing Church.

He spat abuse into the street.

“Shit! Liars! Are you hiding better blood from us? Are you? You killed the whole family downstairs yesterday. Are you coming to kill me today?”

Neither Henryk nor Mark answered the man.

The old hunter watched his friend’s face closely and saw that Mark, too, was shocked by the early warning.

Even the Church’s own people had not been told.

Mark, who had remained cold and rational until now, suddenly went pale.

“Cathedral Ward, Henryk. Go. Now.”

He shoved the bundle of supply lists into his robes, grabbed Henryk, and pulled him toward a ladder by the road.

Cathedral Ward was linked to Yharnam by a great stone bridge. On the far side stood an ornate, sturdy iron gate. Beyond that gate lay the city’s heart, Cathedral Ward.

Mark’s urgency dragged an old, ugly memory from Henryk’s bones.

That distant night of firelight, charred beasts, and charred men.

His lined face stiffened almost at once.

“Mark, you mean…”

They would do it again.

As they had done on the night Old Yharnam was destroyed.

They would lock people outside Cathedral Ward.

Mark said nothing. He only climbed faster.

When the last of the sunlight was nearly gone, Henryk and Mark finally saw the bridge to Cathedral Ward.

It was crowded with people. Four-wheeled carriages. Residents waiting to enter and take shelter inside the Ward. Those who lived close enough had that privilege. Cathedral Ward was usually easier to survive than the streets outside.

The two old men exchanged a glance and breathed out.

The Ward was still letting people in.

That was better than either of them had feared.

“Put your blade away.”

Mark tugged Henryk’s sleeve. He knew very well what the old hunter had meant to do with it. If Henryk had seen someone trying to close the gate, he would have cut them down.

Henryk listened and folded the Saw Cleaver away.

Mark led him through the crush of bodies toward the iron gate. They pushed through until only a few steps separated them from it, close enough that Mark could already call out to his comrades.

Then, from Cathedral Ward, the great bell rang again.

Clang.

Henryk’s face went numb. He did not know why the bell had rung twice, so he turned to Mark for an answer.

His old friend’s face had gone white.

The iron gate groaned.

Not only the civilians pressed up front, but the hunters and clerics maintaining order all stared in horror as the gate began to close.

Henryk was the first to move. He threw himself forward and tried to force the gate back open.

It was useless.

Even with several hunters joining him, the gate continued to shut under the strength of its mechanism.

The blood-red sunset vanished behind the closing iron.

For a moment, the entire stone bridge fell silent.

From the moment the iron gate closed, the entire stone bridge leading to Cathedral Ward fell into a deathly hush.

Common folk stared blankly toward Cathedral Ward. Even the horses harnessed to the carriages seemed to feel the weight in the air and dared not breathe too loudly.

The last thread of sunlight sank below the outline of Cathedral Ward. Backlit by the dying day, the whole district stood in a deep, lightless black.

Yharnam’s precise machinery brought the streetlamps alight on time. Gas flames flickered over every face on the bridge, despair, stupor, anger, terror.

On the frame of a carriage, a merchant with the reins still in his hands slowly removed his top hat without seeming to know he had done it. He clutched it to his chest.

“What… what is this?”

The hunters who had tried to force the gate open gave up, shoulders sagging. The clerics who had stood outside the gate with such confidence, keeping order moments before, now caught the same fear as the refugees around them.

No one knew how to answer.

“The Church…” The merchant’s voice shook. The tremor climbed higher and louder with every word. “They abandoned us. Locked us outside!”

He pointed at the gate, his eyes bulging.

“They locked it! Locked it shut! Didn’t they?”

His accusation sent a violent ripple through the crowd. The clerics and hunters had no answer worth giving, and their silence only fed the fear in the people’s bellies, then the anger born from it.

The crowded stone bridge began to turn.

At last, a hysterical scream split the air.

“Murderers! You’re murdering us! Killers!”

A townsman, clutching a kitchen cleaver from his own home, charged at the clerics by the iron gate with madness and despair twisted across his face.

The Night of the Hunt had begun, and this crowd, trapped in the open street, had already let fear take the reins.

They did not care that those clerics had been locked outside with them. They did not care that the clerics were victims too.

They needed somewhere to pour their terror. That, if nothing else, was human enough.

But the clerics left outside, were their minds so much steadier than the civilians’?

A gunshot cracked.

A cleric, his own face twisted with panic and savagery, fired his matchlock rifle. A Quicksilver Bullet spat from the barrel, bringing with it the reek of blood and powder.

A brief silence followed.

Then the bridge erupted.

The roar of the crowd, the scrape of hunters drawing weapons, the terrified shrieks of horses, all tangled into one deafening burst.

The smell of blood thickened.

The townsfolk had numbers, and madness carried them forward in a wave. The hunters were stronger, but the press of bodies pinned them in place, leaving no room to turn, no room to move.

Hunters bled. Clerics bled.

They had received more blood ministration than common townsfolk, and better blood besides. As their blood spilled, the people around them could not stop the rapture from creeping into their faces.

More blood pooled. The scent grew richer.

Ah, blood. Sweet blood. Vital blood.

A beautiful note seemed to rise in the minds of the crowd and sing by itself.

As the blood gathered, something in it began to stack, to build.

“Shit! Stay with me, Mark!”

Henryk’s hunting craft was clean and fluid. Against beast patients, he moved with practiced ease. Against humans, he was worse.

Compared with the less skilled hunters around him, he had done well enough. A blade had opened his arm. A pitchfork had punched through his belly. None of it mattered much.

He had dragged his old friend Mark through the edge of the chaos, and they were almost out.

The old hunter breathed hard. Hot air scraped from his lungs and misted white in front of him.

His eyes stayed sharp and restless, sweeping the fighting, searching for the weak seam that would let them break free.

He reached back, trying to catch Mark, whose steps had begun to lag.

It was so much like before.

The scene before him. His place beside Mark. Everything was like Old Yharnam decades ago.

Back then, the two of them had been young. They had leaned on one another and squeezed through the last sliver of the gate, out of Old Yharnam’s sea of fire and into Cathedral Ward.

They would make it this time too.

“Go, Henryk.”

The old hunter, still strung tight for battle, froze.

Along with his old friend’s words came the thing in his hand, a thin, wasted arm covered in hair like sharp wild grass.

Henryk was an expert at killing beasts. His comrades often said he was too good at it to die like a hunter ought to. Even through thick leather gloves, he understood at once.

This was not a human hand.

Or rather, it was no longer the hand of a normal man.

Advanced beasthood.

This was the hand of a beast patient in its final stages.

“The beasthood has begun. The hunt has begun, Henryk.”

Behind him, the familiar, reassuring voice of his old friend began to warp, slipping out of tune.

Henryk did not turn around.

He could imagine it well enough.

Mark’s bones and muscles were undergoing a brief and violent distortion under the Beast Plague. The shifting bones would be tearing muscle. The skin would be splitting.

His throat was changing with the disease, dragging his voice into another shape. Soon enough, even language would be gone.

His human eyes would yellow. The round pupils would loosen and melt, like quicksilver spreading in water.

A friend of decades was about to die.

Something inside Henryk went hollow. He could not accept it. He did not dare look back.

He could only drive forward, head down, his Saw Cleaver opening another madman in front of him.

More blood spilled across the stones.

“Stop talking nonsense! You’re a cleric! No cleric has ever turned into a beast, Mark. Never!”

“You need blood. You need rest. Once we get out, I’ll give you a vial!”

Henryk kept hold of Mark’s arm as he spoke, but the limb in his grip was swelling, growing thicker, heavier.

His old friend did not argue in the last moments he still possessed.

With vocal cords gone coarse and hoarse, he spoke as if through a dream.

“Humanity is the shackle that binds beasthood. But the stronger the humanity, the greater the recoil when it breaks. The result is… a more terrible beast.”

“What does a cleric become when he turns, Henryk?”

“Go, old friend. Go to the people you care about. Go protect them in this Hunt. The one you saw as a daughter, the man who married her, and their children. Go.”

The arm behind him had grown too thick to hold.

Henryk’s face went wooden. He could not imagine what expression he wore.

He let go.

Behind him, in the crowd, several people who had looked utterly normal suddenly went mad. Their bodies completed the entire course of the Beast Plague in a single instant and dropped to all fours as beasts.

The abrupt, savage distortion burst their former flesh into clots and pulp, spraying it outward.

They hurled themselves into the crowd and fell upon those closest to them, people who had been friends, family.

Claws tore through muscle and tendon. Teeth closed on the throats of kin.

This was no longer the Night of the Hunt.

This was the Scourge of the Beast, just like Old Yharnam decades ago.

Lannor heard the blessing fade into an indistinct growl, the words mangled by a throat already being reshaped by beasthood.

Once he was alone, Henryk broke from the crowd and charged down the stone bridge.

Behind him, a shriek exploded into the night.

The sound rolled outward like a shockwave, high and terrible.

Compared to it, even the roars of beast patients reduced to running on all fours seemed weak as a passing breeze.

Henryk knew what he had heard.

That had been his old friend’s final cry, the sound of a man becoming a beast.

Beasthood had shattered the shackles of humanity and stepped into the world.

He could scarcely believe such a howl had come from a body that had once been human.

What, exactly, lurked inside the human form?

Hunters were decisive by nature. The moment he escaped the chaos, Henryk snatched a Blood Vial from inside his yellow leather coat and drove the needle into his thigh.

The gash in his arm knitted shut. The wound that had pierced through to his organs healed as well.

The old hunter never looked back.

He headed away from Cathedral Ward’s bridge at once.

His friend had bought him a chance to escape with his life. He intended to make use of it.

* * *

Lannor stood beside the window in Gascoigne’s house, staring outside with a frown.

“Perhaps I simply haven’t seen enough of the world… but does the Night of the Hunt normally look like this?”

He asked the question without turning around.

Viola sat behind him, both daughters gathered tightly in her arms.

At his words, she glanced through the narrow gap in the curtains. The moment her eyes touched the street, she recoiled and lowered her head again, as if she feared something might crawl in through her gaze alone.

“During the Night of the Hunt… we don’t really dare look outside,” she said softly. “If a beast locks eyes with you, even Incense won’t drive it away.”

Incense repulsed beast patients by making them sickened by human scent.

But if they confirmed that someone was truly inside, Incense had no power to harm them or stop them.

“But…” Viola hesitated. “I’ve peeked outside a few times over the years, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Lannor gave a silent nod.

Outside the window, a resident whose face was almost hidden beneath thick black fur wandered aimlessly through the street carrying a saber in one hand and a torch in the other.

Three “dogs” padded after him.

At a distance, it might have looked like some sort of night watchman making his rounds with hunting hounds.

Fortunately, Lannor was close enough to see the truth.

He had watched those three dogs drag down a fleeing civilian, tearing him apart. Even after snapping bones, they continued biting and wrenching flesh loose until the saber-wielding figure stepped forward and hacked apart what remained.

The dogs themselves were wrong.

Like beast patients in the final stages of the disease, their chests and abdomens had rotted away into empty cavities.

Their ribs and spine were fully exposed.

Masses of black fur sprouted directly from bare bone.

Chunks of flesh they tore free slapped uselessly into the hollow space where their stomachs should have been, yet they continued gnawing with frenzied enthusiasm.

Eating seemed irrelevant.

The important thing was the tearing.

And the spilling of blood.

“The Beast Plague has spread into ordinary animals, and transformed individuals are beginning to cooperate on their own…” Lannor murmured. “If this were a virus or a bacterium, it evolved far too quickly, and far too intelligently.”

In a world built on science, it would resemble a biological weapon.

In a world built on magic…

It looked much more like a large-scale curse.

Before he could continue the thought, a scream echoed from outside.

A truly terrible scream.

Gascoigne’s house bordered the canal on one side and a small fountain square on the other.

The cry had come from the square.

Viola flinched visibly.

The two girls shrank closer against her.

Human screams carried both warning and terror in equal measure.

The saber-bearing beast and its three dogs seemed excited by the sound. They panted heavily and sprinted toward the fountain square.

Lannor let the curtain fall back into place.

“I’m going out to take a look.”

He turned toward them.

“If they keep wandering separately, that’s one thing. But if that scream gathers them together…” He left the sentence unfinished. “Either way, it’s better to deal with it before it becomes a problem.”

He did not need to finish.

Viola could already picture entire streets clogged with packs of beast patients.

She pulled the girls tighter against her.

At the same time, her fingers closed around a red-jeweled brooch hanging at her chest.

It was a beautiful ruby.

Years ago, Gascoigne had suggested that prayer worked best when accompanied by a symbolic object.

The advice came from a foreign cleric.

To that end, he had gifted his wife a brooch the color of fresh blood, a symbol of the Old Blood revered by the Healing Church.

“Th-thank you, Mr. Lannor.”

Viola forced the words out as calmly as she could.

Victoria, the younger twin, lifted her head from her mother’s embrace.

“Thank you, Uncle.”

Lannor’s mouth twitched at being called “uncle.”

He gave a small wave and headed for the door.

“When I’m finished, I’ll knock and speak first. Don’t open the door until you’re sure it’s me.”

He paused before leaving and repeated the warning.

On a night like this, no one knew what might happen.

The heavy wooden door swung open.

The moment Lannor stepped back onto Yharnam’s streets, a familiar smell struck him.

The foul stench of beast blood.

On this abnormal Night of the Hunt, every bad thing seemed somehow worse.

Despite the Composite Heavy Armor covering his body, his footsteps remained silent. Recent training allowed him to move with surprising stealth.

His height and frame were still growing.

He had already commissioned extensive alterations to his armor at Toul Butcher’s smithy. Only the approaching Conjunction of the Spheres had prevented him from having the work completed before arriving in Yharnam.

Lannor drew the Lady of the Lake’s sword from his hip in one smooth motion.

Not a whisper of steel disturbed the air.

The source of the scream was immediately obvious.

A common Yharnamite lay in the fountain square.

He wore a yellowed white shirt and black suspenders.

His round hat had rolled into a pool of blood.

A pitchfork had entered through his lower back and emerged from his navel.

The weapon was clutched in the hands of a beast patient who panted excitedly while repeatedly driving the handle forward, thrust after thrust.

The creature still wore the clothes it had possessed as a human.

Its stretched and distorted skeleton had long since outgrown them.

The three dogs arrived and immediately resumed their favorite routine.

They seized the unfortunate man’s limbs and shook their heads violently, tearing him apart piece by piece.

A bright flash of steel punched cleanly through flesh.

The wet sound of blood being forced from a body was brief and sharp.

The beast patient who had pinned a man to the wall and was still driving the pitchfork deeper with every panting thrust suddenly found a blade protruding from its mouth.

The point gleamed silver and spotless, shattering teeth and gums already warped by the disease.

Its twisted vitality kept the creature twitching for a moment longer, but when the blade rotated ninety degrees inside its skull, the struggle ended. The beast collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

The plague-ridden dogs had grown larger, stronger, and sharper than normal hounds.

One of them, jaws full of a torn-off forearm, sensed something was wrong and let out a confused whine.

“Rrrow?”

It never had time to look up.

Boom.

A sabaton-clad boot came down on its neck.

Weight and strength crashed together. The dog’s throat slammed against the wall. Vertebrae cracked with a sharp crunch.

Its already-rotted flesh split as shattered bone burst outward. Foul blood and pulp sprayed across the stone in a fan-shaped splash.

Lannor had killed with the same calm efficiency he always did, one precise stab, one broken neck.

The remaining two dogs reacted at once. They dropped the lifeless scraps of flesh in their mouths and lunged.

Without looking directly at them, the Witcher tracked both positions through the corner of his eye. His free hand closed into a fist.

Bang.

The iron studs on his glove struck the first dog’s skull mid-leap.

Metal tore flesh. Bone crumpled beneath the impact.

The beast managed half a yelp before Lannor’s punch drove its jaw sideways into the wall.

Its lower face exploded into fragments. Thick blood mixed with splintered bone and poured down the masonry.

Lannor withdrew the fist. At the same moment, he raised his forearm beside his neck.

The final dog arrived exactly where he expected.

Its charge glanced off steel-reinforced armor and threw the animal off balance.

Only then did the silver blade emerge from the first beast patient’s skull and mouth.

The sword swept through the air like a cracking whip, tracing a clean, elegant arc.

The strike passed across chest height.

The last dog split neatly into two halves beneath Arondight’s edge.

Lannor flicked the blade on instinct.

Chunks of flesh and thick blood slapped against the pavement.

The Lady of the Lake’s sword returned to spotless perfection.

Only the golden runes along its surface had brightened slightly.

Suddenly, the Witcher thrust one hand backward without looking.

His palm caught a brown glass bottle roughly the size of a beer bottle.

A strip of burning cloth stuffed into its neck served as a fuse.

A homemade Molotov cocktail.

People whose beasthood had not yet progressed too far still used the tools they had relied upon as humans. Their hands had not yet deformed beyond recognition.

In some ways, deciding whether they were more dangerous than the fully transformed patients was difficult.

Lannor’s casual catch failed to intimidate the newcomers.

Four or five beast patients had arrived.

Most wore battered top hats or straw hats, the sort of people who had clearly struggled through life in Yharnam. This sudden Night of the Hunt had pushed them into transformation at terrifying speed.

Pitchforks. Cleavers. Common household tools.

One carried a long matchlock rifle.

That was the only one Lannor paid any real attention to.

The creatures came forward with low growls.

The moment the rifleman tightened his finger on the trigger, Lannor moved.

He threw the Molotov cocktail back.

The bottle met the bullet perfectly.

Glass burst apart at the rifle’s muzzle.

The gasoline exploded outward in a broad spray, far wider than any ordinary throw.

Burning liquid drenched every beast patient in the group.

In Yharnam, people believed one thing with near-religious certainty.

If you hunt beasts, you use fire.

The conviction bordered on obsession. Every household kept dangerous flammable materials on hand.

But the belief existed for a reason.

The burning beast patients dropped their weapons.

They screamed.

Rolled.

Twisted.

Then became blackened corpses sprawled across the ground.

“Whew. Fire really is effective. They react even worse than normal people being burned alive.”

Lannor gave a low whistle.

The bottle’s trajectory, the rifleman’s timing, the spacing of the targets, every factor had been calculated.

The result was perfect.

The entire group had been engulfed at once.

A familiar satisfaction settled in his chest, the feeling of a plan executed exactly as intended.

But the fight was not over.

Beyond the burning bodies, a figure stepped onto the scorched ground as the flames began to die.

A tall top hat.

A pale gray high-collared coat.

A fitted waistcoat beneath.

Leather straps and assorted metal tools hanging from the outfit for practical hunting work.

Without question, this was a Yharnam hunter.

His head remained lowered beneath the brim of the hat.

By Yharnam standards, his attire possessed a distinctly fashionable Victorian elegance.

Lannor immediately assigned him a private nickname.

Fashionborne Hunter.

“Out hunting tonight, Hunter?”

The Witcher took the initiative and adopted a friendly tone.

The blood coating the man’s coat was thick and dark, but that meant little. Most Yharnam hunters ended their workdays looking much the same.

Lannor approached carefully before stopping at a safe distance.

The distance had been chosen according to the man’s weapon.

The hunter carried a sturdy-looking Threaded Cane, roughly comparable in reach to a longsword. The front section possessed a sharpened thrusting edge. The rear portion was also edged, though less keen, seemingly intended more for whipping than cutting.

Lannor had left more than enough space.

He had also made it obvious he was human.

On the Night of the Hunt, that was practically proof of kinship.

Yet after hearing him speak, the fashionable hunter gave no response.

Instead, he shifted the Threaded Cane into a reverse grip.

Lannor’s eyes narrowed.

The casual hold on his sword disappeared.

His grip tightened.

Then the hunter raised his head.

Thick black fur had already spread across most of his face.

His eyes had collapsed into the same melted ruin seen in other victims.

Shhk.

The instant his head came up, sparks flashed from mechanisms hidden within the cane.

A streak of steel snapped through the air.

Lannor’s previously relaxed posture flowed sideways in one smooth motion.

The flashing steel skimmed past his plate armor and lashed only empty air.

“Knew it.”

Lannor clicked his tongue.

“There’s no way a Yharnam hunter carries an ordinary walking stick.”

His cat eyes followed the weapon as it recoiled back into the hunter’s grasp.

The once-solid Threaded Cane had separated into multiple steel segments.

Each section ended in a razor-sharp angled edge.

Metal links, or perhaps some tougher material