Gairm's teeth gritted at the sight before him. The blood of these fish-abominations ran rampant, wetting the dingy wooden structures and staining the muddy floor.
Gehrman hadn't told him of just how formidable these creatures were. Though they posed no real threat to Gairm, already all of the Knights had been slaughtered by the mutated humans of Innsmouth.
The Bloody Crow felt a pinch as his blood blade drew power from him, as he cut down a larger creature with his chikage. This beast was much stronger and larger than the others even without those annoyingly potent harpoons and spears, and it had nearly taken out one of the Royal Guards before Gairm stepped in.
Pulling his blade from the creature's twitching corpse, Gairm felt a chill run down his spine, and soon he was dodging to the side, avoiding a bolt of lightning from above.
There are more of those things?
A few of the beasts had somehow gained powers like those of a shaman. They struck the ground with a large wooden staff and brought down a strike of lightning. It wasn't in any way weaker than real lightning either, and it could actually harm some of the Royal Guards if they weren't careful.
Those shaman-beasts were part of the reason that things had taken a turn for the worse already, but the real problem was the sheer size of Hamlet's forces, it dwarfed both his group and those of the College and Church.
"Enough of this, we can't waste anymore time on these things," With a growl Gairm gripped his Chikage tight and threw it into the upper corner of a building on the other end of the plaza. The top half of the building exploded, the shockwave of its impact causing the entire town to groan.
The corpse of the shaman was nearly entirely obliterated.
He called to the remaining Royal Guards and ordered them to take to the buildings. If they were lucky, they could get a few of the Yharnamites with their powerful shots from their Eveyln's before joining the fray.
Gairm was tired of waiting, and he was ready to take them head on.
Hidden in a pair of side straps, Gairm reached and pulled out the siderite weapons gifted to him by Gehrman: The Blades of Mercy.
If worse came to worse and he had to flee, Gairm could always set up a staged encounter with the "Bloody Crow of Cainhurst" making it seem as if the man had stolen his blades.
It would be messy, but Gairm couldn't afford to hold back.
As if in response, his senses suddenly alerted him of movement. It was startlingly fast. Faster than anything he had seen his entire life.
A grey-red streak came down on him like a meteor, a large club met his blades with a deafening clang and an explosion of kinetic force was released from the impact.
Gairm was pushed back several feet before he managed to push the attacker backwards, flinging the form backwards.
"Brador! Hold!" a commanding voice rang out.
Gairm immediately knew it to be Ludwig. The new leader of the Holy Blades arrived on foot, flanked by other members of his order. It appeared that this small dispatch had run after the one who had just attacked him - Brador.
I know that name.
It was a name that immediately filled him with warriness.
Surely it's not that madman? Laurence you fool, letting that fiend out of its cell is more dangerous than letting this entire Hamlet going unchecked.
To any other Hunter the name Brador may have been something that they had never heard before. Indeed any trace of his part in making the Healing Church what it was had already been erased from history.
But Gairm knew who he was: The Church Assassin.
At least, that's what he had been before the paranoid bastard had scalped one of his own compatriots.
When Laurence had first moved to create his own independent organization away from the Church, his radicals had not had any sort of man power.
Gehrman was available, but he was being set on training Hunters and creating equipment for the Church.
The Holy Blades still held some pride, and they were in the process of transitioning towards Ludwig's regime, and thus the end of their so-called "heroics".
In the dangerous city of Yharnam there were many political and economic foes who opposed the establishment of the Healing Church. It was only natural that some clandestine violence would occur.
Gehrman was not keen on participating in such things, only moving to protect Laurence himself if the need arose.
They needed someone more bloodthirsty.
And then, one day, a militant criminal from another land made his way to Yharnam in search of a cure to a disease that had ailed him since birth.
He had already been a brutal master of violence even with his weaker body, but with his condition cured he became not only indebted to the Church, but also keen to test out his new overwhelming strength.
Brador left scenes of disgusting bloody art around the homes of those who conspired against the Healing Church, and he loved it.
Gairm remembered seeing the man once, his legs thrown up onto a table and shoulders hunched forward. The wicked sneer of a killer.
A few days after that brief encounter, the news reached Gairm that Brador had gone to one of the Clerics' houses and had yet to return.
Fearing the worst, they sent the newly appointed Hunter of Hunters.
What Gairm found was a scene that still haunted him to this day. The interior of the modest stone building was stained with the musk of blood. Dark spots coated the walls and floorboards, indicating something sinister.
And indeed it was sinister.
They later found large amounts of the Blood hidden away in the Clerics' home. He had been taking extra from the Church, and imbibing it at home. The man was an addict, and given the stores he had been taking an obscene amount daily.
Whether it was his fortitude of staving off beasthood or the sheer amount of blood imbibed nobody could be sure, but that cleric had been special in his transformation.
For he would become what was eventually dubbed a "Cleric Beast."
A more powerful variety of beast that dwarfed even the mighty Scourge Beasts. That being said, this one was smaller.
Small enough that Brador, the damn madman, had in his blood drunk rage sewn together an outfit using the cleric beasts hide and head, fashioning a terrifying garb.
When Gairm saw that scene he knew true fear for the first time.
For when he looked down at Brador, all he could see was the demon that man would become if they continued down this path.
In that terrifying moonlight though the man seemed deflated.
Brador had come with him quietly, and soon disappeared.
Gairm eventually found out that he was locked below the Healing Church in the Underground Cells. The man had come frighteningly close to beasthood that night, and they shuddered to think of what he would become if that happened.
And that was the last Gairm had heard of him. On the edge of Madness, Brador would absentmindedly ring a bell, lingering in the dark for the rest of his years.
At least, that was what was supposed to happen.
As the spitting rain from the dark clouds above tapped Gairm's Cainhurst Helm, he considered his chances.
No one had ever really been in a fight with Brador. Everything he started ended too fast to be called a true battle.
Given that initial clash Gairm understood why. The man was a monster.
Still, he was the Bloody Crow of Cainhurst, and he was fairly confident he could bring this demon of a man down.
The problem was the newcomers. Six Holy Blades were led by Ludwig, all of them roughly equal to the Cainhurst Royal Guards.
And Ludwig had that damn sword.
It was already glowing an iridescent cyan, under its calm surface it was no doubt exploding with Arcane energy.
"That helmet is of Cainhurst. You have heard the rumors right? That they have been working with blood as the Church has? They are the enemy, young knight. You would be wise to let me do away with him," Brador said. His voice was low and intimidating. Speaking in a clipped voice it was hard to get a read on his exact emotions.
To his credit, the leader of the Holy Blades did not flinch.
"This is a hunt for beasts, Brador. Do not forget your place."
Despite these words though, as Ludwig walked forward his blade still glowed with moonlight. He had not let his guard down one bit. In fact, as Gairm simulated several different attacks in his mind, he was shocked by how impervious his guard was.
Just by having that sword in his hand and facing forward with a strong gate, the knight had many options when dealing with attackers.
"Apoligies for the rudeness of my friend here," Ludwig bowed slightly, ever chivalric. "Are you al-" the young man abruptly stopped. His eyes sharpened like a predators.
"Those blades," Ludwig eyed the Blades of Mercy. "Where did y-"
Gairm raised his arm in a sharp, quick motion. The signal was given, and utter chaos broke loose.
The crack of gunfire shattered across the Hamlet as the Royal Guards launched their attacks.
Two bullets found purchase in two the skulls of two separate Holy Blades. At the same time, two others were injured. However, they quickly imbibed blood, healing themselves before their injuries could hurt them in battle.
Six shots from various angles were fired at Ludwig, but in a single sweeping motion an Arcane blast swallowed them whole. That ray of light continued upward, completely annihilating the building where one of the Royal Guards had been.
It was likely that he had died or received grievous injury. Either way, they had lost one man in exchange for taking out two of theirs.
…That wasn't good enough.
Gairm frowned, but he had no time to bark more orders, that damnable mad dog was upon him in the next instant.
The red that he had seen before had been Brador's weapon. It was a unique thing, somewhere between a mace and a club. What made it much more terrifying was when all of a sudden a bunch of deadly spikes shot out of it.
Gairm dodged backwards, trying to analyze this new weapon.
It's a blood weapon, just like the chikage, it takes the user's blood to turn the weapon into a different form. However, the chikage merely added a blood blade to the end of the katana, this thing was more like the "Trick Weapons" that Gehrman developed, in that its actual shape changed.
Gairm found it annoying, but he wasn't too perturbated, with the Blades of Mercy, he could do the same thing.
With a counterattack he switched swiftly from one blade to two. The leverage and speed of each blow throwing off the enemy. He managed to cut Brador several times, but the Church Assassin was not slowed down a bit, opting to receive small wounds to preserve his own ballistic momentum.
At the same time, the Royal Guards of the Holy Blades were going at it in a spectacular battle.
However, this was not a sustainable matchup.
Right now they could manage since three Royal Guards could manage to hold Ludwig back. Meanwhile two Royal Guards doubled up on the remaining Holy Blades, aiming to quickly defeat their enemy and then join another battle, thus increasing their advantage throughout the fight.
The problem was, time wasn't on their side.
There were still other Holy Blades and the Workshop Hunters, perhaps a few mercenaries had survived as well. If they managed to clean up the Hamlet monsters then the tides would instantly turn against them.
The safest way to handle this now was for Gairm to deal with Brador and move on to Ludwig. After that, there shouldn't be anyone, besides perhaps Maria, that could put up a fight against him.
It was possible.
Victory. Ending the Healing Church. Saving the world.
It could all happen tonight.
…but something was wrong.
Because as they continued to fight, Gairm noticed something at the same time as Ludwig.
Where did all the monsters of the Fishing Hamlet go?