Trigger Warning: Suicide (mentioned, not acted)
Gehrman quickly checked the runes of the new Memory. As he did so, he was dodging and weaving between stray attacks.
Though none of the warriors could spare any time to attack him, they did their best to put him in danger by manipulating the destruction wrought by their blows towards Gehrman.
However, the fleeing Hunter was only momentarily distracted. He was only looking for a single work in the new line of runes, and luckily he found it.
[Envious Executioner's Gloves].
He started to pull up the list of enchantments, but he suddenly sensed a change.
At that moment another warrior died. But this time, it was not an Executioner.
The corpse of the Royal Guard lay mangled and split below the feet of the iron-helmet-wearing Executioner.
Valtr had been on his own during that fight, but he had still managed to best that Royal Guard by himself, while the other two Guards fended off each of the remaining Vileblood Nobles, the eerie black hole in the dented bucket turned to face him.
The man who was the origin of the Impurity Rune had one eye taken out during his war with the beast he eventually devoured.
As such, only a single miniscule light burned through the small opening.
"...You…what are you doing?" Valtr asked between breaths. He seemed genuinely confused. His voice strained with a distress that appeared to pain him deeply.
"Hunting," Gehrman said. He kept his response short as he thought of a lie to fool the Beast Eater. He didn't want to kill him, but he also wasn't sure he'd be able to.
At the moment, he was running dangerously low on Essence. The reason he was comfortable doing this was for two reasons. The first was the rather macabre realization that he would likely die tonight. Perhaps even several times. And in doing so his Essence would be replenished. Though it took some time for him to rise from the dead, Palebloods current power allowed him at least a couple revives before the Nightmare ended.
The second reason was his confidence in his ability to deal with enemies one-on-one. He was comfortable with all of their styles with the exception of the Transcendents…and Valtr.
The Beast Eater fought like a man possessed. And he did not share the same exploitable foundation that the other Executioners did.
"Why are you killing humans? Do you not see the filth? Did you not swear to eradicate this poison?" Valtr's voice became increasingly unstable and angry. He was practically spitting the lines at the end.
"I see it well, Valtr."
The man seemed taken aback by the direct addressing of his name.
"I see the hideous Vermin writhe inside these Vilebloods. And I see them perishing with each Cainhurst citizen dead. But I also see them moving even in death," Gehrman's voice was solemn and grave. "The Executioners are tainted with filth. Already it corrupts them."
Gehrman turned his gaze to the Executioner's Gloves of the fallen warrior. Even attached to the corpse the ghostly red skulls circled around the wrists.
"A cleansing must be done," Gehrman said. "All must die here. Vilebloods and Executioners alike. If the men who committed this slaughter run free, then the filth will not have been truly eradicated."
After finishing his speech, Gehrman kept a keen eye on the unstable man before him. In appealing to Valtr's delusions he painted his actions in a rational light (at least from his perspective). He was also technically speaking some truth. The fallen Vermin were almost assuredly what turned Logarius into the ghoulish form that trapped him here for decades.
The halls of Cainhurst Castle would be crawling with spirits, malformed madmen, and beasts. Each mutated by this new element.
The Vileblood Knights would no longer hunt the Hunters, but the danger of Cainhurst only grew more harrowing after this slaughter.
Valtr was considering this.
He stood completely still. No fingers twitched and no muscles tensed. Gehrman didn't even notice any indication he was even breathing.
"I see." The old constable's voice dropped impressively low, taking on a foul growling that chilled the bones. "You are right. This will not leave things pure. It is not enough."
Gehrman's jaw clenched at the disturbing implications of such a sentence. Though he had instigated this thought process, it was still unsettling to see it settle in so easily.
Valtr straightened his back and several vertebrae loudly cracked.
"All will die. Even if it takes me years, not a single living thing in this cursed land will remain so long as I breathe."
Though disturbing, Gehrman wanted to breathe a sigh of relief. This meant that Valtr would not interfere with his work…but he had made this conclusion too soon.
"All you have to do now…is kill yourself."
Gehrman blinked slowly.
"What?"
"You have taken the forbidden blood. You can bend the liquid of life to your will and even burn it like these evil creatures. And what's worse, I can't even see any Vermin in you."
This information almost caused Gehrman to flinch. He had assumed that the lack of Vermin in his blood control would allow Valtr to simply dismiss this distinctly Cainhurst ability.
But this was not the case.
"There is no Vermin in me at all? Does that mean I am not already pure?"
Gehrman was both assured by the absence of Vermin within him as well as confused.
As far as he knew, it did not take much for Vermin to transfer to an individual. And with all the time he spent in Cainhurst and even the imbibing of the Queen's Vermin-rich blood he figured that he had acquired a great amount of them.
Though they were not a part of his power over blood, that didn't mean that there was any reason they couldn't take root inside of him.
Of course, it might be possible that Vermin simply could not inhabit a body made by the Nightmare Spell, but there was a problem with that assumption.
The Corruption Oath Rune allows for Vileblood-like regeneration. Given its origin, it definitely accomplishes this through the Vermin in one's body…but I don't have any. So the regeneration didn't work. But if Vermin were unable to take root inside me, why give me this power at all?
Gehrman's mind raced with new ideas.
All of the questions he had regarding Vermin, Vilebloods, and this Nightmare were all interconnected, and he was finally putting all the puzzles together.
But he was still barred from doing that.
Because there was a madman standing in front of him repeating the same sentence.
"Kill yourself, now."