“We thought we were doing everything right, but that wasn’t the case.”

Maria sat back in her chair and closed her eyes.

"You have seen, stranger, the dark and sinful side of the Healing Church. However, the origin of all this is still the greed of human nature. Those people are addicted to the blood of the ancient gods and cannot extricate themselves. They crave for things that humans should not have..."

"I see."

Fang Zheng put down the book in his hand and looked at the woman in front of him. From Maria, Fang Zheng finally learned what happened in Yharnam.

Based on Maria's description, Fang Zheng finally completed the entire incident.

First, the Byron Weiss College excavated the remains of the Sumerian civilization. From the remains, they learned that the Sumerian civilization had once been slaves of the old gods, and that the Sumerian civilization had tried to improve its own level by injecting the blood of the old gods and become the same gods as the beings they served.

But the Sumerians failed, which ultimately led to their destruction.

The Byronvis Academy was attracted by this secret and began to take over the remains of the Sumerian civilization and re-study the secret of becoming a god. Then they discovered Ibitas, the daughter of the universe, deep in the Sumerian ruins - an ancient god who did not leave this world. They brought this ancient god back to Byronvis, trying to obtain the secret of the ancient god through it.

Unfortunately, their experiment also failed. Although the blood of the ancient gods obtained from the Daughter of the Universe did increase their strength at the beginning, as more and more blood was injected, almost all the experimenters at the Byron Weiss Academy mutated without exception, leading to a series of collapses from the soul to the mind.

Under such circumstances, Master William decided to stop the research, but his favorite disciple Lawrence was obviously unwilling to stop there, so the two sides parted unhappily.

Before Lawrence left, Master William, the old man who had gained wisdom close to that of the ancient gods through his own strength, finally told him the truth: the reason why humans could not completely become ancient gods was that they lacked one thing.

The third umbilical cord.

This is something that only infant ancient gods possess. It connects the god's brain and spiritual vision. In other words, without the third umbilical cord, no matter how hard humans try to transfuse the blood of ancient gods, they cannot become gods in their human bodies.

But Lawrence obviously did not give up. After leaving Byronvis, he built the Healing Church and began to conduct two experiments. On the one hand, Lawrence tried every means to obtain the third umbilical cord. On the other hand, he chose a second different research route, which was to try to control the beast transformation caused by excessive injection of the blood of the ancient gods through human reason. After all, in Lawrence's view, if his mentor William could do this, then he could definitely do it too.

Of course, the latter is just a backup measure in Lawrence's view. If possible, he still longs to obtain the third umbilical cord to fulfill his wish of becoming a god.

Finally, Lawrence's research made great progress. Through the "Holy Grail" excavated from the Sumerian ruins, they successfully contacted the ancient gods that existed outside the void and tried to perform a ritual called Blood Moon.

All the superiors have lost their children and are seeking children.

Only the filthy blood of God can trigger this mysterious power.

Therefore, in order to allow the ancient gods to have sex with humans, so that humans can conceive the children of the ancient gods and obtain the third umbilical cord, Lawrence started the blood moon ritual. It would attract the ancient gods to come to the human world and have sex with individuals with filthy blood, so that they could become pregnant and give birth to children.

However, Lawrence's ceremony failed.

A member of the Cainhurst tribe suddenly broke into the ceremony, killed all the guards, and took away the god's blood. The ceremony failed, and after the ceremony failed, the wrath of the ancient gods covered the entire Old Yharnam, turning the entire Old Yharnam into a place where monsters were rampant. In desperation, Lawrence had to burn the entire Old Yharnam to ashes, and at the same time closed the passage between the church town and Old Yharnam to put an end to it all.

The Healing Church would naturally not give up. After the ritual failed, the angry Lawrence sent a group of executors led by the "Martyr Logarius" to the castle of Cainhurst, trying to take back the divine blood that was stolen by the Cainhurst tribe member, and at the same time take revenge on the entire Cainhurst tribe.

The martyr Logarius never returned, and no one knows what happened to him.

But Lawrence had no time to care about this matter, because at this time, a split occurred again within the Healing Church.

Because the divine blood was taken away, the ritual failed, which also led to the fact that Lawrence's wish to become a god through the third umbilical cord was almost shattered. Under such circumstances, another school within the Healing Church began to rise - the Mensis School.

Their idea is "We don't need to pray to the ancient gods to complete the ritual, we can create the ancient gods ourselves." Therefore, although Lawrence's blood moon ritual failed, the Mensis School found another opportunity - that is, not to give birth to the son of the ancient gods, but to create a real god directly with human hands.

The Mensis School and Lawrence were naturally at odds, so the two sides soon parted ways again. However, Lawrence also showed signs of beast disease due to excessive injection of the blood of the ancient gods at this time. He had to find a way to obtain the third umbilical cord, otherwise, not to mention his research, even Lawrence himself might be completely ruined.

Just when Lawrence was in despair, he suddenly got a piece of news.

There is a small fishing village not far from Yharnam, where people worship an ancient god named Kos. Not only that, but most importantly, perhaps because of the influence of the blood moon ceremony that Lawrence had held before, the ancient god named Kos is pregnant and is about to give birth to a child! At the moment, the Kos believers in the fishing village are preparing to pray that their god can successfully give birth to this son of God!

It is really true that after searching for a long time, you can finally find it without any effort!

The ecstatic Lawrence immediately gave orders to the hunter troops, asking them to go to the fishing village, eliminate the monsters, kill Kos, and obtain the unborn baby in Kos' body and its third umbilical cord!

As an excellent hunter, Maria naturally went along.

At first, the battle against the fishing village went very smoothly, and no one thought there was anything wrong - those fishermen who believed in Kos had long since turned into half-human, half-fish monsters, so in the eyes of the hunters, they were no different from those monsters in Yharnam. And there was only one thing these hunters had to do, and that was to kill!

Facing the hunters who were good at fighting, the fishermen in the fishing village had almost no resistance, and the entire battlefield was a one-sided massacre. The hunters killed the fishermen like chopping melons and vegetables, and then rushed into the cave behind the fishing village, where Kos was on the verge of giving birth.

Any creature is most vulnerable when it is pregnant, even the ancient gods are no exception. Facing the wolf-like hunters, Kos struggled hard to resist, but in the end, she was unable to escape the hunters' clutches. The hunters brutally killed Kos, cut open her belly, and took out the unborn child along with the third umbilical cord.

However, no one could escape unscathed after killing a god, but the hunters who were in ecstasy at the time did not hear Kos's curses and anger before his death.

"Curse those demons, and curse their children, and their descendants, for eternal suffering."

The hunters left with their prey in ecstasy, and only Maria stood there, staring at Kos's body. As a woman, she could feel Kos's pain and anger before his death. As a hunter, Maria could raise her butcher knife to those monsters without mercy, but as a woman, she could not accept the heartbreaking scene in front of her. People killed a mother and took out her child for their own desires...

Perhaps, coming here is a mistake.

Maria threw her weapon into the well of the fishing village and vowed never to participate in any battle again, but this did not change anything. The curse of Kos had spread. The hunters who participated in hunting her disappeared almost overnight. They were ruthlessly trapped in this nightmare, mad, violent, and endured pain and suffering from both soul and body.

Maria couldn't do anything about it.

"The curse of Koth has trapped us in this nightmare."

As Maria spoke, she took out an astronomical disk from her bosom.

"We have no peace in life, and our souls cannot be liberated after death. We cannot change this, because it is all caused by ourselves. But you are different, stranger. You may be able to resolve this nightmare and end it forever."

Having said that, Maria raised the astronomical disk in her hand and pointed it at the huge clock on the wall in front of her. Soon, the huge round clock began to turn slowly, and then a gap appeared.

"Come on, stranger."

Maria nodded at Fang Zheng and the big chin beside him.

"I will take you to see the root of all this nightmare."