Back inside the vast, eerie shipyard, Charles used the thick beams jutting from the walls and the remaining ropes for support.
Spotting a relatively sturdy platform below, he leaped down, adjusted his posture in midair, and landed firmly on the dusty, oil-stained wooden floor with only a faint thud.
“Bang!”
Almost the instant he found his footing, a gunshot rang out.
A scorching bullet grazed his ear, and the rush of searing air left him smelling his own singed hair.
“We all know… whose fault this is… It’s a curse. A damned curse!”
A figure hidden behind a stack of wooden crates ranted in a frenzied voice while repeatedly pulling the trigger.
Bullets struck the crates and walls around Charles at random, sending splinters flying.
Charles had no interest in listening to the madman’s accusations.
He rolled swiftly behind a solid brick wall, and the barrage followed close behind, punching smoking holes into the masonry.
“That stench… You smell like an outsider. Disgusting.”
The ambusher seemed to possess an unusually keen sense of smell, allowing him to distinguish Charles’s scent from that of Yharnam’s residents.
“Damn it! Not one of them hit.”
His poor aim and reckless shooting soon left his rifle clicking on an empty chamber.
Realizing he had run out of ammunition, he cursed in panic and fled deeper into the shipyard.
Charles had no intention of letting this snake in the shadows escape.
An enemy concealed in darkness was far more dangerous than a Beast standing in plain sight.
He sprang up at once and raced after him like a hunting cat.
“God, have mercy on me. I have to survive… There’s still hope for us…” The attacker’s hands trembled as he fumbled frantically with the ammunition pouch at his waist, trying to load his final three rounds.
His prayers dissolved into incoherent babbling.
“No, we’re finished! It’s all over…”
Charles drove him into a dead end inside a small storeroom piled with coils of rope and tattered canvas, then lunged.
He brought the Threaded Cane down in its cane form with brutal force, striking the back of the man’s head.
“Thud!”
The man went limp and collapsed unconscious.
Charles showed no mercy.
He followed with a practiced Visceral Attack, driving his serrated arm through the man’s chest and bringing the brief but violent pursuit to an end.
“We’re under attack! He’s over there!”
The commotion immediately alerted the other Hunters lurking within the shipyard.
Two Hunters in ragged clothing burst from separate hiding places, madness and greed gleaming in their eyes.
“Damn you! You killed our companion! You monster, you deserve to die!” one of them accused in a hoarse voice as he charged, brandishing a bloodstained blade.
Charles cast him a contemptuous glance, his voice cold. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
“Compared to what greed and madness have made of you, I would rather call myself human.”
Charles stepped nimbly backward as the Saw Cleaver swept past his chest with a vicious rush of air.
The instant his opponent’s swing ended, Charles snapped off a shot.
“Bang!”
The bullet struck the man’s weapon arm with pinpoint accuracy and sent him stumbling.
The Gun Parry left his opponent briefly staggered.
Charles closed the distance like a shadow and unleashed another vicious Visceral Attack, ending the threat for good.
At the same time, however, another attacker armed with a Rifle Spear had crept silently into Charles’s blind spot.
The sharp point drove into his back with cold, murderous force.
“Pshk!”
The spearhead tore through flesh and emerged from the front of his abdomen.
The impact was so powerful that it briefly lifted him from the ground like meat on a skewer.
“Argh!”
Agony surged through his entire body.
Damn it.
His confidence in his own reaction speed had cost him dearly.
He had assumed that after disposing of the first enemy, he would still have enough time to respond or retreat.
“I’m taking you down with me!”
Charles endured the blinding pain that threatened to make him faint.
With his left hand, he seized the spear shaft protruding from his abdomen.
Rather than retreating, he used it for leverage and charged forward, closing the distance between himself and his attacker.
As the man stared in shock, Charles drove his right elbow into his temple like a hammer.
Then, with a roar, Charles wrenched the Rifle Spear out through his back.
Blood sprayed through the air.
He reversed the weapon and thrust it back with all the strength he had left.
“Pshk!”
The Rifle Spear pinned the ambusher firmly to the wooden crates behind him.
Charles immediately raised the Threaded Cane and brought it down like a pile driver.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
He did not stop until the man’s head had been crushed beyond recognition, like a shattered melon, and no trace of life remained.
Only then did Charles pull away, panting as he felt his life draining through the wound in his abdomen.
He touched the newly formed skin beneath his collarbone.
It was still tender and pink.
Silently, he gave thanks for the resilience of this body, repeatedly tempered by Blood Echoes.
Even after being run through by a spear, it had healed quickly enough to withstand what should have been a fatal wound.
The Messengers and scattered records had taught him that veteran Hunters could reshape their flesh within the Hunter’s Dream by completely losing all their Blood Echoes, achieving a form of resurrection.
Even so, he would never dare test it lightly.
Some unknown and terrible price had to be hidden beneath such an alluring promise.
For that reason, he relied only on the power of Blood Vials, allowing his wounds to recover through a comparatively slow process.
Yet even this gentler method had already begun to produce changes in his body that could no longer be ignored.
His blood was growing thicker and darker, giving off a foul stench that belonged to nothing living.
Tiny, bone-white substances resembling writhing maggots had begun to appear within it, silently corroding and replacing the blood that had once been his own.
In this strange world, where even the laws of nature seemed uncertain, anything could conceal another face.
Charles did not dare place complete trust even in the seemingly friendly Messengers who offered him aid.
He had a habit of recording everything he saw and heard.
Leaning against the rusted iron framework of the shipyard, he used the faint light to sort through the scattered scraps of paper in his hands.
A series of hurried, heavy footsteps abruptly broke his concentration.
The sound came from the rotting oak staircase above, which connected to the dock platform.
The steps groaned beneath the weight.
“Creak… creak…”
Each footfall shook rusted flakes of metal and dust from the ceiling.
Charles quickly injected the remnants of his last few Blood Vials into his veins, forcibly stabilizing the wound in his abdomen, which still throbbed with a dull ache.
Then he slipped silently behind the mountain of tattered fishing nets and wooden barrels beside the staircase, disappearing like a shadow melting into darkness.
The approaching figure was a dockworker who had completely succumbed to Beast Transformation.
Its body was hunched, and its claws dragged across the floor with a grating scrape.
Its clouded yellow eyes stared straight ahead, entirely unaware of the danger lurking in the shadows along the wall.
The instant it passed him, Charles struck.
The Threaded Cane shot forward like a coiled viper.
With flawless precision, it entered the eye socket beneath the creature’s temple and pierced straight through its skull.
“Pshk!”
“Drip… drip…”
A thick liquid, dark red blood mixed with an unknown milky-white secretion, ran down the tip of the cane and fell to the floor.
Each drop sounded unnaturally clear in the deathly silence, like an eerie hourglass marking the passing of yet another twisted life.