In Bloodborne, the messed-up things that happened in Yharnam, while seemingly complex, can actually be summarized quite well.
A bunch of Mortals craving the power of a Great One, hoping to steal Divine Power, fought among themselves, all seeking the path to Ascension.
A bunch of Great Ones, wanting to devour each other, used Mortals to scheme against one another.
In short, few of them were good.
And Byrgenwerth, the root of all tragedy in Yharnam, a place full of mad scholars, was a specialized producer of villains.
Although their methods of being scoundrels differed, everyone at Byrgenwerth was pursuing a way to Ascend into a Great One.
Because the mountain was there, tempting one to climb; this was the nature of a researcher.
As Great Master Willem's senior Disciple, Bishop Laurence hoped to guide people to Ascension through the blood of a Great One, and even founded the Healing Church, using the blood of a Great One to cure the beastly scourge of Yharnam.
However, this method of Ascension was merely wishful thinking; while blood ministration could suppress the power of weaker Great Ones and cure the rampant ashen blood disease, it would itself lead to an even more rampant beastly scourge.
Just as Willem said—fear the Old Blood.
Ultimately, Laurence perhaps realized his mistakes and culpability, or simply wanted to delve deeper into his research, and injected himself with the blood of a Great One.
This bravery ultimately failed; Laurence transformed into the Cleric Beast in flames and was killed by his colleagues. Goki never met him, only glimpsing his form in the Old Hunter's nightmare.
Meanwhile, Great Master Willem's other Disciple, Micolash, hoped to achieve his own Ascension by reviving and creating a Great One.
By resurrecting a twisted Old God in Yahargul—the Reborn—the School of Mensis acquired a vast amount of knowledge.
Relying on this knowledge, Micolash hoped to use a ritual to summon the formless Oedon and the child of the Sumeru Queen—Mergo.
But Great Master Willem realized the danger of this ritual and used his Disciple, Rom, the Vacuous Spider, to manipulate time, fixing Yharnam's spacetime before the arrival of the Blood Moon, thus making the ritual's conditions incomplete.
For this, Micolash created the School of Mensis Nightmare, where, through the power of the Great One Amygdala, he interception one past and future fragment after another in the dream, eventually leading to Mergo's successful descent—accompanied by his winged wet nurse, which also caused Goki to die several times before successfully resolving it.
Of course, including Micolash and Mergo, these lunatics and gods were all eventually cut down by Goki alone—that two-bit Micolash with the cage on his head was chased and hacked by Goki for a whole street, as slippery as a loach, and particularly annoying.
And these methods of Ascension were either wrong or incomplete.
The most reliable method of Ascension was still the one Great Master Willem initially proposed—establishing an Inner Eye.
He deeply understood that humans in this world had always been influenced by the Old Gods, and to break free from their shackles, only Ascension would suffice.
Humans were too foolish, inferior to those great Great One existences in both intelligence and will, so Willem hoped for humanity to gain more "eyes" to view themselves and this world from a higher-dimensional perspective.
To enable humans to gain eyes, he conducted countless inhumane human experiments, creating many "Eye Beddings" with many eyes. Finally, he discovered that the human brain was insufficient to bear the wisdom and vision of the Old Gods.
Unless, they utilized the organ used to communicate with the Universe at the time of an Old God's birth—the third umbilical cord.
In the end, the more conservative Willem realized the danger of this matter and chose not to break the world's balance.
Great Master Willem chose to stop at the utilization and research of the Old Gods, and through Rom's power, hid the source of all knowledge and secrets in the lake—until Goki's arrival.
Although defeating him would drop a rune at the time, Goki in Yharnam still spared the Old Man's life—he was crazy enough, but had a bottom line.
Willem's method was not wrong; Goki eventually collected four—no, more third umbilical cords through various channels. Using the power of the umbilical cords, he gained knowledge and vision comparable to a Great One, and also the power to kill the Moon Presence.
At that time, Goki had also established an Inner Eye, allowing him to clearly perceive others and himself, the macroscopic and microscopic, Sumeru and mustard seeds, with no secrets before Goki.
But in the end, Goki did not choose to step into Ascension and become a Great One.
Of course, this wasn't because it would make him lose his little Goki and be unable to be intimate with the Nona Doll.
The Moon Presence, that troublemaker, used Goki to expel the proxies of several other Great Ones, giving him the opportunity to steal the authority of many other Great Ones. If Goki became the new Moon Presence, his authority would be almost limitless.
It was just that Goki knew that at that time, he would no longer be the original Goki—so, he gave up Ascension and instead wanted to use this power to leave this boring world.
Although becoming the newborn Moon Presence and being nurtured by the Nona Doll, enjoying a bit of feeding play, would also be good, it would indeed be more satisfying to be intimate as a Human!
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