It was a bit hard to fit one's mind around Antarctica. Not just because it experienced six months of darkness and sixth months of daylight, not because its humongous mountain ranges made the place feel like it was a part of the Dream Realm, but because it was kinda hard to understand from a map.
The map of the world was laid out, its spherical form stretched into a 2 dimensional rendering that did not afford Antarctica the proper respect it deserved.
Hundreds of years in the past it was fine to do so, the place had been essentially a giant glacial dessert.
But now it was one of, if not the most hospitable place on the planet.
And it was about to be utterly devastated.
"Your primary focus is securing the people in South America. After the Chain of Nightmares hits its stride, we will be unable to reach them, and with all the distortion of the Gates, they will be effectively cut off from the rest of the world, doomed to be slaughtered," Cor spoke over a call, describing to Gehrman the situation.
"The southern tip of South America connects to the northernmost part of Western Antarctica, so we need a force to mobilize as quickly as possible to start their evacuation. On a broad scale, we will be moving Civilian's East as quickly as possible, having them hunker down in Siege Capitals as we slowly move everyone to the safest nearest land mass: Australia."
Gehrman was paying attention to all of this, but at the same time he was briefly wondering about his old world.
It had been a planet as well, surely. But how similar was it to the lands of this world? Cartography was not exactly held in high regard in Brygenwerth, and any exploration would inevitably be pulled towards the Labyrinths below Yharnam.
Gehrman wasn't even sure if there were other continents beyond the one where Yharnam and Johann's hometown resided.
It seemed odd that his own world would be contained to a singular continent when this one had so much…but then again, maybe he was wrong about even the most basic things.
His world was a Dream of a Great One after all, of that he was fairly certain. It explained why such fundamental yet contradictory aspects such as Beasthood, Kin, Vermin, and Humans could all live in the same place.
And if it was all a Dream, perhaps that great Dreamer didn't deem it necessary to create anything more than a singular continent. Its whims were unknowable though, so for all Gehrman knew perhaps there were thousands of continents in the place where Yharnam resided.
"Gehrman," the gravely voice cut his meandering thoughts down.
"I need to make it to South America posthaste. Traveling along the northern edge of Antarctica, slaughtering everything on my way and organizing a convoy and transport to all the refugees and taking them to, what was it called Falcom Scott?"
"Falcoln Scott," Cor corrected.
Gehrman frowned.
"Wait a moment, isn't that in the Antarctic Center?"
"Yes, it is. In fact, the closest Siege Capital to the South Pole. But remember, West Antarctica has no true Siege Capitals. At this point in time, the vast majority of it is below sea level, and it mostly consists of islands and wild lands."
Gehrman's brow furrowed but he nodded.
"Right, West is mostly underwater, Central Antarctica is a strip of land that includes several important research facilities and siege capitals, and Eastern Antarctica is flattest and most hospitable area with the most Siege Capitals."
Cor let out a grunt that was affirmative enough that Gehraman took it as a sign of approval.
"Calling Central Antarctica a 'strip' of land is a bit dubious. Though its shape is largely thin, in truth it contains close to 1,000 times the square mileage of NSCQ and its Outskirts combined."
Ordinarily, comparing a land mass with a city was a bit foolhardy, but the size of NSCQ and the Outskirts were well over 5,000 times larger than Yharnam.
In short, it was a very, very large chunk of land.
If Gehrman were to fly as he usually did to get around NSCQ it would still take him around 2 hours to go from one end to another. And since he would be escorting mundane citizens, that time would extend to weeks, or even months.
"Are we absolutely sure air travel isn't an option? I feel like that would make things much smoother," Gehrman leaned back in his chair, a bit perturbed at the lengthy journeys ahead of him.
"When you fly, it is below 5,000 feet for a reason. Higher into the atmosphere…unless your Queen were to make a personal appearance, it wouldn't be worth it."
Gehrman frowned at this response. Of course he knew that the skies were exceedingly dangerous, but saying that only a Supreme could make the journey safe seemed a bit outlandish.
Perhaps Cor was simply using an opportunity to get in a dig at Gehrman for his dealings with Song… but this was Cor speaking, so it was likely this was simply an analytical conclusion he made.
Gehrman made a tsk sound, but he knew it wasn't entirely unreasonable.
It was the same reason that traveling in the deep sea, or any sea for that matter, was dangerous.
When a Gate formed, it would not always have Awakened swarming it to take out all the Nightmare Creatures that would pour out. Such a thing simply wasn't feasible. So the Government limited the required Gate Crisis responses to those near civilian living. For that reason, some of the worst Nightmares were born in places where there were never any Awakened responders, such as deep beneath the ocean or high above the clouds.
Though it was exceedingly rare for anything more than a Corrupted creature to come out of Gates, the sheer quantity of creatures and the distance from any humans meant only one thing: internal conflict.
Nightmare Creatures didn't have any perception of friend or foe of course, but they would much sooner join together to kill humans than they would each other. And yet, in those places far removed from human contact, that was exactly what they did.
And in such an environment, those already terrible Nightmare Creatures grew stronger and stronger.
A Corrupted Devil would rise in Class, or even Rank depending on horrific events that occurred in those unseen places. And aside from Sovereigns, no Saint could ever hope to defeat a Great Devil.
For that reason, the sky and sea were breeding grounds for unreasonable abominations.
That being said, there was a group that made travel on the surface of the Sea much more safe. Not only that, they had a great number of champions who could help them (relatively) safely navigate the oceans.
"For this assignment, you will be cooperating with the House of Night. In fact, they are the ones in charge of the mission. Master's Sean and Skif will be coordinating with you. I've left some room for you to negotiate on how you want to work with them…but I'd figure it would be most efficient to have you in the air. In Western Antarctica there will be many Gates that we cannot reach, but also many strong abominations being born. It is your job to take out any Tyrants, or if you think you can handle it, any Terrors you see."
Gehrman scratched the side of his head.
"Am I supposed to just ignore any Titans I spot?"
Cor's eye twitched.
"Not even you should attempt to fight a Titan alone. They are almost always as strong as a Tyrant of the Rank above, if not more terrible. You haven't encountered any yet, so you don't understand just how horrific they can be."
Gehrman thought this was a bit dubious. He had faced a Great Nightmare creature before with the Song Sisters. Granted, he came nowhere close to killing it and would have died several times if not for his unique history and abilities, but he had grown even stronger since then.
Soul Cores: [7/7]
Blood Fragments: [273/7,000]
He was a Titan now. And even after the evolution he had managed to put on a couple hundred more Blood Fragments over the past few weeks. But even those hundreds of Fragments were less than what they should have been.
Gehrman had been spending a lot less time handling Gate Crises recently and a lot more in his own Soul Sea.
And thanks to that, he had finally unlocked the rest of the secrets to how his Ascended Aspect Ability worked.
It all started with that eerie forest of seemingly ancient trees that had sprouted after his Ascension. He had dubbed it the "Soul Forest", not bothering with a fancy title since he was the only one who would ever know about it.
Despite being fairly loose with his secrets in the past, with the impending war he decided he needed to save up some secret trump cards.
And this ability would certainly be one of them.
It's potential was on a completely different level from even the seemingly endless possibility of his Awakened Ability.
In any case, the Soul Forest was the start of the process that would allow him to truly live up to the title [Walking Workshop]. In essence, the Soul Forest was a place of raw resources that Gehrman could use to construct weapons in the Soul Workshop. And those weapons could eventually turn into enchanted items in the real world.
The process was expensive, and required two catalysts.
One was Blood Stone Shards.
A singular Bloodstone Shard was required to solidify the item in his Soul Workshop. Not making it a Memory, but instead a permanent place among his Soul.
For the longest time he had struggled with bringing it to the real world, as he suspected this was the end goal of this ability. But in the end he figured out a rather odd ritual that did the trick.
The first thing he needed was a copy of the item in the real world. Fortunately, it did not need to share the qualities of the Soul Item. And Gehrman figured that eventually he would be able to mass produce them simply by ordering 3d-prints of the weapons.
After the copy was ready though, all it took was a little Insight to the copy and an uncanny shift occurred in his Soul.
That was how a Kirkhammer with power equivalent to a Dormant Memory was brought into the world.
Of course, this was rather underwhelming given the fact that Gehrman was already crafting more powerful things with the resources of the Dream Realm. But he could feel what this ability could turn into in the future.
A Memory factory.
Because even though that Kirkhammer was not a Memory yet, when looking into its dimensional echoes with [Eyes on The Inside] he could see the outline of it. There was an incredibly simplistic sorcery within the weapon. What looked like a child's imitation of the Sorcery of Weaving.
Judging by what Gehrman had seen Sunny do, it was grossly underwhelming. But there was one key difference between what Sunny did and what [Walking Workshop] did. One of them was a particular art that required precise skill. The other was a fully automated process that ran off of something akin to Divine Will.
It reminded Gehrman of the "Weaves" of pale purple that infested the Memories that the Moon Presence had tampered with. It was clear that instead of learning the ancient and powerful art, the Great One had simply willed the weapons to fit the format of this Dream, and its raw power manifested in such a way that even at the most basic of levels its creations mimicked the Nightmare Spell.
And now Gehrman was gaining similar abilities. Though nowhere near the same level, the concept of his existence twisting the rules of the world to fit his image was too uncanny to ignore.
Needless to say though, if this was all his Ascended Ability was capable of at the moment he wouldn't be nearly as confident as he currently was in his physical power.
Instead, a much more immediate and potent part of his Ascended Ability had made his strength considerably stronger.
Though his personal strength was not actively being boosted by the Ability, it had already increased his power by a considerable amount. And that was because it affected the Memories he already owned.
[Greedy Bloodstone Talisman]
Type: [Charm]
Rank: [Ascended].
The Dormant Charm that was versatile, yet weak was no more. It took 12 Twin Blood Stone Shards and 12 Blood Chunks but after weeks of searching through the forest and finding those odd Soul Beasts he had gathered enough to make his Charm not only useful, but exceptionally potent.
An Ascended Charm of the Sixth Tier was so rare that very few could possibly claim to be in possession of such a thing. It bordered on being of equal value to a Transcendent Charm.
And this one especially had such a broad range of increased resistances that it would effectively make him as resilient as a Saint.
…At this point though, he was tempted to consider himself on the level of an average Saint. No "almost" or "practically" would do anymore. He had the strength, the power, the experience, and, due to his being a Titan, the Essence.
The only thing he lacked was the Transcendent Form that all Saints could wield. But even that could not truly separate most Saints from Gehrman's raw ability.
Antarctica would be hell. There was no doubt in Gehrman's mind.
But Gehrman was more than up to the challenge.
When the Judge made landfall, the tens of thousands of Nightmare Creatures would feel the weight of The Last Hunter's bloodlust crawl across their backs.