The beast-man attacked, and this time Ophelia, feeling the burn of quickstepping, relied on comparatively human movements to evade. Fortunately the intense, feral rage guiding the creature's actions made it clumsy and predictable, but even so it still moved faster than most humans would be able to. Even so it saved her from being torn to ribbons as it had intended, reducing the damage to merely being raked across the back by one clawed hand as she rolled past, ripping through her clothes and marking her flesh with their sharp, painful touch.
When both of them came to a stop again, now having moved past each other, Ophelia would feel the pain of her superficial injury swiftly receding as it regenerated. The beast-man spun around to face her again, hands raised and poised to pounce on her again... when his eyes inexorably drifted from Ophelia to his freshly bloodied claws. He stared at his hand with wide, manic eyes, and started trembling. Licked his lips with an unhumanly long and wide tongue. His breath quickened, and when the beast-man turned his attention back to Ophelia after a couple of seconds, the hatred and fury from before had been replaced with something even more primitive: hunger.

Farren rushed through, and got a brief glance through the door to the reception of the clinic, where he would see Victor less than a meter past the threshold, boxed in and obstructed by a wall of three huntsmen. The Hunter seemed to have willingly impaled himself on the middle huntsman's waiting pitchfork, with the farming implement embedded into his abdomen, while the huntsmen to each side chopped at him with a hatchet and a saber, respectively... except that the hatchet-wielder to the right was halted mid-motion by a swift rising slash of Victor's sword, carving a wound from the huntsman's groin to his neck.
Then Farren was past the door, and though he could still hear the now-familar sound of two rifle-shots in quick succession, he did not see it. Instead he focused on attacking the Mad One, setting into a series of complex, rapid slashes with his two sabers.
Just as Torquil before him, Farren would find that carving into this creature did not at all feel how he expected. It felt less like cutting meat and bone and more like hitting a husk of charcoal and ash. The wounds he dealt did not bleed, nor did he feel any trace of what one would expect to be inside a creature. No muscles or tendons, not even any bones... just that uniform bizarre imitation of flesh, breaking, cracking and crumbling where he struck it. The first attack tore away a large chunk of its chest and abdomen, and the second attack completely bisected it at the waist, leaving it collapsing onto the ground.
For anyone paying attention, it would be quite evident that the Mad One – especially compared to the rapid healing demonstrated by everyone else currently fighting in the area – was not regenerating. But the purplish glow that filled the interior of its body grew brighter, as did the dual blazes pouring from its eyes.

In-between yells of anger, cries of pain and the telltale sounds of metal rending flesh from inside the clinic, the symphony of battle was punctuated by another gunshot, though one that sounded different than the rifle-shots. A louder, more powerful boom from what was not unreasonable to presume to be Victor's blunderbuss.
But then...
Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding –
It was the easily recognizable sound of the hoarse man's bell, only now it was not graceful short, controlled chime, but a hectic, continuous ringing, as if it was just being rung as quickly and strongly as possible.

The sound was loudest to Farren, who was right next to the door to the clinic. Flashes of gold flitted across his mind's eye at the sound, and he suddenly felt as though he was being watched.
It was not as intense for Ophelia, but it was no less distracting as her thoughts were filled even more with eyes than usual – eyes on the outside, eyes on the inside, eyes inside herself, Caryll runes, ghostly, slug-like phantasms writhing in her head...

And while Farren and Ophelia tried to deal with the effect the bell had on them, they were not the only ones. On the ground where the Mad One had fallen, its ruined form was bathed in ominous red light, and it just regrew its body. The enormous gash across its torso mended in but a fraction of a second, and from its severed abdomen, new legs burst out of its body.
Over by Ophelia, a similar red glow enveloped the beast-man's form. His already sizable frame grew even taller and wider, his fur and claws longer and his entire frame bulged with obscenely large muscles. His eyes – just like the Mad One's, and just as when the bell had last chimed – glowed red.

The Mad One did not even try to stand back up, but swung its cane at Farren from the ground, moving even faster now than when it had attacked Torquil.
The beast-man stepped toward Ophelia again, moving in low this time and with both arms outstretched to the sides, as if to encircle and grapple her.

_Farren

felt the give of the creature’s body and a trickle of disgust, satisfaction, and shock shot through his veins. His lips parted slightly and then as Deadeyes fell onto its back and he began to turn back towards it–intent on delivering a more grievous blow–the frenetic ringing of Pallid’s bell reached him. Flits of gold, like streaks of liquid metallic lightning, rushed about the edges of his awareness and a deep…profound sense of paranoia and discomfort welled from some unobserved part of his psyche. That paranoia, it wasn’t like fear, it was far more consuming than that–blotting out almost everything except the bloodlust that had been trying to gain hold since he’d seen the beastman. Idly, a part of his mind decided that he’d call them Gris–but he didn’t even have time to really register that fact before the nearly all-consuming paranoia was shattered…much like his ankle as Deadeye’s cane slammed into it. The impact forced his other leg to rise…barely causing the cane to miss, but in an instant Farren was toppling towards the ground. A shot of intense, crackling, piercing, cutting pain, a wash of fear…and then an injection of unbelievably intense adrenaline–all coupled with a sudden rage–slammed through his entire body.

Time seemed to slow as his brain caught up with what it had been unable to properly process moments before, for part of him was registering that in that instant he needed every bit of his awareness focused on one singular goal. Survival. Murder. His hands had tightened into two white-knuckled vices around the handles of his curved blades, but as adrenaline, survival, rage, and the bloodlust of a Hunter surged in him, somehow that grip relaxed subtly. His blood rushed, surging just as his emotions had, he felt spurts in his broken ankle, then a searing hot heat–both pleasant and painful at once. As he was falling–body half canted at a slight diagonal–Farren’s left fist and right leg shot down and connected with the ground as the cane continued its sweep on the other side of Farren’s right ankle.

The edges of his vision went a fierce, blinding gold color where normally they might dim…fade, redden, or blacken. He didn’t notice how strange that was; wasn’t likely to remember it later. Then, his body braced with two limbs–only fractions of a second having passed–Farren’s ankle was nearly healed, but his foot wasn’t in the right position. Mindless with a primal violent need for retaliation, Farren slammed his still fractured ankle down on the ground, bending his foot in a way that broke it again. Breath hissed from his bared teeth…and then he thrust himself forward with the power of both legs, lifting the knuckles of his left hand from the ground as he did so.

A second finally passed, his perception started to ‘speed up’, back to something more normal, but the tunnel vision of his rage and bloodlust didn’t fade at all. In an instant–the distance between him and the ash-fleshed beast that was Deadeyes already small–Farren was atop the creature. Both blades slammed down into its neck and then parted in either direction, draggin furrows into the ground beneath and severing its head from its body at the same time. However, almost as soon as it was severed, the red light flared faintly and a new head sprouted from the mishappen stump of its neck. Farren snarled then and pushed off the creature’s face.

As it likely tried to react, Farren’s ankle healed and he used his other foot to pivot mid-stride, angling towards the door. Then he dashed and though he distantly felt the strain in his muscles, he pushed forward into a short sprint, the dash having taken him out of Deadeye’s reach and a bit past the doorframe. He shifted to the right, the blade in his left hand switching grips as he flipped it into a more standard hold. Even without dashing, Farren was faster than a normal man…and quickly would come upon the villagers as they pummeled and struck their weapons at Victor. As he passed by them, he’d lash out with his blade, aiming to sever tendons in their forearms as he continued forth. Though his mind felt…strange and his vision was still somewhat tunneled by the alien golden light at its edges, Farren kept the villagers on his left in view as well as the gunmen ahead and of course Pallid himself.

The Mad One abundantly demonstrated that while it was fragile and had not seemed to regenerate before, it possessed incredible powers of healing now that it was continuously wrapped in that ominous light from whence it had come. First it grew an entire new lower body, and now replaced its lost head so fast that it seemed less like regeneration and more like an already fully-formed head simply emerged from within. And each time it had been hit – first when Torquil severed its leg, then several times in Farren's initial assault and now when he beheaded it – the pulsating purple glow within its body, though somewhat obscured by the red shroud surrounding it, grew even stronger.
Looking at the facts before them, it certainly seemed that Farren made the right choice in disengaging from the monster, and even more so that he quickstepped as soon as possible, as it helped him barely escape the swift, grasping hand that shot out to grab him. The once-slow and lethargic creature now seemed to be absolutely brimming with energy, to the point where new glowing cracks were constantly opening up in its skin and closing again.
As Torquil lay on the ground, his vision still blurry and his body heavy from the concussion his newly acquired Hunter-regeneration was doubtlessly working on remedying, he saw and, rather uncharacteristically for him, understood. While this inhuman black figure had seemed an unsettling but harmless puppet of the hoarse man, it was now clear that it was a fearsome opponent indeed; one that seemed indestructible, and seemed to be empowered by the damage it took.
So indeed, Torquil completely understood Farren running off, especially since he went back inside the clinic, where the bell-ringing bastard was. He even smiled a crooked smile of relief, happy that Farren was able to get away from this hopeless fight.

Torquil still smiled when the Mad One turned its blazing red eyes back to him, lying almost helpless right next to it, and the black hand that had failed to seize Farren instead palmed Torquil's face. Its long, clawed fingers closed around his skull with a strength that felt like it would have crushed the head of a normal human, and lifted him off the ground somewhat, raising his head what felt like a meter or so over the ground.
Then it slammed him back down again, lifted him, and slammed him down again. Over and over again, insanely fast and with impossible strength, painting the cobblestone of the road with Torquil's blood. Bits of hair and chunks of scalp were left behind, and Torquil's body just flopped around limply as the creature took out its anger on him. Only... after a few seconds of this, Torquil's body – and all the blood and bits of him that had been scattered on the ground – seemed to rapidly lose opacity, only to vanish completely in another couple of seconds.

Farren, however, did not witness any of this; he had rushed back inside the clinic and joined Victor in facing down the huntsmen. The situation did not seem to have improved since Farren's first glance through the doorway; though all but one huntsman – one of the riflemen – had bloodstained clothes marked with cuts or bullet-holes, they all bizarrely seemed to be unharmed. Farren would likely realize that regular Yharnamites were not supposed to demonstrate such immense powers of regeneration, though he would likely also realize that just like the Mad One and the beast-man outside, the huntsmen's eyes now burned with a supernatural fiery light. The once meek and fearful men fought fervently, even smiled and laughed in the face of battle, as the wounds Victor had cut into them – and the ones Farren cut to try to get past – healed almost as fast as they were inflicted.
Behind them, huddled in the far-left corner of the reception, the hoarse man kept ringing his bell. The cane in his right hand was wrapped in a crimson aura, and faintly visible ripples seemed to distort space around the bell itself.
– ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding –
Going inside also meant getting closer to the bell, of course, which made the visions haunting Farren even stronger. He started itching all over, and it felt like there was someone behind him that was not actually there.

Beside him, Victor produced an inarticulate grunt as he slashed widely one last time in a vain effort to force back the huntsmen a little, only to then swiftly – continuing the arc of the slash – maneuver his hand around his back. There was an audible, familiar metallic click as the small sword locked into the blade-scabbard, which in turn detached itself from the mechanism holding it in place on his back. Victor grit his teeth and, leaving his blunderbuss hanging from his hip, grasped the hilt of his weapon with both hands before levering it over and off his right shoulder, bringing it down in a huge, diagonal swing, carving straight through two of the huntsmen... and clearing the path in front of Farren, leaving him free to approach the one he called Pallid.

Ophelia's mind began to race at the ringing of the bell, the swells and eddies of otherworldly ripples cascading through the air beyond sight--and something about it disturbed that thin veil of mist that had been separating her two distinct selves. All of the inquisitiveness and insight began to billow and swell within her, the crimson flames of blood and violence hissing and crackling and waning in intensity as her mind blossomed, but the insights did not simply stop there. They swelled within her, greater and greater, until she could feel the beginnings of shapes forming within her flesh - shapes, she realised, that were symbols. Transliterations, of the inhuman sounds of the cosmos, reduced down to a form that her mundane flesh could begin to comprehend--etched within the very surface of the seat of her consciousness... and within them, the eyes one needed to comprehend the mysteries. She could see the squiggles, the almost wormlike writhing, of something deeper within her if only she would focus and think.

But the fiery beast-blood within her was not simply done, and she snapped back to reality just in time to feel the searing heat of claws tearing through her flesh and her lifeblood spilling out. Like a gush of lava from within her it burned, but before she had the time to even wince with the pain of it the fire had seared her flesh back together and Ophelia finally got to experience this infamous regeneration she'd witnessed in the others. As she completed her motion she found herself face to face with the sight of Torquil and Farren's assault against the Mad One. Something inside her screamed out to say not to attack it, to go for the pallid man instead, but it was quickly silenced by the terrible reprisal dealt against both. She winced at Farren's injury but openly balked at Torquil's, only for the sounds of the slavering beast behind her to distract her and mandate that she react to it before she met a similar blood-soaked fate as he had... though despite the horror of the sickening crunch of mangled flesh, Ophelia felt oddly calm--it was nothing she'd not seen before, after all. She'd seen what she'd wager was worse than that, out there in the dark of the woods by firelight--but not to someone she'd felt like she'd known, nor someone she felt even a shred of kinship with or sympathy for.

Something within her hardened at the realisation that Torquil was gone, just like that--she felt her tender heart ossify in a moment, and a steely determination narrowed the features on her face. It was the pallid one's fault--they should've gone for him first, she should've told them what to do! Sorrow and anger waged war for control of her emotional state and ended up at a stalemate as survival instinct kicked in, and Ophelia called upon that hidden strength within her to surge forward into the now-open doorway and right up to the opening that Victor had apparently made for someone to capitalise on. Farren's job, it seemed--she did not take the initiative upon landing from her burst of enhanced speed, using it only to deftly manoeuvre around any obstalces in her way, but stayed crouched and poised and looking intently at Farren, as though waiting to follow up on his lead or make an opportunity for him. This much closer to the bell the visions and thoughts in her mind swam, whispers reverberating through the base of her skull and deep into her soul--and it twisted her features into a pale, intense grimace. Depending on Farren's fortitude and the depths of his paranoia, what he perceived her as doing might not be what she intended--but she found herself too stunned to speak, too consumed by the visions and sensations. She could only hope they struck the pallid man down before everything could catch up to them... and that together, the three of them could make it out together. For poor, sweet Torquil, if nothing else.

_Farren

gritted his teeth at the incessant, maddening ringing of the bell. Each jangling of the monstrous instrument made it feel as if hundreds of figures, each a silhouette clad in aureate hues, stood at the very periphery of his vision. If he twisted his head or shifted his eyes they would recede or vanish or flash in a streak across his vision. A low sound rumbled in his throat, half growl and half a pained moan, but Victor—despite the sound—acted. At least…he thought it was probably victor….

Really, all Farren perception was the twisted figure of what might once have been a man swing a misshapen hunk of crudely shaped metal—more a bludgeon than a greatsword or any proper weapon. Yet, the distinct thunderous SLAM and THUD of the implement against the ground…and the faint sparking where-longsword-joined-greatsword caught at his vision and tore at the torrid heat of his delusions.

The sparks seemed almost to ignite the golden light that had crept even further into his vision, the vibration of the massive blade’s crash against the ground sent ripples throughout and disrupted the sound of the bell. If only for a moment, his mind cleared and Farren recalled that he was moving.

His body—having acted entirely on hunter’s instinct—had continued its forward path and as the haze cleared ever-so-slightly the azure eyed hunter saw the opening…and dashed again. His muscles burning, teeth gritted so hard his jaw hurt with hot regeneration—teeth almost cracking—Farren nearly closed the entirety of the distance between himself and that Pallid whore.

Somehow, with the ringing of the bell, the black-eyed sallow pale-skinned skeleton of a man had become even more daunting to look upon. There was a white-gold-red sheen cast across his visage, refracting from his eyes. Part of Farren recoiled, but his fingers coiled instead, gripping the handles of his curved blades so tightly that he felt the material strain. He swung, and that first attempt at a strike was wild and unrestrained, his muscles twisting and bulging and nearly snapping as he unconsciously tried to replicate the sheer force of Torquil’s swing some time ago. Wild as it was, the slash could land anywhere between Pallid’s neck and mid-abdomen a foot or half above his right hip. That was, of course…if the man didn’t block.

Even so, there would always be his other blade.

Ophelia quickstepped to get away, slipping away from the grasping claws of the beast-man that attempted to close around her, past the Mad One that was now looking confusedly at its empty hand, and inside. She darted through quickly, but not quickly enough that beast-man could not follow her with his eyes, prompting him to follow her with loud, heavy strides, eager to not only seize his vengeance, but also sate his hunger. He stomped forth, blazing eyes focused on her through the doorway...
Only for a large, black-skinned hand to reach up from beside him, grasp him by the right shoulder in an iron-grip, its claws digging into his flesh. He looked down and growled in frustrated anger, to find his own glare answered by the insanity shining out of the Mad One's twisted grimace. He clawed the Mad One across the face with his left hand, and the Mad One struck him on the side of his head with its cane. They both healed nigh-instantly, and attacked again, and again, each unable to kill the other, but determined to keep trying to do so regardless.

Inside, Victor remained a bulwark between Ophelia and Farren, and the three huntsmen that were still standing. Rather than keep fighting with the giant form of his weapon, Victor detached the small sword from its blade-scabbard and left the huge, bloodstained blade partially embedded in the floor while he used the small sword to slash at and drive back the huntsmen.
Of the three, one was wielding a pitchfork, one a hatchet and one, standing behind the others somewhat, a rifle, raised and aimed at the Hunter. Another gunshot filled the room as another bullet pierced Victor's flesh; the pitchfork-wielder used his reach-advantage to keep stabbing Victor while staying out of range of his sword; and the hatchet-wielder stayed in close, simply bearing Victor's counterattacks while keeping him in place.
Victor's once-white and pristine garb was now thoroughly torn and soaked in blood, but somehow the man stayed on his feet and kept fighting. There was nothing elegant or honorable about the way he fought; he swung his sword wildly with no thought for technique nor grace, simply lashing out against his enemies, chopping and slashing them, while getting shot, stabbed and cut himself.

And while the beast-man and the Mad One became entangled in each other's blind rage, and Victor bore the assault of the huntsmen, Farren moved on the one he called Pallid. Moved to cut, to slay... and to silence the bell. He rushed forward
– ding –
and found that with each step closer, not only did the terrible visions and feelings of paranoia grow stronger, but the sound of the bell also seemed to grow unnaturally louder. Each chime sent ripples through his body, making every fiber of his being vibrate softly, charged with an energy he did not understand. Another step
– ding –
and the vibration felt even stronger, faster, and the sound grew almost deafeningly loud in his ears, though its actual volume was unchanged. The itch grew worse, all over, as he moved another stride
– ding –
and felt something moving under his skin. The visions consumed him, the touch of that golden relic echoing through his mind and threatening to blind him to the world around him. He felt this forgotten madness spread through not only his mind, but his body as well, like an electric current that was both painful and pleasurable, a sense of strength and vulnerability.
He prepared to swing his blade, putting all his strength into this single attack. The hoarse man kept ringing his bell more and more desperately, fear plainly written upon his face, yet he made no move to dodge nor block; he simply kept ringing his bell. Farren took his final step
– ding –
when a toll of the bell hit him, and he felt everything inside of him clench – muscles, tendons, bones, even his teeth – and then, all at once, shift to a hundred different forms than the one they were meant to have, changing so quickly that it would probably not even be perceivable to the naked eye. With a feeling that was a mix of torment and euphoria, his body seemingly spontaneously self-destructed, his skin cracking and splitting in countless wounds in a cascade in what seemed like an entirely excessive amount of blood.

But even so his blade still swung and struck true, carving into the thin, feeble body of the hoarse man, and the bell fell silent. The bell-ringer fell backward into the wall behind him, clutching the deep, bleeding gash carved into his chest with both hands while his bell and cane alike clattered noisily to the floor.
Before Ophelia's eyes, the red glow in the huntsmen's eyes abruptly extinguished, and vapor-like clouds billowed from their bodies as they all hobbled backward, their expressions turning to confusion and pain, and the weapons fell from fingers too weak to hold them. Behind her, outside, the beast-man's eyes likewise lost their glow and his body produced a similiar column of smoke as it stumbled and fell forward, through the Mad One, whose black form seemed to give way to the pressure, disintegrate and fade back into whatever nightmare it had hailed from.

The price, of course, was Farren's to pay. The damage he had just sustained from the dark magic of the bell plainly pushed him beyond the capacity of his regenerative potential. It was not enough to instantly kill him, but it left him badly injured.