Gunsoul

“Are you sure, Orient?” Yuan asked as he readied the Kalash Angel. “It might blow a hole in your walls for all we know.”

The front wagon was empty save for the two of them, and of course the captive centidead Orient caught and nailed to a metal panel to use as a target. The creature bitterly snapped its mandibles at its captors in vain.

“I will be fine, Honored Guest Yuan,” Orient reassured him. “While I respect your abilities, I doubt any of your weapons can truly damage me beyond my ability to repair myself. You may fire at will.”

Although Orient struggled to express human emotions, Yuan did notice the satisfied smile at the edge of her lips. She was looking forward to him blasting the centidead apart. Considering how they had infested the spirit-train once and the rad-hag that spawned her, he guessed that she took no small amount of satisfaction in their demise.

She’s becoming more human by the day, Yuan thought as he aimed at the centidead with the Kalash Angel. She’s already holding grudges.

Now that he could create ammunition at will, Yuan was willing to spare a few rounds for testing. The baggage wagon now housed tens of thousands of ammunition as valuable cargo. Various types of cartridges designed with the Bullet Church’s schematics slept inside luggage chests in the treasure car, which was more than enough to resupply everyone with a gun in Fleshmarket.

Bucket had been right in the end; once Yuan figured out the trick, he only had to sit down to harvest bullets from the ground. His Item Materialization skill was only limited by the flow of ambient qi and the earth’s resources. He produced an output of a dozen cartridges a minute once he set his mind to it.

Selling ammunition might prove more lucrative than any courier work.

Yuan aimed at the centidead with the Kalash Angel and fired a volley. His qi coursed through his weapon the moment he pressed the trigger and shot four rounds in total. One hit the creature straight in the head and blew it to pieces.

The others vanished through the metal panel.

Yuan blinked in surprise as his rounds simply disappeared into the steel. They produced no impact and left no traces.

“Did the rounds merge with the plating?” he asked Orient.

“They went through it,” Orient clarified after examining the scene. The centidead’s blood on the floor hardly seemed to bother her. “And through the walls beyond it too.”

“They phased through solid objects?” Yuan asked with a frown. “Like ghosts?”

“This would be my theory.” Orient studied the centidead’s wounds. The bullet that killed it remained squarely lodged in its flesh. “Since your projectiles hit this vermin, I suspect that they ignore inorganic matter.”

Yuan couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony. “We used armor-piercing rounds, and now we have armor-ignoring rounds.”

That wordplay sounded way better in his head, but it delighted Orient nonetheless. “Indeed,” she replied. “I hope this will prove helpful in your battles to come.”

Yuan could see a few ways to make use of this peculiar property. While few cultivators used armor and qi-charged gun bullets could usually pierce through their defenses anyway, targeting an enemy through walls might let him land surprise attacks.

Yuan decided to test the Saint Heckler next when the wagon’s door opened. Holster walked through it with a big bright smile, a paper sheet in one hand and a revolver in another. She happily walked up to Yuan with a beaming smile while ignoring the dead centidead in the room.

“What is it, Holster?” Yuan asked. His charge proudly offered him the revolver, which he studied more closely. Besides sutra scripts carved along its barrel and cylinder, it looked completely ordinary. “This is for me?”

“Have you finally completed it, Miss Holster?” Orient asked Holster with what could pass for motherly pride. “It looks very pretty.”

Yuan recognized tiny scratches along the gun. “Wait,” he said in disbelief, his mind putting two and two together. “This is my revolver. The one I blew up fighting the rad-hag.”

Holster nodded proudly, which led Orient to smile ear to ear. “This is the gift I mentioned earlier. Miss Holster used feng shui and sutras to restore it to its previous condition.”

“I, uh…” Yuan had faced cultivators in battle without fear, yet he found himself stammering. He remained unused to kindness. “I don’t know what to say, Holster… except thank you, I guess...”

Yuan wasn’t a sentimental person, but this gun held a special place in his heart. It had been a gift from Revolver after he rose from the ditch Slash put him in and the first firearm he received as a Gunsoul. In a way, it represented his first step in the world of cultivators.

Holster beamed with happiness, which only served to embarrass Yuan further and amuse Orient. He had no idea how to deal with gifts and gratitude, so he settled on patting Holster on the head very gently. His charge blushed slightly and then pointed to the scripts carved on its steel.

Yuan studied them carefully and then channeled qi through the weapon. As he suspected, the revolver’s sutras resonated with his power as it coursed through the metal. His power usually spread equally across the entire gun, but it instead split six ways in each of the chambers this time.

Yuan sensed his qi change the bullets within them. His power altered the loaded projectiles in five subtly different forms: the first gained the texture of thick, furiously festering bark; the second became hot, filled with the warm frenzy of a wildfire; the third adopted the texture of strong, ancient stone; the fourth melded with sorrowful metal; and the fifth became moist like water and cold like fearful ice. Only the sixth chamber behaved normally, with his qi remaining in its natural, formless state once it infused the bullet within.

“Are these the five elements?” Yuan asked as he stopped channeling his qi through the revolver. The bullets immediately returned to normal afterward. Holster modified the revolver to alter his qi elemental affinity once it entered a chamber. “That’s… impressive. I’m sure it will come in handy.”

Holster nodded proudly and then presented him with her handwritten sheet of paper next. The combination of diagrams and sutra scripts scribbled on it gave Yuan a headache, so Holster vaguely explained its meaning with a series of mudras and hand signs.

“This will help the rifle… girl?” Yuan translated. “You mean Arc?”

Holster nodded sharply. It pleased Yuan that he was getting better at understanding her, but he failed to grasp the sutra script’s significance.

Orient kindly translated its contents for him.

“Miss Holster is a Human Pillar,” she reminded him. “Her kind was first created to strengthen and stabilize an area’s feng shui. Miss Holster believes she could serve a similar purpose on behalf of Miss Arc.”

Yuan clenched his jaw at Holster. “We aren’t burying you alive inside Arc’s Authority.”

Holster shook her head reassuringly, then mimicked walking with a limp.

“A… crutch?” Yuan translated.

“From what I read, Miss Holster thinks she could use sutra scripts to bind herself to your honored mentor’s bullet-core and serve as its living anchor,” Orient explained. “Miss Holster would have to remain in Miss Arc’s close vicinity at all times, but she wouldn’t need to sacrifice her life.”

Yuan frowned in skepticism. He didn’t think the idea hadn’t crossed Arc’s mind at some point; or if she did consider it, she might have refused it on principle. “It can’t be that easy.”

“Miss Holster’s idea is highly theoretical,” Orient conceded, much to the poor girl’s chagrin. “The process would be fraught with failures, and likely suppress most of Miss Arc’s qi. I cannot foretell the consequences yet.”

“You do understand that even if it works, you may spend the rest of your life tending to that woman?” Yuan asked Holster. “Her deal is with me alone. You don’t owe her anything.”

Holster chewed her lip, yet remained resolute. She nodded at Yuan, though he remained unsure whether she truly fathomed the consequences of her choice. In her mind, she had a chance to help someone in a similar situation to her own. That was enough for Holster to give away part of her life.

She had a good heart, but Yuan couldn’t tell whether that was a good or bad thing in this world.

“You’ll have to ask Arc herself,” Yuan warned Holster. He hoped–nay, he knew–that his mentor would dissuade her. She seemed to have made peace with her fate and eventual death.

Orient’s back suddenly straightened up, her eyes burning with light. Her reaction troubled Yuan, for she had reacted the same way when she identified the Ammobog as an Authority.

“Trouble on the road?” he asked.

“I see Fleshmarket,” Orient replied with a scowl. “And plumes of smoke rising in the sky from the city.”

Yuan’s bullet-core pounded in his skull. He rushed to the nearest window, opened it, and took a peek at the world beyond. Dust blew in his face along with the smell of charred meat.

True to Orient’s word, Fleshmarket rose in the distance with clouds of smoke floating above its ancient buildings. Its walls had changed since Yuan’s last visit. Roots of festering flesh spread on its stones while green screens on metal frames grew on its steel like electronic flowers. Yuan immediately recognized the latter as a screen city’s extension. The Metallist Sect must have found a way to spread their Wayfinder’s Broadcast. If so, then the organic tissue was probably a Flesh Mansion Sect bioweapon of some kind.

The party had started without them.

Not too long ago though; Yuan would have expected a lot more fires otherwise, and the city walls, while compromised in some areas, remained mostly intact.

This complicated matters. If Yuan led a sect, then one of his priorities would be to raid the Bullet Church’s armory for weapons. No point in giving them space and respecting their neutrality now that hostilities started. They would get caught in the crossfire if they headed there.

Then again, it could also play into Yuan’s hands. Considering the Metallists had a Gunsoul eager to ascend through the Third Coil in their ranks and who was familiar with the Bullet Church, then this Gatling Man would likely lead the charge. That would offer Yuan a chance to grab his bullet-core.

The door to the wagon opened again, with Bucket and his fellow cultists rushing in. From their panicked eyes and expressions—those that Yuan could see at least—they had seen the smoke.

“Sir, sir! This is terrible! Terrible!” Bucket seemed well and truly at a loss. “Fleshmarket is burning! This is a disaster!”

“I am sorry,” Yuan replied. He guessed that for all of its awfulness, Fleshmarket remained their home.

“It’s awful! Awful!” Bucket held his helmet in his hands and maniacally shook his head. “A legendary gunfight has started, and we’re missing it!”

On second thought, Yuan should have expected something like this. One of the cultists did surprise him by kneeling at his feet in prayer.

“Sir Gunsoul, please take us back!” the man begged. “My family lives in the city!”

“They’re already dead!” one of his more rational colleagues complained. “It’s a miracle we dodged that bullet, and you want to jump back into it?! It’s a goddamn Sect War! They’ll level half of Fleshmarket by the time the dust settles! I say we cut our losses and move on!”

Bucket answered his cowardice with accusations. “Blank!” he shouted while pointing a finger at the dissenter. “Blank, blank, blank!”

“What do we do, Honored Guest Yuan?” Orient asked him with a slight frown. “Do I turn back, or do we drive on?”

Yuan considered his options. He had given Bucket his word he would take the cultists back to Fleshmarket, and while he owed the city nothing, he wouldn’t mind taking a few Scrap families away from cultivator battles. Besides, the opportunity to grab a pill or bullet-core was too good to pass on.

“Can you circle the city from the east?” he asked Orient.

“I can. You wish to approach the Bullet Church from that side?”

“Yes.” Yuan glanced at Bucket. “Will your allies attack us if we close in from that direction?”

“Of course not, sir!” Bucket searched under his cloak and drew out a flare gun. “The smoke of truth shall warn them that the faithful bullets have returned to their chambers!”

“Then we’ll enter the city from the east.” Yuan glanced at Holster next, who stared back at him with apprehension. “You stay onboard with Orient. Whatever you do, avoid looking at the screens and don’t touch them, ever. Otherwise, they’ll pull into a place you’ll never escape from. Understood?”

Holster nodded quietly. Truthfully, she looked more concerned for Yuan than for herself; and she was probably right to think that.

This would be a hard-fought day.