Gunsoul

A qi-powered beam of crimson light blazed from the Eiffel Tower and hit the ghost ship.

The ray pierced the floating vessel from one side and burst out from the other, ripping a hole in its skeletal structure. The ship wailed like a living being suffering a terrible wound, as did its ghostly crew. Its rotting sails evaporated in an instant and it swiftly began to lose altitude. Yuan watched it crash into the wasteland with a whimper.

The tower continued to glow as the spirit-train sped between its four legs. Yuan and the rest of the crew tensed up in anticipation. The sheer concentration of qi in the air produced crackling bolts of lightning surging between the metal trusses above their heads. Everyone held their breath when the spirit-train emerged out the other side of the structure in fear of suffering the same fate as the ghost ship.

The tower stopped glowing.

No giant laser wiped out the spirit-train from the race, much to Yuan’s relief.

“It appears we must pass through the landmarks or suffer a penalty, Honored Conductor Yuan,” Orient’s voice warned him. “Not simply be near them.”

“Yeah,” Yuan conceded, though a detail bothered him. “Shouldn’t that ship’s crew have known that? It’s not the race’s first year.”

“I suspect that the Khan changes the rules as it suits him.”

Yuan’s jaw clenched in frustration. He wouldn’t put it past the Yinyang Khan to play fast and loose with his competition’s rules in order to maximize carnage and chaos. It also disgusted him to know that the Hitobashira children buried beneath the landmark’s foundation probably powered its security system. Their souls deserved better than to fuel a glorified booby trap.

“Are you hurt?” Yuan asked Orient.

“I will be fine, thank you kindly,” her voice reassured him. “However, I fear that we are lagging behind the competition.”

Yuan clenched his teeth. A quick glance at the highway ahead confirmed Orient’s worries. While they passed by the wreckage of destroyed vehicles and explosions rocked the History Road further up ahead, Orient was too slow to catch up with the faster vehicles. Some racers were already halfway to the enormous pyramid of stone that served as the second landmark.

Yuan considered their options and settled on a plan. The back of the tail had been almost entirely wiped out at this point in the race, and the spirit-train’s passengers easily kept the few straggling cars at bay with the guns and artillery. Orient could protect them from weak cultivators well enough.

The crew could survive without him for now.

“I’ll fly up ahead and slow them down!” Yuan shouted as he ran towards the locomotive’s edge. “Hold on until you catch up to me!”

The spirit-train let out a whistling noise in response, which he took for encouragement.

Yuan leaped off the spirit-train and then activated the Recoil Shockwave to propel himself in the air. This method of flight cost him much more qi than creating Barriers on which to stand, but it let him achieve supersonic speeds easily enough. He quickly outpaced Orient and raced across the highway one giant leap at a time.

The second stretch of the History Road highway looked far more impressive than the first. Instead of being invisible, the Yinyang Khan’s Barrier bordering it took the shape of immense rings of fire stretching from the Eiffel Tower to the stone pyramid’s base. The competition was also fierce there. The Flesh Mansion centidead monster from earlier lay by the side of the road amidst the wreckages of other vehicles, its charbroiled flesh burning with blue flames reeking of cocaine, and its head turned into a bloody crater on the pavement.

The likely culprit fought Mel and Hardy further up ahead.

The brothers had caught up to Chemzard’s dekotora truck and flanked it from both sides, though they might have wished otherwise. The larger vehicle rammed Mel’s smaller car from the right and pushed it against the Yinyang Khan’s Barrier in an attempt to crush it between the rings of fire and itself. The four-oni strong music band playing atop the vehicle’s stage forced Hardy back with their strange performance. The drummer caused sharp rock spikes to rise from the ground each time he beat his instrument; the bass and guitarist unleashed qi-enhanced sound shockwaves whenever they pinched their strings; while the keyboardist supported them with a mantra melody. The constant barrage of attacks kept Hardy at a distance and prevented him from assisting his sibling.

Chemzard would probably damage Mel’s car beyond repair if this kept up, so Yuan decided to intervene. He grabbed his revolver, reloaded it with Item Materialization, and then fired qi-powered elemental projectiles at the truck’s wheels.

His shots hit Chemzard’s vehicle with enough force to annihilate a small fortress, yet hardly shook it. Sutras woven onto the vehicle’s surface glowed at the moment of the impact and summoned qi-projected armor that protected it from destruction. Still, the repeated shocks alleviated the pressure on Mel enough for him to slip away. Yuan saw the man raise a thankful thumbs up at him.

The oni crew on the stage began to target all three of their assailants and forced them to spread out. Yuan used Recoil Kicks to zigzag left and right to avoid shockwaves, while Mel and Hardy attempted to speed past Chemzard after dodging stone spike obstacles. They managed to reach the rear fenders when a blaze of searing blue flames erupted from the truck’s radiator, forcing them to retreat to avoid being immolated.

Sensing his chance, Yuan fired a Recoil Blast below the truck. Since the sutras woven into its metal frame lessened the impact of attack, perhaps damaging the road would overturn it.

A Barrier expanding from the spirit-truck dashed his hopes. His technique and its resulting shockwave hardly shook the vehicle.

Since Chemzard’s band wouldn’t let anyone outpace them, it trapped everyone in a deadlock. Worse, Coyote continued to secure his lead and had already reached the stone pyramid. Each second lost pushed them further away from victory.

Mel raised his fist and made hand-signs at Yuan. ‘Disrupt the oni band above,’ Yuan translated easily enough. ‘We’ll take care of the vehicle.’

Trust didn’t come easily enough in the Unmade World, but Yuan’s gut told him the brothers would stay true to their vow. He thus decided to follow their plan and quickly caught up to the truck with a Recoil Shockwave. Coating himself in a Black Haze to prevent the oni band from intercepting him mid-flight, he managed to land on the stage in a gunshot crash.

The oni bassist immediately unleashed a sound shockwave at him with a furious swing. Yuan increased his durability with his Elemental Infusion and covered his head with his arms to better shield his bullet-core. The blow pushed him back a few feet towards the stage’s edge, but hardly scratched him. He quickly drew his revolver before the encore and shot the musician dead between the eyes.

Taking out a member of the band forced the rest of them to gang-up on him. The oni drummer and guitarist interrupted their melody to charge at Yuan while the keyboardist played his instrument with renewed fury. A cloud of multicolored smoke arose from the stage, smelling of herbs and burnt coffee.

Yuan immediately sensed a small fluctuation in his qi the moment he accidentally inhaled the flames. While his Fourth Coil body should have been immune to most poisons, he wisely held his breath and engaged the remaining oni in close combat. The guitarist swung his instrument at his head like a club and ended up thrown overboard by a well-placed Recoil Fist for his trouble.

The drummer coated his body with stone through Elemental Infusion, raised his palms, then brought them down on Yuan in a failed attempt to squash him. The oni keyboardist quickly adjusted his synthesizer’s melody at the same time, which caused the mirror ball decorations on the side of the stage to fire beams of light at Yuan.

Unwilling to take a beam head on in case it could pierce through his Elemental Infusion, Yuan dodged them all in a blindingly-fast dance of leaps and jumps. He quickly found a good angle of attack midjump and shot the keyboardist with an earth-infused bullet. The drummer shielded his ally with his shoulder and took the hit for him.

Have to end this fast, Yuan thought as the mirror balls intensified their assault to the tune of the keyboardist’s frantic music. A veritable bombardment of lasers forced him to run circles around the stage to avoid them. Don’t like these fumes either, even if I can hold my breath for a while.

Yuan decided on a feint. He ran towards the keyboardist by zigzagging between lasers and then fired a wood bullet at the keyboardist. The oni drummer once again intercepted the projectile, likely expecting the same result as last time. This proved to be a foolish decision. Roots burst out of the bullet and swiftly constrained his arms.

Exploiting his enemy’s sudden lack of mobility, Yuan rushed at the confused drummer. The keyboardist frantically directed the lasers to intercept him by altering his melody, but his fingers couldn’t play faster than a Fourth Coil cultivator could move.

Yuan punched the oni drummer in the chest before he could break free of the roots. His metal hand punctured through the oni’s mineral armor and smashed his heart to mush.

The mirror balls fired at him from both directions. Undeterred, Yuan quickly grabbed the dead drummer’s corpse and used him as an improvised shield. The lasers failed to get past his stone-skin, which allowed the Gunsoul to close the gap between himself and the last musician without any trouble.

Yuan swiftly smashed the last oni’s skull into his own synthesizer before throwing him and the drummer off the vehicle.

Only the driver remained.

With all the musicians dead or neutralized, Yuan punched the stage in an attempt to get to Chemzard. He had hoped that incapacitating the band would neutralize the sutras protecting the vehicle; it didn’t.

Yuan spared a glance at Mel and Hardy. The two raced closely behind the truck, with Orient following in the distance. Mel had shaped a fireball in his hand, which Yuan expected him to throw at Chemzard’s vehicle.

He instead tossed it at his brother.

Utterly mesmerized, Yuan watched on as Hardy punched the fireball back at his twin. The two siblings began to engage in a strange and fast-paced ball game. Their projectile continued to move back and forth between them.

Growing faster.

Growing bigger.