Gunsoul: A Xianxia Apocalypse

Yuan,

If you’re the one reading this, then I’m likely dead and you somehow pulled through. I can only think of a few scenarios with this outcome, and I hope it’s the one where you managed to recover the cube. If you haven’t… well, you better get off your ass and snatch it. That thing has to go.

I won’t bore you with sentimentalities. Hardly a month passed since you all but forced your way under my wing. That’s not long enough for friendship, but… maybe enough for respect. I guess that’s why I decided to leave you this message, and my hope.

I barely remember my first life, before the bullet I put in my own chest to spare myself a long agony by radiation poisoning dragged me out of the Nowhere. I’ve spent more time as a Gunsoul than a Scrap. I guess that like you, my days as a human were just the trigger for my true cursed existence as a weapon.

I slew the nuclear cultivator who killed me first a long time ago; besides a brief rush of satisfaction, I can’t say it made my life any better. I haven’t met a Gunsoul who found long-term fulfillment in inflicting payback on their murderer, and something tells me you won’t be any different. Yeah, maybe we made the world a better place… but once we’ve fulfilled the purpose of our existence, what’s left for us, besides the mountains of corpses we piled up to reach the summit?

Nothing.

I suppose that’s why I threw myself at the Dragon Sage’s Perfect Shot prophecy. Ending the cycle of the Gun gave me a new purpose once I’d lost the original. But that mountain was too high for me to climb. I’d lost Jim and so many others in a fruitless war while the bullets kept flying.

It’s why I hate the Gun. It plants seeds of violence, promises us a false hope, and then, once we’ve sown enough carnage and bloomed into murderous flowers, it comes to pluck us. Even when we use our powers for good, our acts only encourage others to pick up more guns and fuel that evil thing’s immortality. I think that’s why it preserves itself by moving from one host to another. Violence begets violence.

I know you want to save that Revolver from the curse. I felt the same way with Jim. You know where that quest led me, but hope springs eternal, doesn't it?

And in your case… I think you may have a small chance of success.

I’ve long considered the Perfect Shot prophecy. ‘The right shot with the right bullet, fired with the right gun at the right place at the right time for all the right reasons.’ I’ve tried to fulfill it for so long, to no avail.

Something always bugged me about it. If the Gun jumps from one host to another, how can there be a ‘Perfect’ Shot? I’ve fought the Gun many times, and each Gunsoul it wears changes its fighting style. You can’t have a Perfect Shot that would fit them all.

Which leads me to my current theory. The Perfect Shot means different things for each current incarnation of the Gun. All its elements vary depending on who wears the ‘crown’ at any given time.

Remember that gun Revolver gave you? From what I gathered, it’s the first one you received as a Gunsoul. It tied both of you in a way. Connected you. I think it may be the ‘right gun’ for the sake of the prophecy, at least as far as your friend is concerned. Firing at him to free him from the Gun’s curse would count as the ‘right reason’ if you’re the one pulling the trigger. I can’t tell what the right bullet, place, or time are, but it’s a start.

It’s hope.

The bullet you can find with the letter is the latest I’ve forged during our trip. It contains all of my sutra knowledge, all my hopes about seeing the Gunsouls’ cycle come to an end. Old versions managed to wound the Gun in that Fleshmarket dump. This one might be enough to kill it. Maybe it’ll save your friend, or pass the curse on to you. You won’t be able to tell until you fire it.

There’s another path though. I’ve marked the lair of the Dragon Sage on this letter and given a copy to your train-spirit girlfriend (if you’re not as dumb as you look, you’ll make a move on her sooner or later). It’s a very, very long journey to the west. It will take months of travel, even on spirit-train, and you may not reach it in one piece.

But if you do… then I think he’ll cure Holster and keep the cube safe. Maybe you’ll find peace with her. Maybe not. I never managed to settle down myself.

I won’t tell you what to do, or how you should run your life. You’re big enough to choose for yourself.

The Gun always comes for us eventually. Always.

You best be prepared.

Your teacher,

Arc.

Yuan closed the letter and stared at the bullet wrapped within it. Arc’s legacy.

Hope wrapped in a lump of lead.

When night fell upon the ruins of Battletown, Yuan waited atop a pile of rubbles under the black moonlight with Arc’s bullet in his hand.

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Little more than blasted ruins remained of the Yinyang Khan’s stronghold. The devastation reminded Yuan of Fleshmarket, though he guessed it could have been worse. Orient and Holster’s alterations to the Khan’s artificial leyline hastened the land’s purification. Manhattan’s leftover radioactive fallout would be cleaned by tomorrow and allow survivors to loot what they could.

However, another threat lingered among the blasted piles of concrete and molten iron: pale, emaciated figures haunting the ruins of the slave market, banging their heads on hastily-drawn Barriers meant to keep them contained away from refugee camps.

Yuan had seen a few hungry ghosts in the past, and they always struck him as pitiful; bitter shadows yearning for the life they had lost and bound by the burden of unfinished business. In a way, it helped Yuan appreciate his own ephemeral existence more. Perhaps that was part of the Deathsong’s reason for bringing this change into the world, alongside forcing the living to take care of the dead.

Since it would take too long to individually bury corpses, Orient and Holster had suggested an alternative solution: they would alter the artificial leyline to cause a collapse of the land, burying Battletown and the History Road in a single Last Rites ritual. This would bury all of Battletown, let the hungry ghosts rest, and allow the trapped Human Pillars sustaining the leyline to finally move on to their afterlife.

They would destroy the Yinyang Khan’s legacy in an instant. In a few years, few would likely remember his tyranny.

Yuan wouldn’t say that killing Slash fully satisfied him—especially considering the cost he had to pay to settle the score—but breaking the Khan’s and the Flesh Mansion Sect’s hold over this part of the wasteland did provide a sense of accomplishment. He had diminished their ability to terrorize the region; perhaps cripplied it for good.

Yuan sensed his visitor approaching him, her umbrella gently gliding down on the night wind.

“My condolences for your loss,” Kaguya said. “I was not personally acquainted with Lady Arc, but she was a valiant soul. I hope she finds peace in her new life.”

“So do I.” Since she hadn’t left a hungry ghost, Yuan assumed that she died content. “You’re here for the cube?”

The Moonlight cultivator smiled upon him. “Will you surrender it to me if I ask nicely?”

“No,” Yuan replied bluntly.

“I figured as much.” Kaguya took the rejection in stride. “Frankly, it doesn’t matter to us who holds the cube so long as they won’t use it. We simply wished to keep it out of the Khan’s hands and those of nuclear cultivators who would have inevitably unleashed the Nuke trapped inside.”

“So you won’t interfere with us?” Yuan remained extremely wary. Neither he nor Arc trusted sects. “My mentor’s last wish was that I keep the cube away from grasping hands. I’m never going to change my mind.”

“If you wish to take on the burden of guarding the artifact, then no, we won’t disturb your vigil.” Kaguya chuckled lightly. “We may even warn you of threats from time to time. Some Lost Age secrets are best left forgotten.”

“I will require more than promises.”

“Do you want us to form an Unspeakable Vow?” Kaguya asked. “We can swear not to seek out the cube so long as you promise to do everything in your power to keep the Nuke contained.”

That would be appreciated. Enough enemies would come for the cube in time; Yuan didn’t wish to add the Moonlight Sect to their ranks. A vow would secure their neutrality at least.

Nonetheless, Yuan desired more than to just contain the cube’s prisoner.

“Is there any way to destroy the Nuke?” Yuan asked. He would rather find a more permanent solution to that particular problem. “You said all Paths contained the seed of their demigod’s destruction.”

“I spoke true. If you find a friendly nuclear cultivator, then an option will present itself should you figure it out.” Kaguya shrugged under the moonlight. “Good luck with that though. Kind and selfless nuclear cultivators are like shooting stars, awfully rare and usually short-lived.”

“But they exist.” Mordiggian knew at least one. “If I find one willing to help destroy the Nuke… then perhaps we could live in peace.”

“As long as you are with them, Gunsoul, your companions will never be safe,” Kaguya warned him gravely. “The Gun will come for you soon enough.”

Yuan’s bullet-core pounded in his skull. His gut told him a reckoning was at hand. “How do you know that?”

“Didn’t you find it strange that the Gun engaged you and Revolver in battle immediately after his own murderer perished in the bombardment?” Kaguya asked. The fact she had been observing the disaster hardly surprised Yuan. “Once a Gunsoul has fulfilled the quest for which they rose from the dead for, then the Gun comes to challenge them to battle. So goes the cycle that sustains your existence.”

‘Somebody told me once that the fate of all Gunsouls is to either kill the Gun, or to be killed by it,’ Revolver had told Yuan once he arose from the dead. ‘Do what you must while you still can. Your mercy lead won’t last forever.’

Yuan guessed that a part of him knew this would happen once he killed Slash. The Gun had granted him time and power to settle the score against the promise of a duel. It had delivered its end of the bargain, and Yuan would have to pay the price for it.

“What about Arc?” he asked. “She killed her murderer years ago and fended off the Gun anyway. Is she an outlier?”

“Once Lady Arc killed her own tormentor, the Gun started hounding her relentlessly across the wasteland. She did her best to keep it at bay and destroy it, but she only ever managed to buy time; time that came at the cost of her friend.” Kaguya let out a shrug. “I also suspect the Gun lost interest in her after she cracked her core too. She was no longer a fitting vessel and existed on borrowed time.”

Yuan barely considered the possibility. Cracking his bullet-core would likely kill him. Even Arc required a leyline’s worth of qi to stabilize herself as a Fifth Coil cultivator, and Yuan hadn’t yet reached the power to linger as she did.

He couldn’t change his Path either. He had already dedicated himself to the Gun Path when he crossed the Fourth Coil. Fighting the Gun had always been the inevitable outcome of this choice.

Yuan had made his bed and would now sleep in it

“What does it want?” Yuan wondered. “The Gun? Just to spread death?”

“It wants the same thing as all cultivators,” Kaguya replied while waving her hand at the moon above them. “To join with the Dao and become the underlying principle of reality itself. It seeks to create a universe where death by firearm is no longer a possibility, but a cruel inevitability. Only then will its unending appetite for murder be satiated.”

And since each Gunsoul host was technically stronger than the last, every reincarnation got the Gun closer to the heavens. It might take decades or centuries, but it would inevitably hitch a ride all the way to the Dao.

Yuan refused to let him or Revolver die as mere chinks in an endless chain.

“Will this bullet work?” Yuan asked Kaguya as he presented Arc’s masterpiece. “Will it free Revolver from the curse if I can land the Perfect Shot?”

“Only a Gunsoul can destroy the Gun, and the Perfect Shot prophecy may one day be fulfilled, but will it be by your hands or that or another? That, I cannot say.” Kaguya studied him closely. “If you wish to clear your mind, I can arrange a meeting.”

Yuan squinted at her. “A meeting with whom?”

“Your friend.” Kaguya looked at the wasteland and the distant landmarks of History Road. “He’s in a lucid mood for now… and much closer than you think.”

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