Gunsoul

Arc looked ready to collapse from exhaustion by the time they dropped her off.

Yuan half-expected her old valley’s landscape to return to normal after her temporary departure, but Arc’s qi had partly rubbed off on it. Though it showed nothing obviously supernatural like rifle trees or gunpowder rivers, the valley’s ground was saturated with lead and the local blasted trees boasted sheets of steel for bark. Arc had left her mark for years to come.

Once they reached the valley’s center, Arc fully unleashed Headshot Forge once again. The landscape shifted back into a desolate bog of rifle-trees and gunpowder ponds in an instant, like a house welcoming its owner home.

“Are you well?” Yuan asked Arc after helping her sit on a forged ammo chair. He had been careful to carry her alone away from the spirit-train until Orient and the others were well beyond her Authority’s reach.

“Bit tired,” his mentor grunted back. “Never left this place for so long in four years.”

Yuan could see why after spending the last few hours in her company. Arc’s broken core leaked out more qi in a minute than he could cycle in a day. Holster’s assistance barely helped contain the leak.

“Don’t tell me you’re worried?” Arc scoffed at Yuan’s concern. “I’m fine.”

“Sure,” Yuan replied. He knew better, but he could tell his mentor hated looking weak in the eyes of others. “What will you do until we return?”

“Keep making bullets, I suppose. Except now I’ll try to land that Perfect Shot for your friend’s sake rather than mine.” Her response drew a chuckle from Yuan, much to her curiosity. “What’s so funny?”

“You sound so pessimistic,” Yuan said. “But many would have given up by now.”

“I made my bed long ago while I was still a fool, and I’ll die in it.” Arc shrugged and rested in her chair. “Keep cycling until your body fully adapts to your Third Coil’s qi output. You aren’t even halfway through your metamorphosis.”

Yuan frowned at this news. His body already boasted more metal than flesh beneath his skin. Should he expect to gain gun wings too?

“What will I look like by the end of it?” he asked, though he already knew the answer: inhuman.

“It’s different for all of us, depending on the shape of our soul and how we approach our chosen Path,” Arc replied. “After a while, your body will have changed enough to host an innate technique. We’ll figure out which one to teach you once you reach that stage.”

Yuan scowled. “Then I will have to commit to the Gun Path.”

“Yes.” Arc grabbed a bullet off the ground and thoughtfully studied it. “Transitioning from the Third to the Fourth is the point of no return. You have to engrave the Gun Path into your very soul. Going deep means closing off other options ‘till you can’t turn back anymore.”

Reaching the Fourth Coil meant choosing the Gun Path.

Yuan wouldn’t have hesitated not too long ago, back when he believed becoming a Gunsoul was a blessing rather than a curse in disguise. Though he never asked to follow the Path, it had seemed tailor-made for him. Seeing his soul’s true shape reflected in the moonlight only solidified his belief.

However, that was before he encountered the Gun. He had witnessed what fate awaited him at the end of his Path; what incarnation of murder and senseless slaughter he could turn into.

And it gave him pause.

Arc detected his confusion and pounced on it. “You should switch out to another Path while you can,” she said. “Take the Moonlight Sect’s offer or somethin’. Their Path is pretty chill, all things considered, and their Wayfinder can grant you your half-life back.”

“I’m…” Yuan cleared his throat, his heart wavering with hesitation. “I’ll think about it.”

As much as he feared becoming the new Gun, Yuan despised sects with every fiber of his being; a hatred which the Fleshmarket sect war only reinforced. Joining the Black Moon’s folk felt like selling out to the people who had looked down on him all his life.

Was there another Path open to him that wouldn’t involve betraying his principles? A road he could walk with his head held high?

Arc remained silent for a moment, then dismissed him. “Come back if you’ve decided to damn yourself and dance in the Bullet Hell. Otherwise, I’ve done all I can. I’ll still hold you to your end of the vow though.”

Yuan had expected as much.

He would fulfill that promise, whichever Path he settled on.

Yuan struggled to cycle his qi all night long.

He did everything right. He sat in deep meditation in the engine room, where the spirit-train’s qi concentration was at its apex. He focused on nourishing the steel slowly overtaking his organic parts, reinforced his organs, and practiced his sutras to sharpen his concentration.

However, Yuan struggled to absorb any more qi than he did the previous day. Nay, he cycled slower than when he was a mere Second Coil. His body struggled to properly absorb anything. Yuan felt like he was back in the days when he caught a lung disease in his youth and struggled with each breath.

After wasting hours hardly making any progress, Yuan decided to change his routine. He opened his eyes to find Holster sleeping soundly on the blanket next to him with a scribbled piece of paper in her hands. Orient sat nearby and scratched her hair lightly, the moonlight shining outside the closed windows in a pitch-black sky.

“Do you struggle with your meditation, Honored Guest Yuan?” Orient asked. “You seemed frustrated.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Yuan muttered to himself as he peeked out beyond the glass. A dry expanse filled with sulfur pits spewing yellow smoke into the air slowly phased out the Fleshmancer’s fields of white flowers. No plants could take root here. “I’m straying.”

“Straying?” Orient asked with a hint of concern. “From what?”

“My Path.”

Buried emotions and fears formed emotional debris slowing down one’s flow of qi. Yuan burned his old issues away under the cold moonlight, only for his newfound hesitation to clog his circuits again. Doubting his own Path had thrown him out of tune with it.

“Is this about what happened to your fellow Gunsoul?” Orient asked softly.

Yuan’s brows furrowed slightly. “You knew?”

“I am a spirit, Honored Guest Yuan. I sensed that gun demon possessing him before he departed.” Orient joined her hands together. “You are afraid of ending up like him.”

“Yes,” Yuan replied bluntly. “A Gunsoul’s fate is to either die by the Gun’s hands or become the new Gun. I know that now.”

“Unless you change your Path while you still can,” Orient guessed. “Why not accept the Moonlight Sect’s offer, then? I recall that they offered to take you in.”

“Because… how to say this…” Yuan pondered how to explain it to Orient in terms that she would relate to. “The Gun Path fits me like a glove, and I hate sects. It’s like I had an idea of my final destination, but now I wonder if it’s the right one for me midway through and I don’t like any other stop. Does that make sense?”

“It does,” Orient replied with genuine compassion. She had suffered from a similar hesitation not too long ago. “It is an awful feeling, not knowing where to go. Perhaps a good night of sleep would help clear your mind? Dreams do seem to silence my passengers’ fears.”

“I don’t think I need to sleep anymore, or even if I can.” Yuan hadn’t felt the call of dreams for a while. His Third Coil body didn’t feel tired at all. “Can you sleep, Orient?”

“A spirit can close their eyes, Honored Guest Yuan, but the door to sleep remains shut to us,” she replied while glancing at Holster with a kind smile. “What awaits humans beyond the veil remains a mystery to me. I would like to cross it someday though. I always assumed a dream would be a pleasant place.”

“That’s not always the case,” Yuan replied, the moonlight filling him with a morose mood. “I used to have nightmares at her age.”

“Oh? Is that unusual for humans?” Orient seemed genuinely curious. “I do not recall you suffering from those during your stay inside my walls.”

The innocent phrasing slightly amused Yuan. “Nightmares come and go,” he replied. “I think I’ve grown so numb to loss that they stopped haunting me.”

“I see.” Orient glanced at Holster. “I have never seen Miss Holster suffer in her sleep. She always dreams peacefully in our company.”

That surprised Yuan. He would have expected Holster to suffer from night terrors after everything she went through. Did his and Orient’s presence reassure her that much? Not that he would prefer to hear her scream at night…

“What did she draw?” Yuan asked as he checked the piece of paper in Holster’s hands. It resembled a poor, messy sketch of two wagons, one shaped more like a temple than anything functional and the other with furniture arranged into a bagua array. “Are those your plans for the new wagons?”

“Miss Holster had fun drawing them,” Orient replied with a small chuckle. “The second car is meant for you.”

“For me?” Yuan studied the design and quickly figured out its purpose. “The feng shui’s interior arrangement focuses qi at its center.”

“Miss Holster thinks it will improve your cultivation.” Orient gently caressed their charge’s hair with motherly affection. “She believes in you more than you believe in yourself, Honored Guest Yuan.”

Yuan didn’t know what to make of that. His bullet-core surged with a mix of pride, affection, and shame. Even after the Fleshmarket disaster, even after seeing the Gun and what its bloody Path promised, Holster still thought Yuan would pull through somehow.

He wanted to live up to her expectations.

And he would do anything in his power to do so.