Gunsoul: A Xianxia Apocalypse

The spirit-train left Fleshmarket at sunset for its first courier job.

Yuan sealed a pretty good deal with Bucket: the man would board with six Bullet Church cultists and enough crates to house a sizable cargo, then receive a free ride back and forth to the Ammobog for a bullet harvest. Yuan would provide transportation and security in exchange for money, supplies, and his pick of weapons and ammo.

“Gatling Man stole the holy minigun and the Flesh Mansion Sect purchased all our sniper rifles,” Bucket had told him before presenting him with twin wonders. “Henceforth, we entrust you with the Saint Heckler and the Kalash Angel.”

Yuan spent most of the evening examining these new toys while Orient served dinner in the restaurant wagon. He had already used submachine guns like the Saint Heckler in the past, but he had never managed to get his hands on a true assault rifle like the Kalash Angel. His body shivered in pleasure the moment he touched the handle. His finger traced a line from one end of the rifle to the barrel’s end, delighting at the smooth sensation of his skin pressing against the stainless steel.

Handguns would forever remain his favorite firearms, but this assault rifle captured his heart like no other.

“Are you enjoying your dinner so far?” Orient asked her guests as she finished serving the ‘dessert’: an assortment of dry cakes and root vegetables.

“It was perfect, M’lady,” Bucket replied after sneaking food into his helmet without removing it. Yuan wondered how he could eat at all this way. “You are spoiling us!”

“The pleasure is all mine,” Orient replied with a kind smile. “It has been so many years since I last welcomed guests within my halls. I’ve missed the experience very much.”

Orient certainly treated her passengers better than stowaways.

At least she’s enjoying herself. Yuan glanced at Holster, who sat next to him and lowered her gaze whenever the Bullet Church cultists so much as looked in her direction. Orient tried to convince her to interact with their guests, to no avail. I can’t blame her for feeling unsafe with strangers.

Yuan thought it would be better if Holster grew acclimated to guests, especially if the team started taking on more courier jobs. Passengers would then become a common occurrence his charge would have to live with. Yuan didn’t trust anyone, but the cultists venerated him the way high-level cultivators inspired awe among Scraps. They wouldn’t bother Holster on his watch; and if they did, Orient could take care of them. Nothing could escape her notice inside the spirit-train’s confines.

One of the cultists took a pause from his dinner and looked through the windows with apprehension. Night had fallen, and the moon was pitch black. “Sorry to doubt you, M’lady, but will this spirit-train truly protect us from moonburns?”

“You are perfectly safe so long as you do not open the windows,” Orient reassured him with a pleasant smile. “I do question why Honored Guest Yuan insisted on leaving at twilight instead of the morning, when we would have had better visibility.”

“Because we’re less likely to be followed and attacked this way,” Yuan replied. Moonburning didn’t distinguish between sides so few dared to launch raids at night, especially with clear skies. “Either Sect may try to intercept us or steal the shipment.”

Bucket didn’t miss an opportunity to kiss Yuan’s butt. “A wise plan, as expected from a holy Gunsoul! Only a sniper’s mind like yours could possess such a jade beauty like Lady Orient for a wife!”

Yuan suppressed a shiver of unease. In his experience, Scraps either resented cultivators or worshiped the ground they walked on. Both behaved that way for the same reason: cultivators could do things most people could only dream of.

Yuan disliked Bucket’s adoration because it felt unearned. He didn’t receive it because of what he had done, but because of what he was. Moreover, that behavior led to expectations. Scraps worshiping cultivators demanded attention, protection, or favor; none of which Yuan was willing to give beyond his contact’s obligations.

“Orient is not my wife,” Yuan grumbled before Bucket could get any ideas. Besides, jade beauty? Orient was a redhead

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“Thank you for the compliment though, Honored Guest Bucket,” Orient said, her smile unwavering. “If you would kindly let me show you to your cabins next? We should arrive at our destination in a few hours, and a day of hard work awaits you tomorrow.”

“O-Of course, M’lady!” Bucket jumped out of his seat, as did the other cultists. One stuffed his mouth with dessert and nearly choked in his hurry to follow Orient into the passenger wagon, much to Yuan’s amusement.

Orient reminded him so much of Mingxia. His old teammate possessed a combination of refined poise and easy charm that let her lead people by the nose.

Especially men.

Now that he was alone with Holster, Yuan grabbed the plates, scraped every crumb and stain he could find with a knife, and then bottled them up in a small container. He had starved too many times in the past to waste food now.

“Have you taken a look at the scroll?” Yuan asked Holster while washing the dishes. His charge nodded, before shifting in her seat and making hand signs he didn’t recognize. “I don’t understand.”

“Miss Holster is asking what a wife is,” Orient said after she returned alone from the passenger car. “I admit I find the concept a bit difficult to grasp too. Would you mind enlightening us?”

“A wife is a waste of time,” Yuan replied gruffly. Hitting on women, like Jawlong used to whenever they visited a new place, always struck him as a pointless distraction. “A husband too.”

Orient frowned in confusion. “Why would Mister Bucket consider me a waste of time? I always arrive early.”

Yuan quickly realized that explaining the concept of wife to a living train might be too tall a mountain to climb.

“It’s not important,” he replied in an attempt to change the subject. “What about the scroll? Did you take a look?”

Orient’s smile thinned noticeably. “We did.”

Yuan squinted as Holster returned from the last wagon with the scroll itself. He hardly recognized it. The tattered, ancient piece of paper looked almost brand new.

“The original document was tainted by the same poison that corrupted my predecessor’s Thunderlands,” Orient explained with a hint of unease. “Considering what happened to her, I thought it wise to use my power and restore it to a prior state rather than risk Miss Holster growing sick, or worse, transforming into a rad-hag myself. I might have erased a few sentences in the process, but I hope you will understand my caution.”

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“Better safe than sorry.” Yuan crossed his arms. Manhattan’s generosity made more sense now. His gift had been poisoned. “So you’re saying that the scroll was irradiated?”

“Most certainly,” Orient confirmed.

Yuan didn’t like this one bit. Manhattan already gave away the same aura as the irradiated city near Gatesville. Either he found the scroll in a similar place, or he followed the same Nuclear Path as the late Czar Zoa.

He had the gut feeling nothing good would come out of Manhattan getting his hands on the cube. Would he be strong enough to steal it back from the Yinyang Khan?

Yuan banished these thoughts from his mind. Nothing would come out of involving himself in high-level cultivators’ affairs.

“Sutras come in multiple forms,” Orient explained after unfurling the document. Detailed drawings of hand gestures formed the bulk of its content, alongside ancient verses written in the Sanskrit language. Cultivators loved to use that one to record their important texts. “This scroll covers complex talisman scripts alongside mantras and mudra combinations.”

Yuan quickly recalled the words. “Mantras are sounds and mudras are gestures, right?”

“Indeed, Honored Guest,” Orient confirmed with a nod. “They carry less power than more complex sutras and must be practiced in a sequence to have any effect, but they have more immediate applications than grander rituals.”

Orient joined her thumbs and ring fingers, then widened her arms. Yuan immediately recognized the pose. He’d seen many Stoneskin Sect cultivators practice it during their meditations.

“This is the Prithvi Mudra,” Orient explained. “It calls upon the earth to witness the user’s stability. When a cultivator born under an earth zodiac sign adopts this gesture while sitting on the ground and utters the mantra Prithvi, it temporarily aligns their qi to telluric forces and reinforces their posture.”

To think that the Stoneskin Sect’s members practiced a sutra in the open right in front of Yuan’s eyes. He never understood why, since mimicking this posture never did anything for him, but now he did. Sutras required specific conditions to activate, and if that one only worked with earth-aligned cultivators, then Scraps couldn’t benefit from it.

Yuan browsed the mudras. Besides his own inability to read Sanskrit properly, he noticed a glaring issue with the poses.

“I need at least one hand to shoot.” Yuan could always rely on the Recoil Fist, but his Path truly shone when he used a weapon. “Most of these mudras involve both of them.”

“Most, but not all.” Orient pointed at one of the drawings, which represented a hand with the index and ring fingers bent and the others straight up. “The Shukatunda Mudra, for example, can increase a projectile’s accuracy when included in the proper sequence. Two-handed gestures also have useful out-of-battle applications.”

Holster joined her hands together. She intertwined her fingers except for the pinkies that now faced each other, and then whispered a few syllabi so low Yuan hardly caught them: mahamayuri.

“This is the Mahamayuri Mudra, which cleanses the user of poison and toxins,” Orient said with a sorrowful look. “Miss Holster thought it would lift her curse, but alas, the sutra had no effect on her condition.”

Yuan shifted uncomfortably. “About that… A man from the Flesh Mansion Sect approached me earlier.”

Holster froze in fear like a deer caught by a wolf-spirit. Her skin paled until it gained the color of bone.

“I’m not returning you to them,” Yuan immediately reassured. “But that man said he could cure you if I did his bidding. There’s still time to make a decision–”

Holster shook her head so fast and so abruptly Yuan feared she would snap her own neck. She grabbed his shirt, imploring him in silence with eyes full of abject terror.

“Miss Holster, please calm down…” Orient awkwardly put her hands on Holster’s shoulders to reassure her, though she clung too tightly to Yuan to let him go. “The Flesh Mansion Sect is far away. You are safe with us.”

Holster buried her face against Yuan’s shirt and gripped his clothes with all her strength. Orient whispered kind words in her ear and then looked at Yuan with a firm face. “Miss Holster has no wish of encountering the Flesh Mansion Sect again.”

He could have guessed that on his own.

“We’ll find another way then.” Yuan couldn’t blame Holster for reacting this way. He didn’t know much about the Hitobashira procedure, but it was probably quite painful. “Don’t worry, Holster. They’ll never touch you again.”

His words reassured Holster a little, but she didn’t let go of his shirt. Yuan ended up spending most of the evening sitting in the last car with her until she fell asleep, while Orient helped him review a series of mantras and mudras.

“Tripataka, Shukatunda, Trishula,” Yuan muttered to himself as he practiced the hand signs. Joining his fingers and uttering the words quickly enough proved more difficult than he expected. “Archer’s Glory.”

“You are making good progress, Honored Guest Yuan,” Orient complimented him. “This sutra will greatly increase your next projectile’s accuracy and ensure that it hits its target.”

“If I live long enough to finish it,” Yuan replied gruffly. Every breath mattered in battle. He would waste precious time and energy if he couldn’t complete the combination quickly enough.

“I am certain you will master these sutras with practice,” Orient encouraged him. “I shouldn’t say so much, but Miss Holster hasn’t been slacking either. She’s working very hard on a gift for you.”

Yuan blinked. “A gift?”

“I won’t say more,” Orient said before patting the sleeping Holster on the head. “She cares for you very much.”

Yuan didn’t know what to say. The only people who gave him gifts were his old teammates. The idea of receiving one from Holster filled him with sheepish embarrassment. He didn’t think he would inspire such gratitude from her.

It’s not a bad feeling though. Yuan listened to Holster snoring on his lap. So young and fragile. I could get used to it.

Orient suddenly straightened up. Her serene smile twisted into a strange expression, with her eyes brightening like headlights and her breath turning to steam. As for her hands, they contorted and tensed into fists.

Yuan squinted in confusion. “What’s going on?”

“We are approaching our destination.” Yuan finally recognized the expression: a pale imitation of human fear. “I sense an Authority coming from it.”

Yuan stared at Orient in disbelief for a moment. “You’re kidding.”

“I am not, Honored Guest Yuan.” Orient raised her head, as if to listen to invisible forces Yuan couldn’t perceive. “It clogs the leyline like a quagmire of lead and gunpowder. I thought this Ammobog suffered from a lingering curse, but its boundaries… this is a true imaginary space.”

Orient had to be mistaken. It had to be a patch of corrupted Thunderlands or a Screen City, or any other supernatural phenomenon plaguing the Unmade World. If it was an Authority…

Yuan recalled a lesson which a Stoneskin Elder once gave to his arrogant young student. ‘To cross the Fifth Coil, a cultivator must expand their core outside their body. They overwrite the world’s qi and paint over it with their very soul. They temporarily gain Authority over a portion of the Dao. It’s an incredibly difficult and dangerous feat that approaches the divine.’

It was so difficult, in fact, that the Fifth Coil was widely considered the gulf that separated the great from the legendary. No Elder in the Stoneskin Sect ever achieved it. One came close, only to accidentally rupture their own core and kill themselves.

Worse, every Authority technique was unique to each user, since it represented both their chosen Path and true self. Yuan had heard cultivators theorize that a Wayfinder’s cosmic influence was simply the result of their Authority becoming part of the universe’s natural laws.

The Ammobog wasn’t merely a place; it was the physical expression of someone’s soul. A Gunsoul’s core overwriting the universe.

Two key details bothered Yuan. First of all, an Authority demanded immense reserves of qi and concentration to sustain, since the world actively fought to return to its original state. The longest recorded duration was four hours, and the Ammobog existed for years according to Bucket.

Even if the Gunsoul buried in the Ammobog was a legend among legends, their core shouldn’t have been able to sustain it for so long.

And second…

“Can a ghost use an Authority, Orient?” Yuan asked.

“No,” Orient replied with unease. “No, they cannot.”

Bucket told him that the Ammobog was the burial site of a dead Gunsoul’s bullet core; yet Revolver said that they could survive anything so long as said core remained intact.

Bucket should check his intel, Yuan thought, his arms crossed. That dead Gunsoul of his is very much alive.