It didn’t take Yuan long to find the Eastern Express’ local office.
The small wooden warehouse stood near the artificial lake’s waterfront, nestled between a bar and a whorehouse. Yuan knew that because three prostitutes had tried to petition him on his way there while a child beggar attempted to pickpocket him. He told off the former and slapped the latter off his back. Nobody dared to mug him though, which he took as a good sign.
His eyes lingered on the badly painted sign above the door. Under better circumstances, he would have crossed the threshold at Mingxia’s back and let her handle the negotiations. Instead, he walked inside alone, his fists clenched and his mind set on revenge.
Someone here had betrayed his team to Slash and would pay the appropriate price.
Yuan cautiously walked into the office, finding it to be a well-lit lounge similar to the trading post he encountered back in Gatesville. The windows were closed, the curtains dimming the sunlight outside. The carpeted floor led to a small stairway and a counter behind which stood walls filled with heavy ledgers. The smell of smoke hung over dirty plush chairs meant for visitors.
The place was quiet, and worst of all, empty.
That immediately put Yuan on edge. No caravan post was ever devoid of people, even when closed; and he had seen no sign of it outside. Someone should be here, whether it was a disgruntled courier waiting for the receptionist to give him his package or a guard keeping watch over the facility.
Yuan immediately looked around with all of his senses. He didn’t detect any abnormal qi in the area, so it couldn’t be an illusion or a barrier. The smell of smoke indicated that someone had been here not too long ago. He didn’t detect any secret hole that would allow a sniper to strike him either.
“Is someone here?” Yuan called out and received no answer. Now truly on guard, he cautiously took a step forward with his fists raised for battle. He wasn’t one to back down from a fight, but his gut told him something terrible had happened here. “Anyone?”
Once he had taken a few steps forward and confirmed that he was indeed alone, Yuan cautiously peeked over the counter. No hidden enemies arose to ambush him. He instead found out the likely source of the smoke smell.
Three neatly separated piles of ashes.
A chill traveled down Yuan’s spine as he checked the plush chairs. Small mounds of dust sat on the leather, the remains of unlucky workers or couriers caught in the crossfire of a terrible tragedy. Yuan counted dozens of them spread around the hall, and he expected to find more upstairs.
Someone had killed everyone inside the building so cleanly that nobody outside its walls noticed.
Who would have dared? The Eastern Express benefitted from the protection of many local sects. It could have been a first strike in the brewing local war, but Yuan would have expected more damage if that were the case. Elders liked spectacular attacks because they sent a message. It must have been an outsider.
Yuan couldn’t fathom the reason behind the attack. What benefit would there be for secretly wiping out a neutral Scrap-run trading post? Information? Yuan checked the ledgers, but found them entirely undisturbed. If anyone had stolen or destroyed any specific records, he couldn’t tell which.
And these ash piles… the closer Yuan looked at them, the more they bothered him. His qi sense detected faint, familiar green particles mixed with the remains of the dead. The same kind that had been polluting the rad-hag’s Thunderlands.
Radioactive dust.
“I’ve been waiting for you, courier.”
Yuan’s head snapped back right in time to see the door close behind him on its own.
A man sat in the corner of the room in a lotus position, his glowing green eyes glaring at Yuan from the shadows with frightening intensity. An ancient, tattered scroll lay at his feet.
A shiver ran down Yuan’s spine as a sensation of all-consuming, overwhelming menace fell upon him. The figure, a tall, lean man with chiseled muscle and skin paler than chalk, radiated an aura of unyielding power. He wore nothing except for a tattered yellow-green loincloth of torn rubber and a mask made from the upper part of a human skull, leaving his wrinkled jaw and glowing emerald eyes exposed. A small dharmachakra wheel of rusted steel floated on its own behind his head like a halo. White tumors covered his shoulders in a thick armor of cysts and a trefoil symbol was tattooed on his chest: three curved blades around a central circle.
The man bore a wealth of scars and wrinkles in spite of his muscular physique, which marked him as an ancient soul. This immediately put Yuan on edge. There were weak cultivators and old cultivators, but there were no weak old cultivators.
I didn’t even sense him! Yuan was certain he had been alone in this room a moment ago. He’d double-checked. Moreover, he could count on one hand the number of people who had managed to sneak up on him in the past, cultivators included; his whole job revolved around avoiding that kind of ambush. Nobody’s that quiet!
“Are you Yuan Guang?” the stranger asked with a low, raspy voice that reminded Yuan of a cockroach batting its wings. He slowly stood up on his two feet with a trained dancer’s elegance, his lean frame towering over Yuan’s and his wheel halo spinning on its own. “Or is it Jaw-Long?”
The stranger didn’t breathe or make any sound when he walked. Even Scraps radiated a measure of qi; they simply couldn’t process it due to their broken core. No creature should lack it, yet the man in front of Yuan felt like a walking void to his senses. This could only mean one thing.
This stranger’s control over his qi was so precise that he could completely mask it from detection.
This man was unbelievably dangerous. His aura felt a thousand times more threatening than Slash’s and the rad-hag’s combined; even the glimpse Yuan had caught of Revolver’s true strength paled before the overwhelming threat in front of him. Every fiber of Yuan’s body told him that he was now standing at the edge of a lethal precipice. The shadow of death lingered around this place.
Yuan recalled the times when he had stood in a sect elder’s presence while still a Scrap. The same sensation of instinctual intimidation, of being prey in a predator’s presence, coursed through his veins. Crossing two of the Coils of Infinity was nowhere near enough to cross the gulf in strength between them.
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One wrong word would spell Yuan’s doom. He could feel it in his bones. That the stranger could kill him in an instant if he wished, the same way he had massacred everyone inside these walls.
“Yuan Guang,” he replied cautiously, his mind furiously assessing the distance between himself and the nearest window. It was a long shot, but he might be able to make a break for the street outside with a well-timed Recoil burst.
Yuan was no coward, but the thought of fighting this man never crossed his mind. If he fought here, he would die short of a miracle. End of the story.
The ancient cultivator crossed his arms in a pose of supreme confidence and authority. His eyes lingered on the bullet-core stuck inside Yuan’s forehead and flickered in recognition.
“A Gunsoul,” he said with what could pass for curiosity. “Interesting. Who murdered you, child?”
Yuan clenched his jaw. If the man was familiar with Gunsouls, he would likely target his bullet-core first should a battle begin. “Men working for the Yinyang Khan.”
“The Yinyang Khan?” The stranger hardly seemed surprised. “Makes sense. Of course he would seek to get his claws on the cube too. I wonder how he learned of its existence.”
The cube. This man had been waiting to steal the package, same as Slash beforehand. This roused Yuan’s curiosity. Warlords and cultivators of this stranger’s caliber wouldn’t work so hard to obtain a run-the-mill artifact. This is bigger than I thought.
“Who are you?” Yuan dared to ask, his hands ready to unleash a Recoil Fist at the first sign of hostility. It would be a fool’s errand, but at least he would die fighting.
The stranger shrugged his shoulders. “You may call me Manhattan.”
“That’s not your real name.”
“I have forgotten mine long ago, if I ever had one in the first place. You may call me whatever you wish if Manhattan is not to your liking.” The ancient cultivator dismissed the subject with a wave of his hand. “I assume your murderers stole the cube, did they not? Why did you come here then?”
Yuan tensed up. Why would this man care? Still, he wasn’t losing anything by answering the question and gaining a precious amount of time to think. “To report the theft to my employer, and find out who betrayed my team’s location.”
“Your employer?” The stranger’s chalky lips morphed into an amused smile, revealing rows of blackened teeth. “You stand before him. I commissioned this run, alongside seven decoys meant to hide your position.”
“You’re the client?” Yuan squinted slightly, though this answer didn’t surprise him much. This Manhattan’s knowledge and detailed information suddenly made a lot more sense.
“I came here to discreetly pick up my package, but the staff firmly insisted that they had lost contact with the deliverers. I sensed their lies and interrogated them…” The man glanced at the nearest ash pile. “Perhaps a bit more roughly than I should have, I’ll admit.”
Yuan considered himself lucky to have avoided that kind of interrogation… at least so far.
“How did you know I would visit this place at all?” Yuan wondered. Did the people of Gatesville somehow manage to inform this trading post of his arrival?
“I did not, but I had nothing to lose from waiting. I was meditating on how to proceed when you showed up.” Manhattan intertwined his fingers in a strange prayer pose. “Good thing I did too. I see which way the wheel spins now.”
Yuan squinted in confusion. “The wheel?”
“Of karma. What goes around comes around. You’ll learn this should you reach my age.” Manhattan’s eyes lingered on Yuan, who suddenly realized that the strange cultivator had no eyelids to blink with. “Duty and revenge are both shackles for the mind, but I applaud your professionalism. Self-discipline will lead you far.”
The compliment sounded strangely sincere, though Yuan was too tense to appreciate it. Moreover, his curiosity demanded answers. He wanted to learn what his partners died for.
“What was my team’s package?” he inquired. Manhattan appeared strangely cordial so far, so he might reveal some tidbit of information. “Why would a cultivator of your caliber and the Yinyang Khan seek it so fervently?”
To his surprise, the man actually deigned to answer his question.
“You were transporting the Cube of Natho, an artifact created during the chaotic years that preceded the Sky-Biter’s ascension. I spent a great deal of resources securing its secret recovery and transport. As for what it does…” Manhattan stroked his calcified chin. “In the right hands, it will be this world’s salvation; in the wrong ones, such as the Khan’s, it will become a weapon of terrible power.”
That was as evasive an answer as they came, but Yuan’s gut told him he wouldn’t get anything more than that. He could sense that the stranger’s indulgence had its limits.
“You will find your payment for the delivery behind the counter,” Manhattan said before turning his back on Yuan; a supreme show of confidence—and a terrible insult—when in the presence of another cultivator. “You may take my sutra scroll with you too, if you want it. I have no further use for it.”
“You’re letting me walk away?” Yuan couldn’t believe his ears. “Even though I’ve lost the package?"
“What good is anger? Such a narrow-minded emotion that blinds one’s vision has no place within me.” Manhattan let out a dry chuckle akin to a fireplace’s noise. “Besides, I suspect that your survival will lead the cube back to me in due time. The flow of karma will pull it to me.”
Yuan frowned in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“You will, once you learn to see farther ahead,” Manhattan replied with the tone of a wise elder enlightening a foolish student. He stepped closer to the door, then suddenly stopped and peeked over his shoulder at Yuan. “Though I am curious. What do you intend to do with your second life?”
“Why ask at all?” Yuan retorted. “I can tell you don’t care in the slightest.”
“Nothing forces you to answer, child,” Manhattan replied calmly. “I have no interest in killing you, whether you indulge my idle curiosity or not.”
This man has no feelings. Yuan was sure of it now. The way Manhattan murdered dozens so casually and efficiently without a hint of rage or satisfaction had already been a warning, and their entire conversation had only solidified this impression. The cultivator gathered useful information and pointless trivia with equal, inhuman detachment. Yuan was nothing more than an insect who had suddenly caught his interest, and whom he would forget once his whim had passed. A void separated him from the rest of humanity. He’s a thing. A soulless, hollow thing.
“I’ll gear up,” Yuan answered cautiously, “track down my team’s killers, and slaughter every last one of them.”
“As I feared.” Manhattan shook his head in disappointment. “Revenge is not the Dao’s way, Gunsoul. Such pointless ventures are what drive our souls to reincarnate in this doomed world. They weigh down our spirit and prevent us from reaching enlightenment. That bullet stuck in your head is not your salvation, but a leash that binds you.”
Yuan snorted at the man’s contempt. “I wouldn’t be standing here without this bullet. It made me strong.”
“Cultivators pursue power for its own sake, but their ambitions always turn into shackles that smother their development,” Manhattan replied. “They obsess over strength and immortality, heedless that a perfect object cannot coexist with a flawed world such as this one. Binding oneself to an imperfect universe drags us down, not up. Only through total detachment can we achieve true bliss.”
“Is that why you’re leaving that scroll?” Yuan pondered as he glanced at the piece of paper lying on the ground. Sutra formulas indeed appeared to be written on its surface. “No sect would abandon anything so valuable.”
“Which is exactly why those fools will never reach the Dao. Hoarding knowledge turns it into an anchor. It enslaves you instead of freeing you.” His curiosity satisfied, Manhattan opened the door and crossed its threshold. “Cast away your pointless vendetta and dedicate yourself to your studies. Only then will you reach the Dao.”
His body then vanished in a green glow without a trace.
For a few seconds, Yuan couldn’t move an inch. He remained frozen in place with his fists raised for battle and his feet ready to run for his life. He half-expected Manhattan to change his mind and come back to murder him.
When he at least grew convinced that the ancient cultivator had spared his life, Yuan allowed him to let out a breath filled with tension. Every fiber of his being told him he had narrowly avoided a second death today.
“The Cube of Natho?” he muttered under his breath before glancing at the piles of ashes. Whoever had betrayed his team’s location to the Yinyang Khan was likely among them. It brought him a measure of satisfaction, even if he hadn’t delivered the final blow himself, but he now wondered how far down the Centidead hole went. “What were we transporting?”
Yuan had peeked behind the curtain and caught a glimpse of a greater scheme.
He wasn’t sure he liked what he saw.