Yuan finished his tea in silence.
He still struggled to comprehend the full severity of their situation. Yuan was a courier at heart. His existence for the last few years revolved around traveling and delivering packages. He never signed on for a high-level cultivator conflict over a Lost Age relic capable of laying waste to civilization.
He felt a sense of responsibility for carrying the Cube of NATO around. Had Slash not intercepted him, Yuan might have successfully delivered it to Manhattan and doomed the wasteland to nuclear destruction. Even then, he might have only delayed the inevitable. Manhattan would try to recover the device, and the Yinyang Khan would cause just as much trouble with that weapon in his possession.
Yuan didn’t wish to die again. He didn’t want to see Orient and Holster swallowed in a flash of light and vaporized.
But what could he do? Manhattan was way out of his league, let alone the Yinyang Khan. While Yuan was pretty sure he could take out Slash if they ever fought again, his murderer was a small fry compared to these two. Arc might help if he convinced her of the threat that the Nuke represented…
Yuan shook his head. He refused to rely on another’s mercy. If a man was a man, he honored his responsibilities and the cube was one of his.
Yuan needed to get stronger much quicker… but how could he do so when he struggled with his own Path?
Mordiggian sensed his hesitation. “You reek of guilt, Gunsoul. What weighs on your mind?”
Yuan wondered if he should tell the Sin-Eater the truth for a moment. The man offered him answers about the cube without asking anything in return, so he felt obligated to return the favor. “Have you heard of Fleshmarket?”
“I unfortunately have,” Mordiggian replied with distaste. “Your followers came from that city of sin?”
“They’re here because of me.” Yuan took a long gunsmoke breath. “Partly.”
Mordiggian listened in silence as Yuan told him about the Fleshmarket Sect War, the Gun’s attack on the city, and Revolver’s ill-fated roulette game. The Sin-Eater didn’t provide any comment and simply poured them new cups of spirit-leaf tea.
“I helped bring the Gun to that city, killing thousands,” Yuan said upon concluding his tale, his voice low and weak. He wouldn’t lie his way out of this one. “A Gunsoul who showed me kindness is now trapped in a special kind of hell because of my short-sightedness.”
“I see.” Mordiggian pondered what to say for a moment before nodding to himself. “I will not say it wasn’t your fault. You are right, you helped plant the seeds from which this disaster grew and stained your soul with sin.”
Yuan scoffed. “Are you judging me, Sin-Eater?”
“It is not my place to do so. There is no sin that cannot be absolved with proper penance.” Mordiggian joined his hands in a meditative pose. “If it is cleansing that you seek, I can provide you with a few options.”
Though he didn’t entirely trust the Sin-Eater Path yet, Yuan guessed he had little to lose from listening. “What do you offer?”
“First, I can devour you and recreate you within my hungry belly. You will be purged of your bullet-core and the Gun Path, but you will emerge with a new life of your own and purified flesh. You will be reborn free of your sins, free to begin again. Brand new.”
Yuan scowled. “I’ll be a Scrap again.”
“You will be brand new,” Mordiggian confirmed. “Alternatively, I can purge your soul of its bad karma and allow it to reincarnate. You have accumulated some good karma of your own, so your next life should be pleasant. I can allow you to keep your memories too if you wish to join the ranks of the regressors and continue your cultivation.”
Yuan immediately rejected both proposals. Either would just be taking the coward’s way out, and he refused to become a weakling again.
“I won’t run away,” Yuan said. “Moreover, what good would it be to reincarnate in a world that a nuclear cultivator could destroy at any time?”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“They have tried to free the Nuke for half a century, and failed to this day,” Mordiggian countered. “Maybe this time will be different, or maybe not. There will always be someone seeking to end the world. You shouldn’t fear to live because your existence may end at any time.”
“Even so, I can’t let the cube fall into the wrong hands,” Yuan replied, squinting at the Sin-Eater. “What about you? Will you take a stand?”
Mordiggian shook his head. “My role is to take up the sins of those who seek absolution and give shelter to those who need it. I take no part in the wasteland’s disputes, and I have forsaken war long ago.”
“I see.” Many would have called him a coward, but Yuan wouldn’t condemn the man who had given him supplies and advice for free when many would have demanded payment. “It falls to me then.”
Mordiggian stroked his chin. “It is not your guilt that impairs your cycling, Gunsoul. It is fear. Fear that your Path will always lead to the Gun.”
“Where else would it lead? The Gun is the beginning and the end for us Gunsouls.”
“The beginning, yes. The end, I do not think so.” Mordiggian sipped from his cup. “I’ve met a nuclear cultivator too once.”
Yuan frowned. “Czar Zoa?”
“No. A man who went by the name of Al.” Mordiggian set his cup back on the table and looked at the sun. “Like all of his kind, he perished from radiation poisoning and rose from the dead by the will of the Nuke for the express purpose of spreading the very same poison that killed him; a wish which Al denied.”
That took Yuan aback. “He went against the Nuke?”
“He tried. This Al had no wish to kill his fellow man, but such is a nuclear cultivator’s power that they passively befoul the land around them with radiation. From what he told me, he spent many years wandering the wastes as a hermit until he happened upon an ancient power plant.”
Yuan had heard of those Lost Age installations. They used to produce electricity with fuel of all sorts before men discovered how to use qi.
“Scrap scavengers lived inside the facility, but they couldn’t get it to work,” Mordiggian explained. “Until Al came to them. Realizing that the central reactor could contain his radioactive aura, he offered to fuel it on behalf of these people. When I last visited him, they called him Reactor Al and his plant supplied an entire settlement of a thousand inhabitants with electrical power.”
“Like that?” Yuan asked with skepticism. “He didn’t irradiate the area nor blow up?”
“No. Reactor Al turned his Path into a blessing rather than a curse.” Mordiggian locked eyes with Yuan. “If a creature like this man, who was created to bring ruin to all, could overcome his nature and become a positive force in this world… then what excuse do you have, Gunsoul?”
Yuan never had a way with words, and few could affect him. Yet he always strived to listen to advice and learn from others’ wisdom whenever he could.
Mordiggian’s tale and question nagged at him. Arc had Yuan swear never to be a friend to a nuclear cultivator because she didn’t believe any of them could become good. If so, then how could they explain the case of Reactor Al, assuming he indeed existed?
“Is it even possible for us Gunsouls to choose our own way in this world?” Yuan wondered. “We arise by the will of the Gun, and he always comes for us in the end. Its power, it’s… evil. Mindless savagery.”
“The Gun cannot take away your free will, not unless you play by its rules. You can rise above the slaughter and violence to become something else, something better,” Mordiggian insisted with confidence. “That Hitobashira who travels with you… I sensed great suffering in her when I first saw her. She was a slave, wasn’t she?”
“Yes,” Yuan confirmed softly. “I killed her captors.”
“Could you have saved that girl without a gun? Could you have protected her since without the Gun Path?”
Yuan’s jaw clenched. “No.”
“Then why would you call a gun evil, if it gave you the power to do the right thing?” Mordiggian shrugged. “A firearm is no more noble nor vile than a sword, which many heroes carried into battle to defeat great evils. Any tool can be wielded for revenge or justice.”
“You’re saying I could become… what, a gun that protects?”
“Yes,” Mordiggian confirmed. “The Gun is not the end of your Path, but an end: death for death’s sake. In the same way, a road can lead to multiple destinations, we determine our Path as much as it guides us forward. The Flesh Mansion Sect you encountered in Fleshmarket were ruffians, slavers, and organ thieves, but I have met other offshoots that help farmers plant better crops and help the sick achieve their ideal bodies. The same way a Path can take many forms, it has as many interpretations as there are individual perspectives.”
Yuan could see that. He had witnessed Arc and Revolver both use very different Authorities, although they both followed the Gun Path. They had chosen a specific interpretation of it that suited their skills and personality; a will so strong that it grew to overwrite the Dao itself, and in Revolver’s case, temporarily defeat the Gun.
If a Path could branch so far to take such radically different expressions, then where would Yuan’s Bullet Hell lead him to?
Yuan’s gut told him he would find the answer within himself. Mordiggian had given much to think about.
“Thank you for your tea and wisdom, Honorable Sin-Eater,” Yuan said with sincere gratitude. “I may have been wrong about you.”
“Think nothing of it,” Mordiggian replied with a bellowing chuckle. “I pray that my words helped you achieve the clarity your mind aspires to.”
“It gave me perspective at least, but…” Yuan looked at the horizon, imagining the moon about to rise beyond it. “I think I’ll need to consult someone else first before I achieve true clarity.”
“Wisdom comes from many places.” Mordiggian set aside his teacup and turned to look at the ceramic pots he kept in his room. “How about I teach you how to harvest and safekeep spirit-herbs?”
“I would love to.”
Yuan would continue his cultivation with diligence, whichever Path he chose to follow.