They all ganged up on Manhattan in a desperate last stand.

Mel and Hardy formed a connecting thread of qi between their hands, which Yuan recognized as the same technique they used to cut Duckman in half during the race. He himself grabbed his revolver with his free hand and held the cube with the other. He fired a volley of elemental bullets at the nuclear cultivator while his allies attempted to slice him in two.

Manhattan simply dodged Yuan’s bullets and then cut the brothers’ thread with a wave of his palm.

Yuan had seen the latter slice a man in two easily enough, but Manhattan had snapped it with a flick of his fingers like a silk string. The nuclear cultivator ignored the brothers and charged at the Gunsoul in the blink of an eye, his gaze solely focusing on the cube.

Yuan immediately retreated with a Recoil Shockwave, only for Manhattan to teleport right in front of him in a flash of green protons, a radioactive fist aimed at his face.

Yuan’s senses let him see and react quicker than any man, but he still failed to dodge the blow in time. A sharp surge of pain erupted in his skull as Manhattan’s fist shattered his lower jaw and sent it flying into pieces.

It could have been worse. Had Yuan been a split second slower, then the blow would have torn off his entire head and his bullet-core along with it.

The fact he was alive at all spoke volumes about Manhattan’s state of weakness. Yuan had witnessed him exchange blows with Arc and the Khan at speeds that surpassed Coyote’s. He was slow, and his blows lacked their previous weight.

But a weakened Fifth Coil cultivator was still in a league of its own.

“I should have killed you back then…” Manhattan said without pity nor anger, his other fist raised for a second blow. “Would have been… a mercy…”

Wagering everything on his foe’s obsession with the cube, Yuan threw it and his revolver up in the air. Manhattan’s eyes looked up at his prize, which created an opening. Yuan immediately exploited that split second of inattention to follow through with a Gatling Fist-Black Haze combo. His hands surged with the sound of gunshots, only to hit an impenetrable wall of Barrier-powered palms.

The likes of Gayak and Chemzard had managed to hold off the assault for a while before faltering, but Manhattan once again proved himself to be in an entirely different league. He anticipated and blocked all Yuan’s blows, even those shrouded by Black Haze, then slipped a punch through his defense. The Gunsoul let out a growl of pain as the blow flung him back a few feet. A melted hole of irradiated iron grew in the center of his chest.

The duel ended before the cube and revolver even hit the ground.

“Did it give you any… satisfaction?” Manhattan asked, turning around just long enough to dodge Mel and Hardy’s attempts to sucker punch him. He kicked one brother into the other’s way, sending them both flying against the closed Barrier encircling the area. “Killing your murderer?”

He’s too strong for us. Yuan already knew the gulf that separated him from the likes of Arc and Manhattan, but that last exchange of blows had only strengthened that certainty. Even with his core cracked, even after losing an Authority clash and wasting a godawful amount of qi, the nuclear cultivator still thoroughly outclassed all his assailants. The best we can hope for is to hold him back until Orient arrives.

Yuan did see a silver lining in Manhattan’s reaction. If he actually bothered to dodge Mel and Hardy’s blows, even after barely suffering any scratch from their earlier fireball, then it meant he believed that they could hurt him. He wasn’t invincible.

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“Won’t let you have the cube,” Yuan growled through the hole in his mouth. He used a Recoil Shockwave to throw himself at the artifact and grab it in the air alongside his revolver, then fired at Manhattan while in midair.

“You will be like Sisyphus on his hill…” Manhattan replied while easily dodging the projectiles. “We children of the Nuke… and fools seeking its power… we will never stop looking for it.”

Yuan had no idea what he referred to, nor the time to ponder it for long. Manhattan pointed a finger at him, a gamma ray burst of blinding light erupting from it. The laser hit Yuan through the chest in midair, vaporized all of his left ribs, and sent him crashing back-first into the Barrier. He lost his grip on his revolver during the crash, though he managed to hang onto the cube.

The searing pain paled before the numbness that spread down his damaged spine. The lower half of Yuan’s body seemed to vanish to his senses, replaced with melting burns.

I can’t feel my legs. Yuan only required his bullet-core to survive, but he still required his qi-circuits to move his metallic flesh around. Manhattan’s attack had liquefied most of his spine and left him stranded on the ground. This is bad…

A specter of blinding light loomed over him.

“You wasted your new life… seeking ephemeral strength… and chasing after pointless desires…” Manhattan glared down on Yuan, his eyes glowing with the green light of nuclear annihilation. The radiation leaking out of his damaged core battered the Gunsoul in waves of searing heat. “Like Arc before you…”

Yuan would have clenched his jaw if he still had one. Instead, he could only glare as Manhattan raised his foot to stomp on his skull.

Then he noticed the phantom tracks.

An endless procession of ghostly rails and crossties covered the ravaged streets of Battletown, forming a clear line surrounded by tiny walkways enclosed in the giant Barrier. A blinding star shone in the wasteland and advanced upon them at immense speed. It rode the artificial leyline connecting the city to its landmarks in a wave of energy that put even the weight of Authorities to shame.

“What’s this?” Manhattan wondered in shock, his voice quieter as he stared at the surge of qi rushing towards them. “A desperate trick?”

Yuan immediately noticed it; that familiar edge in his words, that emotion which he had thought the nuclear cultivator bereft of.

Fear.

For the first time in the entire battle, Manhattan was unsettled. Off his game. Arc had pushed him to his limits, weakened him until he had to put actual effort into fighting lesser cultivators. He was no longer certain of his victory. He had no idea what kind of danger approached, or for what purpose.

Yuan saw his chance and took it.

“It’s death,” Yuan replied, his Recoil Fist shockwave traveling through his palm. “Your god’s death!”

Yuan launched the Cube of Natho in the tracks’ path with a well-placed shockwave.

It was a bluff, a gamble born of desperation. Yuan had no idea whether what was coming would indeed destroy the sealed Nuke… but Manhattan couldn’t tell either.

Yuan could see the Nuclear Buddha’s thoughts written all over his usually emotionless skull. Had it all been a setup? An elaborate ritual to destroy the Nuke while he was on the verge of victory? Had this been Arc’s plan from the start? Was this why she sacrificed her life? Because it would ensure her final triumph?

Manhattan was doubting himself, and doubt made even the strongest act irrational.

He decided that the risk was simply too great. Manhattan used his teleportation ability to reappear right next to the cube and catch it in midair, sealing his fate.

If his core hadn’t cracked… if he wasn’t struggling against the wounds ripping his body apart… if he hadn’t wasted so much qi in battle… and if Yuan hadn’t nailed his timing… then Manhattan would have likely caught his prize and fled away from the tracks. But all of these factors had slowed him down just enough.

And not even light could outspeed a bullet train.

Orient rammed into Manhattan in a cataclysmic crash.

Yuan’s enhanced sight hardly caught a glimpse of the collision before a cloud of light and nuclear smoke swallowed him whole. He saw Orient hit Manhattan and the cube, sutras woven into her iron frame shining brightly; the same formulas that Holster once used to purify the corrupted Rad-hag which she used to be. Manhattan’s cracked core shattered like Arc’s did in a bright apocalyptic flash, like a bottle shattering to release the water inside. A great brightness swallowed Yuan whole in a flood of green particles.

Then there was light.