Yuan found it difficult to sleep with all the lightning.

He had spent the better part of his evening skewering the centidead’s corpse and tying its chitinous plates together with the rope he got from Kyung-sun around his chest. This makeshift armor wouldn’t stop bullets or blades, but it would lessen their impact. That tiny bit of help often meant the difference between life and death. As for the centidead’s corpse, he put it in the train’s oven for storage. Maybe he would find a use for it later.

Night had fallen upon the Thunderlands by then. The mercury sun had been replaced with a black moon in a sea of dimmed, multicolored auroras. The spirit thunderstorm had worsened since. Lightning struck the wasteland around the train and woke Yuan up before he could manage an hour of sleep. It was starting to get annoying.

At least Yuan wouldn’t have to fear the Moonburn. The veil around the Thunderlands blocked the influence of the other Wayfinders, so he wouldn’t have to fear either night horrors or ghosts returning from the Nowhere.

“Smelled…”

Yuan immediately awoke from his half-slumber. He had heard a voice coming from outside in between two thunder strikes.

Grabbing his backpack and gun, Yuan sneaked up closer to the window. The flashes of lightning let him see the outlines of humanoid figures approaching from the east. Four, maybe five. Yuan briefly mistook them for human marauders until he noticed their tusks, fangs, bulging eyes, and that their gold-colored skin was as thick as leather hides.

They all gripped spiked clubs in their clawed fingers and wore makeshift armor, with one exception. The biggest of them went unarmed and favored tattered monk robes over better defenses. His fiery red mane cascaded over two sharp horns.

A tribe of oni. Wonderful.

“The scent stops here,” the red-maned oni grunted. “The sweet smell of human flesh.”

“Smells more like a centidead to me, Teacher,” another oni argued. “The buggers must have found a new host.”

Teacher. The leader was almost certainly a cultivator. He couldn’t be too high up the Coils with such a small band though.

“This one is too fresh,” the leader insisted, a forked tongue flicking out between his fangs. “Tasty too.”

If you want me, then have me. Yuan loved target practice. This would be a fine opportunity to test Revolver’s qi bullet tactic. Still, he would have to be careful with his limited ammo.

Unable to open the window, Yuan readied his gun. He cautiously aimed at the tribe’s leader. With luck, his death would cause the rest to scamper off. The oni hadn’t noticed him yet, so the first shot would be his.

Let’s see how this works… Yuan cycled his qi inside his body and focused on his revolver. His breath coiled around its cylinder and filled the bullets with power. One bullet, one soul.

Yuan pulled the trigger and his barrel spewed fire.

The bullet shattered the train’s window on its way out in a blazing burst of speed. The sudden movement alerted the oni leader. His body instantly transformed into golden mist, and Yuan’s projectile phased through him. The qi-powered bullet instead hit one of the lesser oni in the chest, the impact blasting its torso apart with the strength of a cannonball.

Yuan’s amazement at this display of strength only lasted until the oni leader regained his physical form. His red eyes glared at the train’s cabin with malice and swiftly noticed Yuan. He immediately charged in his direction with his remaining followers roaring at his back.

“Shit!” Yuan cursed as he fired a second bullet at the oni leader. Like before, he simply turned into golden mist and let the projectile pass through the fog his body became. The bullet instead blasted apart one of the poncho cacti near the train.

As if to defend themselves against an attack, the rest of the plants immediately contracted all at once. Their thousand needles then erupted in a volley striking from all directions.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Yuan immediately took cover under the window to avoid being hit. The oni, too close to dodge, had no such luck. The projectiles pierced their thick skin and impaled their eyes. Their screams of pain echoed across the wasteland.

Then the spirit lightning struck the train.

Electricity coursed through the machine’s metal bowels, jolting Yuan back onto a bench. The Thunderlands infused the train with spiritual power in a flash of golden radiance.

The gears and pistons whistled at once. They began to turn and push on their own, while the oven suddenly caught fire. Ghostly blue flames consumed the centidead corpse inside and unleashed a stream of steam through pipes in the wall. The entire train began to tremble, shaking off the sand covering it.

The engine returned to life with a beastly roar.

Yuan barely managed to hang onto the bench as the train began to move on its own. It swiftly burrowed out the dunes, a centidead-like body of a dozen wagons emerging at the locomotive’s back. The train’s chimney breathed qi-charged multicolored steam as it began to drive west on a set of blazing tracks.

The oni leader, the only one who had avoided the needles, returned to his physical form and continued the pursuit. He swiftly jumped onto the train and managed to hang onto one of the wagons. His students failed to follow; one clumsily collapsed a few inches away from his destination and another fell off in an instant. The rest were too wounded by the cacti to even bother.

Unwilling to fight an oni inside the driver’s cabin where he couldn’t aim well, Yuan exited it and climbed onto its roof. The train drove at a steady pace across the wasteland, but not fast enough to throw Yuan off it. He leaped onto the second wagon and found the oni leader waiting for him at the other end of it. A dozen meters separated them.

Now that he had come closer, the oni’s face began to remind Yuan of Slash’s mask. He would enjoy putting a bullet between these red eyes.

“It’s been a while since the great Toshiro last feasted on a cultivator’s flesh!” the oni boasted, his closed fists raised in a fighting stance. “Any last words?”

“Kill yourself and spare me the trouble,” Yuan replied coldly.

The oni declined his offer with a laugh and ran straight at him.

Yuan didn’t bother stopping him with suppressing fire. He only had four bullets left and none to waste. However, the oni shouldn’t be able to attack and turn to mist at the same time. Yuan’s best odds were to draw him into melee and then shoot him in close range before he could strike.

So he charged into the fray too.

The two duelists met halfway across the wagon, with the so-called Toshiro opening hostilities with a lightning fast punch to the face. His move was simple and easy to predict, so Yuan easily dodged by moving his head to the side. He responded with an uppercut in the oni’s jaw.

The oni’s skin didn’t feel bulletproof to the touch, but he was well-versed enough in the cultivation arts to use a technique. Probably a Second Coil. Yuan had killed a few of those in the past through trickery, but never before had he traded blows with one in melee for long.

There was a beginning for everything.

Toshiro followed up with a flurry of quick blows which Yuan quickly deflected. The same sensation returned each time his palm pressed against the oni’s arm to redirect his attack; a slight pressure in his wrist, almost imperceptible.

This is new. Yuan wondered. A faint sound came from his arm, almost metallic. What will happen if I apply more pressure?

Though Yuan tried to keep a cool head, a powerful rush coursed through his body. He, a former Scrap, was now trading blows with an oni cultivator and pushing him back. Yuan had finally leaped over that gulf of power that separated him from the elites spitting down on him, and it felt good.

Frustrated with his failure at hitting Yuan, Toshiro leaned forward to bite his face off with his fangs. Yuan kicked him in the foot before he could get anywhere close and made him trip. The oni fell to the ground with a loud thump and found himself temporarily helpless.

Seizing his chance, Yuan pointed his revolver at Toshiro’s head and shot him at point-blank range. The oni managed to turn into mist one instant before the bullet could hit his skull. The projectile phased through his foggy head and punched through the wagon underneath them.

Toshiro’s leg made a sweeping motion the moment he regained physical form and hit Yuan’s ankles, causing him to fall to his back. He rolled across the wagon and barely managed to leap back to his feet, just in time for Toshiro to kick him in the chest next.

Oni possessed inhuman strength and this one was no exception. Toshiro’s feet would have crashed through Yuan’s rib cage without his makeshift armor. The centidead carapace instead absorbed most of the impact, though it caused Yuan to stumble back.

“Coward!” Toshiro snarled at Yuan. “What kind of self-respecting martial artist wears armor?”

Says the guy turning to smoke to avoid getting a bruise.

Now back on his feet, Toshiro closed onto Yuan before he could regain his bearing. Yuan instinctively avoided a lethal punch to the face and countered by hitting the oni in the chest with an open-palm strike.

His wrist let out a clicking noise, like the pull of a trigger.

A surge of pain erupted in his hand, followed by a strong shockwave that sent Toshiro flying back. Yuan grunted as the blowback spread through his arm. The blow hurt him as much as his opponent.

Toshiro managed to land on the wagon’s edge. Yuan expected him to fall off the train for a second, but the oni managed to regain his footing. From the way he held onto his chest with his left hand, the blow must have cracked a rib or two.

Toshiro cautiously squinted at Yuan’s hand. “What was that?”

The recoil of a gun, Yuan realized. A Recoil Fist.