Stepping out of the black stone portal, the Stranger finds herself on the stairway to heaven. It sure doesn’t look that way. The once white steps are now all stained red with monsters’ blood. Corpses litter the place, even trudging through them is quite a task. The woman can guess what happened here or more like, who came through here.

And yet, the cosmos is still encroaching. Is he still fighting up there or has the old hunter failed already? Whatever the case, he has come far for a mere human.

But he wasn’t the only one. The Stranger meets with another, sitting on the stepped. The Owl was nearly cut in half by the steel blade, but he survived. His wound is all wrapped up, but he won’t live for much longer, he shouldn’t be living this very moment. But the man is waiting for something and so he refuses to fall into the abyss.

“Took you long enough” Wyatt Black said to the Stranger.

“I had a detour, to see an old friend” She answered, tipping her hat low to hide the eyes.

“You have anything left in there?” The man asked, looking at her revolver.

“No, unfortunately”

If he decides to shoot back, there is nothing she could do but take the shot. But not like it will matter, the Stranger will survive no matter how many shots, steel or not. With her belly’s full, any wound he is capable of inflicting is not enough. This is not a fight nor a duel, if he chooses the gun, it will be a massacre.

For the Owl, there is only one way. The man draws his revolver but points it at the sky. He opens the cylinder and catches the bullets falling onto his palm. Wyatt proceeds to load in exactly one bullet and throws one at the Stranger.

“I would love to give you the full course, but this is all I can do now” He said painfully, clutching his wound “Heh, don’t expect this to slow me down one bit though”

“I wouldn’t dare to” The Stranger loads the bullet into her gun.

This might just be a road bump for the woman, but she doesn’t take it that way. There’s more on the table, more important than her life and his. After all, what value does such a thing have to an immortal or someone who is willing to die.

Putting their revolvers back into the holster, the two gunslingers wait for some sort of sign.

Who draws first? Who shoots first? Who is faster? That is impossible to see for a mere bystander. Both shots hit at the same time and only one falls to untrained eyes. But among the two, there is only one victor.

The Stranger walks over to the lifeless corpse of Wyatt Black. His bullet is lodged in her heart but that doesn’t matter.

On his face is a smile, the man dies, having lived a satisfying life. When he walked this world, the Owl had created the Desert Ranger. The man single-handedly revolutionised the art of gunslinging. The eternal protector of the West, they called him. But not one moment was he satisfied around ‘his’ people, ‘his’ family. All of that was simply his brother’s legacy. The man was a wanderer, Riven was never his home, nowhere was.

But now, this very day. Not only did he meet one but two who brought him such happiness. The pale demon, the pale gunslinger, the fastest hand in the West lies in the stairwell to heaven among a sea of corpses.

The Stranger takes the bullet pouch by his belt, Wyatt Black’s legacy.

As she moves on, the woman muses about what happened. That man was in many ways similar to her. Even though he was in the end, a mere human, it never felt that way. His pale skin, his skill that might as well made him immortal, to the West the man was a legend, a deity. And now, facing with the man in the flesh, she could tell the stories were all true.

Perhaps one day, she will meet someone who could match her. Is someone like that is currently existing out there? God-defying Doctor Frankenstein seems like a best choice as he actually has a mean to end her? Theresa Black, descendent of the Owl? Even the old hunter, if he is still alive. Or maybe, such a person hasn’t existed yet. But just like her and the old hunter were to the Owl, every legend has its end. One day, someone could truly provide her with a challenge and killing her off for good.

That sounds like a perfect ending.

But the Stranger will have to survive what is to come. The cosmos is more than enough to swipe her existent away. There is no regeneration is there is nothing to regenerate.

“Seems like I have more reason to stay alive now” The Stranger told herself.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

As she approaches the end, the darkness itself shudders. From around, the stars come crashing down, unleashing the acolytes of the cosmos. But like the man who came before, they were helpless against the Stranger. She fans the hammer, dropping six of them dead in an instant.

Swinging opens the cylinder, the woman loads six more before the dropped shells could even touch the ground. The acolytes simply don’t stand any chance.

But the deity should have known it already with its eldritch wisdom. Is this desperate act are the acolytes’ own doing or is the force swallowing this world even a deity at all, or just an especially powerful acolyte?

Reaching the end of the stairway to heaven, the Stranger could find… nothing. Up here, there is no longer any star shining, only pure darkness. The invading force has been awakened and left their realm already. An item stands out in the emptiness, however, a simple stone ring.

“You sure have caused a lot of troubles, little guy”

The Stranger picks up the item and leaves. As she walks down the stair, the woman is once assaulted by a legion of monsters and the like. The revolver fires true, cutting a bloody path through them. When the bullets run out the Stranger draws a steel black that once belonged to the Smiling Hunter. With it, she cleaves through the horde.

This journey back is seemingly endless and so are the monsters. But the Stranger simply continues trudging on, cutting them into pieces. They all bleed in this monochrome world, painting it red.

Finally, the Stranger steps back into the forest once again, near the end of the final century.

There she is greeted by a familiar face. “Good to see you here, boy” The woman said, patting her horse. The animal recoils back, its face scrunch up smelling all the gores. “And here I thought you should have gotten used to this already”

After some convincing and a lot of promises, the horse finally allows the Stranger to mount it. She, of course, notices her case missing. A shame really, hopefully she won’t need it for the fight to come.

From afar, the Stranger can see the storm threatening to lift the woodland settlement away. But it is still there, meaning that someone is still fighting.

“Guess I can’t use this here”

Putting the stone ring into her pocket, the Stranger races away. Looking to it now will let something terrible through, the settlement wouldn’t stand a chance. On the way, she can see the body Michael, still with a spear through his throat. The woman can guess what had happened. She could see a darkness in his eyes but hoped that maybe he would put the people over his desire for vengeance, as a knight should.

Passing through the gloomy forest, the Stranger finally reaches a clearing.

Outside is a greenfield going as far as the eyes can see, dotted with hills and forests. Nearby the woman can see on the road an abandoned caravan, the people already spirited away.

“Let’s go, boy”

She continues to ride on, loading the revolver with special bullets saved for this occasion. They were made to kill her, a mockery of life and God, but those are capable of so much more. Perhaps slaying a deity is one of them.

Finally, the horse comes to a halt, this should enough. In the middle of nowhere, she could look through the ring without affecting anyone.

Jumping down, she tells the animal “You can go now, whatever you wanted”

But the thing just wheezes in contempt and refuses to comply with that order. The Stranger smiles, guess she won’t be alone for this final stretch.

In the plain, everything seems so peaceful especially after the hell she had waded through. The wind is blowing strong, ruffling her crimson hair. The Stranger shivers slightly in the cold without her duster. The woman can her voices carried by the wind, figments of her mind? Looking up, she can see the those who have lost among the star.

Those that she has gotten so used to, Siobhan and Walker, now no longer around. Once, their presences were so natural that it was like rain falls. Without the two, the Stranger can’t help but feel a pang of forlorn.

The old hunter and Wyatt Black, exceptional humans that she had the chance to cross path with. The former in such a random fashion, for someone like that to be in the area just as the right time. Too bad she never got the chance to test herself against him.

Then there are those that she regrets, Michael to be the most recent, consumed by vengeance. Miriam and Mordia, they were both too good for this world. The former had spurred her on this journey in the first place. For an immortal, the end of the world doesn’t seem like a big deal, but a release. And there was Clayton Black, a bright gunslinger with a glorious future awaiting him. But alas, him and his company were sent to die against the pale rider herself.

She doesn’t see that raider, yet. He is still out there somewhere, struggling.

“Hm, is this your idea of trying to stop me?” The Stranger spoke to the deity.

Those who died are now one with the cosmos, with heaven. Is she going to tear it down, what will happen to them? To those that the woman herself had lost.

“Sorry, but this… is the land of the living”

Placing the stone ring in front of her eyes, the Stranger gazes up toward the night sky. The countless stars are shinning blindly, covering the sky in their hungry light. On them are eyes watching this realm with childlike curiosity. All of them hungry looking at their treat.

The moon is oppressively gigantic, as a form, a representation of the cosmos. It dwarfs every other star in size, coming closer and closer. Or is it getting bigger and bigger, swelled up with the worlds, the lives it had consumed.

On it are countless eyes, staring unfocused into the distance. Then at once at the end of the century, they all close. The moon, for a moment, look like its usual self. That doesn’t last long as something opens like an eye but there is seemingly nothing in it. But if one looks closer, one could the see the cosmos within.

That universe reaches out from the eye like a tongue, hungrily wrapping itself around the world. Around, the stars all blink in excitement, filling the sky with their garish colours.

With its tongue of the cosmos, the moon drags the world toward like a round candy, intending to swallow everything whole. Along with it the lives that used to exist, the life that are currently living and the lives that are to come. All will be consumed in one gulp by the hungry cosmos.

Then this world will be like many other, united, no longer lonely.

“Not on my watch”

The Stranger raises her revolver straight into the sky, into the hungry moon and fires.