Chapter 44: New Stop on the Road
The spirit-train departed Fleshmarket by nightfall.
It was hideously overcrowded. Its wagons were meant to house a few dozen passengers at most, not five times that number of people with all the belongings that they could bring with them. Orient had to set aside space in the luggage, panoramic, and restaurant cars to host everyone.
For his part, Yuan ended up relocating to the engine room at the train’s front alongside Holster and Arc. The latter sat on a bench next to the former, who held her arm and served as a stabilizing influence for her broken bullet-core. Holster managed to suppress Arc’s Authority back inside her body, though Yuan could tell from the sweat on his charge’s forehead that it strained her to her limit.
As for Yuan, he spent most of his time cycling his qi. His Third Coil body presented so many changes.
He healed frighteningly fast for a start. His broken ribs put themselves back together in minutes and a single qi cycling session stitched back all the wounds he sustained from his drawn-out fight with Gayak and Gatling Man.
However, it didn’t heal the way a human’s body should. Strong yet incredibly flexible black metal skin replaced the scar tissue that should have grown on his chest, ankle, and where he took heavy wounds. His veins had taken on a steely hue, their coils transforming into barreled conduits carrying liquid gunpowder through his body. When Yuan cycled his qi, his muscles now felt closer to intertwined triggers, pistons, and other mechanical contraptions than pieces of flesh. His wounded lungs roared like engines inside his rib cage each time he took a breath, and he always exhaled gunsmoke now.
Yuan nerves had transformed into circuits that further heightened his senses. Everything felt so goddamn slow around him, like his mind processed time at a much quicker pace than most. He picked up on things he didn’t before, like subtle changes in temperature and vibrations in the air. His vision had sharpened to the point he could see in the dark. He’d also noticed holes forming in the center of his palms and feet; hidden exhaust ports meant to help him with the Recoil Fist.
Yuan was slowly transforming into a creature better suited to use the Gun Path’s techniques. His bullet-core replaced his flesh with firearm pieces the way a borg replaced each part of his anatomy with electronic devices.
Yuan knew that walking the Path of the Gun meant to become a human weapon, but the more he progressed on it, the less ‘human’ and the more ‘weapon’ he became. He couldn’t pass for a Scrap anymore.