Chapter 77: Last Safeties (+Book Launch on Amazon)
Yuan watched Battletown sink below the oil waves from his window, with Holster clapping her hands on his lap.
An earthquake had followed the triggering of History Road’s last ritual, one strong enough to shake the entire region. The spirit-train had long departed the area by then, but they could still feel the tremors from miles away.
The spectacle started at dawn with blazing fireworks. The History Road landmarks all glowed at once brighter than stars and formed a circle of light that engulfed Battletown’s ruins. More qi than Yuan had ever sensed in his life rippled through the circuit and shattered the road on which it was built. The very land sank under a tide of sand and mud that buried all the monuments under the earth. A good chunk of the region then collapsed into the nearby Oil Sea, bringing out a black flood that washed away everything.
The cataclysm lasted mere minutes, yet easily buried years of work and construction. It only heightened the magnitude of the gulf that separated Arc and Manhattan from Yuan. Neither of these two required such an extensive setup to lay waste to the world.
If Yuan hoped to defeat the Gun, he would have to double down on his training. Time was already running out.
“I know that I should not rejoice at a settlement’s destruction,” Orient noted as they watched the devastation from her locomotive’s seats with Holster and Gotama. “However, I believe I will make an exception in this case.”
“Good riddance,” Yuan agreed. He was glad that all the corpses piled up under that cursed fiefdom’s foundations would finally find rest; every survivor worth rescuing had already been evacuated outside the devastation’s range after they scavenged everything they could recover from Battletown. Holster appeared to agree too, her eyes wide open with fascination as she watched the destruction.
Nonetheless, Yuan’s eyes couldn’t help but wonder at the horizon. Although Mount Rushfort and its nearby village had sunk below the waves, he knew better than to expect Revolver to have followed suit.
He couldn’t tell how long his old ally could hold back the Gun within him to resume its pursuit. It took a city-sized firefight and the presence of three Gunsouls in Fleshmarket’s premises to push the demigod of ultraviolence to action, and it hadn’t made a move even after Manhattan had wiped out most of Battletown’s population. Maybe its aggression varied depending on how many deaths by firearms fueled its bloodthirst.