Chapter 79: The End is Nigh
Orient’s alarm whistle screeched with dread.
The spirit-train had entered the city, riding phantom trails across the remains of a railroad crossing the entire settlement. She drove as fast as she could, smashing through debris and wrecked vehicles that blocked her path at blinding speed; but it wouldn’t be enough.
The Gun had always been faster.
Yuan immediately grabbed his revolver and loaded it to the brim with bullets, while keeping Arc’s final creation in the last chamber. Gunsmoke thunderclouds soon flew over the toppled skyscrapers as their pursuer slowly but surely gained ground on them. Bucket ran into the metal wagon so fast he struggled to breathe beneath his helmet.
“Sir!” His eyes gleamed with fear and panic, the trauma of Fleshmarket’s destruction alive in his gaze. “Sir, is this…”
“Yes,” Yuan replied flatly as he locked in the revolver’s cylinder. No need to sugarcoat the dire truth. “Everyone bunkers down, and don’t bother firing back. It won’t work–”
His body tensed up instantly, his qi senses detecting a surge of energy coming straight at Orient. Yuan barely had time to throw Bucket to the ground before a bullet hit the locomotive with more power than a missile strike.
The impact’s sheer power rippled through the entire spirit-train’s length, shattering windows and bending steel. The locomotive nearly derailed, with Orient’s whistle turning into a wail of pain and suffering. Qi smoke erupted from the spirit-train’s front and obscured Yuan’s vision of the outside.
“Miss Holster!” Orient shrieked through the wagon, the fear in her voice sharper than any blade. “Yuan!”