Gunsoul: A Xianxia Apocalypse

Jared LaChair’s clinic was unlike what Yuan had expected from a Flesh Mansion Sect cultivator.

Instead of a chapel of flesh built from the backs and spines of harvested slaves, it was a mere office located in one of Battletown’s poorest districts far away from the slave market. Glowing bars set into the ceiling nearly blinded Yuan with harsh light when he walked inside while rows upon rows of shelves were filled with bottled body parts and harvested organs. The room was cleanly pristine and free of bloodstains, while strange devices boasting arms equipped with saw blades, needles, and other surgical implements sat in a corner. That alone surprised Yuan, as few self-respecting Flesh Mansion Sect cultivators would rely on machinery.

A look at Jared LaChair told him that the man differed quite a bit from the likes of Gayak and Elder Polio. Yuan might have mistaken him for a Metallist at first glance due to his implants. The mutant stood on four legs of flesh near a table and extracted organs from a dead, doglike spirit-beast with six metal arms equipped with various surgical tools. The cultivator’s torso was a smooth mass of red flesh covered in dozens of eyes, with the remains of a bandaged head atop the shoulders. It turned in Yuan’s direction when he heard him enter his clinic, his nose pointing at the Khan’s bracer on his arm.

“I’m not affiliated with the Flesh Mansion Sect’s racers,” Jared said almost immediately with a gargled voice coming from his chest. Others must have visited him before Yuan in search of intel. “I don’t have any information to give you.”

“I’m not here for that,” Yuan replied. “Mordiggian sent me."

“Mordiggian?” The mutant’s head tilted slightly to the side in surprise, though he continued to operate on his subject. “Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. You want your metallic implants gone without losing your core, right? It’s usually why he recommends me.”

“I’m fine.” Yuan didn’t bother correcting him. Gunsouls seemed rare among these parts and the more people mistook him for a Metallist, the better his chances to take his enemies by surprise. “Mordiggian told me you might be able to cure a Human Pillar.”

Jared LaChair’s metallic hands froze inside their ‘patient’s’ guts. He pondered Yuan’s words before pointing at a metal bench near the organ shelves.

“Sit there,” he said. “Gimme a second to finish, then we’ll talk.”

Yuan didn’t protest. He sat and watched as Jared extracted every organ from the spirit-beast, its pulsating core included, then placed them inside jars smelling of formaldehyde. The strange surgeon then shoved the corpse into a small box near the table; one with teeth and a tongue that swiftly swallowed the flesh and bones with a hungry growl. From the qi it produced, Yuan assumed it must have been a pet mimic of some sort.

“Cure how?” Jared asked curtly.

“Cure her of everything,” Yuan stated bluntly. “Can you repair her core?"

“Maybe,” Jared replied. His hesitance felt like a cold shower to Yuan. “How old is she?”

“She’s a child no older than ten.”

“Good for her.” Yuan’s outrage must have shown on his face, for Jared immediately waved a metal hand at him. “Don’t misunderstand me. A Human Pillar’s core builds up qi as they grow older, which increases instability and the risk of it blowing up during the operation. She hasn’t reached puberty yet, so she has good odds of fully recovering.”

Yuan’s jaw clenched in frustration. “Good odds?”

“Repairing a Human Pillar’s core is an Elder-level surgical operation, doubly so if you want them to live through it. It’ll cost you a lot.”

Yuan expected as much. “How much do you want?”

“It’s not about what I want, it’s about what I need. I would have to buy special cultivation tools, not to mention the pills and medicine to forestall side effects.” Jared LaChair crossed his arms, all three pairs of them. “What do you intend to do with her afterward?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“I suppose not, but I’m curious,” Jared replied. “It’s not often someone visits me to undo what makes a Human Pillar so valuable around these parts. Is she family?”

The question sounded innocent enough, but it took Yuan aback nonetheless. Family? He didn’t remember his own, so he had little idea of what it meant. He had seen how people behaved with their siblings—Jaw-Long and Mingxia came to mind—but he didn’t think he and Holster shared that strange, half-insult, half-kind words dynamic either.

Nonetheless, the way Holster stared at him sometimes reminded him of how a child looked up to their parents. Maybe she considered him like the father she never had.

“Something like that,” Yuan confirmed. If being family meant being willing to kill to protect someone, then he and Holster more than fit the bill. “I suppose.”

“I see.” Jared remained silent for a moment, his eyes carefully studying Yuan’s metallic parts. “Does the name ‘Revolver’ mean anything to you?”

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Hearing his fellow Gunsoul being mentioned caused Yuan to stare at the surgeon in surprise. He immediately cursed himself for his lack of self-control. Of course a Flesh Mansion Sect cultivator would know of Revolver, they put a price on his head.

“You’re like him, aren’t you?” Jared asked, his many-eyed stare lingering on Yuan’s iron arms. “Those parts aren’t implants. They’re naturally grown.”

“I don’t know where Revolver is,” Yuan replied sternly. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“You couldn’t pay me to see the guy again.” Jared sat on his surgical table, his four legs dangling in the void. “I was there when Polio had him shot.”

That confession surprised Yuan almost as much as a very telling detail: namely, that Jared conveniently forgot to call Polio ‘Elder.’ That spoke volumes about his standing in the sect.

“You lived in Fleshmarket,” Yuan guessed, barely hiding his resentment.

“I wish I never visited that hellhole.” The disdain in Jared’s voice sounded real enough. “I came from a smaller offshoot of the Flesh Mansion Sect further south. The kind that focuses on crops and animal husbandry instead of human experimentation and slavery.”

Yuan scoffed. “A rare breed.”

“We’re more numerous than you think in the outback, but the slave guilds have a lot more resources. Infernals and spirits don’t trade favors for chicken meat.” Jared let out a grunt of disgust. “My teacher sent me to Polio to study fleshcrafting. I hardly lasted a year before all the misery and torture wore on me.”

“Did you create Human Pillars?” Yuan asked with a dangerous edge to his voice. If he did…

“Hell no. I tried to stick to providing medical assistance and avoid dirtying my hands, but Polio kept pushing my limits. Harvest that organ before that slave dies, repair that one so he can go back to work…” Jared shook his head. “When I realized he would inevitably put me through an ultimatum of some kind, I jumped at the first excuse to leave. Haven’t touched the slave trade since.”

“That’s why you run a clinic on your lonesome? To avoid partaking in it?” The surgeon confirmed it with a nod, which Yuan could respect. “Who was he? Revolver?”

“A slave,” Jared replied bluntly. “Polio’s hunters raided his village and put a collar on him. I never learned his true name. He was pretty good at shooting people with a revolver even back then, so the nickname stuck.”

This saddened Yuan. He had hoped that someone out there would at least recall his fellow Gunsoul’s true name. Revolver deserved better than being remembered as the newest Gun.

“How did he die?” Yuan asked softly. Though he had heard details from Polio and Revolver himself, he lacked the full story.

“He kept trying to escape or rousing slaves into doing the same, which escalated into an incident where he stole a Scrap guard’s gun and shot two First Coil students dead.” Jared cleaned blood off one of his razor hands. “Some suggested lobotomizing him to keep him quiet, but Polio thought he would serve better as an example to other slaves.”

Yuan struggled to hide his disgust. “They had him executed in public.”

“I remember what Polio said that day,” Jared said. “‘No true cultivator should waste their technique on a Scrap.’ So he had Revolver shot in the back of the head and his body thrown into the desert to rot.”

Yuan could see the obvious parallels with his own story. He and Revolver had lived by the gun and been executed with one by a cultivator who wouldn’t waste their skills on them. He wondered if Arc suffered through a similar event, or if it was a recurring pattern with the Gun’s chosen.

“I imagine he cused his decision after Revolver rose from the dead,” Yuan said.

“He did,” Jared replied with a strange, bellowing sound which Yuan took for a dark laugh. “I left Fleshmarket after that, but kept in touch with some people. By the time Polio realized the mysterious gunslinger harassing his men was the same slave he executed months ago, he had already grown strong enough to fend off bounty hunters.”

Yuan supposed Revolver at least got his revenge by helping destroy Fleshmarket, in a roundabout way. It saddened him that it came at the cost of his soul and freedom.

“You remind me of him,” Jared said. “I assume the Human Pillar you want me to cure is a slave you rescued?” He took Yuan’s tombstone silence in stride. “I won’t give you up to slavers. I’m fine with operating her, but unless you have Elder-level resources to call upon, I doubt I can help you.”

Yuan refused to give up. “What if I win the History Road race?” he asked, grasping at straws. “Would the Khan’s promised fortune be enough to cover her treatment?”

“Maybe?” Jared didn’t sound too confident. “I don’t know what to tell you, man. It depends on if I can obtain the necessary tools and pull off the operation.”

The more Yuan considered it, the more this plan sounded unrealistic. He and Arc would likely have to skip town to keep the Cube of NATO safe from thieves and power-hungry cultivators; not to mention the danger that the likes of Manhattan and Yinyang Khan posed to them.

His bullet-core pounded in his skull. A detail about Jared’s diagnosis of Holster worried him.

“You said her core will become unstable as she ages,” Yuan whispered. “What do you mean by that?”

Jared didn’t answer for a few seconds. “I won’t lie to you,” he finally said. “That girl’s core is likely to rupture and kill her by the time she reaches puberty, if not beforehand. Human Pillars aren’t built to last.”

A cold shiver took over Yuan, straining his muscles and freezing his gunpowder blood in his veins. He recognized that feeling, though he hardly felt it anymore: the chilling kiss of fear.

Part of him already suspected something like this. All Human Pillars he heard of were children, but he simply assumed that their creators stuck to young people because spirits and infernals found them more valuable. He hadn’t considered the possibility that they came with an expiration date.

The idea of Holster dying so young shook him to his core.

“There are options,” Jared said upon sensing his unease. “A powerful Long spirit could cure her, and there are artifacts out there that might do the same. If the worst comes to pass, Mordiggian can consume her core.”

“And turn her into a Scrap,” Yuan replied without enthusiasm. He knew it was hypocritical since he had been one not too long ago, but becoming a Gunsoul had since opened his eyes. Holster would be prevented from doing so many incredible things… and becoming a Scrap meant being preyed upon by cultivators.

No, no, he was letting his feelings cloud his judgment. Removing Holster’s core wouldn’t have to be the end of it. Yuan worked for years to gather enough cash and contacts to buy himself a pill. He had far more resources now, and strength to spare. He could find one for Holster’s sake.

“Could she develop a new core after her old one is removed?” Yuan asked. “By taking a pill?”

“No,” Jared replied, dashing his hopes. “Her body will be so spiritually weakened it will be unable to form one even with a qi infusion, bar the intervention of a powerful spirit or force. I wouldn’t risk it."

Of course it couldn’t be so simple. Nothing ever was.

Nonetheless, Yuan refused to give up. Something deep inside his bullet-core compelled him to find a better option; one that would let Holster keep her powers without robbing her of her future.

He would give her the life he always wanted and never had.