Arc ascended through the atmosphere at phenomenal velocity.

  She moved so quickly that her cloak had burned away at the friction of the air. She had lost her hat too, which annoyed her. It had been a gift from Jim long before he became the Gun.

  But Jim had died long before that poor Revolver put his spirit to rest; their curse had seen to that when it made him its newest host, and Arc had no wish to join him in the Nowhere now. Not while that bastard Zoa continued to breathe, not while the Gun continued to haunt this broken land.

  She refused to bite the bullet before either of them did.

  Why am I getting so worked up? Victory or defeat meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. There would always be a warlord threatening the wasteland, or a disaster knocking down everyone trying to build anything. Arc thought she could make a difference once, and failed. Why make a stand now?

  It’s that brat. Her thoughts turned to her apprentice, who had continued to keep his faith even after seeing where their shared Path would inevitably lead them to. The way he’d picked up that girl Holster and so many companions reminded her of Jim and her own old companions. Curse you, Yuan. You made me care again.

  Arc used Bullet Materialization to fire a bullet back at the earth below, then attempted to switch places with it. She immediately sensed an invisible wall form between her and the projectile that canceled her teleportation technique.

  Her jaw clenched in frustration as she flew through a cumulonimbus. The Yinyang Khan hadn’t severed her from gravity’s bind. He had put a curse on Arc that separated her from the very concept of Earth. His sutra spell widened the distance between them in a way that blocked even teleportation.

  That kind of curse worked on very specific parameters. The best way for Arc to escape it was to change herself.

  “Gun Demon Incarnation,” she whispered to herself.

  Her body changed to fit the shape of her soul.

  Her flesh turned to sleek steel and her skin to graceful, ethereal black leather shaped from woven shadows. Her clothes disappeared, replaced with lethal gear born from the depths of her spirit. A cloak of darkness adorned with skulls flowed from her back; her head grew a new pointed black hat that was part of her skull. It cast a veil on her mirror-face and a high collar of gunsmoke clouds covered her neck. Ammunition belts of spirit-bullets strapped themselves around her waist. Her rifle-arm had grown more grotesque and massive, though it felt light as a feather to her. It had gained three more conjoined barrels to blast a foe with, and a chain coiled around the weapon. Her other hand shed its organic flesh to reveal a skeleton of steel. Only her mane of fiery auburn hair alone remained unchanged.

  Death and elegance, Arc mused. It had been a long time since she used Gun Demon Incarnation, and it never failed to make her feel stylish. I’m digging this.

  It had been so long since she had fought a fight worth her while. It pumped her up with excitement, no matter how much she wished to deny it.

  Arc sensed the Yinyang Khan’s technique losing its hold on her, the curse now unable to identify her new form as its intended target. Her velocity slowed down while she whipped up a circular Barrier on which to stand. From the way she floated above the clouds, the sudden increase in temperature, and the rings of ice floating above her in the void of space, the Yinyang Khan had flung her all the way to the stratosphere. Good thing she stopped there. A few more seconds of this treatment would have sent her spiraling into the darkness of space.

  Arc focused her Truesight on the ground below; on that thin stretch of land between teeth-shaped rocks and an oil sea which people called the Fanged Coast. Her vision sharpened on a massive qi-powered highway, on the ruined city at the beginning and end of it all.

  The Yinyang Khan and Czar Zoa were engaged in a quick-paced fistfight on the ground. The former had more arms to punch with, but the latter was both quicker and a better hand-to-hand combatant. The Khan’s face grew into a maddened scowl as Zoa deflected each and every one of his lightning-fast hits. He must have tried to sever the nuclear cultivator’s soul from his body as well, only to fail miserably.

  Arc knew it was only a matter of time before Zoa found an opening in the Khan’s frantic assault to counterattack. She aimed at both of them with her rifle arm and built up electric qi within it. Her body produced its own bullets while in Gun Demon Incarnation, so she only had to charge it to increase its speed.

  Over twenty kilometers separated them from her.

  Hardly the hardest shot she ever took.

  Railgun Blast.

  A mighty projectile erupted from her cannon-arm at reentry speed.

  A Recoil Blast of tremendous power propelled a fist-sized electrified bullet towards the earth below. It crossed the atmosphere in a split second and hit its targets with the strength to blow up a small city.

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  Both duelists sensed the projectile coming just in time to whip up Barriers to protect themselves. However, only Czar Zoa was familiar enough with Arc’s techniques to create one capable of withstanding the impact. The Yinyang Khan’s shield cracked, the resulting explosion burying him at the heart of a district-sized crater.

  Arc saw Czar Zoa point a hand at her. She barely had time to move to the left with a Recoil Shockwave before a purple gamma ray burst surged from the earth below, piercing the clouds and continuing its course into the depths of space. Arc wasn’t certain how Zoa managed to pinpoint her position, but she felt confident he would lose out on a long-distance sniping duel. She loaded her rifle-arm with a new shot and prepared to fire another Railgun Blast.

  Zoa raised his left hand at her, and Arc plummeted.

  The power forcefully calling her down to Earth felt quite different from the Khan’s curse. Arc had such a sensitive control over her qi that she immediately noticed which parts of her body were caught in Zoa’s technique: the protons and neutrons making up the particles forming her being.

  Meanwhile, Zoa’s right hand shone with the green glow of decaying particles and radiation. He likely intended to hit her with it the moment she made landfall.

  Weak and strong nuclear forces, Arc analyzed as she continued to charge her Railgun Blast. That’s new.

  Zoa had learned new tricks since they last met, sharpened his skills. Arc dominated him during their last encounter until their Authorities clashed, but he had gotten better and her endurance had plummeted since. She doubted she would be able to keep up with him once Gun Demon Incarnation ran out of qi to fuel itself.

  Arc had to take him fast. Blitz him.

  She didn’t fight against her enemy’s pull. Zoa wouldn’t be able to maintain the technique and create a Barrier capable of stopping her attack at the same time. She had a good chance to hit him with the technique if she struck him before he could adjust. Gotta nail the timing just right.

  Arc descended through the clouds at high-speeds, counting the kilometers separating her from the ruins of Battletown. Fifteen. Her immaculate demonic body hardly felt the friction on her iron skin and shadow-leather gear. Ten.

  Czar Zoa tensed up, his knees crouching slightly, preparing for impact…

  Five…

  Zoa’s right palm opened, radioactive smoke seeping between his fingers.

  One kilometer…

  Arc tilted her rifle-arm a tiny bit to right, then fired. Czar Zoa immediately released his hold on her and slammed the ground with his left palm to raise a Barrier.

  Her projectile missed it by a few inches.

  Zoa’s Barrier stopped the impact easily enough; the debris, not so much. Steel propelled at high-velocity by Arc’s shot caused him to trip, just as she hoped. Arc landed on his chest feet-first and followed up with two Recoil Kicks. The blast threw Zoa against the ground and allowed Arc to leap away before he could catch her with his radioactive right hand.

  The Yinyang Khan arose from the smoking crater she created earlier, then waved his arms in a wild chaotic dance. Swirling blades of wind raced from his fingers in all directions, cutting through stone and steel. Czar Zoa slammed one that threatened to behead him between his hands while Arc spun in midair to dodge and retaliated with a Recoil Blast.

  The Khan’s lower hands joined in a mudra sequence. Arc’s attack began to slow down to a crawl until it vanished. So did her next shot.

  Is that a Barrier? Arc wondered as she landed on the ground and ran around the battlefield. She, the Khan, and Czar Zoa exchanged projectiles at a blinding pace; but while the Khan’s wind slashes forced his enemies to dodge to avoid being shredded to ribbons, both their qi-powered bullets and gamma ray bursts lost all power long before they could reach him. No, it’s an innate technique.

  The Path of the Dyad focused on duality; division and cooperation. As the apex of his discipline, the Yinyang Khan managed to divide timespace itself.

  Like Zeno’s Paradoxes, Arc thought after narrowly avoiding a slash that would have beheaded her. It grazed her iron neck too deep for her liking. When time and space are segmented into separate instants, true motion is impossible. The arrow never reaches its target.

  That kind of technique should require immense focus, but Arc knew of a Dyad trick that allowed the user to evenly split their attention. When combined with his extra set of arms, the Khan could likely fuel that defense so long as his mudra sequence was uninterrupted. Arc could only think of a single loophole, though it would cost her a lot of qi.

  “The last you’ll never see,” she incanted, her free hand forming a simple mudra sequence. “Headshot Forge!”

  Arc focused her Authority until it assumed its natural form.

  She forced its wild energies back into its range of a mile centered around herself. The ruins of Battletown transformed into a realm of lead encircled by a ring of gunpowder rivers, all under a veiled dome of gunsmoke.

  Bleeding holes opened up on her foes’ foreheads.

  Most Scraps thought Arc’s Headshot Forge instantly fired a bullet at anyone caught within its range, but they were sorely mistaken. That effect was the result of her broken Authority leaking out of her in an imperfect form.

  In its true form, Headshot Forge began with the end result—a lethal bullet inside the target’s brain—and then retroactively rewrote reality to justify the process of how it got there. The Khan’s impenetrable defense couldn’t overcome that effect, nor could his bulletproof skin prevent the projectile from forming inside him. He let out a scream of rage as a projectile materialized inside his very flesh.

  Two holes appeared on the Yinyang Khan: one in his forehead, the other in the middle of his chest. The latter oddity confirmed he had at least one back-up brain buried beneath his ribs. Arc guessed the Flesh Mansion Sect probably outfitted him with redundant organs and top of the line biogear.

  Nonetheless, it was still difficult for a cultivator to focus with a piece of lead lodged inside their prefrontal lobe. The Khan’s upper hands stopped attacking in a desperate attempt to scratch the bullet out of his skull, while the lower ones struggled to keep the mudra sequence uninterrupted.

  While the Yinyang Khan dealt with his scrambled brains, Czar Zoa continued to operate without issue even with a bullet stuck in his head; as a nuclear cultivator similar to a Gunsoul, he could fight at top performance so long as his core remained intact. The hole in his forehead didn’t even bleed.

  Czar Zoa slammed his hands together, both of them glowing with nuclear light, and then began to chant.

  “I am become Death–” Arc tensed upon recognizing his Authority’s incantation. “Destroyer of worl–”

  Arc cast Bullet Teleportation on the projectile stuck inside his skull.

  She erupted out of Zoa’s head in a shower of bones and diseased white flesh.

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