Gunsoul: A Xianxia Apocalypse - Chapter 47: Behind the Curtain

Among the thousand Paths, none were as reviled as the Sky-Biter’s.

When the Spiral Dancer awakened mankind to the secrets and wonders of cultivation, she showed them all the Way; but not all Paths were as kind as her own. Some were paved with pain and blood.

Few of the people who had witnessed the Unmaking lingered among the living, but their tales of terror survived to this day; stories of great teeth spanning the length of the sky and closing upon mountains to drink the oceans and swallow continents. A single bit that unmade the world.

The Sky-Biter’s table scraps still orbited around the planet as spinning rings of stone and ice. The Fanged Coast itself earned its name because one look at the map showed the outline of an immense tooth.

Obviously, his followers inspired loathing in the wasteland that their Wayfinder had created. No respectable settlement would tolerate a Sin-Eater cultivator among them, and most lynched them on sight. They were a miserable lot forced to hide in the most forgotten corners of the earth.

Yuan’s hand had grabbed his revolver the moment his eyes identified the sect’s symbol. Lady Tama’s cap immediately covered his barrel before he could shoot the Sin-Eater in the head.

“No violence, no no no!” Lady Tama stomped the ground with a hiss that rippled through the air. “No!”

An earthquake shook the entire station, its walls creaking and its ground trembling beneath Yuan’s feet. A few of his armed followers collapsed and tripped behind him, though his aim remained steady.

“Peace,” the so-called Mordiggian said, his palm raised in appeasement. “I have no quarrel with you and seek none.”

Yuan didn’t believe him, but Orient’s soft hand gently touched his arm and lowered it. “Lady Tama would never allow a troublemaker inside her station.”

“Meow, that’s right, right!” Lady Tama nodded furiously. “Mordy is a good guest, who feeds cats and men alike! Show them, Mordy!”

“As you wish,” the Sin-Eater replied. His nails extended into black claws sharper than knives, which he pressed against his neckline.

Then he gutted himself all the way to the navel in one swift stroke.

Holster let out a startled cry of surprise, which a few other refugees echoed. Yuan himself took a step back at this sudden and unexpected turn of events. He awaited the torrent of blood and bile that would inevitably spill out of the Sin-Eater cultivator’s stomach with apprehension.

Yuan would never have expected sausages.

Fresh meat poured out of Mordiggian’s cut in a rolling red mass. Sausages, kidneys, meatballs, and entrails too numerous for the man’s body to contain soon piled up on the ground in a veritable crimson feast.

While Yuan recoiled in disgust—a sentiment shared by many—Tama’s crowd of cats hurriedly grabbed the pieces of meat for themselves. By the time Mordiggian seemingly ran out of food, a pile of flesh nearly as tall as himself stood in front of his obese gut. His skin stitched itself together in an instant.

“This is my flesh, and these fruits my labor,” Mordiggian declared as he grabbed a shining fruit from one of the trees and presented it to Yuan. “Feast as much as you would like.”

Experience had taught Yuan that there was no such a thing as a free lunch in the Unmade World, and hence he looked at the fruit with suspicion. Was it poisoned? Cursed? Or did the Sin-Eater expect a favor in return for his hospitality?

Yuan felt many eyes on himself, mostly from behind. Everyone waited for his reaction, which would likely determine how their entire stop at this strange station would unfold. He could cut the tension in the air with a knife.

His allies would defer to his judgment, and it made him uneasy.

Yuan hated being thrust into a leadership role, especially with a hundred lives on the line and now that he doubted his own Path. He had no idea how to proceed.

What would Mingxia do in his situation? Yuan knew his old friend never reached a decision without gathering all the information she could obtain first. It helped her project an image of intelligence and thoughtfulness that reassured everyone else. I should follow her example.

Yuan decided to play it safe, first scanning the fruit with his qi sight. It looked like a green sphere glowing with qi and relatively ordinary otherwise. Yuan didn’t detect any malevolence or hidden corruption within the gift. Quite the contrary, he had never seen food with such immaculate purity in all the wasteland.

“This is a spirit fruit charged with wood qi,” Yuan said.

“I cultivate spirit herbs, roots, and fruits,” Mordiggian confirmed. “You and your Human Pillar companion will benefit the most from them. Your fellow men shall find them nourishing too. Each of them is worth a full course meal.”

Yuan couldn’t believe his ears. “You would just give them away to strangers?”

“I do not consume them, for I feed on the sins of our few visitors, and good deeds spin karma’s wheel the right way.” Mordiggian shrugged his massive shoulders. “Those who seek to shed their bad karma are welcome to feast with me inside. I shall purify them.”

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Yuan squinted at him with skepticism. While most settlements refused to allow Sin-Eaters among them, he had heard rumors that a few of them welcomed them in secret because of their Path’s unique technique. Namely, they could consume the sins and bad karma of another; allowing even the most hopeless of ruffians a shot at a better reincarnation or to purify a corrupted spirit.

That’s how it works. Yuan studied Mordiggian head to toe. His monstrous appearance was most likely the result of countless sins that he had accumulated from his ‘clients.’ Since he takes others’ bad karma upon himself, he must constantly act charitably to compensate.

His generosity served a tangible end. Yuan could trust that kind of self-interest.

“Thank you, Honorable Mordiggian,” Yuan said graciously after accepting the gift. He felt the tension lessen the moment he seized the fruit within his palm. After all, if the only powerful cultivator on the spirit-train convoy didn’t show concern, then why should Scraps? “Your generosity honors you.”

Yuan could only hope that his choice hadn’t doomed his fellow survivors. If that Sin-Eater did anything suspicious, he wouldn’t hesitate to strike first and ask questions later.

“You are welcome to take as many fruits as you wish, along with their seeds should you desire to plant more yourself,” Mordiggian replied. His genial smile somehow managed to make his horrible face seem nonthreatening. “Please be mindful not to take more than what you need for the sake of future travelers in peril. They too may require help.”

“We shall not abuse your or Honored Eternal Stationmaster Tama’s trust,” Orient added politely. “May we also require your help with another matter? If it is not too much of a bother.”

“Of course, of course!” Lady Tama agreed happily, without even asking for details first. “What do you need?”

“As you can see, I carry too many passengers for my current capacity, which inflicts undue stress on them.” Orient’s grace and poise reminded Yuan of Mingxia in so many ways. “And I see that you have many unused cars. Would you mind if I borrowed a few?”

Lady Tama kindly accepted her request. “Take, take as many as you want!”

“A spirit-train of your power could host a greenhouse on its rails,” Mordiggian said after stroking his oily chin. “I would suggest that you take a few of my spirit-trees with you to feed your passengers. I would gladly teach you how to cultivate them, should you require guidance.”

“A greenhouse?” Orient clapped her hands with enthusiasm. “That would be wonderful.”

“It would,” Yuan conceded. Being able to produce their own food would help feed their passengers, though he had no idea how long and how much effort it would take to produce spirit-fruits. The Stoneskin Sect often spent years perfecting them.

“Work will wait, wait!” Lady Tama declared, her will utterly unshakable. “Let me give you a tour! Yes, a full tour!”

“With pleasure, Lady Tama,” Orient replied while flashing Yuan a telling glance. It would be polite for them to entertain their Maneki-neko host for now. “It will be such a delight.”

With their safety ensured, the spirit-train’s passengers flowed out of its wagons to enjoy a well-deserved rest. The most starved of the lot even dared to take from the sausages and other meats Mordiggian so disgustingly offered them. Most simply followed Orient as Lady Tama excitedly beckoned her inside the station to visit its rooms. Yuan encouraged Holster to follow after them, which she did with a spotted cat following her closely.

“Will you indulge my curiosity for a moment, Gunsoul?” Mordiggian asked him. “It is the first time I have met one of you in decades, and you reek of guilt.”

Yuan’s hands clenched into fists. “Is that a veiled threat of some kind?”

“No, of course not.” The Sin-Eater’s crimson eyes betrayed his wariness. “You do not trust my intentions. You believe I am deceiving you, or Lady Tama. I assure you, I seek no trouble with you nor those under her protection.”

“I doubt that,” Yuan replied flatly. “Your kind has a well-deserved reputation for destruction.”

“Awful, yes. Well-deserved? I must disagree.” Mordiggian shook his head with a heavy sigh. “Our Wayfinder does not deserve your scorn. Lord Kou was the bravest, purest man which I have ever encountered. A noble soul the likes of which only come once in a century.”

“Lord Kou? Is that the Sky-Biter’s true name?” Yuan immediately caught on the man’s peculiar wording. “You say you’ve encountered him?”

To his utter shock, Mordiggian answered with a sharp nod. “I was there when the Spiral Dancer danced the world anew, and when Lord Kou ate its sins.”

“But that would make you–”

“Not so old,” Mordiggian replied with a bellowing laugh. “Many of our people could live over a century without cultivating. Very few remember those days. Not many of us survived half a century of various ascensions, let alone with their wits and minds intact. The more ancient a mind, the more it struggles to adapt to a new reality.”

Yuan crossed his arms. The Sin-Eater spoke with such confidence about such an unbelievable boast that he was either telling the truth or was the best liar he had ever encountered. “I struggle to believe you.”

“What reason would I have to lie?”

“Plenty. You could be trying to impress me or to excuse your Wayfinder’s crimes.” Yuan considered the matter before thinking of a good test for the cultivator’s knowledge. “What do you know about the Cube of Natho?”

“Do you mean the Cube of NATO?” To Yuan’s surprise, Mordiggian appeared to recognize the object’s name. “I haven’t heard of this artifact since the Unmaking. How did you learn of its existence?”

Yuan clenched his jaw and wisely decided not to give too many details. “I carried it around.”

“The real cube? It was found?” Mordiggian’s face twisted into a grimace. “This world would have been a safer place had it remained lost. Do you still have it?”

“No, and I don’t know where it is,” Yuan lied through his teeth. He knew better than to tell a cultivator about its current location. This would spare him messy complications. “A nuclear cultivator is looking for it though. I’m trying to find out why.”

Mordiggian scowled grimly. “I would search for it relentlessly too if it was my god sealed inside it.”

He spoke those dreadful words so casually that it took Yuan’s mind a few seconds to register their significance. A shiver traveled down his spine soon after.

Encountering Manhattan had given him a glimpse of what lay behind the curtain, only for Mordiggian to rip it out and show him the ugly truth it hid; information equally disturbing and frightening in equal measure.

“Come again?” Yuan asked softly.

“The Nuke. The demigod of atomic annihilation and nuclear weapons. The western alliance trapped its avatar inside the cube over forty and a half years back.” Mordiggian marked a short, heavy pause in between his sentences. “You truly didn’t know.”

Yuan held the Sin-Eater’s gaze for a while, then took a deep gunsmoke breath. “Tell me everything.”

“It is a very long story, so you will not mind if we discuss it over some spirit-leaf tea?” Mordiggian took his silence for a yes. He clapped Yuan on the back, then invited him inside a building near the railway. “It all begins with the end of the world…”