The only sound in the alley after a deafening crack was a high pitched ringing in Sun’s ears.

  At the last second before the thug had pulled on the weapon’s trigger, Sun had twisted his body to avoid the attack. And he was glad he did, as he hadn’t been able to dodge it entirely, and he could feel lancing pain across the side of his ribs. He hadn’t been able to even perceive the projectile after it had been fired, like a miniature cannon.

  Then Sun realized, that’s exactly what the pipe was: A handheld cannon. Shooting a small pellet that could move faster than even cultivator eyes could track.

  Sun’s head snapped up to the thugs who seemed even more shocked than he was, seeing him dodge a bullet from point blank range. He righted himself and charged forward as his opponents came back to their senses.

  The chrome-eyed man retrained the gun on Sun as the knife wielder stepped back in panic. Sun grabbed the barrel and pushed it away from his face as another round went off. Chrome-eyes kicked out trying to push away and Sun jumped back but held his grip on the weapon, pulling it away with him.

  Weaponless, chrome-eyes lashed out and grabbed at Sun, catching a part of his robes and pulling himself in for an overhead punch.

  Sun moved to duck under it, but panicked when a pair of arms restrained him from behind. He remembered the first man he had downed and had moved past, thinking he was out of the fight. A heavy fist landed against his jaw and rocked his head to the side, the ringing in his ears becoming a little more pronounced.

  As the man in front of him reeled back for another hit, Sun used his captor as leverage to pull his legs up against chrome-eyes’ stomach. With an application of qi, he pushed with supernatural force and sent them all flying a dozen feet away from each other.

  He landed on top of his captor and felt their grip loosen, so he pulled away hard and rolled onto his knees. He looked down on the man who seemed to be in a daze, his eyes unfocused. He grabbed the collar of the man’s shirt and punched across his chin, and watched as his eyes rolled back and he went limp.

  Panic shot through him for a moment as he thought he might have used too much force and killed him. Cultivators were no strangers to killing, but he had never had to kill anyone before and he’d rather not have his first victim after leaving the sect. He pressed his fingers to the man’s neck and breathed a sigh of relief when he felt a strong pulse underneath.

  Satisfied that the man was unconscious and nothing further, Sun turned down the alley to see chrome-eyes being helped to his feet by the knife wielder. With his feet under him, chrome-eyes shoved his lackey towards Sun telling him to ‘get in there’.

  Sun stood and readied himself to meet the thug as he lunged forward, knife aiming for his stomach. Sun sidestepped and held his arm out against the man’s neck, his momentum carrying him right into the attack. The thug was knocked onto his back, dropping the knife as he cradled his neck and coughed violently, curling into a fetal position.

  Down the alley, chrome-eyes ran and scooped the gun off the ground from where it had been knocked to in the scuffle previously. Sun saw this and leaped behind the nearby dumpster as he let off two more shots at where Sun had been a moment before.

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  The thug clutching his neck gurgled a yelp as he scrambled onto his feet and ran out of the alley.

  As he crouched behind the metal dumpster, Sun breathed heavily and he could feel sweat form on his brow. His life was in danger. Real, actual danger. This was a new feeling for Sun, as even when his sectmates’ bullying was at its worst, he had never been truly afraid for his life. For all that he’d been a failure and an outcast, the sect would not sit idly by if a disciple were to be killed.

  And now here he was. Years of fighting superhumans who could shoot fire from their fingertips and his first brush with death was a street thug with a metal pipe. The fear. The tension. The exhilaration. He was starting to understand why they did it now.

  Another loud crack broke Sun out of his thoughts as a bullet ricocheted off the dumpster. “Get out here, fucker! You think you can mess with me?! Huh?! Fuck.”

  Sun glanced around the corner to see the man, eyes closed, holding his head with his empty hand in some measure of pain.

  Keeping watch on the man, Sun quietly reached for the knife that the fleeing thug had left behind. As he lifted it off the ground, the blade scratched on the pavement and the sound caused the thug’s head to snap up and fire his weapon at Sun.

  In the fraction of an instant before Sun moved back behind the dumpster, avoiding the bullet, he got a good look at the shooter’s face. His metallic eyes were tinged with blood and a mix of fear, rage, and euphoria colored his expression.

  He’d lost it.

  Another shot rang out and hit the side of the dumpster. “Come on! Coward! Where’s your bravado now!?”

  Sun could hear the crazed man approaching, every few steps punctuated by another round fired. He held the knife tightly and pushed a thread of qi into the weapon to strengthen it, wrapping it around and through the metal blade.

  His legs tensed as the man got to the dumpster and readied himself to meet him at the corner. But at the last moment, the sound of movement came down the alleyway and Sun heard the man turn and fire at where the sound had come from.

  Recognizing the opening for what it was, Sun leaped from behind the dumpster and pressed the knife into the man’s back. The man let out a choked gasp and seized. He started turning to face Sun before his legs went limp and he collapsed to the ground. Blood leaked out of his mouth and eyes as he laid motionless on the ground.

  Sun stared at the body for a moment, his heart beating hard in his chest and feeling somehow more exhausted than the day before. A pained groan broke the spell of the moment and Sun looked over to see the once cornered man slumped against the wall, holding his shoulder tightly and grimacing.

  Sun rushed over to the man and knelt beside him, seeing that blood was beginning to seep through the man’s clothes. Sun grabbed the right sleeve of his robe and tore it off at the shoulder, it was the more intact of the two. He wrapped it around the man’s shoulder and pulled the knot tight to stem the flow of blood.

  Sun might not have been trained in medicine, but he’d been in and out of the medical pavilion enough times that he felt he’d gotten the gist of basic first aid.

  “Hah, hah, t-thanks.” The man spoke through gritted teeth, taking short, shallow breaths. “I always knew that guy was a psycho but he must’ve been closer to the edge than I thought.”

  Sun nodded along with what the man was saying, but was more concerned about the wound. It might heal on its own, but without qi, the wound could become infected and turn everything for the worse.

  “Do you know if there is a doctor nearby? Someone who could better treat your wound?” Sun asked.

  The man nodded hesitantly. “y-Yeah, I think there’s a ripper a few streets over from here. Better than going to the hospital at any rate.”

  Sun helped the man to his feet and supported him under his good arm so that he could walk. They started to walk to the end of the alley, stepping over the bodies, before the man stopped.

  “Hey, do you hear that? Sounds lik- oh, shit.”

  Sun wondered what he was talking about when the low whining sound he’d been hearing in the background of the city suddenly became much louder. Two cars with flashing red and blue lights on top pulled in front of the alley at high speed. Sun raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sudden burst of light.

  A total of four figures stepped out of the cars in deep blue uniforms and all pointing guns at him that were similar to the one chrome-eyes had had. All of them began to shout at him, giving him paradoxical orders to both ‘not move’, ‘put his hands up’, and to ‘get on the ground’.

  “Best just to go with it, I find.” The man muttered. “Nice and slow.” He said as he slowly raised his arms, palms out, above his head. Seeing the turn the situation had taken, Sun followed suit, intending to let himself be taken by what he could only assume to be the city guard force.

  Which is why he found it quite unnecessary when one of the guards tackled him to the street.