The bullets flew across the highway like shooting stars in the night sky.

  The Gun was quicker on the draw, but Yuan had anticipated the shot. Combining the Recoil Shockwave and Black Haze, he swiftly shifted to the left to avoid the impact. The Gun’s projectile missed his head by an inch and hit a building in the background, vaporizing it in an instant.

  The Gun avoided Yuan’s shot the same way he did, the monster’s body sidestepping left and right to the tune of Recoil Shockwaves. The two gunslingers circled each other at blinding speeds across the highway while unloading their weapons. Afterimagines followed in their wake while explosions rocked the crumbling skyscrapers flanking the lanes. Yuan had lost sight of Orient by then and couldn’t afford a split-second of inattention to check on her. He could only hope she managed to flee away to safety.

  When only Arc’s bullet remained inside his revolver, Yuan suddenly switched tactics and lunged at the Gun to engage him in hand-to-hand combat. He closed the gap between them in an instant and punched what used to be Revolver’s face with all his might. He infused his fist with qi and followed up with a mighty Recoil that would have blasted a man to pieces.

  His blow barely made the Gun flinch.

  The monster’s jaw opened to breathe a rattle of gunsmoke, while its cybernetic left hand closed around Yuan’s throat. The Gun leaped off the highway in a mighty Recoil-powered jump with its enemy in its grip. He rammed Yuan’s head against a building’s roof upon landing, the two smashing through half a dozen floors.

  The Gun pointed its revolver at Yuan the moment they landed on a slab of concrete while keeping him bound with his other hand. Yuan immediately counterattacked by opening his mouth and unleashed a mouthful of Dragon’s Breath into the monster’s face. Magnesium-powered flames incinerated the Gun’s skull and briefly repelled him.

  Exploiting his enemy’s brief shock, Yuan grabbed the barrel of the Gun’s revolver between his teeth and swiftly pulled it back, disarming his surprised enemy and sending the firearm flying away. He then pivoted to kick the Gun in the skull. The Recoil-powered blowback sent the demigod back and forced it to release its grip on him.

  Yuan immediately regained his footing and punched the Gun through a window, the two of them crashing onto a crossroad street below.

  The duelists faced each other under a streetlight, surrounded by silence and the ransacked ruins of empty shops. They barely exchanged a glare before they lunged at one another in near-perfect synchronization. The Gun raised its fist to meet Yuan’s own in the middle of the lane. They triggered their Recoil Fists at the same time, metal clashing against metal.

  Yuan felt like he was fighting his mirror.

  The funhouse kind.

  The resulting backlash shattered all windows across the street, cracked the concrete lane, and sent the two fighters flying across the street. The Gun crashed through a wall while Yuan landed more softly in an empty house full of mannequins covered in long-rotten clothes. He briefly wondered if the city’s defenders used them as training dummies before abandoning the settlement or if they served some other purpose in the Lost Age, before deciding he didn’t care either way.

  Yuan knew that his only hope to win was to somehow land the Perfect Shot, but he likely would have to rough up the Gun first. A difficult prospect.

  That thing hits harder than Manhattan, is twice as resilient, and moves just as fast, Yuan analyzed grimly as he rose back on his feet. The Gun had already walked out of its hole. At least there’s no finesse to its blows.

  The Gun’s attacks were simple and predictable, its fists hitting like bullets aiming for a target. Arc had warned him that the demigod’s fighting style depended on its host, and Yuan had never seen Revolver make much use of the Recoil Fist. He might have the edge in close quarters combat.

  Yuan could also pull out Gun Demon Incarnation, but he quickly decided against it. The technique was his trump card, and most importantly, it burned through his qi at an accelerated pace. He couldn’t afford burning out without at least assessing the Gun’s capabilities first. Revolver had barely managed to create his Authority before the Fleshmarket debacle, and Yuan had no idea how much his possession empowered him since.

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  He would hold off Gun Demon Incarnation for the final stretch.

  Holstering his revolver, Yuan ran across the street. The Gun leaped into the air rather than engage him in hand-to-hand combat, bouncing off a streetlight and then flying towards a skyscraper’s roof. Two new revolvers materialized in its hands to replace the one it had lost earlier.

  Yuan used a Recoil-powered jump to close the gap between them in an instant. He punched the Gun in the face before it could fire and sent it flying backward at lightning speed. Yuan immediately realized his mistake when his enemy unloaded its revolvers’ payload at him in midair. Shooting stars faster than sound and stronger than missiles burst out of the twin barrels in a heavenly barrage.

  Yuan immediately retreated by cloaking himself in Black Haze and flying back, then moved behind skyscrapers to use them as shields. The Gun’s shooting stars pulverized entire floors with a single projectile.

  Light illuminated the ruined city again after decades of decay. A firework of cataclysmic proportions rocked it to its foundations. The gunfire song reverberated across the gunsmoke skies as the bombardment turned an entire city block into a hole-riddled piece of concrete cheese. Houses crumbled to dust, bridges collapsed, and skyscrapers fell over.

  The Gun didn’t give Yuan a single chance to close the gap between them again. It fired and fired, its revolvers’ bullet chambers filling themselves on their own. Yuan retaliated by firing projectiles of his own with Item Materialization and Sniper’s Bore, but a combination of distance and him requiring a direct line of sight when he stepped out of a building’s shadow allowed his enemy to dodge them all.

  Gotta take it by surprise. A Recoil Blast worked better at close range, but Yuan could think of another solution. Landing a Gunsong combo would do the trick.

  Hiding behind a crumbling skyscraper, Yuan assessed the Gun’s location, materialized a bullet, and then charged it with a complex sequence of qi frequencies.

  “Archer’s Glory,” Yuan said after repeating the correct mudras, a Barrier forming around his finger and forming a barrel to hold his projectile. The building was already sinking into the ground from the Gun’s bombardment. “Sniper’s Bore.”

  His bullet phased through the concrete at lightning speed; and by the time he emerged from behind the crumbling skyscraper, it had emerged from the other side to hit the Gun by surprise.

  Yuan’s bullet struck the demigod of ultraviolence in the chest, then exploded with immense force. The blast interrupted its bombardment and threw it back until it crashed on a concrete tower’s roof.

  Yuan flew over the ruins and narrowed the gap with his enemy. The Gun had quickly risen to its feet atop the skyscraper, its shadowy poncho burning to reveal a cracked steel chest underneath.

  I’ve hurt it. All of Yuan’s attempts to damage the Gun hardly did anything earlier, until this strike. There’s flesh beneath that skin of steel, or at least something that counts for flesh for my technique. My bullet would have phased through it otherwise.

  “Ah…”

  A screeching noise had come out of the Gun’s mouth, followed by a wave of malevolence.

  Yuan stopped in his tracks as a powerful gust of gunsmoke-choked wind pushed him back. A malicious aura of demonic qi surged from the Gun in a pulse of crimson light. An oppressive bloody miasma hung over the skyscraper, the shape of skulls forming and fading inside its putrid veil.

  Yuan used a Barrier to hover over the streets and stay at a distance. His bullet-core pounded in his skull with frenetic intensity, while the gunsmoke clouds above thundered with the sounds of gunshots and artillery strikes.

  Bullets rained upon the city in a drizzle of lead.

  They were normal projectiles without a qi charge, so they flattened against Yuan’s Fourth Coil skin and did only minor damage to what remained of the city’s infrastructure. The rain was nothing like the attack that destroyed Fleshmarket, which only put Yuan more on edge.

  He could only think of two reasons why the Gun wouldn’t use a qi bombardment: either it expected to fail, since Yuan and Revolver survived it once with Barriers… or it was saving qi for something much worse.

  From the oppressive amount of power oozing from the Gun, he could guess which option was more likely.

  “Ah…” The Gun rattled with a twisted, reverberating echo of Revolver’s voice. “Ha… haha… ha…”

  Yuan mistook the noise for a cry of pain, until it grew stronger and more malicious. The Gun’s jaw opened to reveal rows of ammo-teeth singing a gunfire song.

  “Ahaha…” The Gun raised its revolvers to the sky and fired at it, its shooting stars filling the rain clouds with blazing light. “Hahaha!”

  Laughter.

  The Gun was laughing.

  “You find that funny?” Yuan muttered, his fists clenching in anger. “Is this all a game to you?”

  The Gun stared at him, its teeth forming the ghastliest smile he had ever seen. It was Revolver’s face, but something else lurked behind the steel; a savage and wicked thing that delighted in the bloodlust of battle and the thrill of murder. Yuan saw its evil qi pushing to the surface, trying to shed its humanoid shell to embrace its true, awe-inspiring true form.

  The Gun uttered three words, each punctuated by the sound of a trigger being pulled.

  “Gun God Incarnation!”

  The Gun’s body ripped itself apart, and Hell burst out of it.

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