Gunsoul: A Xianxia Apocalypse

The desert ahead was hot and unwelcoming, while only death awaited behind him. He could see the plumes of smoke rising from the Sacri-Farm in the rearview glass mirror. The place where he had spent the last ten years of his life was gone, wiped out in an instant.

“Shut your trap,” Kenta told his product, the last Human Pillar the Sacri-Farm managed to produce before everything went to hell; and the only one he managed to snatch up before those cursed Gunsouls crashed through the front door. The boy, an orphan hardly older than seven, wouldn’t stop mewling and crying. “I said shut your fucking trap!”

A shadow obscured the sun on his left. Kenta’s blood froze in his veins even before he looked at the incoming danger.

They had heard the boy.

An enormous, two-tailed calico cat even bigger than his car was running along the dune. A young lass rode on its back, her crimson hair untainted by her victims’ blood, and her assault rifle’s scope gleaming in the sunlight. It was even longer than she was, but she had no issue carrying it with her thin arms; Kenta had seen her blasting off the Boss’ head with it, even though he had been a Third Coil cultivator immune to bullets!

Reacting quickly, Kenta grabbed the boy from the backseat with one hand and dragged him in front of the car’s window. The demon girl didn’t pull her cursed trigger. Her cold blue eyes glared at him with divine contempt.

Why did this have to happen to him? Kenta considered himself a human recycler. He and his colleagues provided a key service to wastelanders, taking in the human trash no one wanted, refining them into sellable wares, and then packaging them to send to civilized communities. It was a dirty and thankless job, with a lot of wasted meat, but it paid the bills.

Then these maniacs showed up and started blasting away his whole crew!

It’s that cursed train, Kenta thought as he struggled to keep the child up with one hand and driving straight with the other. The whole slave market crashed dead after it showed up.

He had heard the rumors about a moving town protected by a vengeful god who commanded the Gunsouls, but he dismissed them. Why would a god care for Scraps?

A trio of strange contraptions blocked the road.

They were small, hardly bigger than a human head, with mechanical wings carrying their tiny frames above the ground. Their shiny helmets sported trigger-shaped lines and two blue eyes shining inside a sea of darkness. Their small, armored hands wielded oversized weapons with barrels longer than Kenta himself and tiny triggers.

Cannons.

Big cannons.

Kenta veered to the right as they took aim at his vehicle, only to realize his mistake a second too late when they refused to pull their triggers. He had been deceived!

His car hit something invisible; a soft wall carved in the very fabric of reality that stopped his vehicle dead in its tracks. Kenta expected to be thrown through the windshield, but the collision, if he could call it that, was as gentle as hitting a cushion. Neither he nor his product suffered any injury.

But the girl was now right in front of them, her barrel with a straight line of fire on his head. She pulled the trigger, and nothing seemed to happen for a brief instant. The windshield didn’t shatter and no bullet hit him. For a small moment in time, Kenta thought she had spared him.

Then he felt the pain flaring beneath his forehead’s bones and inside his brain.

Kenta died before he heard the gunshot.

Holster waited for the slaver to stop moving, then lowered her rifle.

The man was dead and stiff, his hold on his victim loosening. The sight filled her small heart with pride. It had taken her many months of work to fine-tune bullets capable of bypassing skin and bones alongside inorganic matter, but it worked like a charm. She didn’t like frightening those she saved by spraying them with their captives’ blood.

She had been in their place after all. She knew their fears.

“Are you… okay?” Holster asked the child with a kind smile and a cough. Her voice was hoarse from all the shouting, her throat sore.

The poor boy responded by crying. Holster cursed herself for asking such a stupid question. Of course he wasn’t okay. She should have thought of something better.

Gotama opened the car apart with her big paws, then gently grabbed its terrified occupant with her mouth and lifted him by the neck. The poor kid immediately stopped crying. Gotama’s touch never failed to calm anyone caught in her tender jaws. Holster didn’t forget to pet her on the head for it.

“Everything… everything will be alright,” Holster reassured him. “You’re safe now.”

She brought her fingers to her mouth and whistled. Six of her cheruguns gathered around her, all of them sporting different weapons from cannons to Kalash Angels.

“Can you carry him to Mr. LaChair?” Holster asked them kindly. Her doctor had grown very skilled at treating Human Pillars over the years; he had even successfully operated on and cured a few. “He’ll help him.”

Holster knew her Cheruguns weren’t truly sentient; they were extensions of her own qi and the very first Gun Path technique she ever invented. Nonetheless, she had imbued them with part of her soul and autonomy, so Holster preferred to make requests to them rather than give orders.

She had been a slave once. Nobody liked to be bossed around.

Her Cheruguns let out clinking noises, then dematerialized their weapons back into the raw qi they’d been created from. They gently grabbed the boy by his arms, then carried him away. Holster and Gotama watched them fly over the dunes with big bright smiles.

“You’re sure it’s wise to entrust that boy to your critters?” Uncle Revolver asked as he rode down the dune, his cruiser spirit-machine thrumming. “The Wayfinders know where they wander off to sometimes.”

“I trust them,” Holster replied. She knew her cheruguns could make a mess of themselves sometimes, but they always gave their all. “Is it over?”

“We’ve cleaned up the trashcan farm,” Uncle Revolver replied, while tipping his hat to her. “You did good, girl. Your parents will be proud.”

Holster smiled sheepishly. Spending her early years as a qi battery meant that Holster’s reserves surpassed that of other cultivators her age many times over, to the point that she found it easier to focus on Techniques that required a large output. Channeling her extra qi through her cheruguns came easier to her than Gunsongs or Black Haze, though she hoped to master both within the year.

The Gun Path came easily to her. Very few cultivators pursued it outside of the Gunsouls Dad raised from the dead every now and then, but Holster knew it was made for her since he first offered her that gun all those years ago. When the time came for her to dedicate herself to a chosen discipline, it simply… clicked.

“Although…” Uncle Revolver chuckled to himself. “Your father will be worried sick if we don’t return home soon.”

“I know,” Holster replied with a cough. Even after all this time she still struggled a bit with speaking words out loud, though Mom said she was improving each year. “I didn’t wish to worry him…”

“You’re the Gunman’s Little Angel,” Uncle Revolver teased her. “Of course your father’s worried about you leaving the nest. He worries so much he still hasn’t found time to finish his Authority.”

Holster smiled sheepishly. Bucket had coined the nickname when he included Dad in his ‘universal train theology’ after putting up a shrine for Lady Arc, but it stuck among Train-Town’s people. It brought a smile to many faces, and that was all that mattered to Holster.

Come to think of it, Holster didn’t remember ever seeing Mr. Bucket smiling since she met him all those years ago, or even his face… How strange.

Holster rode with Uncle Revolver across the dunes, past the ruins of that awful Human Pillar farm. The mere sight of the compound sickened Holster’s stomach. It reminded her of that cruel sect building where the Flesh Mansion Sect cultivators bound her core and then shipped her off like merchandise.

Dad had long shot dead both her captors and the customer she was meant to be delivered to, but she still had nightmares about what could have happened had he never rescued her.

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It was why she had insisted on leading the charge against that ‘Sacri-Farm,’ as the slavers called it. Dad would have had no issue wiping them out on his own, and he wouldn’t even have to fight; tales of the Gunman inspired enough fear around these parts that these slavers would have likely surrendered at the mere sight of him.

But Holster had instead insisted on dealing with the group herself without his supervision. She wanted to prove to herself that she could finally fight back against the monsters who had created her, and to show her parents that they didn’t need to worry about her safety anymore. It took a lot to convince them to let her try. Mom only agreed if Holster had Uncle Revolver watching over her.

Holster thought she acquitted herself well, though the sense of triumph she felt over putting down slavers didn’t compare to the joy of opening the cages holding her fellow Human Pillars captive.

“Fellow…” Holster muttered to herself.

“What did you say?” Uncle Revolver asked.

“I’m still one of them on the inside,” Holster replied as they observed the wicked farm from atop a dune. Train-Town’s citizens guided children into cars or gave them first-aid treatments. Those who had families to return to would be reunited with their parents; and the others would hopefully find a new home inside Mom’s wagons. “A Human Pillar.”

It had been four years since they found the great and wise Long dragon sage that Miss Arc had visited in the past, after a year-long journey across the wastes. Holster would never forget that encounter; how scared and amazed she had been of that great and ancient beast with golden scales that shone brighter than the sun and horns that jutted out of his head like a crown. It had looked so majestic atop its throne of treasure and spirit-roots… and so scary when it demanded that Dad work for him a full month in return for him curing Holster of her Human Pillar status.

Dad refused to speak of what quest the great elder dragon sent him on, but it must have been harrowing. The very mention of a dragon spooked her dad more than any demigod of ultraviolence, and he refused to tell Holster what happened to this day. All that Mom would say on the matter was that he had been ‘thoroughly tested.’

At least Mr. Long stayed true to his word and agreed to safeguard the Cube of Natho from threats until they found a way to destroy the evil within it. Dad had decided to focus on other demigods in the meantime. The Nuke was safely contained, while the likes of the Blade, the Biohazard, and the Arson remained free to torment others.

Holster knew he would get them in time. They had put down the Gun and the Bow already. In fact, it was their hunt for the Truck, demigod of cars and vehicular manslaughter, that led them to this region.

That one was the most elusive of their targets yet, both for its ability to teleport across vast distances and its erratic behavior. The monster hunted down and persecuted isolated targets without rhyme nor reason. If it had a pattern of attack, Holster couldn’t figure it out yet, though it seemed to favor young men of ‘Japanese’ descent as its favorite victims. Mom was looking long and hard into that ancient civilization, but couldn’t find anything tying it to the Truck for now. They had been looking for clues about it when they learned about the local slavers’ guild and decided to take it out.

“I still think like I’m a Scrap too,” Uncle Revolver said as they drove home. “So does your Dad, which is good. Someone’s gotta care for them.”

“I care,” Holster replied. She had spent the last year researching how to refine spirit-fruits to create pills good enough for them to develop cores. “I hope that one day there won’t be anymore Scraps, Human Pillars, or cultivators. Just us. All of us.”

Uncle Revolver’s helmet face hid his true feelings well, but Holster always knew when he smiled. She could feel it in the air, like so many other things.

“What is it, Uncle?” she asked softly.

“The older you get, the more you look like your mom,” Uncle Revolver said. “Or maybe it’s the other way around. I can never tell.”

How odd. Aunt Kaguya often said that too when she visited, usually after leaving an offering at the shrine dedicated to Lady Arc. She was coming more often now that Dad was almost done completing his Authority. Aunt Kaguya always looked like she was waiting for something only she could see coming.

“How do you think Dad’s Authority will look?” Holster asked her uncle.

“No clue,” he replied. “Glad to discover it with you though. The Fifth Coil is a big wall. It took me years to figure out mine too, and I didn’t have a teenage daughter to raise nor demon trucks to hunt down.”

Holster giggled to herself. “I helped.”

“You did,” Revolver confirmed, his chin rising slightly as they reached Train-Town. “More than you think.”

Their home rested along an endless stretch of spirit-tracks under the fading sun, waiting for them.

Mom was growing longer and longer with each passing year. She had accumulated nearly a hundred wagons since she had picked up Holster and Dad all those years ago, and now housed over three thousand souls. She had grown so long her own daughter couldn’t see the end of her across the horizon sometimes.

The cultivators among them helped with maintenance and engine duties, but Mom was reaching her limits. Holster had heard her discuss with Dad about ‘building more trains,’ though she always blushed and stammered when her daughter pestered her for details.

Speaking of Dad, Holster saw him flying high above Mom’s locomotive, his thrusters leaving a trail of smoke behind him. Her daughter quickly guessed he had been observing her from afar with his sharp eyes, ready to swoop in at any sign of trouble; and she loved him for it.

He descended from the heavens Holster knew he would one day conquer to greet them. His barrel-face and demonic body often scared newcomers, but those who could look past appearances always saw the brightness inside. He nodded at them, then spoke two simple words that had never failed to lift Holster’s spirits.

“Welcome home,” Yuan Guang said.

His daughter smiled back, and all was right in the Unmade World.

An Ending.

And that bullet has reached its target.

When I put up Gunsoul and Dungeon Wreckers (which will hit RR someday soon) for the vote on Patreon and they ended up nearly tied, Gunsoul hardly managed to edge ahead by one vote. Both of these stories are probably my weirdest, shortest and most niche works yet, and were imagined as a way for me to change my mind off Commerce Emperor, a much longer work on which I’d burned out on.

Gunsoul was pretty much imagined as the anti-CE. Whereas I eventually felt a bit crushed under Commerce Emperor’s story weight and twists (I think it was a mistake having seven Demon Ancestors to defeat on top of building up such a large cast in a single-person story rather than a rotating anthology), Gunsoul was always meant to be a one-volume tale with a rather straightforward structure; where CE focused on character development, intrigue, and exploration, Gunsoul would be all about action, power-progression, and battle. If I had to compare it to something, I would say Commerce Emperor was imagined like A Song of Ice & Fire while Gunsoul was heavily inspired by Jujutsu Kaisen. Radically different approaches.

In short, Gunsoul was imagined as a bullet: quick, straight, and to the point.

Long-time readers know that I’ve been toying with the idea of Wuxia/Xianxia/cultivation stories for a long time, and that early proposals were twice rejected during patron polls (third time’s the charm I suppose); older readers will remember that I also considered an American/Western spinoff of The Perfect Run set in Northern America, which was also rejected in a poll. Gunsoul’s setting is more or less the result of those long-buried ideas germinating and merging together into something I feel is pretty unique in the cultivation genre. I do have a tendency of recycling and refining concepts over time and Gunsoul feels like the end of a natural trend; weird ideas merging together until they can stand on their own as something unique.

On one hand, that niche approach has its cost, since Gunsoul is currently my story with the fewest followers on RR yet, even worse than my old dark fantasy Underland; but on the other hand, I’m super satisfied with how it turned out anyway. It seemed many of you enjoyed it very much and I had a blast writing it up.

I think that going into this novel knowing I could choose to end it there on a high note without the pressure of going into a long-running saga really helped maintain my spirits through it. I think I’m the kind of writer who needs to keep trying new stuff to feel satisfied, and projects that go on too long start feeling suffocating after a while; especially if I end up disappointed in how it turned out or when they underperform. I don’t think anybody would publish online if we writers were only writing for ourselves. There’s a part of me that always dies inside when people unfavorably compare my niche works to old successes like the Vainqueur or The Perfect Run, like I’ve only struck gold once or twice and everything I do afterwards will be in the shadow of past achievements.

So in a way, I’m very proud of Gunsoul because it helped me rediscover how it felt to write something unique for its own sake, without regrets nor bitterness. It was a very pleasant experience and I hope it felt the same way to you. I think I’ll probably write more action stories of that kind in the future.

So, how much of the storyline and ending was planned? Almost all of it actually, though a patreon poll on Yuan’s path midway through the story heavily influenced some characters’ roles, like the Gun’s host. Had some patrons chosen differently, it could have been Arc standing at the end of Yuan’s road, and Revolver walking by his side as his mentor. The different battles, the fight for the Cube, everything else hardly changed much from the original outline. I suppose it’s much easier to run a tight ship on a shorter journey.

As for what comes next… honestly, I’m satisfied with the current ending. Most cultivation stories go on forever because, well, ultimately the quest of power for power’s sake never ends. There are always higher mountains to climb, until eventually even godhood becomes a stepstone among others. It’s a cycle of diminishing returns that eventually peters out.

It’s why I ensured Yuan was always training for something; first vengeance against Slash, then protecting the family he had gathered around him. And well, he achieved both.

It’s not that I’m closing the door on more stories in the Unmade World. I could show Yuan ascending through the remaining Coils or hunting down the demigods of ultraviolence, or write about Holster or more… but honestly I’m satisfied with the current ending for now. Like a western story, the town is saved and the heroes venture into the sunset to face whatever Fate awaits them.

If I do return, it would have to be with a bigger plot that I feel resonates with me and readers both. I mostly themed Gunsoul after the cycle of (gun) violence and especially the trend of cultivation becoming more about cool power-ups than the pursuit of enlightenment it started as, and maybe there are impactful tales to write in that setting, but honestly I haven’t thought of any yet. Maybe one day. Who knows. I’ve got a lot of other stories I want to tell in the near future.

That, and unfortunately writing five chapters-a-week is super good for intense pacing, but eats away a lot of time and resources. I intended to advance on DW and CE, but once I dedicated myself to the new schedule, I ended up unable to work on either. It’s why I don’t think I’ll publish DW on RR until I’ve completed CE first. If you chase too many rabbits, you’ll lose them all.

So, for what comes next… as I said, my priority is now to finish Commerce Emperor since we\'re a handful of chapters from the conclusion. Gunsoul did a good job at staving off the burnout I felt with that story and building up writing momentum, so I intend to complete that trilogy on November. That has been a long time coming, and I apologize to readers of that story who haven’t had news on that front for a while. I think I overestimated my ability to divide my focus between different novels, but be assured that I’ll focus on that one till the finish. Otherwise, I\'ve also put up a poll on Patreon for the next post-CE story which should conclude at the end of November.

In any case, I hope you’ve enjoyed that strange Cultivation Western. I’d be happy to read your final thoughts in the comments; and write to you soon.

Best regards,

Voidy.