A patrol intercepted them halfway on their way to Battletown.

  The sight of three SUVs with twice as many power cruisers driving after them to intercept the spirit-train brought back a few terrible memories of Slash’s band slaughtering his own, even though he knew he had grown strong enough to defend himself. He watched them approaching from the locomotive’s window, with Orient at his side and Holster hiding in another compartment.

  Cultivators, all of them, Yuan guessed upon seeing the patrol approach. They were a motley crew of men with skull masks, hoods, and firearms. The fact they carried weapons like those at all marked them as First or Second Coil at best. Not too dangerous.

  Still, the Khan being able to send large contingents to intercept newcomers already spoke volumes about his manpower reserves. The man was no two-bit sect elder vying for leadership.

  Orient stopped the spirit-train without a fuss, allowing the patrol to peacefully approach the locomotive. A muscled man with a bag with holes over his face and a pack of scrolls on his back climbed down from his cruiser and walked up to the window. A skull motif with a yin-yang color scheme was painted on his chest.

  “Tourist or competitor?” the man asked gruffly. Neither he nor his men appeared bothered by the spirit-train, which told Yuan everything he needed to know about his future competitors. “If the latter, what’s your identification?”

  “We’re the crew of Orient Junction TR-61,” Yuan replied. “We’re here to take part in the race.”

  “Orient Junction TR-61?” The man scoffed after checking one of his scrolls for the name. “You’re the Moonlight Sect’s team? First year they sponsored a participant, you know that? And of course, they’d hire an out-of-town mercenary band.”

  “We are professionals,” Orient said with a charming smile. As always, she had a better way with words than Yuan himself. “We will receive a generous payment whether we win or lose, but we will be happy to do our best.”

  The marauder chuckled. “Not sure you’ll be able to collect your payday if you lose, lady. Race is hella lethal, and this year there will be a lot more bloodsport than usual.” He folded the scroll back into his bag. “Follow us to the gates.”

  “If I may,” Orient insisted, mostly out of concern for their passengers. “We were told that our team would receive a promise of safe conduct during our stay in Battletown.”

  “Violence is forbidden outside the race itself within Battletown’s walls,” the man replied with a shrug. “Anybody stupid enough to break that rule gets a slave tattoo or a bullet to the skull.”

  While Orient managed to hide her disdain behind a pleasant smile, Yuan clenched his jaw in quiet anger.

  “Your Khan sounds like a hardass,” he said.

  “Yeah, that’s why he’s the Khan,” the messenger replied before returning to his cruiser. “You’re the last of the registered racers to arrive, so the Khan’s mouth will make an announcement and distribute qi bracers identifying you as sect-sponsored competitors soon. They’ll make you VIPs. Just go along for now.”

  Yuan exchanged a glance with Orient, then traveled down to the fire car while the spirit-train followed the patrol.

  He found his mentor meditating behind shut windows. “They didn’t notice me.”

  “No, I don’t think they did,” Yuan replied. The fire wagon successfully contained all of Arc’s qi inside itself, and another similar compartment did the same for Holster. “Don’t think we should tell them about you either.”

  “Best that I stay hidden for now, yes,” Arc confirmed. “The likes of the Khan won’t tolerate a cultivator of their level inside their stronghold, even during a competition.”

  “So far so good.” Yuan crossed his arms. “I’m concerned about that History Road. Can’t help but think the landmarks serve a bigger purpose than just redirecting the local leylines. Lots of effort for a mere race.”

  “The Dyad Path feeds on either partnerships or opposition,” Arc replied. “Their cultivators work in a similar way to the demigods of ultraviolence, albeit to a lesser degree.”

  Yuan’s hands clenched into fists. “So all the deaths on the circuit–”

  “Empower the Khan.” A fact which Arc clearly resented. “No wonder he can pull off an Authority after overseeing these races for years. He’s a lot more clever than I thought.”

  “Think we can sabotage the History Road?”

  “Maybe,” Arc replied with a shrug. “Don’t think we’ll be the first to try though. Let’s lay low and gather information for now, and don’t rock the boat.”

  “The boat?” It took Yuan a while to recall that she meant the strange vehicles used to cross the Oil Sea. “Why would you put rocks inside them? Wouldn't they sink?”

  Arc chuckled. “Yes, they would.”

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  Yuan had the impression he had missed out on an important detail, but didn’t push the subject further. He didn’t trust the Khan’s men in the slightest, so Orient had asked the passengers to remain quiet until they secured both passage and protection. Yuan himself returned to the locomotive in order to defend the engine should the worst come to pass.

  The journey to Battletown itself went smoothly, with the city growing more and more intimidating the closer the spirit-train approached it. Fleshmarket looked like a mere village when compared to it. Its steel walls were higher and the iron towers behind it far taller, to say nothing of the massive pagoda palace overseeing it all. The very air vibrated with the hum of machinery, and the ground trembled as lanky cranes continued to add floors atop its spires.

  Battletown stood along the Oil Sea’s shores, with a moat surrounding it as an additional defense. Two enormous metal bridges connected the city to the rest of the wasteland, with the second connecting directly to the History Road highway. Artillery-backed checkpoints protected both of them. The wreckage of vehicles—likely the remains of past failed assaults—floated in the oil quagmire below.

  Thankfully, the guards escorted them through the highway entrance; the one connected to the leylines and thus allowing Orient to manifest her tracks. They passed through the defenses and then through a massive set of gates into the city proper.

  Then there was light.

  Yuan had never dared to approach a Screen City too closely for fear of being drawn into the Broadcast, but he had seen them from afar. Battletown more than matched them in light shows, bright screens, and shiny neons. Forests of smokestacks joined with pipes and cluttered concrete blocks housing hundreds of apartments. This place was a hive of people and noise, the sheer cacophony nearly deafening Yuan’s enhanced senses.

  Their escort guided them into a massive parking space separated from the housing areas. There a horde of soldiers kept watch over an entire fleet of mismatched and bizarre vehicles. While many were cars, cruisers, and the usual rides, quite a few put the spirit-train to shame in size and strangeness. Yuan caught sight of a colossal boat made entirely of bones floating a few feet above the earth with tattered, rotting sails hanging from its spine-masts; he saw a gigantic and strangely placid centidead even longer than the spirit-train, its back strapped with sniper nests built into his very carapace; he even noticed some kind of gigantic mechanical bird with metal wings and missiles strapped to its belly.

  The patrol had Orient park herself between a set of two racing cars, one red and the other green, and the strangest all-wheel drive tractor Yuan had ever seen. It was a bright shade of yellow, with buoys for wheels and an oversized, bizarre birdlike mascot on its back. The driver himself hardly looked human. He had white feathers all over his muscular body, a flat beak for a mouth, and palmed hands. Two bandoliers were strapped to his chest, while a green beret sat atop his head. His black eyes glared at Yuan from over his half-closed windows.

  “Duckman will shit on your grave!” he threatened in the highest-pitched voice Yuan had ever heard.

  While Orient reddened at the blatant insult, Yuan remained unimpressed. “I’ve shot many birds dead before,” he replied. “Usually in the ass.”

  “You have made a powerful enemy today, gunman!” the strange cultivator replied, his fingers moving from his eyes to Yuan’s. “Duckman is the quack that haunts your nightmares!”

  “Honored Conductor Yuan will destroy you,” Orient said coldly. She hadn’t appreciated the trash talk in the slightest. “We shall roast you for dinner.”

  “Duckman will piss a pond and drown your boyfriend in it!”

  The two racing car drivers on the other side of the locomotive both laughed at the same time behind their helmets. “Do you think they’ll make out soon, brother?” one asked the other.

  “Would it count as bestiality?” his sibling replied, the two of them erupting into laughter.

  Clearly, such banter was in the spirit of the race. Yuan already hated this competition.

  The sound of a warhorn thankfully interrupted the meaningless exchange. All heads turned to the northwest, Yuan’s included. A tall, central watchtower of piled-up loudspeakers and giant screens oversaw the parking lot from there.

  Slash stood atop it.

  Yuan’s bullet-core almost exploded in his skull when he recognized his murderer. It was him, the same shirtless, mask-wearing bastard who had killed his friends and put him in the ground, grinning and strutting near the tower’s edge like he owned the place. Two borgs backed him up, with one handing him a mic.

  “Honored Conductor Yuan?” Orient asked him, her fair face twisted with a dash of fear. Whatever face Yuan had made, it frightened her to her core. “Yuan? Are you well?”

  Yuan’s core pounded too hard for him to hear her clearly. His body brimmed with rage when his eyes lingered on Slash’s belt.

  Attached to it were the man’s katana and Yuan’s stolen handgun, much to his fury. Either that asshole paraded it around like a mocking trophy, or he simply forgot to take it off after murdering its previous owner.

  “Drivers!” Slash shouted through the mic, the loudspeakers carrying his voice through the parking space. “Stand atop your vehicles!”

  Yuan immediately opened the locomotive door, ignoring Orient’s words of concern. His hands trembled with such anger that he broke the knob on his way out. He jumped atop the spirit-train, mostly to get a better angle to shoot at Slash. The other racers stood on their vehicles, men, women, and monsters alike.

  “I hope you’re pumped!” Slash shouted at them, his fist pumped up to the sun. “For once again, you’ve chosen to bleed red and lead on the History Road for the clamor of the Battletown crowds!”

  Many among the racers shouted and roared, but Yuan wasn’t among them. He instead glared at Slash, weighing his odds of shooting his head off his shoulders before anybody else could react, consequences be damned. A searing desire dwelling deep within his bullet-core urged him to kill him, kill him now, kill him dead with lead!

  What’s… what’s happening to me? Yuan struggled to focus through the veil of vengeful anger which had taken over his mind. He had planned to lay low, gather information, play it smart, but a murderous urge egged him to pump Slash dead with lead right where he stood. A bloodlust matching that of the Gun itself threatened to overtake him from within. My bullet-core, it’s… it’s influencing me, clouding my mind…

  “Once again, you have gathered under the auspices of our master to participate in this historic competition!” Slash shouted with boastful enthusiasm as he looked over the racers and their vehicles. “A meager three days now stand between you and the final race to end all races! You, who have come from all corners of the Unmade World to unmake it a little bit mor–”

  Then his gaze met Yuan’s.

  Yuan couldn’t tell whether he had sensed his overwhelming hatred or simply happened upon him by accident, but his murderer froze upon noticing him. Slash interrupted his speech to return the glare, his yellow eyes squinting with confusion behind his mask.

  Then he asked, “You?”

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