# **TRUE PIECE**
## **Chapter 10: The Gun Fighter**
### **Center Sea Arc — Part 3 of 5**
The Height Tribe charged uphill while the mountain tried to remember them as cowards.
Hundreds of hooked staffs struck stone.
Not together.
Each giant chose a different rhythm.
Fast.
Slow.
Angry.
Frightened.
Uneven impacts rolled across the high settlement like a storm arguing with itself.
The island preferred one answer.
The Height Tribe answered with hundreds.
Eullian Hound ran among feet large enough to crush him accidentally.
Vara Above-Bell led the charge.
At nearly thirty feet tall, she crossed entire courtyards in one stride. Her enormous hooked staff tore through the first climbing cable and sent six armored Height Hunters swinging into the clouds.
She did not smile.
Neither did the hunters.
They climbed the mountain in white Marine coats, pirate armor, merchant uniforms, and black harnesses marked with Aldren Vane's golden coin.
Some carried rifles.
Others carried hooked blades designed to catch giant tendons.
Several wore cylindrical tanks filled with pale sleeping gas.
The Height Hunters were not one army.
They were people from many organizations paid to perform one task.
Capture witnesses.
Take children.
Recover Captain Cube.
Break the Height Bell.
Different uniforms.
One employer.
One price.
Runa Above-Storm ran beside Eullian.
At thirteen years old and sixteen feet tall, she still had to shorten her steps to avoid leaving him behind.
"You run small!" she shouted.
"You run enormous!"
"That is not defense!"
"It explains the problem!"
A cable hook shot toward Runa's shoulder.
Eullian jumped.
He caught the iron hook with both hands before it reached her skin.
The cable pulled tight.
A mechanical winch on the opposite ridge began dragging him through the air.
Eullian looked down.
The clouds beneath the mountain opened like a white mouth.
"This was a bad catch!"
Runa planted her staff beneath the cable.
The line wrapped around its hook.
She pulled downward.
The winch mechanism tore free from the ridge and flew toward them.
Eullian released the hook.
The heavy machine passed over his head and struck three climbing hunters.
Metal folded.
The hunters disappeared into a safety net stretched between lower platforms.
Runa looked down at him.
"You released late."
"I wanted to know what it was attached to."
"You could ask."
"It was far away."
A rifle cracked.
Eullian turned.
The shot had not targeted him.
A brass capsule burst against the stone beside Vara.
Pale vapor spilled around her feet.
She inhaled once.
Her right leg weakened.
Vara drove her staff into the ground before she fell.
"Sleep gas!" Mira Cale shouted from a higher bridge.
Her gray harbor coat snapped in the wind.
The Open Ledger had been secured across her back inside a waterproof case. One hand held a chart of the Height settlement. The other pointed toward three narrow bridges.
"Close the western walkways! Force the hunters onto the central rise!"
The Height Tribe obeyed.
Not because Mira was larger.
Not because she held rank.
Because she had spent the first moments of the attack identifying which structures could bear the giants' weight and which bridges would collapse under armored climbers.
Two Height warriors kicked loose the western supports.
The bridges folded into the fog.
The hunters changed direction.
Exactly where Mira wanted them.
Hijo Albino waited above the central rise.
His white threads had been stretched between stone towers.
The lines were almost invisible beneath the bright sky.
The first hunters crossed them.
Rifle straps split.
Harness buckles opened.
Gas tanks dropped from shoulders.
One man's armored trousers separated at both knees.
He stumbled forward, discovered that dignity had abandoned the battle, and fell into a water trough.
Hijo stepped through the falling equipment.
His pale eyes remained calm.
His hands barely moved.
A hunter swung a hooked sword toward his neck.
Hijo leaned beneath it.
A white thread crossed the weapon.
The blade separated from its handle.
Hijo caught the falling metal before it struck a child behind him.
He turned the flat side toward the attacker and drove it into the hunter's chest.
The man flew backward.
His armor cracked.
He remained alive.
Another hunter raised a pistol.
Tallen Vey fired from a tower nearly three hundred yards away.
His blunt round entered the pistol's chamber before the hunter completed the trigger pull.
The weapon locked.
Tallen changed targets.
A rope bolt crossed the settlement and wrapped around a gas tank.
He pulled the line.
The tank left its owner, sailed above the battle, and landed inside an empty stone basin.
Hijo cut the release valve from a distance.
The pale gas filled the basin instead of the streets.
Tallen adjusted his repaired observation lens.
"Thirty-seven hunters above the southern ridge!"
Mira looked toward the chart.
"Forty-two were visible before the charge."
"Five are missing."
"Hidden?"
"Likely."
"Locations?"
"I do not know."
That answer bothered Tallen.
He did not disguise it.
He loaded another bolt.
"My lie is that I will find them before they fire."
"Strengthen it quietly!" Mira shouted.
Eullian reached Vara.
The giant woman had wrapped cloth around her face, but the gas had already slowed her right side.
She forced herself upright.
"Bell striker ahead."
At the highest ridge, the cream-coated Height Hunter still carried the missing tongue of the Height Bell across his shoulders.
The piece was thirty feet long and made from dark metal polished smooth by generations of use.
He stood beneath it like an ordinary man carrying part of a god's weapon.
Eullian pointed.
"I'll get him."
Vara lowered one enormous hand in front of him.
"No."
"He has the bell part."
"He wants ground man close."
"Everyone keeps wanting that."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"You jump before thinking."
Eullian frowned.
"I think while jumping."
"That is later."
The cream-coated hunter raised one hand.
The battle changed.
Not stopped.
Changed.
The rifle fire from the southern ridge ceased.
The climbers stopped advancing.
Even the island's distant Still Bell became quiet beneath the city.
A black carriage emerged from behind the highest rocks.
No animal pulled it.
Four hunters pushed it carefully.
Not quickly.
Carefully.
The carriage had narrow wheels, thick walls, and a roof made from layered steel.
Its door carried no symbol.
Only a number painted in small white figures:
# **24,752**
The cream-coated hunter lowered the Height Bell's missing striker.
His confidence disappeared.
Every person near the carriage moved as though sudden noise had become dangerous.
One hunter tripped over a cable.
His metal knee struck the stone.
The sound was small.
The carriage stopped.
The hunter froze.
The door opened.
A man stepped down.
He was not tall.
Not broad.
Not physically dramatic.
He was thirty-seven years old, with lean shoulders, medium-brown skin, and black hair cut short enough that the wind could not grab it.
One thin streak of gray passed above his right temple.
His clothes were dark green.
No armor.
No flowing coat.
No medals.
A simple belt carried three firearms.
A long revolver at the right hip.
A short black pistol beneath the left arm.
A narrow rifle folded across his back.
His boots had been polished so thoroughly that the clouds moved across their surface.
In his left hand, he carried a small porcelain piggy bank.
It was pink.
Its painted eyes curved into a cheerful smile.
A golden flower had been painted beside one ear.
Someone had repaired a crack along its stomach using a bright line of metal.
The piggy bank looked like it belonged in a child's bedroom.
The man held it more carefully than a baby.
The hunter who had struck his knee remained motionless.
The newcomer looked at him.
"Did you frighten Penny?"
The hunter swallowed.
"No, Chief."
The man looked down at the porcelain pig.
He tilted it toward his ear.
Coins shifted inside.
A soft metallic whisper.
His face did not change.
"You did."
"Chief Asia, I apologize."
Chief Asia handed the piggy bank to the cream-coated hunter.
"Hold her."
Both of the hunter's hands shook as he accepted it.
Chief Asia drew the long revolver.
No hurry.
No anger.
The apologizing hunter dropped to his knees.
"It won't happen again."
"I believe you."
Chief Asia fired once.
The bullet entered above the kneeling man's left eye.
The back of his helmet opened.
Blood struck the stone in a narrow red fan.
The body remained upright for a moment.
Then folded.
Chief Asia walked forward.
He reached into the dead hunter's coat, removed one copper coin, wiped it against the man's sleeve, and placed it through the piggy bank's slot.
**Plink.**
The number painted on the carriage changed.
A hidden mechanical plate turned.
# **24,753**
No one spoke.
Chief Asia returned the revolver to his hip.
"Now it won't happen again."
The Height Tribe stared down from their platforms.
Several hunters looked away from the body.
The cream-coated man held the piggy bank farther from his own chest, afraid his heartbeat might disturb it.
Eullian's joy vanished.
Not into rage yet.
Into attention.
Chief Asia had killed one of his own people.
Not for betrayal.
Not for failure.
For making a noise beside a porcelain pig.
Vara's enormous hand tightened around her staff.
"Chief Asia."
He looked up at her.
"Vara Above-Bell."
"You killed twenty-three of my people."
"Twenty-four."
Her face hardened.
"The eastern scout survived three days," Chief Asia explained. "He died this morning."
Vara's voice lowered.
"You count after?"
"I count when the result becomes permanent."
Tallen's rifle shifted toward Chief Asia.
The gunfighter's eyes moved to him immediately.
Tallen remained nearly three hundred yards away.
Chief Asia did not use an observation lens.
He still found the exact point where Tallen stood.
"Do not," Hijo said.
Tallen's finger rested against the trigger.
"He murdered a subordinate."
"Yes."
"He carries the striker."
"No."
Tallen looked toward the cream-coated hunter.
Chief Asia had already given the bell tongue to someone else.
A simple change.
A deliberate one.
The most obvious target no longer held the objective.
Chief Asia spoke without raising his voice.
"Tallen Vey."
The name reached the distant tower as clearly as if he stood beside it.
Tallen looked toward the air.
Mira did too.
No speaking horn.
No amplification device.
Chief Asia had made his voice travel across the mountain without losing volume.
A black-silver line briefly moved beneath the skin of his throat.
Then vanished.
Devil Liquid.
A small use.
Controlled.
"You want to become the greatest liar," Chief Asia said.
Tallen's weapon remained raised.
"And strong enough to protect the lie."
"Yes."
"Then lie."
Tallen adjusted his aim.
"You cannot hit me from there."
Chief Asia nodded.
"Good structure."
He drew the short pistol from beneath his arm.
Tallen fired first.
The steel bolt crossed the sky.
Chief Asia did not move.
He fired once.
The pistol bullet struck Tallen's bolt halfway between them.
Not from the front.
From below.
The steel bolt changed direction, spun upward, and disappeared into the clouds.
Chief Asia's bullet continued.
Tallen leaned aside.
The shot passed his face.
Then curved.
Not gradually.
Its path bent around the tower as though the air contained an invisible corner.
Tallen threw himself flat.
The bullet changed direction again.
Hijo's threads crossed the distance.
They caught the bullet six feet from Tallen's spine.
The white lines snapped.
One after another.
The bullet slowed.
Tallen rolled.
The shot entered the stone where his head had been.
A perfect circular hole remained.
Chief Asia returned the pistol beneath his arm.
"Your lie survived."
Tallen stared at the hole.
Chief Asia looked mildly disappointed.
"Because someone else strengthened it."
Hijo's fingers trembled.
The bullet had severed eleven threads.
No ordinary shot should have retained enough force to do that after changing direction twice.
Mira watched Chief Asia's breathing.
Slow.
Unchanged.
He had spent almost nothing.
"What Devil Liquid?" she called.
Chief Asia looked toward her.
The wind carried his answer across the settlement with unnatural clarity.
"Skill-Skill."
Captain Cube began laughing from inside the Height Tribe's evacuation basket.
The sound was weaker than usual.
"Flexible Type."
Chief Asia's eyes moved toward him.
"Calven Dorr."
Captain Cube stopped laughing.
Chief Asia reached into his breast pocket.
He removed a small glass tube containing silver-black liquid.
It did not move like Captain Cube's substance.
This Liquid flowed in thin lines that repeatedly formed fingers, tools, weapons, and unfamiliar symbols before dissolving.
"The Skill-Skill Devil Liquid," Chief Asia said. "Distilled from a fruit Aldren's people found beneath the North Sea."
Mira continued watching his chest.
"Flexible means the ability can affect more than your body."
"Yes."
"Objects."
"Yes."
"Other people?"
"Briefly."
"Forces?"
Chief Asia smiled by less than an inch.
"Yes."
Tallen climbed back to his feet.
"The bullet was skilled at tracking."
"No."
Chief Asia looked toward the hole beside him.
"Tracking follows a target."
He touched the pistol grip.
"I made the bullet skilled at correcting failure."
Tallen's jaw tightened.
Mira understood the distinction.
The bullet had not pursued Tallen constantly.
It had recognized when its path would fail and revised itself.
An assigned skill.
Chief Asia could make an action better at accomplishing a purpose.
"How long does it last?" Mira asked.
"Until the task ends."
"What is the cost?"
"Stamina."
"How much?"
"Enough."
"That was not an answer."
"It was the amount I intended to give you."
Hijo's white threads spread across the battlefield.
Chief Asia watched them.
"You killed three innocent people."
"Yes," Hijo replied.
"You want to find answers before killing."
"Yes."
"You still threaten people with invisible cutting lines."
"Yes."
"Your improvement lacks imagination."
Hijo stepped forward.
"Your reason for killing lacks everything."
Chief Asia looked toward the porcelain pig.
"No."
The cream-coated hunter still carried it with both hands.
"My reason has four legs, two painted eyes, and excellent acoustics."
Eullian stared at him.
"You kill for the piggy bank?"
"Yes."
"That's stupid."
"Yes."
The answer disturbed the mountain more than denial would have.
Chief Asia did not believe the motive was profound.
He did not possess a dead family, betrayed kingdom, secret justice, or ideology waiting to explain the bodies.
He wanted money inside a porcelain pig.
Nothing beneath it.
Nothing nobler.
Nothing to argue with.
Eullian pointed toward the corpse near the carriage.
"He worked for you."
"Yes."
"You killed him because he scared it."
"Yes."
"It isn't alive."
Chief Asia looked at Penny.
"That is why she has never disappointed me."
The cream-coated hunter's hands shook harder.
A bead of sweat fell from his jaw.
It struck the piggy bank.
Chief Asia drew the long revolver.
The hunter went pale.
"I'm sorry."
Chief Asia fired.
The bullet did not strike him.
It passed through the sweat droplet before it reached the porcelain.
Water exploded into mist.
The bullet entered the mountain behind him.
The hunter remained alive.
Chief Asia returned the revolver to his hip.
"Dry her."
The man used his sleeve.
Chief Asia looked toward Eullian again.
"I was paid to recover Calven Dorr, the Devil Liquid chamber, the Open Ledger, and six Height children."
"Aldren hired you."
"Aldren deposited half."
"And the other half?"
"When the cargo arrives."
"People aren't cargo."
"They become cargo when payment depends upon delivery."
Vara planted her hooked staff deeper into the mountain.
"You take no children."
Chief Asia glanced toward Runa.
"Six were requested."
"Take me."
"Your age lowers the price."
Runa bared her teeth.
Chief Asia ignored her.
Mira looked toward the Height children gathering behind the warriors.
"If Aldren wants witnesses, why children?"
"Memory retention."
Chief Asia's tone remained flat.
"Younger members of the Height Tribe recover original memories faster after Still exposure. Aldren wants to know whether that resistance can be transferred."
"Through Devil Liquid?" Mira asked.
"Through whatever survives."
The imagery inside those words required no explanation.
Metal tables.
Glass chambers.
Children strapped beneath white lights while adults discussed resistance as a useful property.
Mira's hand closed around her pencil until the wood cracked.
Chief Asia noticed.
"Your Open Ledger will document it."
"It will expose it."
"Exposure is documentation with an opinion."
Hijo stepped onto the narrow bridge leading toward the ridge.
"Release the bell striker."
Chief Asia looked toward the cream-coated hunter.
"Drop it."
The man released the enormous metal tongue.
It struck the ridge with a deep clang.
The Height Tribe moved.
A dozen giants charged toward it.
Chief Asia did not draw a gun.
He stepped forward once.
His right boot touched stone.
A silver-black line passed from his sole into the mountain.
The first giant warrior planted his foot.
Friction vanished beneath him.
His sandal slid forward as though the ground had become oil.
His weight carried him sideways.
He struck the second giant.
Both fell across the bridge.
Chief Asia's black-silver line shifted.
Friction returned.
Too strongly.
Their clothing, skin, and sandals locked against the stone.
They could not slide or rise.
"Physics," Mira whispered.
Chief Asia looked toward her.
"I made friction skilled at stopping them."
The next Height warrior leaped across the fallen bodies.
Chief Asia drew his revolver.
One shot.
The bullet struck the giant's hooked staff.
The weapon twisted violently in his hands.
Its hook caught the bridge cable.
The giant's momentum swung him beneath the walkway instead of toward Chief Asia.
He remained hanging above the clouds.
Alive.
Chief Asia had not used the Devil Liquid.
That frightened Hijo more.
The man's ordinary skill had already predicted the angle, weight, momentum, and hook placement.
Chief Asia looked toward the remaining Height warriors.
"Every Liquid use costs stamina."
His revolver remained lowered.
"So I prefer competence."
Five hunters rushed from the ridge behind him.
They carried the missing bell striker toward the black carriage.
Vara charged.
The mountain shook beneath her.
Chief Asia watched her approach.
He did not prepare a large attack.
He fired at the ground six times.
Six bullets entered six separate points.
Vara's first step landed between them.
The stone collapsed along the fractures Chief Asia had chosen.
Her foot plunged through the bridge.
Her leg became trapped to the knee.
She drove her staff forward.
Chief Asia moved aside before the hook completed its path.
The wooden shaft passed close enough to disturb his hair.
He placed one hand against it.
The black-silver Liquid surfaced around his fingers.
"Skill."
The staff jerked.
Not under Chief Asia's strength.
Under its own.
The weapon became skilled at escaping Vara's grip.
It rotated precisely between her fingers, found the weakest point in her hold, and tore itself free.
The giant staff flew from her hand.
Chief Asia caught it beneath one arm despite the weapon weighing more than he did.
A silver-black line ran along his shoulder and spine.
He had made his body skilled at carrying it.
The cost arrived.
His chest rose slightly faster.
Once.
Then controlled itself.
Chief Asia threw the staff over the bridge.
Vara watched it disappear into the clouds.
"You save stamina," Mira said.
"Yes."
"You use normal skill whenever possible."
"Yes."
"You only alter reality when an ordinary action cannot accomplish the result."
Chief Asia looked almost approving.
"You will be expensive alive."
Mira's face became cold.
Tallen fired three bolts.
Not at Chief Asia.
At the black carriage.
One struck its front wheel.
Another entered the axle.
The third wrapped a rope around the cream-coated hunter carrying Penny.
Chief Asia moved.
Tallen saw the first step.
Not the rest.
Chief Asia crossed the ridge between one blink and the next.
His speed was not a blur.
A blur could be followed.
He simply ceased occupying one location and arrived inside another before the eyes completed reporting the space between.
Tallen's rope tightened.
Chief Asia caught it.
He pulled once.
Tallen flew from the distant tower.
His safety line snapped taut.
His body swung above the settlement.
Chief Asia fired the short pistol.
The shot severed the safety rope above Tallen.
Hijo's white threads caught him before he fell into the city.
Chief Asia fired again.
The second bullet struck Hijo's threads where seven lines crossed.
Every one broke.
Tallen dropped.
Runa jumped from a lower platform and caught him against her chest.
The impact drove her to one knee.
Tallen gasped.
Two ribs had broken.
His weapon remained in his hands.
Chief Asia was already moving again.
Hijo heard the footstep behind him.
One.
He turned.
Chief Asia's pistol barrel rested against his ribs.
Hijo's threads closed around the gunfighter from six directions.
Chief Asia fired.
The sound came late.
Pain had already entered Hijo's thigh.
He looked down.
A bullet hole opened through his leg.
Blood crossed the white cloth beneath it.
Only then did the muzzle flash occur.
Only then did the gunshot reach his ears.
Hijo fell to one knee.
Mira stared.
"The result happened before the shot."
Chief Asia's left nostril bled.
A thin red line.
His breathing became deeper.
The future alteration had cost far more than the curved bullet.
Chief Asia wiped the blood away.
"Future is only physics that has not finished."
Tallen struggled inside Runa's arms.
"You moved the effect ahead of the cause."
"For less than one second."
"That should be impossible."
Chief Asia looked toward him.
"Skill is reality taught to stop arguing."
Hijo's threads tightened.
Despite the wound, they wrapped Chief Asia's wrists, elbows, knees, and throat.
The gunfighter looked down at them.
"You are skilled."
"Yes."
"More skilled than most people you kill."
"Yes."
"Less skilled than me."
Chief Asia moved his left hand.
Only his smallest finger.
The threads changed tension.
He did not cut them.
He found the exact point where Hijo's layered web depended upon equal pressure.
One finger shifted one line.
The entire restraint collapsed.
Chief Asia struck Hijo beneath the jaw with the pistol grip.
Hijo's body left the bridge.
He crossed twenty feet and hit a stone wall.
Cracks spread behind him.
His white book fell from his coat.
Chief Asia looked toward it.
Three underlined names were visible on the open page.
He aimed his revolver.
Eullian moved.
He struck the bridge between them.
Stone exploded upward.
The bullet hit a flying fragment instead of the book.
The fragment shattered.
The shot passed into the clouds.
Eullian landed beside Hijo.
"You're fast."
Chief Asia looked at him.
"You are late."
Eullian's hands tightened.
Behind him, Hijo attempted to stand.
His wounded leg failed.
Mira climbed toward them across the upper bridge.
Tallen remained in Runa's arms below.
Vara was still trapped inside the collapsed walkway.
Height Hunters surrounded the missing bell striker.
Chief Asia held the center.
Eullian looked toward his crew.
Not all had been defeated.
Not yet.
He stepped forward.
Chief Asia returned both guns to their holsters.
"You are the main target."
"Then why put the guns away?"
"I am not fighting you yet."
Eullian stopped.
Chief Asia looked beyond him.
At the Height Tribe settlement.
Thirty-two hunters remained active.
Nine carried gas tanks.
Eight moved toward the Height children.
Four guarded Captain Cube.
The others secured the bell striker.
"You have people to protect," Chief Asia said.
"You're one of the dangers."
"Yes."
"I can stop you first."
"No."
Eullian's rage sharpened.
Chief Asia's tone remained quiet.
"If you fight me now, the hunters take the children."
Eullian looked toward the lower bridges.
Chief Asia continued.
"If you leave, I injure your crew."
"You'll kill them."
"Not unless someone pays."
"You killed your own man."
"He damaged Penny's emotional environment."
"That sentence is stupid."
"Yes."
Chief Asia looked toward the children.
"Six are worth more alive. Mira is worth more alive. Tallen is worth more alive. Hijo has a smaller live premium but still has one."
"And me?"
"The highest."
"Why?"
"Aldren wants to know whether emotional intelligence can resist the Still system."
Eullian stared.
Aldren had not merely watched his dream.
He had reduced the way Eullian understood people into another property to purchase, test, and reproduce.
Chief Asia raised one finger.
"Choose."
Garven's lesson again.
Every villain believed choices belonged to whoever created the threat.
Fight Chief Asia and lose the children.
Save the children and leave the crew before a man stronger than all of them.
Eullian looked toward Mira.
She met his eyes.
"Go."
"No."
"Eullian."
"He's beyond you."
"I noticed."
"Hijo is injured."
"I noticed that too."
"Tallen—"
"Can still shoot," Tallen called from below.
His voice shook from broken ribs.
Chief Asia listened without amusement.
Mira continued.
"The hunters have gas. The Height children cannot defend against it while the Still Bell is affecting the lower settlement."
"You'll lose."
"Possibly."
"He'll hurt you."
"Yes."
Eullian's fists closed.
Mira stepped closer.
"Stop the immediate harm before chasing punishment."
One of Hijo's rules.
Eullian looked toward him.
Hijo remained against the wall, one hand pressed over his bleeding thigh.
"Go," Hijo said.
"You're saying that because it's logical."
"Yes."
"Not because you're safe."
"No."
Eullian hated the answer.
Chief Asia watched him.
No smile.
No taunt.
He did not need to create anger.
He understood that experience could simply wait for inexperience to choose the predictable duty.
Eullian looked at the hunters advancing toward the children.
Then back at Chief Asia.
"I'm coming back."
Chief Asia nodded.
"That is likely."
Eullian pointed at him.
"Don't kill them."
"Pay me."
"I have no money."
"I know."
"My pebble might be valuable."
Chief Asia's expression changed for the first time.
Confusion.
Eullian reached into his pocket and threw the nose-shaped pebble.
Chief Asia caught it.
He examined the stone.
"It resembles a nose."
"That is why it might be valuable."
Chief Asia looked toward Penny.
Then back at the pebble.
"How long do you want?"
"As long as it buys."
"This is worth nothing."
"Then don't spend it quickly."
Eullian ran.
Chief Asia watched him descend toward the children.
The pebble remained in his palm.
He did not throw it away.
Mira noticed.
Information.
Strange information.
Possibly useful.
Eullian hit the first line of Height Hunters like a cannonball fired downhill.
He did not aim for bodies.
He struck the bridge beneath them.
Stone rose.
Five hunters lost their footing.
Runa swept them into a safety net with her staff.
Eullian crossed the next platform before they landed.
A hunter released sleeping gas toward the children.
Eullian grabbed the tank.
He threw it upward.
Tallen fired from Runa's arms.
His flare struck the container high above the settlement.
Pale gas burned blue against the sky.
Eullian smiled despite everything.
"You can still shoot!"
Tallen's broken ribs made every breath shallow.
"I said I could."
Chief Asia's voice traveled from the upper ridge.
"You are compensating left."
Tallen looked toward him.
Chief Asia had diagnosed the injury's effect from hundreds of yards away.
Tallen adjusted.
The next shot struck a climbing harness exactly.
The hunter dropped into a rope basket instead of reaching the children.
Chief Asia nodded once.
Then turned toward Mira.
"Now."
Mira threw herself aside.
A bullet passed through her coat.
It curved downward.
Entered the bridge.
Then rose through the stone beneath her new position.
The shot struck her left shoulder from below.
Blood lifted into the air.
Mira fell.
Eullian heard her cry out.
He turned.
Three hunters reached Runa's younger brother.
Eullian turned back.
He caught all three before they touched the child.
Chief Asia watched the decision.
"Predictable."
Mira pressed her right hand against her wounded shoulder.
"You wanted him to look."
"Yes."
"So I would move."
"Yes."
"You made the bullet skilled at using his concern."
Chief Asia tilted his head.
"That was mostly my skill."
Mira's anger remained sharp enough to resist the pain.
"You enjoy separating which part belongs to the Liquid."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I need to know whether I'm still worth paying without it."
He drew his folded rifle from his back.
One movement opened the weapon to full length.
The barrel was narrow.
The stock contained measurements carved directly into the wood.
Chief Asia lay flat on the ridge.
Mira saw his target.
Vara's trapped knee.
He fired.
Vara moved her leg.
The bullet struck the exact stone pinning it.
The rock fractured.
For a breath, Mira thought he had freed her.
Then the broken stone collapsed deeper around the leg.
Vara screamed.
Bone cracked beneath the weight.
Chief Asia closed the rifle.
"She could have interfered later."
"You injured her before she did."
"That is usually when prevention works."
Hijo threw a white thread.
It caught the rifle before Chief Asia returned it to his back.
The gunfighter released the weapon.
Hijo pulled.
The rifle crossed the ridge.
Mira caught it with her uninjured hand.
Chief Asia stood.
"You acquired a weapon."
Hijo forced himself upright against the wall.
"You lost one."
Chief Asia drew the long revolver.
"I own three."
Tallen aimed from below.
"Hijo."
"I know."
Mira understood their plan without being told.
Tallen fired at Chief Asia's feet.
Not the man.
The ground.
His blunt round struck beside the gunfighter's right boot.
Chief Asia shifted left.
Hijo's threads were already there.
They wrapped his ankle.
Mira raised the stolen rifle.
Chief Asia looked toward her.
The weapon was unfamiliar.
Heavy.
Built for his arm length and grip.
Mira could not use it as well as he could.
She did not aim at him.
She fired at the porcelain pig.
The cream-coated hunter screamed and turned his body to protect it.
Chief Asia moved.
His ordinary speed carried him toward Penny.
Hijo pulled the ankle thread.
Tallen fired again.
The shot struck Chief Asia's revolver.
The weapon left his hand.
For the first time, the Peace Crew forced him into an action he had not selected.
Mira's bullet passed above the piggy bank.
Deliberately.
It struck the cream-coated hunter's shoulder.
The man spun.
Penny left his hands.
Chief Asia extended one arm.
Hijo's threads tightened around his other limbs.
Tallen loaded another shot.
Mira dropped the rifle and reached for the piggy bank.
Chief Asia's calm broke.
Not into shouting.
Into absence.
Every unnecessary movement disappeared from him.
The silver-black Devil Liquid spread across his right eye.
"Flexible Skill."
The world became wrong.
Gravity turned sideways.
Not everywhere.
Only for Mira.
She fell toward the edge of the bridge as though the mountain had rotated beneath her.
Hijo's threads caught her waist.
The sudden force pulled his wounded body from the wall.
Tallen fired.
The future moved.
The gunshot from Tallen's weapon happened.
Chief Asia was already no longer where the shot would arrive.
Not because he saw the bullet.
Because he had made his next position skilled at avoiding the future consequence.
Chief Asia caught Penny inches above the stone.
The sideways gravity ended.
Mira struck the bridge.
Hijo was dragged across it.
Tallen's shot passed through empty air.
Chief Asia landed on one knee.
His breathing changed.
Deep.
Fast.
Blood ran from both nostrils.
The silver-black line around his eye thickened.
The combined physics and future alterations had cost him.
Mira saw.
"So there is a limit."
Chief Asia wiped blood across the back of his hand.
"Yes."
"You used too much."
"No."
"You're tired."
"Yes."
"We can make you spend."
"Yes."
The honesty was worse than denial.
Chief Asia placed Penny carefully behind a stone barrier.
Then he looked at the three of them.
"You can make me spend."
He retrieved his fallen revolver.
"But you cannot afford the purchase."
Hijo's threads spread again.
Mira stood with one arm hanging uselessly.
Tallen climbed from Runa's hold despite the pain in his ribs.
The three faced Chief Asia.
Far below, Eullian fought through the remaining Height Hunters.
One fell.
Then another.
He tore gas tanks away.
Broke weapons.
Caught falling children.
His crew's cries reached him between every impact.
He did not turn back.
Not because he cared less.
Because they had trusted him to finish the immediate danger.
Chief Asia drew two guns.
Tallen raised his long weapon.
Hijo's threads filled the air.
Mira opened the Open Ledger with her uninjured hand.
Chief Asia looked at her.
"You plan to record the defeat."
"I plan to identify the method."
"You believe someone later will do better."
"Yes."
"That is optimistic."
"No."
Mira's pencil touched paper.
"It is preparation."
Chief Asia fired.
The mountain became gun smoke.
---
Eullian reached the highest settlement thirteen minutes later.
The last Height Hunter hung upside down from a bridge rope.
Runa's siblings were safe.
The sleeping gas tanks had been thrown into the clouds.
The stolen Height Bell striker remained loaded onto the black carriage, but no hunters stood near it.
Eullian's fists bled.
His left sleeve had disappeared.
A blade had opened his back.
His breathing remained strong.
He ran uphill.
The sky above the ridge had turned the color of old steel.
Gun smoke drifted between the giant houses.
It curled around pillars and bridges in long gray ribbons.
Pieces of white thread hung from the buildings like a shattered spiderweb.
Bullet holes covered the stone.
Not random holes.
Lines.
Patterns.
Every shot had driven someone toward the next one.
Chief Asia had not fought three people.
He had arranged them.
Eullian found Vara first.
The giant woman remained conscious beside the broken bridge.
Her trapped leg bent wrong beneath the knee.
Runa knelt beside her.
"Where are they?" Eullian asked.
Vara pointed upward.
Her hand shook.
Eullian ran.
He found Tallen beneath the Height Bell.
The Great Liar rested against its enormous wooden frame.
His long weapon had been broken into three pieces.
A bullet had passed through the flesh beneath his right collarbone.
Another had shattered his observation lens.
Blood covered one side of his face.
His eyes remained open.
"Tallen."
"I am alive."
The statement sounded like a lie he was barely strengthening.
"Where is Chief Asia?"
Tallen pointed toward the bell platform.
Eullian climbed.
Mira lay halfway up the steps.
Her left shoulder had been shot.
Her right wrist bent at an unnatural angle.
The Open Ledger remained trapped beneath her body.
She had protected it during the fall.
"Mira."
"Do not stop."
"You're injured."
"I have noticed."
"Hijo?"
"Above."
Eullian's rage tightened.
Mira caught his ankle with her unbroken hand.
"He controls reaction."
"What?"
"Every obvious response."
Her breathing shook.
"He shoots where experience says you'll move. The Liquid corrects the rare moments experience fails."
Eullian looked upward.
"Don't fight the power first," Mira whispered.
"What do I fight?"
"The man who saves it."
Eullian climbed.
He found Hijo at the top.
The Absolute Killer remained on his knees.
One bullet had passed through his thigh.
Another had broken two fingers on his right hand.
A third sat inside his left shoulder.
His white book lay open before him.
A bullet had entered the page bearing Chief Asia's name.
Not written by Hijo.
The bullet itself had burned the letters into the paper.
**CHIEF ASIA.**
Hijo stared at it.
"He announced himself for me."
Eullian moved beside him.
"Can you stand?"
"Yes."
Hijo tried.
He could not.
"That was a lie."
"No. It was an incorrect prediction."
"Tallen is spreading."
Hijo almost smiled.
Then his face tightened with pain.
"Chief Asia is beyond us."
"I know."
"His base speed exceeds yours."
Eullian looked toward him.
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
"Without the Liquid?"
"Possibly."
"That word did not help."
"He has fought longer than you have been alive."
Eullian's hands closed.
"Where is he?"
Hijo pointed toward the Height Bell.
The bell's missing striker had been placed inside its frame.
The repair was complete.
Chief Asia sat upon the horizontal tongue of the bell.
One boot rested on the wood.
The other hung above the open sky.
His dark green shirt had been torn at one shoulder.
A white thread had cut his cheek.
Mira's stolen shot had grazed his left side.
Tallen's final blunt round had bruised his ribs.
He was injured.
Slightly.
His breathing remained deeper than before.
The Devil Liquid had cost him stamina.
Not enough.
Penny rested beside him.
Chief Asia held a copper coin between two fingers.
Below the platform lay an elderly member of the Height Tribe.
The fourteen-foot giant who had carried an evacuation basket.
A bullet had entered his chest.
The old man's eyes remained open.
His blood traveled through the grooves of the carved platform and fell from the mountain in slow red drops.
Chief Asia placed the coin into Penny.
**Plink.**
Eullian stared at the dead giant.
"You killed him."
"He tried to ring the bell."
"You could have stopped him without killing."
"Yes."
"Then why?"
Chief Asia rested one hand on the piggy bank.
"He had a coin."
The rage arrived.
Not wild.
Not loud.
It moved through Eullian's body and removed every other temperature.
He looked at Hijo.
At Mira below.
At Tallen beneath the bell.
At Vara's ruined leg.
At the old giant whose blood continued falling through the clouds.
Chief Asia watched him without standing.
"You finished the hunters."
"Yes."
"Six children remain uncollected."
"Yes."
"Captain Cube?"
"Safe."
"Vask?"
"Unfortunately safe."
Chief Asia nodded.
"You handled your side."
Eullian stepped onto the bell platform.
"You hurt my crew."
Chief Asia looked toward the people below.
"They called themselves temporary."
"They're my crew."
"Good."
"Why is that good?"
"It makes your behavior easier to predict."
Chief Asia lifted Penny and placed her behind him.
Far from the edge.
Eullian looked at the small pink pig.
"Twenty-four thousand seven hundred fifty-three."
"Yes."
"People."
"Yes."
"For coins."
"Yes."
"You have no other reason?"
"No."
"No secret?"
"No."
"No one hurt you?"
"Many people hurt me."
"That isn't why?"
"No."
"No dream?"
Chief Asia considered.
"I want to hear Penny full."
"That's it?"
"Yes."
Eullian's fists shook.
Chief Asia stood.
He was shorter than Eullian had expected.
His presence had made him seem larger from the ridge.
At close range, nothing about his body explained the damage around them.
No enormous muscles.
No armor.
No monstrous transformation.
Only balance.
Every part of him rested exactly where it needed to be.
Neither foot carried more weight than the other.
Neither hand hovered too close to a gun.
His eyes did not lock onto Eullian's fists.
They watched shoulders.
Hips.
Breathing.
Feet.
The places where decisions appeared before attacks.
Chief Asia drew the long revolver.
Not quickly.
Eullian could have attacked during the motion.
That was why he did not.
Chief Asia saw the realization.
"You are learning."
"I'm going to stop you."
"That is your dream's preferred sentence."
"No."
Eullian looked toward his injured crew.
"That is my decision."
Chief Asia raised the revolver.
Eullian lowered his body.
The wind moved between them.
Far below, the mysterious island continued ringing its false peace into the roots.
Above it, the Height Bell waited for someone strong enough to make disagreement louder.
Chief Asia's experience filled the space like another weapon.
Twenty-four thousand seven hundred fifty-three deaths.
Years of battles.
Wars.
Executions.
Ambushes.
Duels.
Massacres.
Every mistake purchased with someone else's body.
Eullian possessed strength.
Joy.
Rage.
Emotional understanding beyond anything Chief Asia could measure easily.
He also possessed almost no experience against a person who had survived this many fights.
Chief Asia's finger touched the trigger.
"Your crew injured me three times."
Eullian looked at the cut across his cheek.
"Good."
"They forced six meaningful Devil Liquid uses."
"Good."
"They discovered stamina consumption."
"Good."
"They still lost."
Eullian's eyes hardened.
Chief Asia's tone remained quiet.
"Now you know more than they did."
He aimed between Eullian's eyes.
"And I know everything they taught you."
Eullian raised both fists.
The summit became silent.
No hunters.
No giants.
No false crowd.
Only a gunfighter who had spent his life turning experience into corpses—
and a joyful idiot whose greatest battles had only just begun.
Chief Asia smiled for the first time.
It contained no happiness.
Only professional interest.
"Come, Eullian Hound."
The revolver's cylinder turned.
"Let us see whether inexperience can surprise experience twice."
The gun fired.
The next battle began before Eullian understood the first shot.
# **NEXT: INEXPERIENCE VS EXPERIENCE**