Revolver’s transformation into The Gun is the reversal at the end of the battle for Fleshmarket: the apparent defeat of The Gun does not end its violence, but transfers it into the Gunsoul who helped bring it down. As Revolver’s body becomes a weapon and his mind is overtaken by bloodlust, Yuan Guang learns that The Gun is not simply an enemy to kill. It is a curse passed on, and its newest victim rides away into the wasteland with Yuan unable to stop him.

The apparent end of The Gun

The transformation follows the bombardment of Fleshmarket, when The Gun announced its arrival with millions of qi-charged bullets raining from the gunsmoke thunderclouds. Yuan Guang and Revolver survived beneath layered Barriers, each instinctively suited to resist the attack. The Gun’s body eventually degraded into rust, and the immediate danger seemed to be over. But Yuan Guang’s unease persisted: the ease of the apparent victory felt wrong, and Revolver’s bullet-core continued pounding in his skull.

A crimson blur then landed near The Gun’s remains, turning the ground beneath it into a carpet of bullets. Yuan Guang recognized Arc’s qi before the dust settled. Arc had crossed the distance from her lair in minutes, but her arrival brought no reassurance. Her cracked bullet-core left her unable to control her Authority; a hastily formed Barrier strained to contain Headshot Forge within five meters, warping the ground into an ammunition field as qi poured from her. Ignoring both Yuan Guang and Revolver, she examined the rust and mourned Jim, pleading with him as she knelt beside the remains.

The discovery of Jim’s body complicated the scene further. A bloodied teenager, younger than Yuan Guang, lay near the rust with pale eyes turned toward the sky and an expression of relief. Arc cradled his hand, her face marked by defeat. Revolver, who had just survived the battle, asked who she was and whether she had shot him earlier. Before he could understand what was happening, he collapsed with a scream.

The curse takes hold

A malevolent crimson aura surrounded Revolver, and demonic qi pressed around him as gunsmoke formed skulls marked by small explosions. A barrel pushed out through his forehead. His helmet opened to show rows of growing gunshell-fangs, while his voice became metallic and carried the sounds of gunfire and artillery. His words invoked children, soldiers, snipers, firing squads, and the grinder of lead: the violence of firearms was no longer merely something he wielded. It was remaking him from within.

Yuan Guang understood the pattern by reading Revolver’s qi. The Gun’s craving for death, its encouragement of others to flee rather than fight, Arc’s efforts to prevent either Gunsoul from killing it lethally, and Gatling Man’s description of a curse all converged into one explanation. The Gun was not an individual. It was a title—and a curse to be passed on. The body that had become rust was gone, but the power and compulsion survived by taking Revolver as its next bearer.

Arc warned Yuan Guang away, saying Revolver was already doomed. The bloodlust around him intensified until it overwhelmed his body and mind, reshaping him into an incarnation of murder. Revolver demanded that something, or someone, be shot. Yet a remnant of his humanity remained visible in his next action: he turned his namesake weapon on himself and pulled the trigger. The gun jammed. He tried repeatedly, but the curse denied him even that escape, leaving him unable to end his life without furthering the cycle of destruction.

Flight into the wasteland

Revolver’s cruiser came to him despite the damage it had taken in The Gun’s earlier bombardment. Its steel hide was riddled with holes, yet the spirit-machine still answered its master and waited beside him. As Revolver’s fingers turned into barrels, he threw away his weapon and moved toward the ride, struggling to tell Yuan Guang to get away. Arc urged him to run into the wasteland to seek his death.

Yuan Guang could only watch Revolver climb aboard. This was the ally who had helped him recover from his first death; now, at the end of the battle, that friend faced a fate Yuan Guang understood as worse than death. Revolver seized the cruiser’s handle with fingers becoming barrels, asked forgiveness, and rode off as its wheels burned brightly. He disappeared across the ruins toward the open wasteland, either searching for victims or for death. The transformation therefore ended not with a final confrontation but with an escape that threatened to carry The Gun’s violence beyond Fleshmarket.

The cost of the apparent victory

Revolver’s departure came amid devastation, not triumph. Arc remained beside Jim’s corpse; Fleshmarket lay in ruins, its inhabitants likely killed; and the spirit-train had derailed. Holster, Bucket, and a few other survivors crawled from the wreckage, but their survival did not make Yuan Guang feel victorious. The battle had concluded, yet the curse had found a new host, and the city’s destruction left the survivors with consequences that the defeat of The Gun could not undo.

Yuan Guang also had to face his part in the catastrophe. He had hoped that using techniques Arc taught him to ease Fleshmarket’s ammunition shortage would arm its warring sects and make them destroy one another. Arc challenged him to say what good had come of that plan. He could not deny that he had expected the sects to slaughter each other, casualties included, and wondered whether his actions had helped draw The Gun to Fleshmarket. His admission that he had not expected matters to become so bad connects Revolver’s transformation to a wider reckoning: the curse is passed on through The Gun, but the devastation surrounding its succession also exposes the human choices that helped prepare the ground for disaster.

Yuan Guang’s response and the lasting threat

Revolver’s struggle remained with Yuan Guang after the battle. The prophecy of a Perfect Shot—requiring the right shot, bullet, gun, place, time, and reasons—offered no simple solution, but Revolver’s resistance gave Yuan Guang a concrete purpose. Revolver had saved his life twice, first from Elder Polio and then from The Gun. Yuan Guang refused to leave that debt unpaid or let one of the few people who had shown him unconditional kindness suffer forever. He resolved to find a way to free Revolver, even if doing so delayed his pursuit of revenge.

The curse did not end with Revolver’s flight. Weeks later, he described following laughter he could not understand to its source, then drawing his revolver until the laughter became screams. He said he no longer distinguished between slaves and masters, young and old, rich and poor, Scraps and cultivators: at the barrel’s end, they looked the same. He neither enjoyed nor hated the killing; it had become as automatic as breathing. This later account confirms the enduring cost of the succession: Revolver retains awareness and guilt, but The Gun’s function has narrowed his life to aim, targets, and death.

The transformation is thus both a revelation about the nature of The Gun and a turning point in Yuan Guang’s obligations. Defeating its current body proves insufficient because the curse survives its host. Revolver’s escape carries the immediate threat outward, while Yuan Guang’s decision to seek his release transforms grief and helplessness into a continuing commitment. Much later, Yuan Guang declares that The Gun is within him but quelled, and identifies himself as the Gunman after mastering the Gun Path. That later change signals that the curse can be mastered, but it does not erase the cost of Revolver’s transformation or the promise Yuan Guang made in response.