Tuberculosis had ravaged the man's body; his face was a sickly red, his lips cracked and bloody.
At this moment, the air was like knives to him, twisting in his lungs, and every breath was an immense agony.
Arthur lay on the ground, his body broken, his strength draining away with the blood from his many wounds.
The sharpshooter's eyes were now glazed over, and vast stretches of darkness surged towards him. Arthur knew this darkness was his death.
But there was still a gun lying in front of him!
Get it! Just get it!
Even if Arthur was at the end of his rope, if he could just get that gun, he could take down the traitor behind him before he died.
The gun in his hand represented the bullet in his enemy's body.
Even though he was dying and his body was extremely weak, he still had that confidence.
The gun had never betrayed him. The best gunman in the West would use the last bullet of his life to settle things with the traitor named Micah.
The ground was covered in hard, jagged gravel, and Arthur's body was riddled with cuts.
His hands were already covered in wounds, his fingernails ripped off from the effort, exposing pale flesh.
Behind him, the traitor also stirred. They had been fighting on the cliff and had fallen down during the struggle.
Although Arthur regained consciousness first, his physical condition was much worse than the traitor's.
Must be faster.
The intense pain from inside and outside his body did not affect Arthur's resolve. Perhaps he still had many unfinished things in his life.
But at this moment, he only wanted to kill that damned traitor.
This hatred had to be settled. Arthur would stop it with his life, preventing it from spreading further.
Finally, his hand rested on the gun.
The momentary relaxation almost made him black out. Arthur took a deep breath, only then dispelling the darkness before his eyes.
Gathering his strength, just as he almost grasped the gun, about to get the chance to end everything.
His hand was stepped on.
Black riding boots, dress pants. Arthur knew who this was.
The man, who had been wandering in the West, felt a violent surge of emotion, and for a moment, he lost the courage to look up—
Everything he had fought for and upheld his entire life was wrong!
His heart was plummeting into an abyss, disappointment and the pain of betrayal weighing on him like a lead weight.
He thought of those who had died for the gang; their dying moments appeared before Arthur's eyes, one by one....
Now, it seemed so sad, ridiculously sad.
The biggest joke life played on him was letting a man he considered a father slowly push him towards eternal damnation.
"It's all over... Arthur, it's all over."
A powerful voice came from above Arthur's head. This voice, falling into Arthur's ears, seemed to completely negate his life.
He painstakingly lifted his head, and his body simultaneously lay back. Dutch's face appeared in Arthur's vision.
"Oh, Dutch...."
This man, when the gang was falling apart, firmly chose a traitor.
Powerlessly, he let his raised head drop. He couldn't muster another ounce of strength.
He didn't understand what had happened to Dutch. That traitor had only been in the gang for two years, and he had caused the deaths of so many people.
Why?
As the leader of the gang!
Why would he choose to stand by that person, to believe a traitor?
Suppressing the violent pain in his chest, Arthur had to use all his strength just to speak.
"He's a traitor, Dutch... you and I both know it."
At this moment, Micah also stumbled over.
His right arm hung limply, probably dislocated when he fell from the cliff earlier.
Among the three, Dutch became the only key to determining the course of events.
"Dutch, he's sick, and he's crazy. He's dying, talking nonsense."
Micah walked closer, trying to win Dutch to his side.
The Pinkertons, their pursuers, had already surrounded the area.
If he could be with Dutch, he could reduce a lot of risks.
Arthur and Micah both waited for Dutch's reaction. The air was suddenly enveloped in silence, leaving only Arthur's heavy gasps.
"Dutch, I once gave you everything... I really did...."
Looking at Dutch, looking at the complex expression on his face.
Arthur suddenly understood everything.
Some things, perhaps, only become clear when one is on the verge of death.
Perhaps Dutch knew from the beginning who was a traitor and who was loyal.
Perhaps he didn't care about any of it; traitor or loyal, it didn't matter to him.
Dutch once dominated the West, fantasizing about standing at the top of the food chain, enjoying the power to control everything.
But under the wheels of time, all his fantasies turned to dust.
This disparity drove him mad. He abandoned everything—principles, morals, and emotions—things he once prided himself on.
He turned everyone around him into pawns for his dream of recovery.
Dutch walked away without looking back, and so did the chattering traitor.
Although they left in two different directions, Arthur understood that they were, in the end, on the same path.
No one would care about Arthur lying on the ground, a dying outlaw. Let him wait for death on his own.
On the cliff, the horizon, a white dawn filled the entire sky. In the east, at the end of the world, a rosy glow followed the half-emerged sun, sweeping over the dense treetops below the mountain.
Struggling to prop himself up, Arthur sat against the rock wall. The warmth of the morning sun could no longer warm his body; death was eroding the man's life.
Swallowing the blood that constantly welled up from his throat, he fumbled with trembling arms and pulled a letter from his in my arms.
Due to Arthur's crawling, the letter was already battered, almost soaked through with his blood.
This letter was a farewell letter, a final goodbye, from his beloved.
For the sake of the gang, he had rejected his lover's plea to elope with him, completely ending her hopes.
He painstakingly crumpled it, tearing it into tiny pieces.
His body would likely be discovered by the Pinkertons. He couldn't leave any information for those mad dogs, lest he cause trouble for the people he cherished.
Perhaps an outlaw like him truly wasn't meant to have love.
Clutching the shredded pieces of the letter in his hand, Arthur threw them off the cliff.
In the distance, footsteps approached, likely the Pinkertons finally catching up.
Once these mad dogs bit down, they would never let go.
But none of it mattered to Arthur anymore. Before his eyes, the darkness representing death spread rapidly, appearing both terrifying and peaceful.
This was death; some feared it like a tiger, but others accepted it as calmly as visiting a friend.
"Heh, fate..."
Arthur scoffed to himself.
Death spread through his body like warm water, enveloping him completely.
The footsteps grew closer, but no one cared anymore.
"Yes, this is fate."
A man in a sharp suit and a black top hat stood before Arthur's corpse.
He didn't look like a Pinkerton agent at all. His black formal wear was impeccable, and he spoke incomprehensible words.
"I've come to say goodbye, old friend.
Although you don't know me, and strictly speaking, I don't know you either.
But I still have to speak a word of justice for fate: don't complain about it.
There is no such thing as fate in this world; nothing is predetermined. Everything is the result of your choices."
On the cliff, there was no one alive near the man in the top hat. He faced Arthur's corpse, as if conversing with him.
Though a normal person probably wouldn't talk to a corpse.
He muttered, pacing closer to Arthur, then took off his hat in a gesture of respect.
"Anyway, goodbye, friend.
I hope you can write a new destiny."
For a person, true darkness is the cessation of thought.
When it is about to engulf you, when one realizes death is near, even the strongest-willed person will have their heart filled with sorrow.
The collapse of life is irreversible, but who can truly achieve it without regret?
But Arthur's death was full of unreasonableness.
He couldn't see anything, which was normal, but being aware of this was abnormal.
Although everything around him was dark, unfamiliar memories and emotions constantly filled his mind.
For a moment, it was as if he had become another person.
Cowardly, taciturn.
His life was filled with violence and discrimination, like a rag doll thrown in a garbage heap, for people to vent their frustrations on.
His alcoholic father's enlarged fist; the mocking smiles on his classmates' faces; being surrounded in a dark alley by people with brightly colored hair.
Yet, he showed no intention of resisting, as if by simply shutting himself off, the darkness on him would cease to exist.
So he watched quietly, watching fists land on his body, listening to others' vicious insults, being stripped naked and thrown onto the street.
He watched the violence against him grow more extreme: fists turned into sticks, into tables, chairs, and furniture; insults turned into spit landing on him.
The malice of the world flows; it moves like water towards the low places, eventually concentrating on certain individuals at the bottom of society.