The shadow of a cursed spirit fled across the desert… and the Gunslinger followed.

The land was dry as bone, cracked and cursed under a copper sky. The town it led him to wasn’t much. A scattering of warped buildings and dust-choked silence, pressed into the sand like an afterthought.

Hoofbeats echoed down the empty street, slow and deliberate. Judgeman moved like a ghost through the heat. Higurumas black stallion with a blaze like bone across his face.

Hiromi Higuruma rode tall in the saddle, his coat trailing behind him like smoke, eyes hidden beneath the brim of a dust-worn fedora.

He dismounted without hurry. The townsfolk watched from behind shutters, through slits in weathered wood.

The saloon doors groaned when he pushed them open.

Smoke. Sawdust. The dry stink of old sweat and older secrets. Conversations died fast, like they knew better. Outside, Judgeman waited, still as a tombstone.

He didn’t speak at first. Just walked to the bar, bootheels echoing. He sat, lit a cigarette, and let the silence stretch. Then his voice cut through the room, low and flat:

“Anyone seen a cursed thing pass through here? Something that shouldn’t be?”

No one answered right away.