The Weapon Genius: Anything I Hold Can Kill

Daeho’s fist connected like a falling meteor, sending a shockwave through the air that cracked the earth beneath the monster’s rooted stance. The impact rattled buildings down the block. For a moment, it looked like the strike had worked, the amalgamated mass of bark and vine buckled slightly, vines whipping wildly in the air.

Then one of the glowing vine-limbs snapped forward with sudden speed.

It slammed into Daeho’s side with a sound like a battering ram crashing through steel. His massive form launched backward, carving a trench through the pavement before slamming into the side of a parking structure. Dust exploded from the point of impact.

But when it cleared, he stood.

Unmoved.

Not a scratch on him.

He rolled his shoulders once, cracking his neck.

"Now that," he muttered, grinning wide, "felt like something."

The others didn’t wait.

Jin dashed in first, moving low and fast. His katana gleamed in the half-light, still crackling faintly from the heat of the last exchange. He swept beneath a curling vine and slashed upward, slicing through a whip of greenery before it could grab him.

To his left, Areum moved like a dancer, each motion fluid, blades of glass forming at her fingertips and flinging out like shards from a storm. They embedded into the monster’s outer vines, slowing their movements as they refracted what little light remained in the smoky sky.

Hanuel launched himself into the air, three-sectioned staff twisting around his body. He brought it down hard, and when the blow landed, the force exploded through shadow itself, the pole flickering as it struck through two twisting vines and came crashing down onto the creature’s arm.

It didn’t bleed. It pulsed.

The green glow surged.

Echo darted to the side, avoiding a sweeping vine. He didn’t speak. Just moved, one snap of his fingers blasting a pulse of sound into the creature’s base. It recoiled briefly, no pain, but discomfort. He could feel it flinch.

"Strike deeper," he called.

Joon followed his lead, the metal spheres orbiting his arms flaring with electric charge. He pointed two fingers forward and the spheres launched, one slamming into the base of the creature’s shoulder, the other curling around and striking its back from the opposite side. A burst of lightning exploded outward on impact, sending arcs racing along the vines.

Seungmin slid beneath the chaos, his limbs already shifting. His left arm morphed into a jagged glaive, and he slashed across the monster’s ankle, drawing a line of black sap, but the cut sealed immediately.

He cursed. "It’s learning fast."

Kyungjoon appeared behind the creature a second later in a blur of space, reappearing in mid-air just long enough to plunge a short blade into the bark covering its spine before teleporting again to safety.

Seo stood back, her focus absolute.

"New Order," she whispered, blood already on her lips. "Any blow struck by my allies in this battle, let it resonate twice."

Jin felt the shift immediately.

He slashed again, only to feel the katana strike twice, the second wave following the first like a ghost’s afterimage.

The monster reeled, one vine flailing wide. Chul ducked beneath it, not strong enough to strike again but fast enough to redirect a glancing blow into Echo’s hands. Echo turned the momentum into a sonic ripple that collided with the next incoming vine, exploding it from the inside.

But the Gugwe-mok wasn’t passive.

It rotated slowly, four vine-arms moving in concert now. Two whipped downward, carving craters into the ground. Another pair stretched out to the side, bracing against a fallen structure and hurling debris toward the group.

Areum conjured a wall of glass, shattering it just as the rubble hit to disperse the force.

Still, the monster didn’t press.

It moved carefully now, calculated.

And then it stopped attacking.

Jin narrowed his eyes. "Why is it—"

A sudden pulse spread through the vines. They twitched, then shifted.

The creature flexed one of its limbs, but the motion didn’t come with violence. Instead, it swept a vine in a wide arc, across the rubble, through open air, never close to striking anyone.

And yet...

Joon gasped as he was flung backward, crashing into the side of a wall.

"What?" Chul snapped.

"He didn’t hit you—"

"No," Joon muttered, coughing. "He didn’t."

Echo turned sharply, eyes narrowing.

"It’s redirecting," he said. "The intent. The movement itself. It’s not attacking to kill. It’s disrupting balance. Creating shockwaves from false strikes."

"It’s bypassing the rule," Seungmin said through gritted teeth. "It figured it out."

Seo’s eyes narrowed. Her nose was bleeding now.

"We need to reset."

"We won’t get a second chance," Jin said. "We push now."

The team surged forward again.

Hanuel’s pole blurred, snapping through shadow, appearing at angles that shouldn’t be possible, one strike landing at the leg, another from behind. He’d practiced this variation for days. Now it landed with purpose.

Areum conjured a spiral of blades, sending them raining down like sleet.

Kyungjoon appeared and reappeared mid-air, dropping flash blades in weak points they’d marked earlier.

Daeho charged again, ducking low, taking three vine-whips to the chest and emerging through the smoke with his shoulder lowered, ramming the creature so hard it lost its footing and staggered back.

The beast growled, not just sound, but something deeper. A tremor that rolled through the ground and made the bones of the city moan.

Seo wiped her face clean of blood.

Jin lifted the katana.

They had more to give.

Daeho didn’t wait for the thing to fully recover from the last blow. His massive frame surged forward again, pavement cracking under the weight of his step. He reached down mid-run, toward Seungmin, whose arm had already reshaped itself into a double-edged halberd—and without hesitation, Daeho grabbed him by the wrist like a practiced baton toss.

Seungmin grinned mid-shift. His body extended, arm locking in place with a metallic click as Daeho spun him in a clean arc and hurled him like a living weapon.

The Gugwe-mok twisted, vines snapping to defend, but Seungmin cut clean through two layers, embedding deep into one of the vine-clustered shoulders. The beast staggered.

And Daeho followed it up immediately with a palm strike.

Not to injure. Not with brute force. But with the sudden burst of impact. He planted his foot, dropped his weight, and struck Seungmin’s embedded form directly, triggering a kinetic shockwave that blasted the entire right side of the monster back in a roil of green energy and bark-like splinters.

Jin watched the coordination, eyes wide despite himself.

"...Okay," he muttered under his breath, "that’s actually kind of impressive."

"Kind of?" Joon’s voice sparked beside him, lightning crackling down his arms.

"We’re not letting them show us up," Jin said, already surging forward.

Above them, the sky shifted. Faint bands of deep orange stretched along the edges of the clouds. Dawn wasn’t here yet, but it was reaching, pulling the night back by degrees.

Jin felt the hum of the katana in his grip, the way it seemed to settle in rhythm with his heartbeat. Then something cold passed behind his neck.

A flicker of a presence.

Not quite here, not fully gone.

He turned his head slightly, scanning the rooftops. But there was nothing.

Just his nerves.

He shook it off. "Focus," he told himself.

And then Hanuel flashed past him, the three-section pole already spinning.

The new technique struck like a whisper of thunder, seamless movement, pole vanishing into shadows mid-swing and emerging behind the beast to strike where its defenses didn’t even reach. The shadow trail blurred around the monster’s legs, forming a half-ring of attacks, each faster than the last.

The beast recoiled, vines lashing to find the source. But Hanuel was already back, spinning the pole behind him.

"Hit confirmed," he said flatly.

Areum moved next, glass forming around her wrists like twin blades. She sprinted low, slicing at the roots that spread beneath it, targeting the limbs it had begun to grow anew. Her blades shattered on impact but left jagged points behind, embedded deep enough to stagger the next movement.

Echo followed, sound snapping like elastic in the air. He ducked a wild strike, reappeared above the shoulder, and snapped hard with both hands mid-air, shaking the creature’s sense of balance with a direct frequency blast to the skull.

The Gugwe-mok howled—an awful, hollow sound. Not pain. Not rage.

Pressure.

As if the air around them folded inward, responding to its body.

Seul landed from above, gravity field flaring outward, the force of it slowing the creature’s upper torso long enough for Joon to shoot a lightning pulse directly into its exposed chest.

The energy crawled across the bark, and then stopped.

Died out.

Joon cursed. "Still adapting. Damn it."

"It’s learning faster," Jin said. "We’re going to have to change rhythm again."

He pivoted—caught Hanuel’s nod as the other boy extended the pole toward him in silent offering. Jin refused with a shake of his head, gripping his katana tighter.

"No. Let’s not break what’s working."

The morning crept closer, light folding over the tops of shattered towers in the distance.

The city was still burning.

But they were still here.

Still fighting.

From behind him, he heard Seo’s voice, steady and firm as ever.

"Thirty minutes left."

Jin didn’t look back. He took one step forward.

And another.

Toward the enemy.

Toward the final fight.

Because this was the last stretch.

And they hadn’t broken yet.

Not even close.