The Weapon Genius: Anything I Hold Can Kill

The Gugwe-mok shifted, its long limbs scraping against the ground, leaving deep grooves in the concrete. With each step, the vines slithered forward, sharper than before, some now laced with bark-like thorns that shimmered faintly under the fractured light. It no longer moved like a mindless thing. There was calculation in the way it advanced now, purpose behind every inch of its towering form.

Jin didn’t wait.

He surged forward, blade low, cutting clean through the first set of vines lunging toward him. They moved with a new speed, but he was faster. Not just in motion, his body knew the rhythm now. He moved in the same stance he’d seen Muramasa use. One cut. Pivot. Two cuts. Step. His feet moved with deliberate grace, a brutal mimicry of ancient swordplay.

"Left!" Echo’s voice snapped behind him.

Jin dropped just as a vine swept horizontally through the space his neck had been. Echo blurred past him in a streak, flickering in and out of sound as he rebounded off the side of a half-destroyed vehicle. His hands snapped forward, no weapon, no blade, just a sharp whistle and a double clap that rippled out.

The shockwave struck the vines mid-arc, throwing them into disarray. They writhed, thrown off balance by the reverberating pulse.

"Joon, now!" Echo shouted.

Lightning cracked.

A bolt arced through the air, launched from Joon’s chest and redirected by the orbiting spheres at his sides. The ball curved sharply in the air, shooting between Jin and Echo before slamming directly into the beast’s leg.

The impact wasn’t enough to bring it down, but the bark scorched, blackening in jagged veins, and the monster reeled slightly, its foot punching a crater into the earth.

Above them, Seul landed hard, gravity reduced to a whisper as she descended from a leap that had launched her over the rooftop. Her hand slammed into the ground. A pulse of gravity exploded outward, launching vines into the air as if a crater had reversed itself.

"Clear a path!" she barked.

The detective, Jun-taek, moved through the chaos like a bullet in a maze. He ducked beneath a whipping vine, one hand slipping into his coat and pulling free a single, spent bullet casing.

He flicked it into the air.

Then tapped it with two fingers.

The casing shot forward like a high-caliber round, ricocheting off a chunk of debris and smashing directly into a weak point in the creature’s thigh, one of the few spots not layered in hardened bark. It pierced deep.

"Bullseye," Jun-taek muttered, already moving again.

"Your trick?" Jin called.

"Control of momentum," Jun-taek replied, flicking another casing into the air and tapping it again. "Transfer and redirection. Simple, but effective."

The casing curved mid-flight and slammed into another cluster of vines, detonating with a burst of kinetic force that cleared their path.

The ground trembled.

The Gugwe-mok reared back, its massive form twisting. It let out a sharp, guttural screech, deeper than anything should be able to produce. A rumble followed. Spores fell like glowing embers from its back, landing around them in scattered arcs.

"Scatter!" Jin shouted.

They moved instinctively.

Seul launched upward again, dragging Echo with her through a gravity-assisted jump.

Joon slid low, his spheres looping above him in erratic, electrified patterns.

Jin sprinted sideways, carving down a vine that tried to follow him. He didn’t slow.

The spores ignited, green fire that burst with violent force. Chunks of debris flew in every direction. One slammed into Jin’s shoulder, sending him crashing through a glass storefront.

He rolled, ignoring the pain, and kicked up to his feet.

Then froze. novelbuddy.cσ๓

The monster was looking directly at him.

It moved fast—unnaturally fast for something its size. Its limbs didn’t run; they dragged it, pulled it, like it was floating forward across its own web of vines.

And it was gaining.

"Jin!" Echo’s voice, distorted by distance and wind.

"I’m good!" he barked back, not taking his eyes off the thing.

He ducked under a fallen beam and skidded across the tiles, using the staff as leverage. He’d drawn it again, switching without a thought from blade to pole. The three-section weapon extended, caught the ground behind him, and flung him forward.

He soared up the side of a half-toppled vehicle and flipped to land on its roof.

Seul’s voice crackled in his earpiece—no, not an earpiece. Just the residual pull of her gravity skill.

"Ready for the drop?"

Joon’s voice followed immediately.

"Let’s hit it!"

From above, Seul launched debris like meteors—chunks of metal and rebar, suspended in orbit and hurled downward. Joon’s lightning met them mid-air, igniting the makeshift bombs in brilliant blue-white arcs.

They fell like stars.

The Gugwe-mok raised an arm, and the meteors smashed against its barked hide. Fire flared.

The thing stumbled.

For a second.

Then the burned areas healed—fast. Too fast.

"...It’s adapting," Jun-taek muttered. "That’s not just regeneration. It’s learning from our attacks."

"How the hell do we fight that?" Echo snapped.

Jin gritted his teeth, leapt down, and rolled beside Jun-taek. "We keep hitting it. Together. Don’t give it time to adapt."

He pointed to a nearby loading dock. "We draw it in. It’s narrow—we can bottleneck its movements."

Jun-taek nodded once. "Lead the way."

They dashed forward, Echo flickering behind them in a blur.

Jin drew his sword again.

Broke into a sprint.

And this time, when he cut, he did it with purpose.

Not just instinct.

Not just fear.

But with everything he’d learned in the last week carved into the swing.

He shouted as the blade met a vine—and this time, it didn’t just slice.

It cleaved clean through.

He stepped past the severed mass and turned back toward the team.

"Push it!" he yelled.

And together, they surged forward, light, sound, steel, and grit, all thrown against a monster that wouldn’t fall.

But tonight, neither would they.

Not yet.

Not while the fight still had meaning.

Jun-taek shifted first, already a blur across the cracked concrete. Jin barely caught the way he moved—like every step was propelled by something heavier, sharper. He didn’t just run. He redirected his own inertia, launching himself with perfect force and stopping just as easily. One moment he was beside them, the next he was midair, flipping between the vines, arms tucked close before he kicked off a tilted wall and shot forward again.

A vine lashed toward him.

Jun-taek flicked his wrist, and the momentum from his previous leap shifted into a spinning heel. The vine slammed backward as if it had been struck by a battering ram.

"Go!" he barked.

Jin moved next, charging toward the monster with his katana low and eyes locked ahead. He didn’t need to say anything—Jun-taek was already there, adjusting his own movement in perfect sync. He moved behind Jin and tapped the back of his shoulder.

A sudden burst—Jin surged forward.

His feet barely touched the ground as he flew ahead faster than expected, blade swinging in an upward arc. He struck clean through a vine reaching down, then twisted his body and landed in a roll, skidding across broken pavement.

The katana vibrated in his hands. But he wasn’t done yet.

Behind him, Joon stepped into position. The two orbs beside him flared brighter as he charged them with another pulse. He grinned, teeth clenched, sweat beading down his brow.

"Line me up!"

Jun-taek didn’t need to be told twice. With a twist of his arm, he snagged one of the orbs with his fingers—not touching the surface, but using the kinetic air surrounding it—and spun. The momentum built fast. Too fast.

Joon raised a hand. "Send it!"

Jun-taek released.

The orb launched like a bullet, shrieking through the sky with lightning trailing its tail. It smashed through three vines in a single pass before ricocheting off a building and zipping back toward Joon, who caught it with a flick of his electricity.

"Damn," he muttered. "That was clean."

To their left, Seul hovered just above the field—gravity-light, boots skimming air as she manipulated the battlefield from above. Her hands moved with precision, and debris floated upward in clusters—concrete, rebar, even scorched metal signs.

"Rain’s coming," she said softly.

She twisted her hand.

The debris shot downward, slamming into the vines from above like falling meteors. The vines hissed, retracting as the pressure built.

Jin looked over his shoulder, searching instinctively. "Where’s Chul?"

Seul didn’t stop moving, but her voice rang clear through the chaos.

"I floated him out of range. Dropped him on top of a stable rooftop. He’s safe."

Jin exhaled. Good. That was one less thing to worry about.

The monster roared again. Not in pain—frustration. Its chest pulsed, bark peeling in strips to reveal a deeper, glowing green underneath. Like something beneath the wood was trying to escape.

Jin tightened his grip. "Push it back. Toward the narrow street!"

They moved as one.

Jun-taek altered Seul’s trajectory, flicking a rock that collided with her boot midair—redirecting her just slightly, perfectly, so she landed behind the monster instead of directly above. From there, she slammed a pulse of gravity downward.