The Weapon Genius: Anything I Hold Can Kill

"Survival?" Jin repeated, his voice low, eyes locked on the core pulsing like a heartbeat within the root-nest. "That’s your answer?"

The green glow ebbed faintly across the tunnel walls, and for a moment, there was only silence. Then the pulse deepened, and the air trembled with a hum so low it was felt more than heard.

The voice came again. Not with words shaped by a mouth, but by sensation. Intention. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com

"I do not wish to destroy," it said. "But I will. If survival requires it."

The words weren’t cruel. There was no venom in them. Just a calm, immutable truth. Like it was speaking gravity into being.

Joon let out a slow breath, lips tight. "So... what? It’s giving us a warning?"

Echo frowned. "It’s giving us a chance."

The vines hanging from the tunnel ceiling writhed faintly, almost curious, and then the core pulsed again. Jin’s grip tightened around the hilt of his sword.

Seo stepped forward, her gaze sharp. "You knew we were coming. You let us get this close. Why?"

"To offer retreat," the entity answered. "There has been enough waste. Turn back. Leave the city."

Seul’s jaw clenched. "So it can just keep growing?"

"To survive," it echoed again.

That word again. That unbearable simplicity.

Jin stepped forward, the others instinctively parting for him. His face was unreadable. Quiet.

"Do you know how many people we’ve lost?" he said. His voice was soft, but every word struck hard. "Do you know how many buildings we’ve buried bodies under? How many names we’ve already forgotten just because we couldn’t save them?"

The glowing root system vibrated faintly, but offered no reply.

"I’m tired," Jin said. "We’re all tired. Of running. Of watching everything around us fall apart."

He raised his blade slightly.

"We didn’t come all this way just to turn back because something told us to."

Seo didn’t move beside him, but he saw the faintest twitch at her jaw, approval.

"I understand," the voice of the root spirit said.

And the glow deepened.

Slowly.

Heavily.

"But so must you."

Jin didn’t hesitate. He took a step forward, and slashed.

His blade carved through the air in a clean, precise arc toward the core.

But before steel touched it, a dozen vines exploded outward from the walls.

Jin dropped into a low stance, but before he could reposition, one of the vines coiled around his wrist, halting the strike just inches from the pulsing center. Another wrapped around his ankle. Two more shot out toward Echo and Joon, who dodged just in time. Seo turned, pulling Seul back with one swift motion as the ground beneath them split open, not from the entity, but from what lay deeper.

Because something was shifting.

Beneath.

The root system pulsed. Not with a beat, with warning.

Then the entire tunnel shook.

"Back!" Seo snapped. "Everyone fall back, now!"

Echo reached Jin first, cutting through the vines with a high-frequency snap of sound that vibrated directly into the fibers. Jin hit the ground hard, rolled, and sprang up beside the others.

The root system didn’t strike again. It only... changed.

The core dimmed slightly, and the vines that had once danced like tendrils of thought began to stiffen. Then swell. Then rupture.

Jin stepped back as thick cords of pulsing green energy crawled upward through the tunnel walls, dragging with them massive bundles of bark and vine, not new growth, but reclaimed material.

"It’s merging," Seo said tightly. "The top half... it’s drawing it in."

They all looked up as the stone above groaned, not from collapse, but from suction. The very city trembled as whatever was happening underground reached the surface.

"You cut it," Echo muttered. "And now it’s pissed."

"I didn’t even land the blow," Jin said.

"That’s not the point."

Above them, they could hear it now, the Gugwe-mok’s body groaning as the vines thickened, twisted, and began converging inward.

"Its avatar is above," Jun-taek murmured, "It’s not alive anymore. It’s being abandoned... or rather, reclaimed."

The root spirit was silent now. It no longer needed to speak.

Jin turned, eyes darting to the others. "We need to move. Now."

"Where?" Joon asked. "This whole place is alive."

"Anywhere not here!"

As if in answer, the space beside them began to glow, the familiar gold shimmer of a ring.

The scout stepped through it first, waving his hand. "Okay, okay, look, no time to argue. Everyone through. This place is about to collapse or explode or do something real unfriendly. I can feel it in my teeth."

"Where are we going?" Jin asked as they began moving.

"A rooftop not currently trying to eat us."

Jin didn’t hesitate. He turned, reaching for Seul, then glanced back once.

The root system had gone still.

But the air itself thrummed with power.

The core was no longer pulsing.

It was preparing.

Jin ran.

And one by one, they leapt through the light.

The world stretched around Jin for a heartbeat, all light and pressure, like falling without moving. Then his boots slammed onto solid concrete, the shimmer of the ring closing behind him with a faint chime.

They’d landed on a rooftop.

Wide, flat, untouched by growth. The air here was clearer. Still heavy with smoke and the distant rumble of collapse, but it felt... real again.

Echo landed beside him, steady on his feet, already scanning the horizon. Joon staggered once, then righted himself, his orbs hovering protectively near his shoulders. Seul appeared a second later, Chul in tow, leaning slightly but upright. Seo came last, already speaking into her earpiece before her boots had stopped skidding.

Then came the wind.

Hot. Sharp. Like something breathing out its final breath across the entire skyline.

They turned toward the source.

Across the cityscape, maybe ten blocks out, the body of the Gugwe-mok was changing.

Massive vines curled out of its chest, spine, and limbs, thick cords of wood and root pulling upward, twisting into the air like reversed lightning. Where bark once plated its form like armor, gaps now tore open. It wasn’t bleeding, but it was unraveling.

From inside.

Jin stepped toward the ledge. His hand tightened on the katana at his side. The wind shifted again, and this time, he could taste it, sap, smoke, soil. Something ancient being dragged apart by something older.

"What are we looking at?" Chul murmured.

"It’s shedding," Echo said quietly. "Or maybe being reclaimed."

They watched as the tendrils anchored into buildings around it, using them as leverage, and pulled. The torso buckled. The monster’s hunched form began to split down the back, the cords of vine retreating into the ground, as if being reeled in.

"It’s giving up the shell," Seo said.

"No," Jin said. "It’s done with the shell."

The wooden frame collapsed inward, the limbs going stiff as the vines surged tighter, cracking the creature’s form like a dried husk. It didn’t scream. It didn’t thrash. It simply broke, split open like fruit beneath the press of something deeper.

What remained collapsed into the street, not as a body, but a heap of dead limbs and bark.

And beneath it, more vines began to bloom.

Like veins. Like roots feeding something new.

The air stilled again. Everyone held their breath.

Then came the quake.

It started as a hum under their feet, not from their building, but from everything. A deep tremor rolling outward, like the city itself was bracing for something.

Jin backed away from the ledge, his eyes never leaving the spreading web of green that now pulsed from the corpse of the Gugwe-mok’s first form.

"Tell me we set it back," Joon said.

Seo didn’t answer.

Because the vines were still growing.

Still feeding.

Still preparing.

Chul sat heavily beside an old HVAC unit, wiping sweat from his temple. "Whatever’s coming... it’s not going to be the same thing we fought before."

"No," Seul said, voice low. "It’s going to be worse."

Jin turned toward the group, eyes sharp. "Then we don’t waste this window."

He looked toward the scout, who was already flipping another disc into the air, another shimmer of gold forming at his side.

"We regroup," Jin said. "We get whatever weapons, skills, and tricks we haven’t used yet."

"And then?" Echo asked.

Jin’s grip tightened around his sword.

"We finish this."