The Weapon Genius: Anything I Hold Can Kill-Chapter 108: First Line

The night wasn’t quiet anymore.

Shattered windows glittered across the ground like broken ice as their footsteps pounded through the empty street. Old storefronts passed in a blur, smeared shadows against the pale wash of moonlight. Somewhere behind them, a building gave a low, groaning sound as if mourning its own collapse.

They didn’t stop to look back.

Jin’s lungs burned, but he didn’t say anything. His grip was tight around the sheathed blade across his back, hand ready. He kept his eyes forward, flicking between rooftops and intersections, mapping escape paths in his head like second nature now.

"Still going," Echo muttered ahead of them, voice soft but urgent.

Jin glanced at him. Echo’s head was tilted, like he was listening to something just beyond human hearing. Which, knowing him, he probably was.

"The monster?"

A small nod. "Far. But not far enough."

Seul’s breath was steady beside him. She hadn’t said much since they left the gates, but Jin could tell she was watching everything. Not with panic. With intent. She moved with that strange sense of control she always carried, like even fear had to obey her rules.

Joon was behind them, surprisingly quiet. His usual swagger was dampened by the weight of what they’d seen. Even he wasn’t reckless enough to joke right now.

Another building in the distance cracked apart. The sound rolled over the rooftops like thunder. All of them froze mid-step.

Echo’s eyes narrowed. "There."

Jin followed his gaze and saw it — the faintest orange glow rising beyond a row of low apartment buildings. Something shifting. Moving.

"That’s gotta be it," Joon muttered. "No way that’s natural."

Jin didn’t answer. He took a step forward—then paused. In the middle of the street, tucked between cracked pavement and a fallen streetlight, something pulsed faintly.

It looked like a bulb. Or maybe a seed.

It sat in a puddle of moonlight, split open just slightly, breathing faint wisps of air into the cold night. The edges of it were wet and pulsing. Like it was alive.

"What is that?" Joon said, already reaching for something to throw.

"Don’t—" Jin started.

But the moment they got within a few feet of it, it twitched.

The next instant happened fast. Too fast.

A sharp snap rang out. Vines exploded from the pod in a tangle of green, slashing out like whips. Jin didn’t have time to draw his blade.

But Echo moved.

One second, Jin was staring at the burst. The next, his world tilted as he was yanked violently to the side. Wind roared past his ears as Echo dragged him across the pavement at impossible speed, landing with a grunt behind a rusted car.

The vines slammed into the ground where he’d been a heartbeat ago, snapping concrete like it was paper.

Jin blinked. "You—"

"Don’t move next time you see something pulsing," Echo muttered, a little breathless. "Seriously."

Jin gave a shaky breath. "Noted."

They regrouped fast, Seul and Joon catching up from a few meters away. Seul’s eyes flicked to the now-writhing spore.

"That... wasn’t there earlier."

"They’re leaving these things behind," Echo said, rubbing his wrist. "I think they react to motion."

Joon frowned. "Like mines?"

"Kind of." Jin stood. "We’ll have to avoid them. Or bait them out."

Seul glanced at the rooftops. "If we go high, we lose vision of the main road. We can’t risk losing sight of it."

"We won’t." Jin turned. "Just need to keep steady. Watch the ground. Move quiet."

She gave a nod. "I can try something. Gravity. Just a bit—see if it lightens our step."

"You’ve never tried that before," Joon said.

"I know."

Jin looked between them, then gave a slight nod. "Do it if it helps. Don’t push it."

They kept moving.

Their path narrowed, buildings closing in around them like skeletal hands. The monster’s destruction had warped the streets, torn metal curled upward and light poles bent at impossible angles. Every few blocks they saw another bulb, and each time they changed course or threw something to set it off from a distance.

Jin noticed Echo always heard them before they moved. He never said it, but he’d tense slightly, angle his head, and shift. And every time, they followed without question.

The city felt like it was breathing around them.

Then, finally, they reached a rooftop that sloped down toward an open plaza. It was cracked through the center, the edges of a broken fountain glinting below. And just past it—barely visible through the torn facades of shops and dust—was the monster.

Even from here, it looked wrong.

It didn’t roar. It didn’t charge.

It just moved. Deliberate, silent, slow — carving through the wreckage like it belonged there. Its limbs dragged against stone, prying through walls and lifting pieces of buildings like paper. In the moonlight, its surface gleamed like bark. Not wood. Not skin. Something between.

Joon narrowed his eyes as he crouched beside the others, gaze fixed on the distant creature lumbering across the ruined plaza.

"That thing really does look like a tree," he muttered.

Echo didn’t turn. "That’s what I said."

"Yeah, well—" Joon shrugged. "Now that I see it up close, it’s worse."

No one disagreed.

The Gugwe-Mok moved without sound, but each shift of its limbs caused the ground to tremble ever so slightly, like the city itself was bracing for impact. As it dragged itself through the rubble, it left behind the same pulsing bulbs they’d dodged earlier — some embedding themselves into cracked stone, others vanishing between broken walls.

Jin’s interface chimed.

He stiffened slightly, then flicked his eyes down. A direct message blinked in the corner of his screen.

[RYU]

I can’t leave the station. Too many things happening on our end.

But I’m sending two of my best to assist.

They’ll move fast. Hold your ground until then.

Jin’s fingers moved quickly.

[JIN]

Got it. Thanks.

We’ll do our best.

He looked up, heart ticking faster than it should’ve. "Ryu’s sending two people."

Seul tilted her head. "Anyone we know?"

"No names. But he said they’re his best."

Joon gave a small grunt. "Hope they’re not trigger-happy. We need precision, not panic."

"We’ll manage," Jin said. "Either way, they won’t be here for a bit."

They all fell quiet for a moment, eyes locked on the slow-moving nightmare below.

Its limbs didn’t move like branches. They bent like roots. Dragging, curling, anchoring.

The buildings crumbled where it passed.

"What’s the plan?" Echo asked, finally.

Joon let out a breath, watching the spores it left behind continue to hiss faintly into the night. "If it’s really made of plant stuff..."

Jin glanced at him.

"...what if we burn it?" Joon offered.

Seul blinked. "You want to light it on fire?"

"I’m not saying we torch the thing — we’re not loaded with gas tanks. But we could use fire to guide it. Scare it off course. Slow it down. Even plants flinch from flame."

Jin considered it. "That might work."

"It’s better than nothing," Echo agreed.

Seul added, "The damage to the city’s already bad. A few more scorch marks won’t matter."

Jin nodded slowly, eyes still fixed on the thing below. "Alright. We’ll make it move toward the outskirts. Burn enough to keep it unbalanced—use the distraction to guide it."

He glanced around. "We’ll split the tools. Joon, you’re on ignition. You’ve got the sparks."

"Obviously," Joon grinned.

"Echo, you’ll signal us if the thing gets too close. Or if more spores appear. We’re relying on your hearing."

"I’ve got it."

"Seul—"

"I’ll stay mobile," she said, already anticipating him. "No big gravity stunts. But I can push debris, shift rubble. Keep things uneven."

"Good." Jin took a breath. "We move quiet, we move fast. The fire’s just a tool. If it charges, we retreat."

They all nodded, their bodies angled forward, the weight of the city pressing in from every direction.

Another building crumbled in the distance, the sound echoing like a landslide.

The Gugwe-Mok lifted one of its limbs and crushed an entire storefront beneath it. It didn’t pause. It didn’t even seem to notice.

"Time to move," Jin said.

They slipped down the broken stairwell in near silence, boots hitting cracked concrete softened by dirt and ash. The closer they got, the hotter the air felt—though Jin knew that was just nerves crawling up his neck.

The city was dying by degrees. That thought kept repeating in his head.

They paused at the edge of a shattered café, where once-round tables were now bent metal shapes half-sunken into the floor. The air here was thick with dust and something else—something sweeter, more rotten. It clung to the back of his throat.

Echo stopped suddenly, raising a hand.

Jin froze.

Then, faintly, came the sound—wet, pulsing, growing louder.

He didn’t wait for Echo to explain. "Move," he whispered, grabbing Seul’s arm as they ducked behind an overturned dumpster. Joon shot sideways, landing in a crouch beside a fallen sign. A second later, one of the spores burst from the side of the building like it had been thrown, the vines coiling outward in jagged bursts.

They latched onto walls. Cracked stone. Metal.

And then stilled.

Jin exhaled slowly, heart slamming in his chest.

Echo glanced at the still-twitching vines. "We’ll be dodging more of those the closer we get."

Jin gave a small nod. "Let’s just hope they don’t start moving on their own."

Joon stood, dusting off his sleeves, eyes on the burning moon above. "Well," he said quietly, "we wanted real stakes."

Jin drew his blade, feeling its weight steady his nerves.

"Then let’s raise the heat."

They moved again, vanishing into the dark.