The Weapon Genius: Anything I Hold Can Kill-Chapter 115: Triage Protocol

The ground cracked.

The monster stumbled, its footing staggered.

Jin lunged in again.

This time, he wasn’t slicing vines, he was aiming high, toward the creature’s shoulder. His blade bit deep, and for a second, he felt resistance. Not wood. Not flesh.

Something older.

He jumped back before the bark could heal around his sword.

Joon launched the second orb high. Jun-taek snapped his fingers and shifted its arc downward. It streaked through the night like a comet and struck the creature square in the back. An explosion of light lit the block.

But again, the bark healed.

"It’s regenerating faster," Jin muttered, landing beside Seul.

"We’re hitting it," she said. "But not where it hurts."

Jun-taek dropped beside them, breathing hard but focused.

"We need to push it somewhere we control," he said. "Somewhere tight."

Joon’s eyes lit up. "The bottleneck, those twin buildings, three blocks down. Narrow pass."

"Go," Jin ordered. "We’ll follow."

Seul took off first, light as a feather.

Jun-taek flung another chunk of broken concrete to redirect a vine away from Echo, who had darted up a wall and was now raining sound-based shockwaves down like cannon fire. Each snap of his fingers cracked the air, subtle, precise, rhythmic. He was syncing with the frequency of the monster’s internal pulses, trying to destabilize it from the inside out.

It twitched again.

Reacted.

Jin watched it flinch after one particularly loud burst.

"Echo," he called. "That did something."

"I know," Echo said. "I felt it. Somewhere deep."

Another snap. The sound rippled through the ground.

The monster roared.

Its limbs lashed out, slamming into the ground and pulling up pavement in a wide arc. Vines surged.

"Move!" Seul shouted from above.

Jin leapt, swinging his blade horizontally and cutting through the incoming tangle. A vine scraped across his arm, but he twisted midair and landed beside Jun-taek.

"We’re almost there!" Jun-taek shouted.

The narrow street came into view. A long corridor between crumbling towers. The perfect trap.

"Get it inside," Jin growled.

Joon stepped forward, lightning crackling around his arms. His orbs danced beside him.

"Time to herd a goddamn tree," he muttered.

They moved in formation, Jun-taek speeding their movements with calculated nudges, Seul dropping cover from above, Echo weakening the creature’s internal rhythm, and Joon carving a path through the thickest vines.

Jin brought up the rear, blade in hand, watching the timing, the flow, the pace.

And when they finally reached the edge of the corridor, they turned—

And the monster followed.

Step by step.

Into the narrow street.

Where they could finally, maybe, turn the tide.

Their plan was actually working.

For a moment, the world narrowed, just the crumbling walls on either side, the grit of ash and dirt beneath their boots, and the shudder of Gugwe-mok’s slow, deliberate steps behind them.

Every crack in the road, every toppled car, every dangling wire had been calculated. If the thing followed them here, they might finally get their shot.

Joon moved first.

He spun low, his orbs flaring outward in twin arcs of blue flame. They carved wide, looping slashes through the lingering vines, the blaze crackling as it scorched through the overgrowth. Jin felt the air grow sharp with ozone.

Echo launched next, up the wall of a half-collapsed tower, then rebounding off it midair like a thrown blade. He landed behind Gugwe-mok, fingers twitching once, twice, then—

Boom.

A pulse of resonance shot into the monster’s spine. The impact didn’t knock it down, but it faltered—its foot dragging for just a second.

That was enough.

Seul’s voice rang out above. "Cover incoming!"

Jin glanced up to see her hovering, gravity drawn to nothing as she danced over the rooftops, her hair whipping behind her like smoke. From above, she dropped a field of heavy air like a hammer, pushing Gugwe-mok’s balance to one side. Its enormous limb hit the wall with a loud crunch, cracking stone and sinking partially into the building.

"Nice hit," Jun-taek muttered, his voice calm even as he flicked another bullet casing from his fingers. The small hunk of metal shimmered, then zipped past Jin’s shoulder, pinging off a falling vine just before it struck Joon’s back.

Jin barely registered the motion. It was seamless. Tactical. Fluid.

They’d become a team.

He pressed forward, blade ready, watching for an opening as they funneled Gugwe-mok deeper into the corridor.

Then, there.

Its right side, scorched from Joon’s orbs, slowed just a breath more than the other.

"Now!" Jin shouted.

Joon hurled both orbs forward, and they slammed into Gugwe-mok’s shoulder with a twin roar. At the same time, Echo dove in again, his hands striking with blurring resonance, and Jun-taek launched a metal pipe like a missile that slammed into the base of its leg.

The combined strike sent the beast stumbling to the side. It reeled—off balance now, vines flailing, the tower walls forcing it into narrow, restricted movement. Seul increased the downward pressure, roots cracking and snapping beneath its own weight as it struggled.

And Jin sprinted in.

His blade sliced through a fresh vine before it could whip toward Joon. Another came at him from the right, and he ducked low, kicking off the wall to flip past it. He landed in a crouch and spun, dragging the katana’s jagged edge along the exposed flank of Gugwe-mok’s leg.

The cut hit deep.

Greenish sap splattered across the pavement.

It screamed—not a sound of pain, exactly, but a low, grinding groan that echoed off the corridor’s walls like a thousand creaking branches in a storm.

They pressed forward.

This was working. Gugwe-mok was slowing. Wounded. Exposed.

But then—

It stopped moving.

Jin halted mid-step, blade raised.

Gugwe-mok wasn’t falling. Wasn’t stumbling. It had just... gone still.

"What’s it doing?" Echo asked sharply.

Jun-taek’s eyes narrowed. "That’s not hesitation."

Then the stench hit them.

A strange, wet rot that burned at the nostrils. Not the old, earthy smell of crushed vines. No, this was new. Sharp. Acrid. Like chemicals mixed with moss and death.

"It’s doing something," Seul said, drifting down to the ground beside Jin.

Jin backed up, blade still ready. "Be ready for a counter—"

Gugwe-mok exhaled.

From its torso, shoulders, even beneath the plates of bark that made up its twisted frame, a sudden, dense spray of mossy vapor burst outward—not like the paralyzing gas before, but finer. Stickier.

Spore-pollen.

It coated the air in seconds.

"Don’t breathe it!" Jun-taek shouted, yanking his jacket over his mouth. Jin did the same, but the spores weren’t about the lungs this time.

They clung.

To skin. To clothes. To energy.

Jin’s movements slowed. The katana suddenly felt heavier in his hand.

"No no no—" Echo staggered forward and struck Gugwe-mok again, the resonance pulse strong, but... it bounced. Muted.

"It’s suppressing force," Jun-taek snapped. "The spores—they’re dampening kinetic transfer!"

Seul threw a wave of gravity outward, but the blast faded before it hit Gugwe-mok’s core.

The damage they’d just done—already healing. Vines stitched closed, bark smoothed over, sap retracted.

It was regenerating.

Faster than before.

"Back! Everyone, back!" Jin shouted, but the ground was shifting now—roots writhing underneath the concrete, cracking it like eggshells. Thick vines burst upward from beneath their feet. Not aiming to restrain—but to disorient.

Seul tried to lift again, but her feet tangled with a rising root. Echo grabbed her shoulder and shoved her to the side, taking the hit himself as a vine slammed into his ribs.

Gugwe-mok’s eyes—pits of green fire—glowed brighter now.

It learned.

It was learning them.

Joon spun, trying to reengage his orbs, but the spores clung to them too—dampening their charge, muting the hum.

Jin moved to intercept a vine headed for Jun-taek, but it split mid-strike, wrapping around his wrist instead.

Too fast.

Too smart.

Then the air shimmered.

A low pulse, deep and resonant, not from Echo—but from beneath them.

Metallic rings of light—three of them—opened silently below the cracked pavement.

Jin barely had time to shout.

"Hold!"

But there was no time.

The light expanded, swallowing them whole—one group, one motion, like falling through the sky.

The corridor vanished.

The spores vanished.

Even the sound of Gugwe-mok’s shifting mass faded into silence.

And when Jin hit solid ground again, he was somewhere else entirely.

A wide rooftop, lit by pale white lights built into the steel railings. Far in the distance—still visible through the smog—Gugwe-mok stood in the city like a god of bark and vine.

Behind him, the others staggered upright.

Seul landed hard, rolling to a crouch. Joon groaned and flopped to his back. Echo blinked hard, dazed but on his feet.

And then she stepped forward.

From the edge of the roof—her boots silent against the metal, rifle slung across her back.

Seo Yewon.

Commander of Zone 6.

Jin looked up, heart still hammering in his chest.

She raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry I’m late," she said, tone sharp, military-cut. "I was handling a riot outside Zone 4. What the hell is that thing?"

Her gaze turned to Gugwe-mok.

Still healing.

Still adapting.

Still watching.

Jin exhaled, shoulders slumping.

"Something we weren’t ready for."

Her hands flexed once at her sides.

"Then get me ready."