The Weapon Genius: Anything I Hold Can Kill-Chapter 95: The Blade Remembers

Jin kept his grip on the broken katana, gaze steady. "Jin Yeong."

A beat passed. The man didn’t blink.

"You carry that blade like it belongs to you," he said. "It doesn’t."

Jin raised an eyebrow. "Didn’t know I needed permission to use it."

"You do," the man said, stepping forward. "And you don’t have it."

Jin angled his stance slightly, his body quiet, focused. "Then I guess we have a problem."

The stranger didn’t answer.

He moved.

One blur of motion—faster than a man that size should’ve been able to manage. Jin’s body responded before his mind did, dragging him to the side just as the blade came down in a clean vertical cut that split the air like thunder.

The force alone nearly pulled Jin off balance.

He twisted, skidding along the polished stone, just managing to re-center himself before the next strike came. The man was already on him again—no wasted breath, no warning.

This wasn’t a duel.

It was an execution.

Jin caught the second blow with his broken blade. Steel met steel—and his arms screamed from the impact. His stance buckled, but he didn’t fall.

Their eyes locked.

And something flickered in the swordsman’s expression.

"...That form."

He took a step back, blade lowering slightly.

Jin didn’t move. His muscles were tight, adrenaline still spiking.

The man’s eyes narrowed further. Cold turned to fury. "You used one of my sacred forms. And you carry a blade made in my image."

He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to. The world itself seemed to echo with his voice.

"Who taught you?"

Jin didn’t answer right away.

"No one," he said finally. "I didn’t learn it. I just moved on instict."

The man stared. And then slowly, he sheathed his katana.

For a moment, Jin thought that was the end of it.

Then the swordsman stepped forward and drew again in one seamless motion, this time slower—deliberate—and pointed the full length of his pristine blade straight at Jin’s chest.

"I am Muramasa," he said. "The Demon Blade. My skill forged in blood. Honed by death. My edge has never dulled. My legacy never stained."

His grip tightened.

"And you have defiled both."

A slow breath left his lips. His blade pulsed.

"This transgression will not be forgiven."

The air grew heavy—almost suffocating.

Muramasa raised the blade to shoulder height, and the mist around them recoiled as if afraid to touch it. "I ask again, where did you learn that form?"

His voice was lower now, rougher. Its weight is pressed on Jin’s chest.

But Jin didn’t flinch.

He adjusted his stance slightly, holding the broken katana at the ready, body still trembling faintly from the last exchange. "I already told you I didn’t learn anything."

A pause.

Muramasa’s expression shifted—something between disbelief and insult.

And then he launched forward, this time without restraint.

Jin moved.

Barely.

The world blurred. Jin parried the first strike, but it was like blocking a collapsing building. The second blow clipped his shoulder, sending pain lancing down his arm. He bit back a sound, twisting under the next sweep and stumbling across the polished stone.

Muramasa didn’t let up.

His strikes came in patterns—controlled, perfect, merciless. Like each cut had been etched into the air before it even landed.

Jin ducked low, sweeping out his foot, trying to create distance. Muramasa stepped over it without pause and brought his blade down in a clean diagonal slash.

Jin deflected it—barely.

The impact cracked the floor beneath them.

Breath ragged, Jin slid back, blood running from a shallow gash on his side. His grip tightened on the broken katana. His arms shook.

But he didn’t drop it.

Muramasa straightened.

His voice was calm. "You shouldn’t be able to use that form if you didn’t learn it somewhere."

He pointed the blade at him again—this time not in accusation, but in judgment.

"You are not my disciple. You are not worthy of knowing how to use any of my forms unless you were taught how to use it."

The air around them seemed to dim, the colors of the fractured world dulling as his presence surged.

"You refuse to answer me truthfully," Muramasa said.

His voice was a whisper now.

Deadly.

"You will pay with your life." freewēbnoveℓ.com

The air twisted.

Jin braced himself, shoulders low, blade forward. He couldn’t feel his left arm anymore, the blood soaking into his shirt like ink on paper.

Muramasa moved again.

This time, Jin met him halfway.

He stepped in—not back. Let the broken katana glide along his side, catching just enough momentum to parry Muramasa’s first thrust off-center. The recoil jarred his wrist, but he kept going. Pivoted. Shifted weight.

He struck low, dragging the broken edge toward Muramasa’s side.

The swordsman slid back a fraction—then flicked his blade upward with frightening control, catching Jin’s slash and redirecting it like it was nothing.

But Jin was already turning.

His body moved before thought—instinct forged in survival. His blade came around in an arc that wasn’t clean, wasn’t formal—but had intention.

Muramasa’s brows twitched.

The broken katana almost landed.

That was when Muramasa whispered a name.

"...Yomi-no-Kuzure."

And then everything changed.

The moment froze—like the world skipped a beat.

Jin felt a pressure rush from Muramasa’s blade. Not just speed. Not just strength.

Something else.

Like the sword itself remembered every life it had taken—and wanted more.

Muramasa turned his body ever so slightly.

The stance was fluid.

The swing, invisible.

Jin didn’t even see it land.

But suddenly—

He was standing still, the broken katana gripped tight in both hands, eyes wide.

And then the pain arrived.

A razor-thin line bloomed across his torso. No sound. No scream. Just... his knees buckling.

He staggered back, breath vanishing from his lungs.

Muramasa exhaled and sheathed his blade in one smooth motion.

Only then did Jin fall.

His back hit the stone like a hammer strike, his vision lurching sideways. His fingers opened reflexively, the broken katana clattering beside him.

His breath hitched.

Then came the blood.

Hot. Too hot. It soaked through his shirt in seconds, running along the cold floor beneath him.

"Your body moved with courage," Muramasa said, voice low. "But your soul still lacks weight."

Jin didn’t respond.

Couldn’t.

The wound stretched clean across his chest now—he didn’t even know how deep. He barely remembered the strike. One moment, he was moving. Breathing. Fighting.

The next—he was bleeding out on cold stone.

Muramasa stood still, his blade half-drawn again.

Not out of fear. Not out of caution.

But as if offering a final salute.

"You should feel honored," the swordsman continued, turning slightly—his silhouette framed by the drifting ash that still fell from the air. "You were struck down by a sacred form."

His crimson eyes flicked back, just once.

"Yomi-no-Kuzure."

Jin’s lips parted—no sound came.

"Collapse of the Underworld," Muramasa translated, though his tone remained sharp as a death bell. "A form only meant to be used when one must return a soul to the pit it crawled out of."

He slid the blade fully into its sheath.

"A thief who walks uninvited upon sacred ground... deserves no less."

The mist curled around him as he turned away, his bare feet silent against the stone.

Step by step, he walked into the dim haze.

"A shame," he added quietly. "Your hands had resolve. But your heart... still clung to life too much."

He vanished.

Jin lay there, chest rising only slightly, blood running freely from his side. His vision was already dimming, eyes half-lidded. It didn’t hurt anymore.

That scared him.

His fingers brushed the broken katana beside him, slick with red.

He wanted to move. To try again. To learn.

But there was nothing left.

A single exhale left his lungs.

Then nothing.

Jin’s body jerked like it had been dropped from a great height.

What the hell—

His eyes snapped open.

He was falling.

Again.

"...No. No, no, no—"

The words tumbled out of him before his brain caught up. Same black void. Same silent, endless plunge.

The last thing he remembered was hitting the ground. Cold stone. Blood soaking through his shirt. A line of pain across his chest that hurt like hell.

Muramasa.

The blade.

That technique—

He looked down.

The broken katana was in his hand.

Still.

The edge—cracked and chipped. No glow. No warmth. Just weight. Just presence.

His fingers tightened around it.

"This isn’t real," he muttered.

But it felt real.

The silence pressed in around him, thick as breath held too long. His chest ached—not from injury, but from the memory of dying. Of being cut down.

He clenched his jaw.

"No system. No prompts. Just—this again?"

He kicked once. Nothing pushed back. Just the sensation of motion with no shape behind it.

Am I dead?

It hit him all at once.

He had died.

Cut clean. Dropped. Gone.

So what the hell was this?

The fall didn’t stop.

His pulse climbed. Breath came too fast. There was nowhere to land, nowhere to hold on. Just dark, just space, just—

"I swear, if this is the afterlife..."

The katana pulsed.

Not bright. Not warm.

Just a sensation he felt in his hand that went through his entire body.

Then came the light.

Not from above.

From below.

A silver glow bled up through the dark like something deeper than the void was waking.

Jin’s eyes narrowed, barely registering it before the surface rose to meet him.

No impact.

The smoke caught him. Heavy, slow, folding beneath his feet before settling into stone.

No pain. Just the soft weight of being set down.

He crouched low, breath tight, sword ready.

Same place.

Pagodas loomed in the distance. The air shimmered. Mist crawled along the ground like it was alive. Nothing moved—but everything remembered.

He rose.

One step.

Then the pressure shifted.

Something was behind him.

Jin turned—half a step—

A hand wrapped around his throat.

He barely had time to gasp before his back slammed into a tree. Bark cracked behind him. His feet left the ground.

The katana slipped from his fingers.

Muramasa stared at him.

No sound. No warning. Just those colorless eyes and that same red hakama, untouched by time or gravity.

Muscle coiled under skin like it had never softened, not for a second.

Muramasa looked at him like he was a question he didn’t like the answer to.

"Didn’t I just kill you?," he said.

His grip didn’t shift.

Jin’s throat burned. He managed a rasp of breath.

"Yeah," he croaked. "You did."

Muramasa didn’t blink.

His eyes tracked down to Jin’s chest, where the wound had been—where it should still be.

Then back to his face.

"You shouldn’t be here."

Jin’s fingers twitched at his sides. "That makes two of us."

A beat of silence.

Then—Muramasa let go.

Jin dropped, landing hard on his shoulder. He rolled once, coughed, and scrambled upright with a hand on his knee.

"You’re stubborn," Muramasa muttered, turning slightly. "Or stupid."

"Combination," Jin said, voice hoarse. "Usually gets the job done."

Muramasa didn’t laugh.

He didn’t even smile.

Just stared at him for a long, heavy second.

Then, finally—

"You survived something that should’ve ended you."

Jin steadied his breath.

"I’m starting to think the sword had other plans."

Muramasa’s eyes flicked to the katana lying in the dirt, its broken edge catching the light.

His voice dropped, barely above a whisper.

"Then let’s see if it was right."