The Weapon Genius: Anything I Hold Can Kill-Chapter 48: Severing Fate

The creature tilted its head, as if it understood what they were planning — and for the first time, it moved fast, the threads whipping out in a tangled, frantic storm, trying to overwhelm them all at once.

Joon blasted a wall of lightning to clear the path, Seul ducked low, manipulating the rubble like it was an extension of herself, and Jin surged forward, every step a war against his own body.

They moved like a machine, like every single failure and death they'd experienced had drilled precision into them.

Jin broke strings with brutal swings of the staff.

Seul crushed obstacles with perfectly timed gravity pulses.

Joon blasted apart traps before they could even fully form.

The creature snarled, the threads splitting apart, and Seul launched the debris like a meteor.

And the creature dodged.

It didn't rewind them.

It just moved out of the way.

Jin's blood ran cold.

"...It can dodge?"

The Face of Fate slowly turned back to them, its voice devoid of emotion.

"YOU CANNOT ESCAPE YOUR DESIGN."

Jin's grip tightened.

His mind spun, searching for an answer —

And then it hit him.

It could dodge.

It could rewrite them.

But it couldn't see what was coming.

It was just reacting to the choices they'd already made.

Which meant...

Jin wiped the blood from his mouth, turning to the others, his voice low and sharp.

"We make a new choice."

The Face of Fate hovered above the ruins of the plaza, its elongated form twisting like a marionette suspended by invisible strings. The mask stretched into something almost human — too smooth, too symmetrical — but its eyes were hollow voids, and its mouth was an endless, soundless void.

Golden strings unraveled from its fingers, weaving through the air like threads of light. They shimmered, connecting to rubble, corpses, even the broken fragments of the previous faces.

Jin wiped the blood off his chin, his muscles screaming as he forced himself upright.

The staff felt heavier than before, his body sluggish with exhaustion, but he planted his feet, squaring his stance.

"We make a new choice," he muttered, voice rough.

The creature tilted its head, watching him.

Then it laughed.

It echoed through the ruined plaza like a funeral bell — hollow, scraping, and utterly devoid of life.

Seul flinched, clutching her ribs. "I hate that sound," she muttered.

Joon, barely standing, wiped sweat and blood from his face. "I hate this whole fight," he rasped, his voice ragged. "Can we just smash this one and go home?"

The Face of Fate stopped laughing.

It lifted one hand.

And the strings snapped taut.

The shattered debris from the plaza lifted into the air, jagged chunks of concrete and twisted metal hovering like a constellation of death.

Seul's eyes widened. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."

Jin gritted his teeth. "Scatter!"

The strings whipped forward.

They moved.

Seul twisted her gloves, her gravity pulse launching her sideways as a chunk of rubble the size of a car slammed into the ground where she'd been standing.

Joon blasted himself backward with an arc shot, his boots scraping across the cracked tiles as twisted rebar speared into the ground inches from his chest.

Jin ducked low, rolling to avoid a falling signpost, then vaulted over a shattered bench, the staff spinning in his hands.

The rubble kept falling.

It wasn't just random debris — the Face of Fate was controlling the battlefield, tightening its web of threads to guide the wreckage like a thousand invisible puppeteer hands.

It was boxing them in.

The strings wrapped around the objects, moving them with the tiniest adjustments, cutting off angles of escape, limiting their mobility inch by inch.

Jin's pulse thudded in his skull.

It's not just reacting. It's predicting.

It wasn't dodging blindly — it was herding them into positions where the threads could ensnare them.

And it was working.

Joon ducked behind a fallen column, his chest heaving. "We can't dodge forever!" he shouted, electricity crackling over his gloves. "It's pinning us down!"

Seul slid behind a collapsed storefront, her fingers trembling as she wiped sweat off her face.

"If we get caught in the strings," she panted, "it's over."

Jin clenched his jaw, wiping blood from his mouth.

They couldn't win this if they kept running.

They had to flip the board.

Jin's eyes flicked up to the second-floor balcony, barely hanging on by a few support beams.

Leverage.

He tightened his grip on the staff, his muscles burning.

"Seul," he rasped, voice sharp.

"Drop the balcony."

Seul blinked. "What?"

Joon's eyes snapped up, realization dawning.

Jin squared his stance, chest heaving.

"If we bring it down, we can break its threads," he muttered.

"Even the system can't rewind a choice we haven't made yet."

Seul wiped her face, staggering to her feet.

"...On it," she whispered.

Seul twisted her gloves, her fingers trembling as the air rippled around her.

The shattered balcony groaned, bits of stone crumbling off the edges as the gravity around it shifted.

The Face of Fate paused, its mask twitching.

It lifted one hand, strings latching onto the falling debris, trying to rewind it —

But Seul reversed the gravity mid-pull, doubling the weight.

The balcony plummeted.

Jin and Joon sprinted forward, dodging falling rubble as the debris slammed into the creature, snapping the web of strings apart like breaking glass.

The creature jerked violently, its body distorting as the threads snapped back, severing from the objects they controlled.

It screeched, the sound warping into something almost human, and for the first time —

It stumbled.

Jin didn't hesitate.

He launched himself forward, the staff spinning, and smashed the creature across the face, the impact splitting the mask down the middle.

The creature reeled, ichor spilling from the fracture.

But it wasn't dead.

Joon charged his gloves, electricity building around his body. "It's open!" he shouted. "Hit it again!"

Jin's vision blurred, his chest heaving, but he planted his feet, adjusting his grip on the staff.

One more push.

One final shot.

"Seul!" Jin rasped.

"Send me up."

Seul wiped blood from her mouth, her gloves flickering with energy.

She didn't argue.

She just lifted her hands.

The gravity beneath Jin flipped, and he rocketed upward, staff raised, every muscle in his body screaming —

As he aimed for the center of the mask.

The creature looked up, its mask splitting further, golden threads fraying at the edges like the unraveling of destiny itself.

Its many hands twitched, trying to weave new strings, to reset the outcome, but the threads snapped as soon as they formed — its power collapsing under the weight of its fractured body.

For the first time, the Face of Fate wasn't in control.

It was desperate.

Jin's body soared through the air, muscles taut, every fiber of his being screaming with exhaustion.

The staff spun in his hands, a perfect extension of his body — moving with deadly grace as his Limitless Weapon Mastery guided each motion with ruthless precision.

He wasn't even thinking anymore.

He was just moving.

Because if he stopped — if he hesitated for even a second — they'd die here.

The creature lifted one hand, jagged bone-like spines erupting from its palm, and it thrust the spikes upward, aiming to skewer Jin mid-air.

The attack moved like lightning — a last-ditch effort to stop him.

But Jin didn't falter.

He twisted in the air, the staff sweeping down in a sharp arc, and deflected the strike, the impact splintering the bones and rattling his body to the core.

The feedback pain seared through him, but he bit down on the agony, eyes burning with focus.

The creature shrieked, its mask splitting wider, the cracks spreading like fractured porcelain.

Jin could see the faint glow of light behind the mask — like the creature's existence was barely holding itself together.

One hit.

That's all he needed.

He tightened his grip, the staff humming in his hands.

He pulled the weapon back, his muscles tensing — every nerve in his body on fire — and he brought the staff crashing down with every ounce of strength he had left.

The air shook from the force.

The creature tried to dodge, but its broken body lagged behind its own instincts.

It couldn't escape.

The staff collided with the creature's mask, the impact detonating like a gunshot —

The golden threads exploded, scattering like ash.

The mask shattered, pieces flying in every direction, and the creature's body convulsed, its limbs twitching violently as its form disintegrated into flickering wisps of golden smoke.

It didn't scream.

It didn't even resist.

It just... died.

Jin hit the ground hard, rolling across the debris-strewn floor, his breath catching in his throat as pain spiked through his body.

His vision blurred, the world spinning, but he forced himself to lift his head.

The creature was gone.

The threads were gone.

And then the screen flickered.

[Trials of the Forgotten — Completed]

The words glowed brightly, the system message lingering in the air like the final toll of a bell.

Jin's chest heaved, every breath scraping like sandpaper against his lungs, and he collapsed back against the rubble, staring up at the sky.

"...We did it," he rasped, voice barely above a whisper.

His hands trembled around the staff, his knuckles split, his body a wreck of bruises and exhaustion.

But he didn't care.

They'd won.

Seul dragged herself across the ground, her face streaked with dirt and blood, and she dropped beside him with a wheeze, her eyes half-lidded with fatigue.

"Never," she panted, voice ragged, "let's never do this again."

Joon staggered over, half-carrying himself, half-dragging his own body.

He dropped down next to them, wiping the blood from his face with a shaky hand.

"...I can't feel my arms," he muttered, voice hoarse.

Jin let out a weak, breathless laugh.

"Me either," he rasped.

They sat there — broken, battered, and barely alive — but somehow, still breathing.

The plaza was silent.

No more threats.

No more faces.

Just the wreckage of their victory.

Jin closed his eyes, his chest aching, and for the first time since the fight began —

He let himself feel the relief.

They'd survived.

The screen faded to white, the message lingering for just a moment longer before disappearing —

Leaving them alone with the quiet.