The Weapon Genius: Anything I Hold Can Kill

Kaito clicked his fingers.

"Let's equalize."

He launched forward again.

And Seul?

She stepped into the storm.

Their collision this time wasn't silent.

It was thunder.

The sound rolled through the arena like an avalanche—not just loud, but layered, deep, like the space around them was cracking under the strain of their clash. Dust burst from the ground in concentric waves as pressure exploded outward from the center of impact.

Kaito's gravitational field expanded, warping the very air between them. Shimmering lines bent like glass, swallowing light, dragging the terrain into slight curves. The arena dipped where he stepped, each movement leaving a brief imprint of weight so heavy it bruised the stone.

Seul's feet skidded back across the fractured arena floor.

Her brows furrowed. She gritted her teeth and flicked both wrists—gravity shifted midair, and she launched herself sideways, rebounding off the curve of one of Kaito's fields with an explosive twist.

She landed low, braced.

But Kaito was already moving again.

Another surge of pressure came with him, as though space itself tried to close behind his steps. His gauntlet gleamed with a quiet violet glow now, lines of script across its surface burning faintly.

Seul felt the pull before it came—a sudden lurch, her balance yanked forward unnaturally.

Not his field.

The item.

Her body shifted, snapping upright against her will. It was subtle, expertly applied—like invisible strings were being plucked.

"What the hell is that thing?" she muttered, forcing herself back with a pulse of outward pressure.

Kaito grinned.

The ring had changed.

No longer clasped around his wrist, it now circled just behind his head like a halo—black metal rimmed in concentric silver veins. It pulsed with slow, deliberate timing.

"Dunno exactly," Kaito called back. "Pushed too far during a trial, hit some kind of cap—and the system spat this out."

"It lets you do that?" she shouted, forcing her gravity field down hard to keep the arena from giving way beneath them.

"It lets me respond to you," he said. "That's the trick."

He twisted, leapt, and kicked off a section of warped gravity—like it was a physical platform—launching himself at her with crushing force.

Seul braced for impact—but she wasn't fast enough this time.

Kaito's punch caught her across the ribs, enhanced by a point-blank gravitational pull that compressed her midsection a split second before the hit even landed.

She flew backward.

Skidded across the ground. Flipped. Landed hard.

Air knocked from her lungs.

Jin tensed from the stands, watching. That hit her with more than just power—it bent time and space around her body.

Yujin's eyes narrowed. "She's not down."

No.

She wasn't.

Seul rose again.

Slow.

Breathing measured. Blood at the corner of her lip.

Her arm trembled slightly—but her hand was steady.

"Didn't want to use this," she muttered.

She reached behind her neck—fingers flicking the edge of her system inventory.

And then, with a snap of light—

Something emerged.

It didn't fall into her hand.

It hovered.

A silver orb, rotating slowly in front of her palm. Rings of black steel surrounded it—each one orbiting, whisper-thin, moving in impossible geometric patterns.

Kaito's smile faltered.

"What's that?"

Seul didn't answer.

Instead, she let the orb rise until it floated just above her shoulder—then slammed her foot into the ground, and the space around her cracked.

Not the stone.

Not the arena.

The space.

The air distorted like ripples on a pond. Gravity reversed. Warped. Some parts lifted. Others sank.

Kaito's eyes widened. "You're using a spatial anchor."

"No," Seul said calmly.

"This is my anchor."

She opened her arms—and the weight dropped.

Kaito's entire body was slammed down mid-step. It wasn't just gravitational force—it was density, pulled and compressed by layers. He threw up a barrier of bent space, but even that bowed under the pressure.

Then Seul stepped forward.

And the ground broke with her.

Her gravity no longer moved in bursts.

It flowed.

With a twist of her wrist, she inverted the force field again—this time outside her body. A vacuum collapse detonated in front of her, launching her straight into Kaito's field at a diagonal.

He reacted—barely.

Their arms collided—force against force, two oceans crashing in the sky.

But Kaito's arm shook.

"Still standing?" he managed, backing away.

Seul's voice was calm. Measured.

"I'm still learning."

She extended a palm—and the orb behind her flared.

"Just hope you're keeping up."

She moved again.

Like a comet dropping through orbit, she closed distance instantly—gravitational tether lines forming and snapping her forward.

Kaito blocked—grunting as he was forced back.

Then something shifted.

The arena floor cracked wider, and a pulse of raw, radiant force erupted beneath Seul's feet.

Kaito had reversed a field—trapped a second sphere beneath her—and detonated it.

The explosion launched her skyward, gravity folding erratically.

Seul gritted her teeth and spun in air, stabilizing—pulling force to her heels like weights on a pendulum.

She plummeted like a falling god.

But Kaito had already moved—he was learning, too.

They collided mid-air—

And the light vanished.

The arena trembled.

Smoke hung in the air, thick with shimmering heat and scattered bits of fractured gravity still unraveling at the edges. Even the system hadn't spoken since the last clash. As if it, too, needed a second to recover.

Then—two figures exploded from the center of the dust.

Seul launched first, riding the gravitational arc like a slingshot, her body almost horizontal as she curved through midair. Her orb spun violently behind her, threads of space-bending force coiling around her limbs like ribbons—weightless one moment, heavy as stone the next.

Kaito intercepted, barely.

His arms crossed in front of him, his field anchoring into the ground like an invisible cage. Her kick slammed into his defense, rippling force across the arena like a gong had been struck inside a black hole.

Stone cracked.

The crowd leaned forward.

But he didn't fall.

He twisted instead—redirecting the pressure she'd sent into him, spinning it through his ring's field like a pivot. Then he let it loose in a pulse, aiming low.

Seul's legs were swept from under her. She landed on one knee, the floor beneath her denting slightly.

But she was already resetting.

Gravity inverted for half a second, flipping her upward and over. She hurled herself into a tight spiral mid-air, and her orb responded—layering a shell of hardened distortion around her body.

She dove again, this time from a steep angle—faster, sharper.

Kaito caught her again, barely.

His foot slid. The black ring around his head pulsed again, adjusting to match her shift.

Jin, from above, tensed.

She's gotten fast, he thought. Faster than before. Cleaner. Her control isn't just raw force anymore—it's surgical.

Another burst.

A tremor moved across the outer edge of the arena as Seul's sphere snapped into a new position—above Kaito this time, its axis aligned to crush.

She twisted both hands down—and the air screamed.

The field collapsed.

It was like a miniature planet being born above Kaito's head, the pressure curling down from the sky in a spiral of collapsing space.

He staggered, clearly caught off guard.

He tried to redirect—but Seul had layered her anchor.

Two sources? Jin realized. No… she's playing with polarity. One field heavy. One inverted.

She wasn't just controlling gravity now.

She was orchestrating it.

A grin tugged at the edge of Jin's mouth, even as sweat beaded at his temple.

"She really turned into a monster," he muttered.

Yujin didn't look away. "The system must've given her hell before she got here."

Jisoo folded her arms. "Makes me wonder how much everyone else has grown."

Jin's eyes narrowed. "That's what worries me."

Because if Seul had gained this much—

So had everyone else.

Kaito broke through the collapse with a guttural shout, his aura surging outward in concentric waves. His ring pulsed three times, then split—twin halves rotating independently above each shoulder like satellites.

"What—?" Yujin blinked. "It can split?"

"I don't think it's done evolving," Jin said.

Kaito's hands clenched.

He dropped low, the arena cratering around him. Then—

He vanished.

Reappeared behind Seul.

His attack landed—heavy, direct, wrapped in a shearing ripple of inverted weight.

Seul crashed across the arena, slamming into the edge wall. Her orb stuttered behind her—only slightly—but it was the first sign of visible damage she'd taken.

She stood slowly, dragging herself up with one hand.

Blood at her lip.

Her fingers curled.

She inhaled deeply.

Then she laughed.

Just once.

Not mad. Not wild.

Just... focused.

"Alright," she said, her voice low. "You really wanna do this?"

Her orb shifted again.

Not in size.

But in tone.

It went dark.

All light around it collapsed inward, until it was just a sphere of pure absence—like the eye of a black hole made manifest.

Jin's heart jumped. She's stabilizing singularity fields…

"I didn't wanna use this yet," Seul said, her fingers dancing through the air.

"But since you're this persistent—" her foot slammed into the ground, "—you'll understand."

Something snapped into her hand from the inventory.

It didn't gleam.

It didn't glow.

It just was.

A rod.

Black. Smooth. Thin. Not a weapon—a conduit.

Yujin blinked. "She's using a second item?"

Jin tensed. "She's channeling it through her orb."

The orb pulsed—recognizing the rod instantly.

Then—activation.

A pulse of force erupted upward, straight into the sky. The clouds above the arena tore apart like a curtain, sucked upward into an expanding vortex.

The rod shimmered—etched with gold, a pattern resembling rotating stars.

Seul spoke quietly.

"Aether's Descent."

She stepped into stance.

Her rod extended—wrapped in her field like a blade of collapsing space.

Then she vanished.

No time for Kaito to react.

She appeared above him—thirty meters high.

The orb snapped into final position.

A ripple of silence passed.

And then—

She fell.

Not dropped. Not leapt.

She plunged.

Gravity obeyed her alone, and every ounce of force she had been gathering crashed down in a single, focused strike.

The air cracked.

The sky cracked.

The entire arena caved in.

Walls shattered. Stone fractured into spirals. The impact site was a hollowed-out crater, glowing faintly with molten heat.

A silence followed.

Then—

Stone crumbled.

Kaito's figure slid down into the ruins, his breath ragged. His ring had reformed, tight around his wrist. His jacket burned at the edges.

He was still conscious.

Barely.

But as the last stone fell…

He slid backward—off the platform.

Into the abyss.

Seul?

She hovered.

Gravity zeroed around her—weightless in the crater of her own making.

The system blinked once.

[Winner: Seul Kang.]

Jin's breath finally escaped him.

And somewhere behind his eyes, an old, familiar thought echoed:

We really have become monsters…?

That being said how many more monsters are out there waiting?