The Weapon Genius: Anything I Hold Can Kill

The wheel spun like it was eager to draw blood.

From inside the glass prism, Jin stood still, watching each flickering name blur into the next. His breath fogged the surface once before he leaned slightly forward, hands folding behind his back. His body still remembered the weight of Seo's final blow—the way it had torn into his leg and dropped him like a puppet—but his mind? His mind was sharp. Sharp enough to cut glass.

A flicker.

The wheel slowed.

Then—

[Yujin]

The voice that announced it wasn't mechanical. It was the deep, resonant tone of the Dokkaebi that loomed above the stage—a new one, cloaked in violet and gold, smiling through sharp teeth that never moved.

Jin looked up sharply.

He didn't need to see her reaction. He could already imagine it.

Yujin flexed one arm, rolled her shoulder, then exhaled once through her nose. A single sharp breath. The tension vanished from her posture like it had never been there. Her eyes closed.

When they opened, they glowed faintly—flickers of slitted pupils flashing behind a human frame.

"About time," she muttered, stepping forward as her cube hissed open.

The crowd didn't cheer. The other cubes remained silent.

But something shifted.

Jin could feel it. From here. From across the glass and the silence.

She wasn't just ready.

She was hunting.

The floor rumbled beneath her as her platform descended.

Below, the arena changed again—gone was the shattered coliseum where Jin had fought. In its place rose a jagged field of black rock and cracked red stone, like the floor of a dormant volcano. Steam hissed up from vents in the ground, and long, narrow crevices split the battlefield like veins. It was uneven. Harsh. The kind of place where footing was a weapon.

Perfect for Yujin.

Or so Jin thought.

Another figure descended across from her.

The second name had been chosen quietly—no fanfare, no drama. Just a flicker of light and then her name: Rin Takano.

She was quiet as she stepped into view. Short hair, stark grey. A dark blue uniform marked only by a pale sash at the waist. Her expression was unreadable—not detached, but not emotional either. The way her eyes scanned the field wasn't cautious. It was clinical.

Yujin saw it immediately.

"This one's not going to waste time talking."

Rin didn't so much as blink at the remark.

The Dokkaebi's voice boomed again from above.

[Begin.]

And they moved.

Yujin didn't burst into action. She circled, low and fast, letting her body drop to a crouch and sweep wide in a quarter-circle, skimming the edge of the arena. Her limbs flexed—bare feet gripping rock, arms loose, spine coiled. The way her shoulders shifted was almost bestial.

Rin didn't chase.

She stood still, hand loosely extended toward the air in front of her.

Then—

The world shimmered.

Jin leaned forward slightly in his cube.

A distortion snapped across the arena like heat off asphalt—but sharper. Clearer. The light around Rin bent slightly, and Yujin's body jerked as if the terrain beneath her feet suddenly tilted.

"What—"

Yujin landed off-balance, even though nothing had touched her.

Her eyes narrowed. Her ears shifted—elongating into thin, pointed tips. A wolf's alertness. Her tail flicked into view—sable black and twitching. Her hearing should've given her the edge.

But the second she turned, she was too late.

A rock exploded beside her—an invisible force had struck it from an angle she hadn't predicted.

Yujin skidded away in a blur of motion, flipping backward off her hands, claws out, back arched.

She didn't speak this time. Just watched.

So did Jin.

"Something's off," he muttered. "It's not a physical attack."

He watched closely, noting the way Rin moved her hands—not like a fighter. Like a conductor.

Then he saw it. A faint halo of warped air surrounding her body. The shimmer of redirected light.

"She's distorting her field," Jin said under his breath. "Not illusions—refractions."

Yujin's ears twitched again.

She shifted mid-run—her spine stretching, her limbs elongating into feline joints. A hybrid panther form. She vanished into a streak of motion and launched from behind a crag of black stone.

But when her claws swung—

They passed through air.

Rin had already moved.

Not just moved. Relocated. Silent, like a flicker of light escaping a mirror.

Then—

A blast of concussive force hit Yujin in the side. She tumbled, landing hard on her shoulder, and rolled through two jagged outcroppings before sliding to a halt.

Blood smeared the rock beneath her.

Jin tensed.

"She's not just manipulating how she's seen," he realized. "She's redirecting perception itself."

Yujin's hands gripped stone.

She forced herself upright—barely winded, but now bleeding across one arm.

She inhaled once. Deep.

Then exhaled.

Her eyes opened again.

And they weren't just glowing.

They were golden now—slitted and fierce, like something ancient was watching from behind the skin.

Jin blinked. "Wait…"

In the arena, Yujin's body started to change.

Not wildly. Not uncontrollably. But piece by piece—her skin taking on the glint of pale scales. Her arms grew longer, heavier, and her tail split once—then merged into something thick and powerful.

She wasn't shifting into a fox. Or a wolf. Or a panther.

She was shifting into something else.

Something mythical.

A dragon's jaw clicked into place where her mouth had been.

She exhaled once—and smoke drifted from her nostrils.

Jin felt his heart skip.

"She's using the circlet."

The item from the trial. The one linked to Sun Wukong.

He remembered what the Dokkaebi had said about it:

"It is only an imitation of the true skill. But it holds a spark of his path. A hundred forms—beasts, gods, and monsters. And one soul to wield them."

Yujin rolled her neck.

Then charged.

Yujin's feet left the ground.

The stone beneath her cracked from the force of her launch, molten veins glowing briefly in her wake. Her form streaked forward like a bullet with claws, the air rippling around her from sheer momentum.

And then—

She missed.

Rin wasn't where she'd aimed.

Not quite.

Yujin's claws tore through heat and steam and fractured light—hitting nothing solid. She flipped midair, tried to pivot off a craggy outcrop with her tail—but the movement was clumsy. Her foot slipped.

Her dragon form stumbled. Content presented by MV|LEMP|YR.

Rin, ever silent, turned on a pivot and flung out her arm.

Another distortion.

This time, Yujin didn't dodge in time. The impact hit her square in the chest—like getting punched by the pressure from a crashing plane. She flew backward, hit a stone wall, and dropped hard to one knee.

Inside the viewing cube, Jin stepped forward unconsciously, hand brushing the surface of the glass.

"She's not ready for that form," he muttered.

Jisoo was already watching her closely, arms crossed. "No kidding. She said in one of the fights before—when some guy summoned a baby dragon—she thought it looked cool."

Jin blinked. "She just… jumped straight to it?"

Jisoo shrugged. "It's Yujin."

Down below, Yujin coughed, smoke trailing from her throat. Her scaled fingers clenched at her ribs.

"I'm gonna puke fire," she muttered, then spat out black smoke instead.

Her vision doubled for a second. Everything felt too heavy—like her limbs didn't belong to her.

The problem wasn't the shift. It was keeping the pieces in line. A dragon wasn't like a panther or a wolf—those forms had instinct. She knew how they moved, how they hunted.

A dragon?

There was no instinct. No blood memory.

Just overwhelming power and the echo of myth in her bones.

She forced herself up.

Across from her, Rin's hand twitched slightly. Her field shimmered in again—heat-bending space, causing light to fold strangely. Her positioning didn't change, but she felt everywhere at once.

"I can't predict her," Yujin murmured.

But then again…

Neither could Rin predict her, she couldn't even predict herself.

If she couldn't fight like a dragon—then maybe she could fight like Yujin inside one.

Her scales glinted under the burning red sky of the trial dome. She reared back, tail slamming the ground to lift herself.

And then—

She roared.

Not fire. Not yet.

But sound. Raw. Piercing.

The arena shook.

Rin flinched.

It wasn't the power. It was the pressure. It wasn't an attack meant to kill—it was meant to disrupt.

Yujin launched again.

This time, she twisted her body mid-air. Not a straight lunge. A feint. Her claw came down from above—

And just before impact, she shifted again.

From dragon.

To leopard.

A half-second shift, just enough to reset her control. Smaller body. Tighter force.

She hit Rin's shoulder clean, the impact cracking the edge of her forcefield and spinning the girl sideways.

For the first time, Rin stumbled.

Inside the cube, Jisoo whistled. "That's one way to do it."

Jin didn't answer.

He was watching the way Yujin breathed—shallow, ragged. She hadn't landed that hit clean. She'd burned too much aura shifting twice in that burst. The circlet on her brow was still pulsing faintly, gold and red.

"Too much too fast," Jin said under his breath. "She's forcing it."

In the arena, Rin caught herself—just barely—and flicked her fingers again. Another distortion pulse rippled outward.

Yujin dropped, shifting into something lower to the ground—a mongoose maybe—just to avoid the blast. It grazed her shoulder, burning the fur into steam and singing her back to human in a jolt.

She tumbled.

Hit hard.

Blood traced down her temple.

But she rolled, forced herself up, and snarled.

"I didn't ask for a clean fight," she hissed, dragging her foot behind her in a crouch.

Rin said nothing.

But her next movement was faster.

She surged forward—not with her body, but with her distortion zone, letting it warp space enough to pull her two steps ahead of her own motion.

Yujin's body screamed for a defensive form—but she bit back the instinct.

No.

This time, she would trust herself.

She dropped low—let the dragon form begin to return, but not fully. Not the tail. Not the wings.

Just the arms.

Just the strength.

She met the pressure head-on.

Her claws—scaled and thick—slammed against the distortion field with enough power to cause a shockwave.

The field cracked.

Then shattered.

Rin stumbled back—eyes wide for the first time.

She hadn't expected the brute force to be used like this. Not from a shifting user.

She extended her hand to recalibrate the field—but Yujin was already inside it.

Already shifting again.

Back to wolf.

She ducked low, shoulder-checked her with bone-breaking force, and tackled her clean to the volcanic floor.

For a moment, both of them lay still.

Then Rin twisted.

Something in the floor beneath them shifted.

No—

It wasn't the floor.

It was the field again. A proximity zone.

Yujin felt her foot slip.

The world tilted.

And then—bam.

The weight of the arena flipped itself sideways in her mind. Her orientation scrambled.

She fell backward—and Rin rolled upright, her body cloaked now in a tighter version of her distortion field—humming, crackling like a barely-controlled storm.

"She's drawing it in," Jin realized aloud.

Rin wasn't using her field wide anymore.

She was concentrating it.

On herself.

Weaponizing it.

"Shit," Jisoo muttered. "Yujin, if you're gonna do something insane—do it now."

As if on cue—

Yujin exhaled.

"Okay," she murmured. "Round two."

She reached up and touched the circlet again. This time, she focused not on form—but on concept.

A dragon wasn't just size. It wasn't just scales.

It was presence.

Divine authority, channeled through fire and storm.

She let it in. Not fully. Not recklessly.

But intentionally.

Her body glowed white-hot for a second—just an outline of something massive behind her.

The image of a dragon. Ethereal. Not quite real. But forming.

And then—

She opened her mouth.

And fire came.

A cone of flame—wild, loose, barely aimed—but it forced Rin to retreat, dropping her distortion field and leaping out of the way.

It scorched the rock behind her. Melted two jagged pillars into slag.

Yujin fell to one knee immediately after.

She was panting. Her face pale. The circlet had stopped glowing.

But she smiled anyway.

"Worth it."