The Weapon Genius: Anything I Hold Can Kill
Chapter 131: Roots Beneath the Stone

Jin stepped through the dim halls of the old school, the light from outside fading behind him, replaced by the low ambient hum of the forest's quiet breath. The deeper he went, the more the building resembled something not entirely manmade, nature folding in on the old structure like it had been waiting for the excuse to reclaim it.

The air was cool. Still. Not unfriendly, but expectant.

Jin's boots crunched lightly over a trail of bark-stiff moss, his hand resting near the strap that crossed his back, where the katana hung. The longer he walked, the more the silence stretched. Not heavy, but patient.

He passed the old main office, now half-consumed by thick root webs. A mural on the wall had long since faded into vague color and shape, its edges overtaken by crawling vine patterns. The forest hadn't just taken the building, it had grown with it.

Jin stopped and looked up toward the ceiling, then turned his head slightly and exhaled.

"Alright," he called, voice low but echoing. "No more riddles. You wanted me to come talk, so talk."

Nothing answered at first.

Then, behind him, the ground cracked.

Not loud. But sharp enough to draw reflex.

Jin spun, hand already drawing the blade across his back. A clean whisper of steel, no pause, no hesitation, his body knew the motion better than thought.

He halted mid-step.

A figure stood barely a foot from him, unmoved by the blade now hovering inches from its neck.

Small. Childlike.

A body of stone and glowing root-veins, shaped like a human but clearly not one. Embers pulsed faintly beneath skin-like stone. Its expression was blank, but calm.

Jin didn't lower the blade right away.

The figure blinked once.

"Still sharp," it said.

Jin narrowed his eyes, then eased the sword down and back into its sheath. "Still showing up like a horror scene."

"You called," it replied simply.

It turned and walked deeper down the corridor.

Jin followed, rolling his shoulders once as the weight of readiness fell off them.

They walked in silence, through hallways where no echo followed. The moss dampened even footsteps. Root-bound lockers and collapsed tiles painted a path that belonged more to forest than to school. They passed classrooms filled with hanging vines where chalkboards had once been. No rot. Just age, settled in peace.

Aestros, stopped in front of an old teacher's lounge. The door was long gone. Inside, the room had been transformed into something still and warm. The floor was smooth bark-stone, and the walls pulsed with faint veins of light. There were no chairs. No table. Just presence.

"I asked for you," the figure said again, turning to face him.

Jin nodded and stepped inside. "You picked a good time. We've been busy."

Aestros tilted its head. "The Iron-Devourer?"

"Handled," Jin said. "Named variant. Armored. Loud. Went down after a clean cut. Its spawn showed up too, dozens of them, but the squad took care of it."

"You led them."

"I did. But I didn't carry them. They weren't flailing. They weren't afraid. They moved. Reacted. Executed." Jin's voice didn't carry pride, just fact. "They're growing."

A quiet pause.

"I'm not training them anymore," he added. "Not like before."

"You've trained them long enough to stop calling them recruits."

Jin cracked a small smile. "You've been watching."

"Always."

Jin glanced around the room. "It's been almost a month since the seed was planted. Since you stopped Gugwe-mok."

The name hung in the air like old smoke.

Aestros didn't reply immediately.

"When I fought it," Jin continued, "right before you finished it off… it said something. About being born beneath the first tree."

He stepped toward the center of the room, eyes narrowing. "And lately… I've felt it. Something under our tree. Like the roots are breathing."

"They are," Aestros said. "Something is stirring beneath the bark."

Jin crossed his arms. "You think Gugwe-mok's coming back?"

"No. Not as it was. What was destroyed stays dead."

"Then what's waking up?"

Aestros didn't answer at first. It looked down at its small stone hands, watching the ember-like veins flicker in the dim light.

"The roots you planted grew faster than expected. Stronger. This forest, your territory, it is no longer neutral. It is connected."

Jin looked toward the wall. Beyond it, at the forest's heart, the tree towered, deep-rooted, ancient, alive.

Aestros continued, "Whatever is beneath it, the system has acknowledged your bond. If something awakens… it will answer to you."

Jin's jaw tensed slightly. "And if it doesn't?"

"You'll still be the first voice it hears."

They let the silence stretch a moment longer.

Jin let out a slow breath. "We've been watching for the system to make its next move. But nothing's happened. No major quests. No territory threats. Just small things."

"The quiet isn't real," Aestros said. "It's permission."

Jin glanced at him. "Permission to do what?"

"To grow. To become more."

He didn't argue. He felt it, too. They'd been training hard, fortifying the base, exploring the outer ring of their forested zone. Testing limits.

But that stillness?

It always came before something worse.

"You think the system's about to drop something," Jin said.

Aestros nodded. "Soon. And not something minor. I can feel it pressing down. A change in the weight of the world."

Jin flexed his hand at his side. "You're saying this'll be different from anything before."

"It won't be a trial," Aestros said. "It will be a reshaping."

Jin didn't flinch. "Then we'll shape with it."

He stepped forward, eyes steady.

"We've changed. All of us. We've built something. Grown stronger. Learned how to stand together." He paused. "So whatever the system throws next…"

He set his hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Let it."

Aestros didn't respond with words. But the veins along his arms pulsed brighter, acknowledging, recognizing.

Then his form flickered, like a light behind stone briefly dimming.

Jin turned back toward the doorway.

He stepped out into the hall, letting the quiet inside fall away behind him. The air was cooler than it had been when he entered, the sun outside now a touch lower in the sky, filtered through the green canopy beyond the fractured windows.

He moved without hurry, his boots brushing past patches of moss that had crept up over the floor tiles. The walls pulsed faintly with ambient light, the veins of the tree's presence alive even here, in stone and shadow.

As he reached the main entrance, the doors, still old wood, warped slightly with age and root, stood propped open, held gently in place by coiled vines wrapped around the hinges like hands. The breeze that drifted through carried the scent of leaves and bark, tinged with something sweeter.

Jin stepped outside.

The forest was waiting.

He walked slowly across the courtyard, the crunch of gravel beneath his steps softening as he reached the living ground. The clearing around the school was quiet for once. No sparring. No drills. The others must have broken off for the evening. Even Echo's usual rhythm pulses were absent.

Jin followed the main path toward the tree.

The canopy above had shifted again, always adjusting, never exactly the same as the day before. Shafts of golden light cut through the gaps, spotlighting patches of vibrant moss and glowing root flowers. The forest never felt still. It was always breathing, always aware.

And at the center of it stood the Lifebound Tree.

It rose like a spire, thick and ancient, bark rippled with patterns that looked almost like script. Its roots coiled around the base of the school now, anchored deep into the soil and stone beneath. The branches stretched so high they vanished into the green above, each leaf subtly shifting color between green, silver, and soft amber depending on how the light struck it.

Jin stopped at its base.

He let out a quiet breath and sat on a curved root, the bark smooth from where people had leaned or rested so many times before. From here, he could see the old clock tower barely peeking over the treetops, just a relic now. No longer needed to measure anything.

Time had its own rhythm now.

He leaned forward slightly, forearms on his knees, sword resting against the root beside him. A few forest moths flitted between the leaves above, and somewhere in the deeper brush, something chirped low and rhythmic.

For a moment, there was peace.

He let it stretch.

Let himself feel the weight of things, what had passed, what might still come. Aestros's words still lingered in the back of his mind. Not fear. Not a warning. Just a truth wrapped in tension.

The world was about to move again.

Jin reached out, letting his fingers brush against the trunk.

The tree felt warm.

Alive.

He closed his eyes, just for a moment.

Then something shifted in the air.

It wasn't wind. It wasn't sound.

It was pressure, an old, familiar weight pressing gently on the back of his spine, the kind of presence that made the world itself seem to lean in.

A tone rang faintly, not in his ears, but in his bones.

Jin straightened, eyes narrowing slightly.

A shimmer bloomed across his vision.

And then it spoke.

The voice wasn't loud.

But it didn't need to be.

"It's been a month."

The words slid into the world like a blade into silk.

"We've given you time. To grow. To recover. To prepare."

The forest seemed to still. Even the wind paused, as if listening.

"But now... it's time."

"Time to see who's risen, who's adapted, and who hasn't."

Jin rose to his feet, hand brushing lightly over the sword at his side. His gaze stayed locked on the horizon.

"Your next trial begins now."

"A quest worthy of where you stand."

"One to raise the strong... and weed out the rest."