The Weapon Genius: Anything I Hold Can Kill
Chapter 138: The Beast Thinks Too

The silence after Jin's strike didn't last long.

Dust fell in ribbons from the cracked edge of the broken tower, drifting in the light like ash. The air still pulsed faintly with the aftershock of the technique—a lingering tremor that didn't touch the ground so much as it pressed against the lungs.

Jin let out a slow breath, Muramasa still in his hand.

Its blade, once glowing white, dimmed—returning to its familiar black. But it didn't go back untouched. Fine, web-thin cracks glowed faintly along the edge, like the sword itself hadn't forgotten what it just did.

Neither had anyone else.

"Hey!" Jisoo's voice cut through the haze, ragged, urgent. "If you've figured this out—help us!"

Jin didn't look at her right away.

He watched his clone's final fragments still dissipating in the air. Then slowly, he turned.

"I can't," he said.

Jisoo blinked from across the field. "What?"

"I said I can't help you."

The tone wasn't cruel. Not even distant. Just… final.

"I could cut yours down. But that wouldn't solve the problem."

He raised Muramasa, letting her see it—how it no longer flared with divine light. How it seemed heavier now. Settled.

"This sword answered me. Not you. I made something new. You have to do the same."

For a moment, no one responded. Even the system lights above flickered slower, like they were waiting.

Then Jin stepped back, lowered into a crouch at the edge of the battlefield. His breathing steadied. Muramasa rested against his knee.

Now he watched.

Because that's all he could do.

Yujin's breath tore out of her chest in half-controlled exhales.

Her shadow was relentless.

It had shifted again—this time into something sinuous and low to the ground. Feline in the spine, but with limbs longer than they should've been. The eyes glowed—not red, not gold. Just empty. Watching every movement like it had already calculated where she'd move next.

She lunged sideways, shifting her limbs mid-sprint. Her arms hardened, paws turning to scaled mantis-like blades. The instincts flared the second the change hit.

Ambush. Latch. Carve through.

But before she could follow that pull, the shadow was already beside her.

It had read the shift.

Read the intent.

She dropped low, kicking into a corkscrew tumble, avoiding a downward slash by inches.

Not fast enough, she thought, jaw clenched.

Her shadow didn't mimic her reaction.

It mimicked what she wanted to do.

That was the problem.

Yujin pushed herself upright with a burst of breath, backpedaling while her limbs shifted again—horned beetle plating bracing across her forearms now, dense and ready to absorb.

Another flash—this one from memory.

Echo's voice, sharp during a drill: "You keep reacting like you've already made up your mind. Don't let instinct make decisions you haven't agreed to."

She'd hated that line. It sounded smart. But when her blood was hot, it just felt wrong.

Because instincts were fast. Natural. They kept her alive.

Until now.

The clone struck again, legs twisted with the spring of a cheetah, but silent like an owl. No sound. No give.

Yujin sidestepped—too early. It read her motion and curved around, slamming a coiled arm into her gut.

Pain bloomed. Her back hit stone. Hard.

She rolled, coughed, came up hissing between her teeth.

I've been shifting to match it. Not to beat it.

Her instincts screamed at her: Run. Get space. Shift for speed.

But something inside her paused.

Wait.

The instinct came from the fox form laced in her back—it flared when prey was smarter, not faster.

Another part of her—boar, maybe—was telling her to charge again.

Falcon said dive.

But none of them knew what the shadow would do next.

And that's when it clicked.

She didn't have to follow any of them.

She could listen to all of them.

But decide for herself.

The instincts are inputs, she realized. Signals. Warnings. Not commands.

She exhaled hard, forcing herself upright again. Blood smeared across her lower lip.

The clone came in for the kill.

But Yujin didn't move.

Not yet.

Yujin stood still as the shadow lunged.

It moved like she used to—quick, predatory, unquestioning. The moment it sensed hesitation, it closed in, low and fast with limbs like hooked daggers and a tail that whipped the air with calculated bloodlust.

But Yujin had already begun to breathe differently.

She opened herself to the storm inside.

Not the rage.

Not the fear.

But the language.

Each instinct rose in her like a voice in a wild council:

The hawk's precision pulled her gaze sharp. Left leg—coil in preparation. Watch for rebound.

The panther's tension vibrated in her spine. Fast. But too linear.

The serpent's chill pressed into her gut. Conserve. Wait for the fold.

The gorilla's rooted stance steadied her heels. Brace. Rotate from the hips.

And still, she didn't move.

Not until the precise moment the shadow entered striking range.

Then—shift.

Her body flashed, hybrid forms intertwining.

Left arm—scaled like a dragon's. Right leg—muscled and clawed from a tiger's spring.

Spine? Flexible. A blend of wolf agility and serpentine twist.

She ducked under the first slash, twisting her right foot as it landed—pivoting on the ball of her foot instead of the heel, an adjustment taught to her by Joon to maintain speed without sacrificing control.

The clone turned to compensate.

Too late.

She struck upward with a spiral motion, using the rotation of her transformed leg to build force into her left elbow—now plated with iron-scaled skin.

It landed against the clone's side with a crunch that echoed through the arena.

The shadow stumbled. For the first time, visibly.

No ash. No fake-out. Just damage.

She didn't let it recover.

Her form blurred again, building a layered hybrid that felt like memory and instinct colliding at last.

Bear for muscle.

Mantis for striking rhythm.

Eagle for aerial precision.

She launched forward, her feet barely touching the ground—movement propelled not by speed, but by focus.

And then she named it.

Not for drama.

But because it felt true.

"Gyeoulmawha."

The Ice Tiger—a mythical fusion of leopard, bird, and spirit.

She didn't shift into the legend exactly. But she felt it.

Strength without abandon. Clarity without coldness. Instinct in service of decision.

The clone tried to leap away.

She was already there.

Yujin ducked beneath its claw, her spine arching in a fluid wave as she rotated upward with a full-body spiral—claws slicing across the clone's chest, not once, but three times.

Slash. Reverse slash. Palm strike.

The last hit drove it backward, cracking its footing and forcing it to one knee.

The crowd didn't cheer.

There was no crowd.

Only her breath. The quiet. The sound of her own mind clearing.

The instincts inside her—once blaring like fire alarms—had gone still.

Listening now.

Waiting.

Following.

She stood over her wounded double.

For a moment, they locked eyes.

Hers burned gold. The clone's remained blank.

And for the first time, it didn't strike again.

It hesitated.

Yujin exhaled.

"Not bad," she whispered. "I guess beasts can think before they act too."

Then she raised her hand again, clawed and steady, ready to finish what she'd started.

Yujin stepped forward.

Her shadow didn't flee. Didn't try to regenerate. It crouched, low and still, legs tensed in tight, animal readiness.

She tightened her claws. One step, two—her breath was steady now. Her heartbeat synced with the thrum of the arena floor. She felt her own blood in rhythm with the soil, not just the beast in her veins.

Then—

The clone sprang.

Faster than before.

The slash came not from the front, but low and to the side, like it had tracked her overcorrections—predicted her hunger to finish things quickly.

She twisted, but not fast enough.

Claws raked across her ribs.

She hissed, rolled to the side, caught herself with one palm. The clone didn't follow through. It stepped back again, watching now.

It had adapted.

She forced herself to stand. Blood wet beneath her shirt, but nothing broken. Not yet.

"Alright," she muttered, "so we're still dancing."

She took stock again. What could she shift? What had cost too much already?

The eagle's sight was spent. She'd used it too long—her head still rang from the strain. The bear's strength burned in her joints, too slow to flow clean.

So she stripped it down.

Lean. Sharp. Focused.

Two shifts.

Tiger. For forward aggression.

Snake. For redirection.

One claw. One tail.

That was enough.

The shadow moved again—but this time, so did she.

She dropped low as it advanced, ducking under its first strike, her left leg sweeping in a low arc. The clone hopped over it—just as she wanted.

She twisted with her tail—serpentine and quick—hooking its knee from behind mid-air.

It fell sideways, off-balance, the moment perfect.

She didn't hesitate.

She stepped in with the tiger's rush, one hand raised above her head, claw sharpened, breath tight.

And then—she stopped thinking.

The name came not from her lips.

But from her chest.

"Baekho Gyeolhon."

White Tiger's Union.

She slammed downward—not with wild force, but with curved precision.

Her claw cut across the shadow's chest in a sweeping X, timed with the twist of her hips and the crack of her serpent-tail driving it down.

The clone struck stone.

For a heartbeat, nothing moved.

Then—

Its limbs began to flicker.

Black smoke spilled from its wounds—not the formless kind from before. This was dense. Heavy. Like it had weight.

The shadow jerked once—then split down the center, dissolving into dark mist that curled into the cracks of the ground and vanished.

Gone.

For real.

Yujin stood still.

The silence pressed in again.

She didn't shout. Didn't cheer.

She just breathed.

And when she looked at her hands—still clawed, still trembling—they didn't feel like strangers anymore.

They felt like hers.

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