The Weapon Genius: Anything I Hold Can Kill-Chapter 184: One Night (Part Six)

The weight of Hanseong’s katana didn’t shake in his grip, but the woman he held against it did.

Her breath was shallow, teeth clenched. Minji, if he remembered right. Her hair was matted with sweat and debris, one cheek streaked with dried blood from the earlier clash. Her arms twitched slightly—ready to resist, maybe—but the blade at her neck made it a gamble even she wasn’t ready to take.

Across the hallway, his sister stood like stone. The whip in her hand still hummed with residual force, its coiled segments glowing faintly with traces of inertia. She didn’t lift it again. Not yet. Her gaze flicked between Minji and him, torn in a way Hanseong hadn’t seen since they were kids fighting over scraps in the old world.

"Minji," she called softly, voice strained.

Minji didn’t flinch. Her chin lifted slightly as she met her commander’s eyes.

"Don’t worry about me," she said through gritted teeth. "Take him out."

Her fingers clenched at her sides. "You survive. You help the others. That’s what matters."

Hanseong’s jaw tightened. The sound of her voice—the loyalty in it, the defiance even now—it grated against something buried deep. He didn’t hate her for it. But it made things harder.

"Shut up," he said coldly.

Minji went silent.

He looked past her, back to his sister.

"I’m not here to kill you," Hanseong said, his voice shifting, losing its bite. "The others—they tried to kill me. They made the choice."

His grip on the katana relaxed slightly, though the blade stayed steady. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

"But you? You still have one."

She didn’t answer, not yet.

"You give up now, I won’t touch her. I won’t hurt you," he said. "I’m not cruel."

A pause.

"I just want my sister back."

She froze.

Even across the distance between them, Hanseong could see the tremble in her fingers.

"Is that really what you want?" she asked, almost a whisper.

"You think I’d be here if it wasn’t?"

Minji shifted, trying to angle her chin enough to speak again. Her tone was rough, dry with grit and steel.

"You know what she’d want. You think she’d hesitate if the roles were flipped? You think she’d freeze up?"

Hanseong’s gaze cut toward her, sharp again.

"I said shut up."

His eyes snapped back to his sister.

"You come with me," he said, quieter now, like a promise. "You give up this mess. You walk away from this place."

He took a step forward.

"And I’ll do anything I can to make it right. Whatever it takes."

Another step.

"I’ll protect you. Even from yourself."

She didn’t move.

But her hands lowered—just an inch. Her shoulders sagged slightly, the way someone does when their armor starts to crack.

For the first time since this whole thing began, she looked small again. Like his little sister. The girl he used to drag out of trouble when the world hadn’t turned to ash.

"I..." she whispered, barely audible.

"I’ll go with you."

The silence that followed was absolute.

Hanseong let out a slow breath, stepping forward. Minji’s eyes widened slightly, lips parting—

Before she could react, the hilt of his blade moved. Fast. Gentle. Efficient.

A light crack echoed in the hallway as it met the side of her head. She slumped in his arms a moment later, unconscious before she hit the floor.

He caught her, easing her down, letting her head rest against the broken concrete. He didn’t speak. Just adjusted her weight so she wouldn’t choke if she rolled in her sleep.

Then he stood again.

His sister hadn’t moved.

Hanseong walked slowly toward her.

"You made the right choice," he said softly.

She looked up, eyes still wide—but they narrowed suddenly. Her knees bent, and for a moment, he could see it in her body language. Tension. Like a spring being compressed.

She moved.

Her foot slid across the floor, arms snapping into position—either to run, or strike, or both. It didn’t matter.

He was already there.

One moment she was shifting, the next—his hand pressed to her shoulder, his sword reversed, and the butt of the hilt tapped her jaw with pinpoint precision.

She crumpled before the sound of impact finished echoing down the corridor.

He caught her too.

"You never did like to listen," he muttered, almost fond.

He didn’t linger.

With a sigh, Hanseong reached into his inventory and withdrew a pair of high-grade system cuffs. Silver steel gleamed in the dim hallway lights, already adjusting size to her wrists. They latched with a quiet hiss, locking tight behind her back.

He hoisted her up gently, shifting her over one shoulder like it was nothing. She was light. Lighter than she used to be. Not because she was weak, but because he’d gotten stronger.

He moved through the hallway with measured steps. Passed a broken door. Checked the adjacent rooms.

Finally, he found one that looked stable—a repurposed control office, by the look of it. The glass was cracked, but the walls were solid. Enough for what he needed.

He laid her down carefully, making sure she wouldn’t roll onto her bound hands.

Then he turned, walked back into the hall, and let his fingers trace the support points along the ceiling.

One slash. Then another.

He moved like a sculptor with a chisel.

A long crack echoed overhead, then a groan of bending steel.

He stepped back, katana in hand.

The roof caved in behind him—dust and debris collapsing inward, sealing the hallway with a makeshift wall of rubble.

No one would be getting through that easily.

Hanseong didn’t watch it fall. He was already walking away.

He paused only when he heard motion up ahead.

Two prisoners, both armed. One with a pair of daggers. The other with a spiked hammer.

They barely had time to blink.

He passed them like a shadow.

A beat later, they staggered—blood trailing from twin cuts across their torsos. Not deep. Just enough.

He didn’t slow down.

Didn’t look back.

And far ahead, deeper into the belly of the prison, a boom echoed through the walls. Distant, but strong. Something had exploded.

Hanseong’s eyes narrowed.

"I wonder if that’s from Seul or Chul..."

He sheathed his katana and broke into a run, vanishing around the next corner, the air behind him sliced clean in his wake.

The hallway bent left, then right, opening into a broad intersection where three wings of the South Sector converged. The boom echoed again—closer this time, louder. It shook the floor beneath his boots. A light fixture overhead flickered once, then burst in a snap of sparks.

He didn’t slow.

Another figure stepped into the corridor ahead—broad-chested, maybe early thirties, face covered in soot and a scar running from temple to chin. A jagged saber was already forming in his grip, summoned from inventory with a sharp hiss of displaced air.

"Got one!" the man yelled, lifting the blade over his shoulder.

Too slow.

Hanseong ducked beneath the swing, his right hand already drawing the katana with a clean snap. A single step carried him behind the man. One horizontal strike.

The prisoner fell without a word.

But there wasn’t time to breathe. Two more emerged from a side corridor—one already releasing a storm of flaming javelins, conjured mid-air and hurled in a volley. The other had scaled his arms with a crystalline armor, jagged edges protruding from his elbows and shoulders like malformed wings.

Hanseong tensed.

The first javelin whistled toward him. He sidestepped, letting the shaft graze his cheek—hot enough to singe hair. He moved forward, weaving through the next two, then leapt above the fourth. His foot landed square on the fifth mid-flight, using its momentum as leverage.

He surged forward.

The javelin conjurer barely had time to blink before Hanseong’s blade kissed his shoulder and ran diagonally across his torso.

A scream erupted. Blood sprayed. The man dropped, still breathing—but no longer able to move his right side.

The crystalline brute lunged next, elbow spikes aimed for Hanseong’s ribs.

A shallow feint. Sloppy.

Hanseong parried the strike with the side of his blade, then spun under the counter-swipe. The katana reversed and slammed into the man’s ankle with pinpoint force. A clean break. The prisoner howled, falling.

Hanseong stood still as both collapsed beside him. He looked down at his blade, flicked the blood off the edge with a practiced wrist motion, and kept moving.

The deeper he went, the more resistance came. Some of them carried weapons—many didn’t. Skills flared wildly in the confined spaces: bursts of ice that tried to lock his legs down, phantom fists that struck from blind angles, gravity wells that bent his footing.

He adapted.

The ice? He jumped early, letting his momentum carry him past the blast radius.

The phantom fists? He closed his eyes, letting his hearing guide him instead of his sight. One step to the left, one counter-slash, and the caster crumpled.

The gravity user? That one was tricky. A young woman, maybe barely older than his sister. She hovered above the ground, hands pulsing with concentric rings of force.

"Down," she snarled, snapping her wrists forward.

The entire corridor lurched downward. Hanseong’s knees buckled.

But only for a second.

He threw his katana into the air. The instant it left his hand, he activated his footwork. His skill. The moment he moved—truly moved—his presence fractured.

Three steps forward. One to the left. A blur of motion, imperceptible to anyone without a system-enhanced eye.

The girl’s powers flickered.

She blinked—then froze as a cold blade rested against the side of her head.

"Don’t," he said quietly.

She fainted before he had to do anything.

More kept coming. Most were men—aggressive, loud, predictable. Hanseong danced through their numbers, never lingering in one place long enough to be trapped. He began to notice a pattern.

The ones barking orders?

All women.

It made sense. This wasn’t just a prison gang anymore. It was a territory. One run by power, not hierarchy. And the strongest here had taken leadership by force and fear. Which meant the ones with real control...

Were still ahead.

He dispatched another group quickly. One tried to summon iron spears from the floor. Hanseong leapt over them, struck three times mid-air, and landed behind the group.

A man with brass knuckles lunged next. Hanseong let him come close, then pivoted on his heel, dodged the right hook, and elbowed the man in the throat. A single, short breath later, the man was gasping on the ground.

He turned the corner at the end of the hallway and froze.

A heavy door stood ahead, vault-like. A single corridor led to it, and at the center of that corridor...

She stood.

Not tall. Not bulky. But her presence was immediate.

Her hair was tied in a crown of braids, falling past her shoulders. Her jumpsuit wasn’t the standard orange—it had been modified, reinforced with patches of metal threading and tight-laced boots. A long dagger spun slowly in her hand, tip dragging sparks against the floor.

Her eyes locked on Hanseong.

"You’re fast," she said, voice smooth. "Quieter than most."

He didn’t answer. His body shifted slightly into a stance—not quite drawn, not quite at rest.

She smiled faintly. "That’s good. Because you’ll need all the speed in the world."

She lifted her hand.

A low hum rose in the air. Static. Then gravity.

No—pressure.

Hanseong’s foot lifted—but it felt heavier. Like something was dragging at his boots, his arms, his lungs.

Her skill.

A pressure-based suppression field.

And it was only growing.

"I’ve been waiting to test this on someone who could actually move," she said, dagger flipping into a full reverse grip.

Hanseong’s lips pressed into a thin line.

More than just a strong one.

This one was dangerous.

And from the sound of footsteps approaching behind her, she wasn’t alone.

He inhaled, adjusting his grip on the hilt of his katana.

No words.

Just the start of a new dance.