The Weapon Genius: Anything I Hold Can Kill-Chapter 84: Aftershock

The ground lurched violently, sending deep tremors through the battlefield. Debris crumbled from the surrounding structures, cracks spiderwebbing across the dirt like something massive was stirring beneath them.

Echo barely managed to keep his footing, his boots skidding slightly against the loose gravel as he steadied himself. Another tremor. Then another.

"Shit—!"

To his right, Doyun stumbled mid-aim, gritting his teeth as he fought for balance. His hands, steady just moments ago, shook as the vibrations threw off his focus. The compressed air bullet he had been lining up went wide, blasting a chunk out of a wall instead.

Doyun snapped his head toward Echo, scowling.

"Damn it, Echo! Stop making the ground move—I can’t hit shit like this!"

Echo turned his head sharply, eyes narrowing. His heartbeat pounded in his ears as he processed the accusation, his mind racing through the possible causes.

But...

"He wasn’t doing this."

At least, he didn’t think he was.

"You think this is me?" Echo shot back, his voice edged with frustration. "If I had a skill that made earthquakes, you really think I’d use it like—" He cut himself off.

A cold realization hit him.

He hadn’t been paying attention before. Not really.

But now, feeling the vibrations under his feet—feeling the way the tremors weren’t coming from an outside force, but something beneath them—

His stomach dropped.

"Oh, shit."

He realized exactly what was happening.

His skill—Resonance.

It stored and released sound waves.

And earlier, he had fired a massive concentrated blast directly into the ground to create a barrier between them and the others. That energy didn’t just disappear.

It had sunk into the earth, bouncing back, amplifying, reverberating through the ground like an uncontrolled ripple in a still pond.

An echo.

And now?

The energy was unstable—building up, waiting to burst.

"I might have actually screwed up."

He barely had time to process it before—

A blade came screaming toward his throat.

A sharp, cold glint of steel.

Echo instinctively ducked, twisting his body just in time to avoid Kyungjoon’s knife slicing through the space his neck had been. The air from the near miss burned against his skin.

Kyungjoon didn’t stop.

Before Echo could regain his footing, Kyungjoon vanished.

A flicker—then another.

He moved like a phantom, each step distorting as he flickered in and out of view. Not teleportation—no, something else. A speed-based ability honed for assassination.

And right now, Echo was the target.

"Not bad," Kyungjoon said, his voice smooth—almost amused. "But can you dodge this?"

The moment the words left his lips—he was already attacking.

Three flickers in rapid succession.

Echo could barely track him.

The first step—to Echo’s left. A feint.

The second step—above. An aerial attack.

The final step—right behind him.

"Fast—!"

Kyungjoon descended from above, blade gleaming, positioned for a killing blow.

Echo twisted, raising an arm to block—

BOOM.

A deafening explosion of compressed air ripped through the battlefield.

Kyungjoon’s body jerked sideways mid-air, his attack completely thrown off as Doyun’s shot slammed into his ribs.

He spun from the impact, the force sending him crashing to the ground in a roll.

Echo stumbled backward, breathing hard.

Doyun smirked. He spun his rifle, the barrel hissing from the pressure release.

"Took you long enough to tell me where to aim."

Echo wiped the sweat from his brow. "Yeah, well, next time, try not to miss so much before that."

Doyun scoffed, cracking his neck as he kept his rifle trained forward.

Kyungjoon groaned, pushing himself up.

His glare was sharp, calculating.

They had figured him out.

"He knows he can’t play the same game anymore," Echo thought. "He won’t make the same mistake twice."

But before they could fully recover—

The ground beneath them shuddered violently again.

A deep, ominous rumbling filled the air.

The earth split further.

This time—it wasn’t stopping.

A deep breath.

The battlefield trembled beneath their feet, cracks webbing out across the earth like the ground itself was fracturing under the weight of something unseen.

Kyungjoon was fast.

Too fast.

Echo could barely track him. Even with his own sound-based perception, every flicker felt like a half-second behind—a fraction too late to fully predict.

Doyun, standing beside him, gripped his rifle tighter.

"Tell me you’ve got a plan," he muttered, not taking his eyes off the shifting air around them.

Echo exhaled sharply. "Yeah, don’t die."

Doyun scoffed. "Great plan."

The moment his words left his mouth—

Kyungjoon vanished.

A split-second later, he was right in front of them.

He was faster.

Too fast.

Echo barely had time to register the movement before Kyungjoon’s knife was already slicing toward Doyun’s throat.

"Shit!"

Doyun’s body locked up for half a second, eyes widening as the blade cut through the air toward his jugular. freewebnσvel.cøm

He wasn’t going to dodge in time.

Echo moved.

He didn’t think—he just stepped forward.

CRACK.

The moment Kyungjoon’s blade got close, Echo slammed his knee straight into his ribs with full force.

It was like striking steel.

The shockwave from the impact reverberated through Echo’s entire leg, the raw feedback rattling his bones as Kyungjoon’s body jerked violently from the hit.

A sharp, gasping breath left Kyungjoon’s lips as his body wrenched sideways—but he wasn’t done.

He flickered again.

Echo cursed. "He’s still moving?!"

Kyungjoon’s body blurred, but this time, something was different.

The flickers were off.

Staggered.

Unstable.

Kyungjoon landed on the ground, gripping his ribs, his entire body spasming uncontrollably.

"His ability—he overused it."

Echo could hear it—the erratic hum of Kyungjoon’s flicker skill breaking apart. His own body had reached its limit.

Kyungjoon tried to push himself up.

Tried to flicker one last time.

But this time—his body failed.

He collapsed.

Unconscious.

Silence.

Echo exhaled slowly, rolling his shoulder as he stared down at Kyungjoon’s motionless form. His chest rose and fell shakily, like his own body hadn’t caught up to the fact that the fight was already over.

Doyun let out a low whistle, nudging Kyungjoon’s unconscious body with the toe of his boot.

"Yeah, I’d say that’s satisfying."

Echo rubbed his sore leg. "That was annoying."

Doyun reloaded his rifle, shaking his head. "Yeah? Well, next time, don’t mess with the freaking ground."

Before Echo could respond—

The earth suddenly lurched.

A low, deep rumbling filled the air.

The kind of sound that sent a chill down the spine.

The ground beneath them groaned, the fractures in the earth widening as the shaking escalated.

"No. No, no, no—"

Echo’s gut twisted.

He turned his head sharply—toward the wall he had blasted up earlier. Toward where Jin, Hanuel, Joon, and Areum were.

Then—

BOOM.

The battlefield split apart.

A deep, jagged fissure erupted through the center of the earth, cutting straight through where they stood.

Echo’s heart pounded.

Doyun nearly lost his footing, cursing as he stumbled backward. "What the hell is happening!?"

Echo clenched his jaw.

"This is my fault."

The Resonance energy he had fired into the ground—it had stored, bounced, and built up into a breaking point.

And now?

The land itself was fracturing.

The wall exploded.

A massive blast of energy tore through the structure, sending chunks of stone and debris scattering outward.

Through the dust—

Jin, Hanuel, and Areum burst through the destruction, sprinting forward.

Hanuel’s ability flickered beneath his feet, shadow-stepping across the crumbling terrain with Jin and Areum in tow.

"GO!" Jin’s voice rang out. "We need to move—NOW!"

Echo turned sharply, grabbing Doyun’s wrist and yanking him into motion. "Move, move, MOVE!"

They ran.

The ground collapsed behind them.

The fissure widened, swallowing the battlefield whole as the world crumbled into chaos.

Echo’s pulse pounded in his ears. They needed to make it out.

Then—

A voice.

Distant.

Low.

And yet, cutting through the destruction clear as day.

"New Order—"