Marvel: The Awakened One

~ Support & Read 70 Advanced Chapters on Patreon!

❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁

Hawk’s voice was a chilling whisper.

But the Angel of Death, now fully subjugated by the Demon Emperor Fist, moved with the rigid precision of a machine, executing the command to initiate its own awakening.

The next moment.

A torrent of chaotic energy erupted from the boy’s body. A brilliant, blinding beam of light shot straight up from the crown of his head, piercing the clouds, tearing through the atmosphere, and projecting out into the vast emptiness of space like a cosmic flare.

At the same time.

The boy’s face contorted into a mask of pure agony. His entire body began to convulse uncontrollably.

It was clear: the process was excruciating.

Suddenly.

A sickening rip echoed from his back. A patch of black, downy feathers forced its way out, tearing through the skin and muscle near his shoulder blades.

The sound of tearing flesh grew louder.

The boy’s convulsions intensified. Driven by pure instinct, he curled into a tight, trembling ball on the ground.

But the blood-stained black wings on his back continued to grow, slowly unfurling.

Until—

BAM!

”AAAAAH!”

As the pair of black wings fully extended, the sheer, agonizing surge of energy shocked the Angel of Death back to consciousness.

His eyes snapped open, burning with feral, murderous intent.

His face was a portrait of pure hatred.

And then!

He died.

”Lightning Plasma: Five-Sense Deprivation!”

BOOM!

The moment the Angel of Death regained consciousness, he was struck point-blank. Instantly, he plunged into an endless void of absolute darkness and nothingness.

The next second.

Hawk, who had been sitting cross-legged in meditation, materialized in physical form. As the ethereal image of the Gemini Gold Cloth faded into nothingness, Hawk looked up and launched himself into the sky.

The spectral image of the Black Phoenix ignited behind him.

The dark flames of the Black Phoenix Surplice surged, enveloping his entire body in an obsidian armor.

As the final piece—the dark, menacing visor—locked into place, a pair of black phoenix wings unfurled from his back. With a single beat, he tore through the atmosphere. Hovering above the blue marble of Earth, Hawk’s eyes, now blazing with a dark, terrible light, fixed on a point in space where a massive, overwhelming presence was attempting to force its way through the fabric of reality.

Soon.

Hawk caught the scent. A familiar, utterly nauseating smell.

The stench of Heaven.

But just as a corner of the Heaven Dimension began to fold out from the spatial tear, it abruptly stopped.

It seemed they had sensed that something was wrong.

Hawk’s eyebrow arched beneath his visor.

”Figured it out, did you?”

”Too late!”

”Phoenix’s Winged Ascent!”

Hawk didn’t hold back. His opening move was his ultimate technique. As he threw the punch, the colossal, blindingly bright spectral image of the Black Phoenix erupted from him, so massive it seemed to blot out the stars. It mirrored his movements, spreading its wings wide.

And then—

With eyes as black as the void, the phantom Phoenix let out a deafening cry and slammed directly into the protruding corner of the Heaven Dimension, just as it was desperately trying to abort its arrival.

KRA-KOOOOOM—

It was like a meteor striking a planet. In the blink of an eye, a violent tremor rippled across the surface of the Heaven Dimension. A massive shockwave erupted, expanding outward like a tidal wave of pure kinetic force.

And at the epicenter of that shockwave, with a sickening rip…

The outer barrier of the Heaven Dimension was torn wide open.

Hawk didn’t hesitate. With a flick of his black wings, he shot through the gaping wound, plunging directly into the heart of Heaven.

This was called taking the fight to the enemy’s doorstep.

And more importantly.

He had promised that the throne of God was going to change hands today. How could he claim the title if he didn’t conquer the territory first?

”YAHWEH!”

”COME OUT AND DIE!”

Hawk roared, his voice shaking the very foundations of the realm. He looked down at the idyllic, paradise-like world below, teeming with countless heavenly beings. His Cosmo burned with an unrelenting fury as he pointed his right index finger downward.

”Lightning Plasma!”

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM—!!!

This was the foundational attack of a Gold Saint, unlocked upon awakening the Seventh Sense. In a single second, a Gold Saint could unleash hundreds of millions of punches, each moving at the speed of light.

In an instant, every corner of the Heaven Dimension was subjected to Hawk’s merciless, overwhelming bombardment. He didn’t hold back. Each individual strike carried enough concussive force to level a mountain on Earth.

A blinding storm of pure golden light swept across Heaven. The beams of energy wove together into an inescapable, apocalyptic grid, slamming into the surface of the dimension before the echo of Hawk’s roar had even faded.

The earth was the first to scream in agony.

The sacred ground, once flowing with milk and honey, paved with crystal and precious gems, was pulverized by the indiscriminate bombardment. It was like throwing rocks into a placid lake.

No.

Rocks create ripples.

This was like dropping a billion boulders at once!

A massive network of black fissures appeared across the entire landscape. The ground, stronger than forged steel, was instantly punctured, upheaved, and shattered!

The towering, majestic mountains were reduced to fine powder in a heartbeat!

The pristine rivers evaporated instantly, leaving behind dry, twisted riverbeds that themselves were erased from existence a fraction of a second later.

The architecture of Heaven suffered an equally catastrophic fate!

The grand cathedrals, the towering spires that reached for the clouds, the sweeping arches carved with eternal hymns—these pure white monuments to eternity and persistence—were suddenly covered in millions of microscopic golden cracks.

The next second!

A series of colossal explosions rocked the realm as countless structures disintegrated and collapsed from the inside out!

The crystal tiles and white marble weren’t just shattered into pieces; they were pulverized into a fine, blinding dust that choked the sky. Under the torrential flood of golden meteors, the magnificent cities of Heaven were reduced to ash and erased from existence at a visible rate.

And the inhabitants fared no better.

Countless beings living in the Heaven Dimension met their apocalyptic end under Hawk’s fists.

As everyone knows:

The hierarchy of angels is strict.

The beings living in Heaven who lacked wings were merely ’heavenly creatures.’ They didn’t even rank as angels.

Almost simultaneously with the destruction of the earth and the buildings, these beings were vaporized. They were instantly eradicated the moment their eyes registered the incoming golden light, completely unable to react.

Their souls were immediately pulled into Hawk’s Underworld.

The low-level angels, those with only two wings, met essentially the same fate.

The only difference was that their instincts kicked in. They raised their left arms, summoning holy shields of light, and drew their right hands, unsheathing swords wreathed in sacred fire.

And then—

Nothing.

Their shields of light popped like soap bubbles upon contact. Their flaming swords were vaporized in a ten-thousandth of a second.

Under the overwhelming barrage of Hawk’s Lightning Plasma, their armor twisted and shattered, their bodies exploding into a flurry of fading, luminous feathers.

As for the mid-level angels, the ones with four wings...

Again.

Laughable.

Only the high-level angels—the six-winged Archangels—were able to react in time. At the very onset of Hawk’s attack, they had rallied, converging around a single, massive, overwhelmingly sacred palace. They formed an impenetrable defensive perimeter, raising their shields in unison to block the golden bombardment.

But that was all they could do.

The ground of Heaven was collapsing.

The life of Heaven was being eradicated.

And the six-winged Archangels could do nothing but watch.

When Hawk’s initial barrage finally ceased, the landscape of Heaven was unrecognizable. The entire surface looked as if it had been aggressively plowed.

The earth was churned, the soil thrown into the air.

As for the buildings and the millions of beings that had once called this dimension home, they had been completely pulverized, their remains permanently blended into the swirling dust.

The only thing left standing in the entirety of the Heaven Dimension was that final, sacred palace, protected by the desperate efforts of over a hundred six-winged angels.

”Oh ho!”

”Not bad.”

”I missed a few.”

BOOM!

Hawk’s voice, dripping with absolute, freezing contempt, echoed across the ruined dimension. The space above the palace shattered, and Hawk, clad in the Black Phoenix Surplice, stepped out. A flicker of dark amusement crossed his cold, black eyes as he looked down at the surviving angels and their precious palace.

His voice thundered, loud and resonant, vibrating the eardrums of the six-winged angels until they felt as if their heads would split open.

”YAHWEH!”

”GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE!!!”

BOOM!

The sacred palace trembled, and a surge of immense, overwhelming power erupted from within. A moment later, an angel radiating a brilliant, milky-white light, possessing eight massive wings, rose from the palace to meet Hawk at eye level.

He was flanked by the surviving hundred six-winged angels, but his expression looked as if he had just watched his entire family be slaughtered.

Which, technically, he had.

Hawk raised an eyebrow beneath his visor, looking at the eight-winged angel.

This is Yahweh?

That doesn’t seem right.

”Yahweh?”

”My name—”

The eight-winged angel, his face twisted in grief and rage, surveyed the utterly shattered remains of his home. His icy gaze locked onto Hawk, and he raised his Sword of Protection, pointing it directly at the intruder. ”Is Gabriel. And you, Sinner, will pay dearly for your transgressions.”

Gabriel?

The Archangel of Revelation, the Guardian of Heaven, the one who blows the horn of the final judgment.

Hawk listened to Gabriel’s self-introduction, his mind racing. He swept his Seventh Sense across the entirety of the ruined dimension, and his expression grew strange.

”Where’s Yahweh?”

Yes.

Yahweh was missing.

When Hawk had initially scanned the dimension, he had assumed the massive power signature emanating from the sacred palace was Yahweh himself.

He hadn’t expected it to just be the Archangel Gabriel.

But if that signature was Gabriel, then where was the boss?

Under the full, unmitigated power of his Lightning Plasma—an attack capable of shattering planets—every single inch of the Heaven Dimension had been thoroughly scoured.

Right now, aside from the hundred six-winged angels and the legendary Archangel Gabriel, there wasn’t a single surviving life force left in the realm.

After all—

Saints were born for war.

And Gold Saints were the ultimate weapons of mass destruction.

Crowd control?

To a Gold Saint capable of throwing hundreds of millions of punches a second, a one-on-one fight and a one-on-a-million fight were exactly the same.

But that wasn’t the point.

The point was—

”Where the hell is Yahweh?”

”Hmph!”

Archangel Gabriel’s eyes were dark with fury. He let out a cold snort, his Sword of Protection held high, acting as the rallying point for the hundreds of six-winged angels, all pointing their weapons at Hawk.

”Sinner!”

”Face your Judgment!”

❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁

~# 70 Advanced Chapters Available on my Patreon!

https://p-atreon.com/dragonnx

(Just remove the hyphen to access Patreon normally.)