Marvel: The Awakened One

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At the center of Nidavellir was a decaying star, captured and harnessed to provide a limitless, eternal power source for the forge’s massive Dyson rings.

The fire of a star never truly dies.

And neither did the forges of Nidavellir.

Eitri was fond of saying: Unless the Dwarven race is entirely wiped from existence, the fires of Nidavellir will never be extinguished.

But today, the fires of Nidavellir were going out.

Because—

The fire of a dying star was insufficient to forge a true, authentic Gold Cloth for a Gold Saint!

Hawk hovered above the Dyson rings, staring at the blazing star caged inside the structure.

The star burned fiercely. Its heat, strong enough to melt any known metal, was directed through a series of focusing lenses straight into the huge smelting vats of the forge.

Hawk glanced at the whirling fire, then looked up and met Eitri’s eyes across the wide, metallic space of the forge.

His voice was perfectly calm. ”Shut it down.”

”If we shut down the stellar intake, and the energy you provide fails to meet the required forging threshold... your weapon will be irreparably ruined.”

”I know.” Hawk gave a faint smile, keeping eye contact with the Dwarf King across the great distance. ”Shut it down.”

”I must be out of my mind...”

”No, you just don’t have a choice.”

It was true, Eitri the Dwarf King really didn’t have a choice. He had made countless legendary artifacts, but most were made only for the Aesir of Asgard.

Because the Dwarves of Nidavellir were the personal, exclusive blacksmiths of Odin.

When Hawk had first arrived, Eitri had listened to his request and rejected it without a second’s hesitation.

Hawk might be a God.

But he was a foreign God. And Nidavellir did not forge weapons for anyone outside the Aesir pantheon.

Eitri had almost shouted his refusal. ”Nidavellir is bound by an eternal, sacred covenant with Odin, the All-Father! The All-Father protects Nidavellir, and in return, Nidavellir swears eternal fealty to Odin! We will never forge for an outsi—”

Hawk could swear on his life that what happened next was not embellished in the slightest.

Because at that exact moment, just as Eitri was shouting about their eternal covenant with Odin...

Before the Dwarf King could even finish his sentence—

Odin...

Died.

Don’t ask how they knew Odin had died on Earth when they were light-years away on Nidavellir.

Odin was the Chief God of the World Tree cosmos.

The fall of such a powerful king never goes unnoticed. It causes cosmic events.

The moment the Chief God took his last breath, a deep surge of sorrow swept across all of the Nine Realms.

Eitri, with his face contorted in a furious roar, was suddenly struck by a wave of sorrow. He froze immediately, his mouth still agape.

Hawk looked at the stunned, frozen Dwarf King and spoke in a flat tone.

”So... do you think you might need to consider signing a new contract with a different Chief God?”

”...YES!”

Eitri looked at the Bifrost, where he had just seen Loki and Thor thrown into space. He saw Hela, the Goddess of Death, walking up the Rainbow Bridge with her spiked headdress. Hawk’s steady words resonated in his mind.

He snapped out of his daze instantly.

His anger disappeared. He quickly started giving orders to his kin. In minutes, they found the old mold used for the covenant with Odin, made a new contract, and gave it to Hawk.

A wise man submits to circumstance.

And more importantly, while the rest of the Nine Realms might not have known about the coming doom of Ragnarok, the Dwarves of Nidavellir did.

Long ago, Odin had come to Nidavellir and told them the truth about Ragnarok, hoping they might forge a weapon capable of stopping it.

This explained perfectly why, when Ragnarok eventually came to pass in the original timeline, Eitri was the only Dwarf left alive.

After all, if you know about Ragnarok, and you are a part of the World Tree cosmos, you are inherently caught in the crosshairs of Ragnarok.

Sadly, the Dwarves couldn’t make a weapon to stop the apocalypse, so they couldn’t help Odin.

But they were certain of one thing: Ragnarok would start the moment Odin died. However, the key point was that Nidavellir’s covenant was signed directly with Odin.

And now, Odin was dead...

Ragnarok was here...

And Hawk was standing right in front of them.

So—

Adapt and submit to changing circumstances!

The new covenant proposed by the Dwarves was simple and straightforward.

Hawk was required to provide two things:

Protection for Nidavellir.

A continuous and unrestricted availability of premium alcohol for its population.

In exchange, Nidavellir would become a signatory of the new covenant. They would become Hawk’s exclusive blacksmiths, forging any weapon or artifact he required.

Of course, Hawk had to bring the raw materials. Also, if he asked for something impossible to make, he couldn’t use that as a reason to break the agreement.

Hawk skimmed the terms and, without hesitation, signed his divine name:

[Phoenix!]

Once the vivid phoenix symbol appeared on the contract, sealing the agreement, Hawk looked back at Eitri and said, ”Let’s get to work.”

Eitri had immediately united his people to begin forging the molds for the Sacred Armor.

——————————

Back to the present

Hearing Hawk say—’No, you just don’t have a choice’—Eitri let out a bitter, resigned chuckle and shook his head.

”DO IT!” Hawk ordered, his voice making it clear there was no room for argument.

Eitri didn’t waste any more breath. He turned and gave a sharp nod to the Dwarf operating the primary controls of the Dyson ring.

The Dwarf received the signal and threw the massive release lever.

VMMMM!

The blinding light of the stellar forge beneath Hawk’s feet began to extinguish at a visible rate.

In the blink of an eye.

The blinding fire vanished completely, revealing the forge’s true form: a colossal metallic sphere.

But the sphere was merely a protective shell.

And what was it protecting? The captured, dying star burning intensely within its core.

Hawk’s next step was simple, but also reckless.

He had to phase through the protective shell, dive directly into the heart of the continuously burning star, detonate his Cosmo to its absolute limit, and replace the star’s natural fire with his own Phoenix Fire.

Hawk shifted his weight, his boots touching down lightly on the surface of the massive metallic shell.

Eitri watched him, wide-eyed.

His voice resounded across the forge.

”YOU MUST BE INSANE! EVEN ODIN WOULDN’T DARE DIVE DIRECTLY INTO THE CORE OF A BURNING STAR!”

”But I dare.” Hawk looked at Eitri, let out a soft laugh, and then looked down at his feet.

The next moment—

Without a moment’s hesitation, he disappeared from the surface of the shell.

Odin might be afraid of fire.

But Hawk was not.

For someone who wielded the Fire of the Phoenix, the heat of a dying star was nothing more than...

Hiss!

Okay, that’s actually pretty hot...

The moment Hawk appeared within the star, plunging into an ocean of burning liquid plasma, he couldn’t help but suck in a sharp breath, gritting his teeth against the searing heat.

But he hadn’t forgotten why he was here.

So!

”BURN!”

”MY COSMO!”

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Deep inside the core of the blazing star, Hawk spread his arms wide. The spectral image of the Phoenix appeared behind him as the blood-red flames surrounding the star gradually shifted, transforming into a dazzling, radiant gold.

Soon, the fire burning within the core was no longer the natural plasma of a dying star. It had been completely replaced by Hawk’s unique, terrifying energy—a river of golden fire laced with veins of aether-red.

SKREEE!

A magnificent Phoenix, surrounded by golden flames, erupted from the metallic forge with a cry echoing through space.

Eitri, who had been watching with bated breath, saw the transformation and roared at the top of his lungs.

”NOW!”

CLACK!

The protective shell retracted instantly. The eternal forge of Nidavellir roared back to life.

But this time, the fire burning within the Dyson rings was not the fire of a star. It was the fire of the Phoenix.

The golden-red plasma shot through the focusing lenses, blasting directly into the primary smelting vats of the Nidavellir forge.

”THAT’S IT! WE HAVE IGNITION!”

”MOVE IT! MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!”

Eitri shouted and ran to his workstation. He grabbed his huge forging hammer, so heavy that the famous eighty-pound sledge looked like a toy in comparison—this one must have weighed at least eight hundred pounds. With a loud BAM, he brought it down on the big anvil.

In an instant.

Sparks the size of cars flew into the air.

A heat even more intense than the core of a star began to spread throughout the Nidavellir forge.

Standing at the star’s core, Hawk closed his eyes in pure focus, endlessly unleashing his Cosmo energy. Simultaneously, he carefully directed all his understanding of ’Life’ into this explosive energy, fueling the forge.

Clang!

Skreee!

Clang!

Skreee!

Suddenly, in the middle of the roar of the flames, Hawk thought he could hear the rhythmic strike of Eitri’s hammer.

Initially, the sound was soft and distant, as if he were listening through thick, frosted glass to the forge outside.

But...

Over time, the sound of Eitri swinging his massive hammer became clearer and sharper. His perception improved, and the previous blurriness diminished.

As the rhythmic strikes intensified and his senses heightened, Hawk unexpectedly experienced a strange, claustrophobic sensation.

It felt as if he were trapped in a tiny, incredibly confined space, completely immobilized, unable to move a single muscle.

But with every crisp strike of the hammer which resonated in his ears, the feeling of confinement lessened, slowly peeling away.

Hawk had a surreal feeling.

It felt like he was about to be born.

NO!

It wasn’t an illusion.

It was real.

At that moment, Eitri was drenched in sweat, his skin glowing red from the heat. He swung his massive hammer onto a breastplate on the anvil. As the detailed image of a Phoenix preparing to take flight gradually appeared in the center of the breastplate, each hammer strike was accompanied by a louder, more distinct cry of a Phoenix.

At the same time, a vat of liquid gold—a perfect, seamlessly fused alloy of Adamantium, Uru metal, and raw Life Energy, melted by Phoenix Fire—was poured into large molds to create the various parts of the Sacred Armor.

As each mold was cracked open, showing a perfectly formed piece...

Eitri’s hammering grew more frantic, and the phoenix’s howls from the metal grew sharper and louder.

The next second!

Eitri brought the hammer down for the final strike!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!

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