Thor's fists clenched tightly.
Levi's words were like needles stabbing into his pride.
He was Odin's son—the future king of Asgard.
And yet now, he couldn't even protect his own home. Meanwhile, this man had reshaped the entire realm with a wave of his hand, crushed Surtur's crown, and turned his once-invincible sister into nothing more than a guard dog.
The gap between them left him feeling powerless.
Levi seemed oblivious to Thor's flushed face as he continued, "A king can't be without a proper weapon. Mjolnir is gone, so replace it—with something stronger."
Thor finally forced out a few hoarse words, "Mjolnir… is one of a kind! It was forged from the core of a dying star!"
Levi replied flatly, as if discussing the weather, "So? Then find another star. The dwarves of Nidavellir shouldn't all be dead yet."
Nidavellir.
The name made Thor's breath hitch. It was the legendary dwarven realm, home to the greatest craftsmen in the Nine Realms.
His hammer—and Odin's Gungnir—had both been forged there.
He instinctively tried to argue, though his conviction faltered. "They don't forge weapons for outsiders."
Levi glanced at him like he was looking at a country bumpkin who had never seen the world.
Without giving Thor time to react, Levi placed a hand directly on his shoulder.
An irresistible force locked onto Thor, leaving him unable even to think about resisting.
"Let's go. Don't waste time."
Levi casually slashed his hand through the air.
No light. No runes. Space itself tore open like fabric, revealing a pitch-black rift.
On the other side lay the cold emptiness of space—and a massive, extinguished ring-shaped metal world.
Levi stepped through.
Gritting his teeth, Thor followed.
He knew he had no choice.
---
On the other side of the rift was absolute silence.
Cold—bone-piercing cold.
The dwarven realm Thor remembered, once filled with roaring furnaces and blazing fire, now resembled a colossal steel corpse drifting through space.
The massive metal ring was coated in thick frost. The forges that should have been spewing stellar flames were frozen solid. Half-finished weapons and enormous hammers lay abandoned on workbenches, covered in ice.
There were no bodies—but the complete absence of life was even more chilling.
A massive figure emerged from the shadow of a dead forge.
He stood two heads taller than Thor, built like a mountain.
It was Eitri, King of the Dwarves.
But his hands—once the most skillful in the Nine Realms—were now encased in solidified uru metal, like two grotesque iron lumps.
When Eitri saw Thor, a flicker of hope appeared in his clouded eyes—only to be swallowed by overwhelming fury.
"Odin's son," his voice rasped like grinding metal. "You were supposed to protect us! When Thanos came, where were you?!"
His gaze quickly shifted from the broken Thor to Levi.
As the craftsman who had forged the Infinity Gauntlet, his perception of power far exceeded ordinary beings.
He could feel it—within this seemingly ordinary man lay an ocean of laws, hotter than stars and deeper than black holes.
That power far surpassed Odin.
The despairing king of dwarves suddenly dropped to his knees, his massive body slamming into the metal ground with a heavy thud.
Raising his ruined hands toward Levi, his voice trembled with desperation and madness. "Avenge me! I will forge you a weapon—a true god-slaying weapon! One that can take Thanos's head!"
Levi simply looked at him and shook his head.
"I don't need weapons."
His voice was calm, yet it struck both Eitri and Thor like thunder.
"At my level, weapons are a burden. All power should belong to oneself."
He turned slightly, gesturing toward Thor.
"He needs one. Forge him an axe worthy of his status."
Eitri lifted his head, pointing despairingly at a distant, completely dimmed neutron star encased in ice.
"The forge is dead! Without a star's power, I can do nothing! Nidavellir is finished!"
Levi glanced at the frozen star and said calmly, "It's just asleep. Not dead."
He turned to Thor and nodded toward the lifeless star.
"Go. Wake it up."
Eitri's bloodshot eyes widened in madness. "No! The iris is frozen shut! Someone has to force it open from the outside—and they'll take the full, unfiltered power of a neutron star! That's suicide!"
Thor said nothing.
He looked at Levi, then at Eitri's ruined hands, and finally at the silent star in the distance.
Without a word, he turned and flew toward the massive ring mechanism controlling the iris.
No grand speech. No hesitation. Only stubborn resolve.
Levi watched his back, a faint smile finally appearing.
This was the Odin's son he wanted to see.
---
Thor landed on the massive metal ring. The cold beneath his feet nearly froze his soul. He found the enormous lever—like a mountain—and pulled with all his strength.
The metal groaned. Cracks spread across the ice—but the iris only opened a tiny slit.
"Not enough!" Eitri roared from afar. "Wider! You need the whole aperture open!"
With a furious roar, Thor's muscles bulged. He abandoned brute force and poured his newly awakened thunder power into his arms.
Blue lightning surged wildly around him, turning him into a living storm.
The lever finally moved.
The massive iris slowly began to open.
At the halfway point, the first stream of stellar energy burst through.
It wasn't light—it was pure, destructive energy.
Thor didn't even have time to scream before it struck him head-on.
His skin, muscles, and organs vaporized instantly, leaving only a crackling skeleton of lightning.
But in the next instant, Odin's royal bloodline and Thor's divine power surged into action, frantically rebuilding his body.
Flesh regrew at visible speed. His bones became stronger under the energy's assault.
He endured unimaginable agony—caught between destruction and rebirth.
Gripping the lever tightly, he let the star's flames burn him to ash again and again—only to be reborn each time.
Like iron in a forge, he was hammered relentlessly—on the verge of collapse every second, yet stronger with each passing moment.
Finally—
The iris fully opened.
A colossal beam of stellar energy, tens of kilometers wide, blasted directly into Nidavellir's central forge.
The dead forge ignited instantly. Frost that had accumulated for ages vaporized in a fraction of a second.
Eitri roared in ecstasy, commanding massive mechanical arms to feed rune-engraved uru ingots into the forge.
The metal melted into a flowing liquid that seemed to contain an entire galaxy.
Guided into molds, it took shape—combining the sharpness of an axe with the weight of a hammer, forming a brutal and majestic weapon.
The blade cooled, radiating destructive power.
Then—
"The handle! Quickly! We need a handle!" Eitri shouted.
But Thor had reached his limit. He could barely maintain his form, let alone find a handle.
The blazing axehead was about to solidify—if they missed this moment, the forging would fail.
At that critical instant—
Levi moved.
He stepped forward to the forge and casually picked up an unremarkable piece of shattered metal from the ground.
"This will do."
Raising his other hand, he spread his fingers toward the fragment.
Reality Warping.
The metal began to break down at its most fundamental level.
Atoms, particles—rewritten and redefined by Levi's will.
Its past erased. Its future rewritten.
A new reality imposed upon it.
The metallic texture faded, replaced by an ancient, profound wooden grain—like the branch of the World Tree.
It stretched and reshaped into a thick axe handle, radiating primal power.
Then, near the end where it would meet the blade, six shallow grooves of varying sizes and shapes appeared—as if they had always been meant to exist.
Levi released his hand.
The newly formed handle seemed alive. It shot forward as a streak of light, connecting perfectly with the blazing axehead.
At the moment they joined, there was no explosion—
Only a silent white light that illuminated all of Nidavellir.
A storm—blending the power of thunder, space, and reality—erupted from the weapon's core.
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