Nidavellir.
The dwarves remained trapped in shock, unable to regain their senses for a long time.
They stared at the King of Artifacts—carefully enshrined by Eitri, waiting to be sent to Asgard—with feelings too complex to name.
On one hand, it was the greatest glory to cast such a supreme creation with their own hands.
On the other, it was endless awe toward Lucci's bottomless vision and strength.
Lucci ignored the fanatical and complicated gazes around him.
To him, forging the Stormbreaker was merely a test project—practice and an exam in "Stellar Forging Art."
Through that practice, he gained a deeper understanding of the forging laws he had mastered, and at the same time, the thought in his heart became clearer and firmer:
He wanted to forge his own natal artifact.
The Stormbreaker was powerful, but in the end it was an "external object." Its power relied on accumulated materials and runes, pursuing pure outward destructive force.
That did not match Lucci's "Path."
Lucci's Path was to seek inward, to probe the origin of the cosmos, and to transform oneself into the universe.
The "Great Cosmos Meditation Method" he practiced pursued resonance between soul and cosmos, and control and application of laws.
The primal true flame he possessed was a flame of creation and destruction that surpassed all ordinary fire.
The artifact he needed could not be merely a weapon for battle.
It had to carry his Path, become an extension of his power, and a path toward enlightenment.
He did not need to pursue the ultimate destructive force of the Stormbreaker—because Lucci himself was the strongest "destructive force."
But the artifact had to possess several core characteristics:
First, it must perfectly match his "Great Cosmos Meditation Method." It must store and amplify his divine soul power, even aiding in law deduction and cosmic meditation.
Second, it must be able to carry origin—becoming the "sheath" and "core" of the true flame, releasing its power in subtler and more terrifying forms.
Third—and most importantly—it must have infinite growth.
It could not be a dead thing fixed into a form with fixed power.
Its strength must synchronize perfectly with Lucci's own.
As Lucci's understanding of the Path deepened and his command over cosmic laws increased, the artifact should evolve and transform, displaying new forms and greater power.
It would accompany Lucci from the Nine Realms to the cosmos and into wider unknown domains.
It would become more than a weapon.
It would be part of Lucci's soul, an extension of his will, the embodiment of the "Path" he walked across heaven and all worlds.
Once this thought took root, it grew into a towering tree in an instant.
Lucci's eyes shone brighter than ever, billions of stars rearranging and recombining within his deep pupils—as if he was conceiving the shape and function of a unique Path vessel.
He wanted to use the highest materials of the Nine Realms and beyond, with "Stellar Forging Art" as core theory, his true flame as forging fire, and cosmic laws as the engraving brush—
to forge for himself a tool no ancient or future being had ever possessed.
When Lucci told Eitri his thoughts, the dwarf king's reaction was ten thousand times more excited than Lucci expected.
"Y-you… you're finally going to forge a weapon for yourself?!"
Eitri's voice trembled with excessive excitement, his weathered face glowing as if he had become a hundred years younger.
This was unquestionably the greatest glory the dwarves had ever received!
To witness it with his own eyes—to help the "God of Forging" create his natal artifact—what a divine opportunity!
It was not only a chance to learn, but the highest glory that would be carved into history and remembered by Nidavellir's dwarves forever!
Eitri almost didn't hesitate. He abruptly turned and ordered the dwarves behind him, his booming voice like a bell that drove them mad:
"Pass down my command!"
"Open the Vault of the World's Heart! Open the Vault of the Star's Grave! Unseal the Vault of Abyssal Whispers!"
"Open every tier of our rare divine treasure vaults—accumulated over tens of thousands of years!!"
"Everyone!!"
His voice echoed through the vast ring world, filled with unquestionable resolve and fanatic devotion.
Amid the dwarves' stunned and excited gazes, Eitri turned back to Lucci, bowed deeply, and spoke fervently:
"Your Highness!"
"Every metal, every gemstone here, is the crystallization of our Nidavellir dwarves' labor and pride over tens of thousands of years!"
"From today on, it is all yours!"
"If you like it, use it freely—no matter how precious, no matter how rare!"
"No other words!"
Eitri straightened his chest and struck his breastplate with a fist—bang.
"Even if you want to smash my throne into materials—I won't frown!"
"Nidavellir will spare no effort to build that… supreme Path vessel!"
"We will give everything!!"
Behind him, thousands of dwarves roared in fanatic unison, their voices shaking the sky.
Lucci stared at the frenzied scene and felt a slight stirring in his chest.
He could feel Eitri and the dwarves' sincere devotion and dedication.
He nodded simply.
"Alright."
That single word was the best answer to such a heart.
Under Eitri's personal guidance, Lucci stepped into the topmost vaults—places only the dwarf king could normally enter.
The sight would drive any knowledgeable person insane.
The "World's Heart" vault was filled with rare minerals harvested from planetary cores across the Nine Realms—some radiating the breath of life, others containing destructive energy.
The "Star's Grave" held the remains of fallen stars: neutron star fragments, white dwarf cores, even strange crystals that survived supernova explosions.
In the deepest part of the "Abyssal Whispers" vault were even more ominous, taboo items: metals stained with dark-dimensional aura, divine fragments left behind by the Goddess of Death, Hela, and even mysterious substances from unknown dimensions that could not be analyzed.
Lucci walked through the vast vault, understanding already opened, eyes shining with golden light, perceiving the most fundamental law attributes of each material.
He did not choose the prettiest materials, nor the ones with the strongest energy.
He had only one criterion:
Whether it was compatible with his Path.
First, he took a metal shard the size of a fist, yet heavier than a mountain—"Neutron Core," extracted from a neutron star's heart, containing ultimate laws of "collapse" and "mass."
Next, he chose vibranium ore from Wakanda. Not the hardest, but its "energy absorption and impact" laws were uniquely profound.
He walked to a black crystal container. Within floated a singularity barely visible to the naked eye.
It was a tiny black hole core captured from a dying universe by dwarf ancestors, symbolizing laws of "devouring" and "return to ruin."
A hellish bone fragment stained with Hela's divinity carried pure laws of "death" and "end."
A World Tree branch soaked in the Fountain of Life for ten thousand years symbolized "life" and "creation."
A "Heart of Space," condensed from pure spatial energy, represented laws of "dimension" and "distance."
…
Lucci walked slowly, taking "top-tier divine materials" that looked almost casual—yet resonated with his Path in the darkness.
In the end, he carefully selected top-tier divine substances, containing different laws such as star, space, time, life, death, creation, destruction, devouring, reincarnation, and more.
When Lucci placed these eighty-one divine materials before the central forge platform, Eitri and every dwarf went blank.
"Your Highness…" Eitri swallowed with difficulty, unable to stop himself. "As for the nature of these materials… the conflicts are too great. Even neutron star furnace flames would struggle to fuse them perfectly—there could even be an energy backlash…"
In his view, even the neutron star furnace's power—enough to forge anything—seemed powerless before such a complex combination.
But Lucci calmly shook his head.
He glanced at the blazing opening of the neutron star furnace above and said lightly:
"Who said we're using that?"
Eitri froze. "Not using the furnace? Then… what will we use?"
Lucci didn't answer.
He walked to the center of the forge platform and sat cross-legged before the pile of divine materials.
Under the confused and bewildered gaze of all the dwarves, Lucci closed his eyes.
In that moment, the whole world seemed to fall silent.
The next instant—
Lucci slowly opened his mouth.
Huu—
A strand of flame, thinner than a hair, flowed from his lips—an ultimate pure golden flame, gently exhaled.
When it appeared, it emitted no startling heat. It floated quietly in the air, like an ordinary golden candle flame, faint and weak.
Yet the moment the dwarves saw it, their faces changed in unison.
They felt the blood in their bodies and souls tremble—an instinctive submission before this tiny flame.
Proud skin that could withstand magma looked like the most flammable paper before it.
Eitri's eyes widened even further.
Even the colossal neutron star furnace flames above seemed to lose their brilliance before this golden flame—like fireflies competing with the bright moon.
What kind of flame was this?
It was absolute, overwhelming.
This flame was born from Lucci's cultivation of the "Great Cosmos Meditation Method," belonging to him alone—
the Origin True Flame.
It was a recreation of that tiny source flame at the beginning of cosmic creation.
Lucci stared at it, eyes calm.
"Not enough."
He gently blew toward it.
Huu—
The golden origin true flame grew with the wind—not with a pop, but silently, shockingly swelling in an instant.
In the blink of an eye, it expanded from a candle flame to a fireball the size of a human head.
In another blink, it became a colossal golden sphere of flame—more than ten meters in diameter—hanging quietly above the forge platform.
Inside it blazed with dazzling radiance, as if cradling a nascent universe.
On its surface burned a thin layer of dark-gold flame like a black hole's edge.
Strangely, such a massive fireball radiated no heat outward at all.
The surrounding air remained cold, as if the flame didn't exist in this space.
Yet the unimaginable temperature at its core began to subtly distort nearby space, creating rippling, waterlike optical illusions.
The dwarves were already stunned.
Mouths agape, they stared blankly at the miraculous golden fireball, minds empty.
"Using the body as a furnace… breathing out true fire…"
Eitri muttered. Under the violent shock, his voice went hoarse, his legs lost strength, and he knelt again.
He finally understood why Lucci said the neutron star furnace wasn't needed.
Compared to the true fire before him, the neutron star furnace flame was like ordinary firewood—mixed and crude.
Like fireflies to the bright moon.
Under the dwarves' godlike gaze, Lucci moved.
With one hand, he drew.
The eighty-one top-tier divine materials piled on the forge platform were pulled as if by an invisible force, rising one after another and flying into the colossal golden fireball.
What happened next completely overturned the dwarves' understanding of metal and forging for tens of thousands of years.
The "Neutron Core," heavier than mountains, couldn't last even seconds after entering the true fire—it silently melted into a puddle of silver liquid.
The vibranium ore, capable of absorbing all energy, had its internal molecular structure collapse instantly under the true fire's refinement, turning into violet streamers.
The tiny black hole core didn't devour the true fire upon contact—rather, the "creation" law within the true fire neutralized it. Its "return to ruin" was peeled away, and it finally became a drop of pure darkness.
The death-divinity-stained bones, life-bearing twigs, space-condensed spurs…
…
Time passed without anyone noticing.
Under terrified gazes, the eighty-one supreme divine materials—enough to burn for ages in ordinary flame—were swiftly, silently dissolved, decomposed, and recombined by Lucci's origin true fire, like tossing ice and snow into boiling soup.
In the end, all divine materials lost their original forms completely, becoming a mass of liquid metal floating in the heart of the true fire—chaotic, containing an entire starry cosmos within, glittering with tiny starlight.
Lucci's expression became solemn.
He knew the most critical step had arrived.
If the melting was "kneading dough," then shaping and engraving would be the true "creation of life."
He used no physical tools.
At this level, ordinary hammers and engraving knives would only taint the purity.
"Divine thought is the hammer. Laws are the carving. It must be cast into immortality!"
A great voice roared within Lucci's heart.
His eyes snapped open, and what burst forth was no longer mere gaze, but two golden divine auras condensed purely from divine soul power.
They vanished instantly into the chaotic liquid metal.
Buzz—
The mass of liquid metal trembled violently, as if a soul had been injected.
In that moment, Lucci's consciousness fully submerged into the chaos, fusing with the most primal fragments of laws.
His divine thought became an invisible hammer of creation, "forging" the chaotic substance in the subtlest, most ingenious way.
Not by physical strikes—
But by using immense divine soul power to adjust ratios of law energies, straighten tangled threads of chaotic laws, and transform mutual opposition into resonance and interdependence.
It was a vast, delicate project.
The computational load alone could collapse the universe's highest omniscient civilizations in an instant.
Yet to Lucci—who possessed heaven-defying comprehension and practiced the "Great Cosmos Meditation Method"—it all felt natural.
He poured in his understanding of the universe, his recognition of the Great Path, and his mastery of "Stellar Forging Art."
…
Bonus chapter at 100 PS