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Chapter 586: Pulling the Neutron Star Ring Barehanded
A blinding beam of white light crashed down upon the ruins of Nidavellir, sending a massive spiderweb of cracks rippling across the metallic surface. Edward Newgate emerged from the settling dust. He was no longer the fading, sickly old man who had fought at the Summit War. His pitch-black captain's coat snapped wildly in the wind, and his broad chest was free of IV tubes and the heavy, ragged breaths of old injuries. In his hand, he gripped Murakumogiri, one of the 12 Supreme Grade Swords. As he dragged the massive naginata across the floor, the blade kicked up a harsh trail of sparks.
"Gurarararara!" Newgate laughed, his voice booming. "So, this is the dwarf planet?"
He tilted his head back, taking in the sight. Nidavellir didn't look like a normal planet; it resembled a colossal forge built directly around a dying neutron star. The massive neutron star ring stretched out into the void, its metallic structures disappearing into the horizon. Now, however, the legendary realm that had forged Asgard's greatest weapons was reduced to scorched walls and severed mechanical arms. There was no smell of the sea here. No smell of alcohol. There was only the scent of rust, scorched earth, and suffocating despair.
Ahead of him, the Dwarf King Eitri struggled to lift his head. His hands were encased in hardened metal, and his face was smeared with blood and soot. Faced with this towering giant who had suddenly descended from the sky, Eitri forgot to even ask for help. The nearly twenty-three-foot-tall behemoth looked more like an ancient god from a myth than the dwarves ever did.
Further away, Thor stood by the dying forge. He was covered in wounds, his chest heaving with every breath. The mold for Stormbreaker had already been set into place, but the neutron star's fire was fading fast. Groot was using his own branches to help bind the weapon's incomplete handle together, while Rocket Raccoon cursed loudly as he tried to repair a broken control panel.
"I told you, this piece of junk can't handle a second ignition!" Rocket yelled. "We need a miracle, you get me?"
Thor ignored the raccoon. He stared at Newgate, his voice hoarse. "Who are you?"
Newgate hoisted Murakumogiri over his broad shoulder. "I am Whitebeard."
Thor blinked, momentarily stunned. Rocket popped his head out from a tangle of cables. "Wait, his actual name is Whitebeard? Isn't that a little on the nose?"
Newgate glanced down at the furry creature. "A talking tanuki?"
Rocket instantly bristled, his fur standing on end. "I'M A RACCOON! A RACCOON! Do you giant meatheads have any basic common sense!?"
Groot slowly raised a hand. "I am Groot."
Newgate burst into a booming laugh. "Gurarararara! Interesting. What a chaotic dungeon this is!"
Eitri groaned, forcing himself to speak. "If you still have the energy to joke around, run. Thanos won't spare this place."
As soon as the words left his mouth, the cosmos above Nidavellir darkened. It wasn't just the light fading—a massive fleet was pressing down on them. Black warships sailed in from the void, forming a moving wall of steel that completely sealed off Nidavellir's outer orbit. The dense array of planetary annihilation cannons began to glow. A sickeningly pale purple-white light gathered deep within the muzzles, illuminating the entire ruined forge.
Rocket's ears drooped flat against his head. "We're dead. That's not a ship. That's an entire planetary slaughter fleet."
Thor's expression turned grim. He knew exactly what those cannons meant. Nidavellir had no shields left. The neutron star ring had stopped spinning, and the forge was half-extinguished. If that volley fired, not only would Stormbreaker be lost, but the last remnants of the dwarven forge would be wiped from existence.
Grabbing an unfinished, blunt handaxe, Thor roared at Newgate. "Run! You can't stop a fleet! This isn't a battlefield you can solve with a sword!"
Newgate didn't move. He simply stared up at the glowing muzzles in the sky. The sight reminded him of Marineford. The execution platform. His sons, driven into a corner by relentless artillery fire. It was always a bunch of bastards hiding in their iron shells, pressing a button to rain down slaughter, and then calling it 'orders.'
Newgate slammed the butt of Murakumogiri heavily into the metal floor. The long handle hummed violently. "Run?" He lowered his head and chuckled. The chuckle quickly grew into a roaring laugh that shook the loose debris around them. "Gurarararara! You're telling me to run?"
Thor opened his mouth to argue, but Newgate had already stepped forward. He raised both arms, his massive muscles bulging. A glowing white halo condensed over his clenched fists. It wasn't normal fire, and it wasn't magic. It was a power capable of shattering the sea, the sky, and space itself.
Eitri's eyes went wide. He had forged weapons for the All-Father. He had seen Odin's lightning. But he had never seen a man hold the purest essence of 'destruction' right in his bare hands.
Newgate struck the empty air on both sides of him. "Shatter for me!"
Crack! Sound was not supposed to travel through a vacuum, but the sickening sound of reality fracturing slammed directly into everyone's eardrums. White cracks exploded outward from the space in front of Newgate's fists. They didn't travel along the ground; they spiderwebbed outward through the very fabric of space.
Before the first row of black warships could finish locking their targeting systems, their hulls began to twist violently. Thick armor plating peeled open layer by layer. Internal energy cores lost containment and detonated. Boom! A massive warship was shaken until it snapped cleanly in half. Then a second followed. Then a third. Soon, dozens of ships were caught in the spatial distortion.
The suffocating blockade formed by the Black Order Fleet was physically torn open down the middle by two massive shockwaves. Before the planetary cannons could fire, the barrels imploded backward. Plumes of fire blossomed in the cold vacuum of space. Tumbling wreckage smashed into neighboring vessels, triggering catastrophic chain explosions.
The Black Order's comms channels devolved into panicked screaming.
"Left wing collapsing!"
"Spatial structure anomaly detected!"
"It's not an energy bombardment! The target is a single biological entity! Repeat, the target is a single entity!"
Rocket's jaw hung open, his wrench slipping from his paws and clattering to the floor. "A single entity? You call that a single entity!?"
Groot was equally paralyzed. "I am... Groot."
Watching the exploding fleet in the sky, Thor swallowed hard. He finally understood why the giant man had laughed so arrogantly. It wasn't that he didn't understand the vastness of the universe—he simply didn't consider this universe a threat.
Newgate pulled his fists back, his shoulders slumping slightly. He hadn't held back. A massive void had been cleared out of the fleet's formation. Seeing the sheer devastation, the remaining warships immediately turned their helms, desperately trying to put distance between themselves and the planet.
Newgate calmly hoisted Murakumogiri and gently tapped the blunt side of the blade against the ground. The tremor rippled outward along Nidavellir's metal rings. The residual shockwave caught up to the fleeing ships, crumpling their armored hulls like paper crushed by an invisible hand before they erupted into fireballs.
"Gurarararara! Thanos's lapdogs don't have much guts, do they?" Newgate sneered.
Thor finally snapped out of his daze. He sprinted back to the forge, staring down at the still-formless mold of Stormbreaker. But a second later, his face fell. The neutron star was completely dark. Right before the fleet had arrived, the ring's transmission system had ground to a halt. Without the star's intense heat, the Uru metal in the mold would cool and harden prematurely. Stormbreaker would never be finished.
Leaning heavily against the console with his encased hands, Eitri's voice trembled for the first time. "It's no use. The star ring is jammed. Without the mechanical arms, without the main control shaft, no one can pull the iris open again."
Thor clenched his fists in bitter frustration. He had come so far. Loki was dragging out the Space Stone in New York. Hela was going mad with the Power Stone. Thanos was still collecting them. If he couldn't forge this new weapon, what would happen to the survivors of Asgard? What would happen to Earth? What about the comrades who had been dragged into this mess?
Rocket kicked a broken console in a fit of rage. "So we just wiped out a whole armada, and we're stuck at the oven door!?"
Newgate didn't say a word. He walked toward the edge of the massive star ring. Every step was incredibly heavy, denting the solid metal floor beneath his boots.
"What are you doing?" Thor shouted, looking up.
Newgate stopped in front of the colossal metal pull-ring. The mechanism was as large as a city gate. It connected directly to Nidavellir's outer rings, designed to adjust the aperture of the neutron star. Normally, it required the combined power of the entire forge's drive system to move it. Now, that drive system was dead.
Newgate reached out and wrapped his massive hands around the cold metal of the pull-ring. His knuckles dug deep into the alloy edge.
Eitri's face drained of color. "Don't joke around. That's not a door. That's the entire star ring."
"I know," Newgate replied without looking back.
Thor panicked. "Even the gods couldn't pull that barehanded!"
Newgate flashed a wild grin. "If the gods can't do it, what does that have to do with me?"
He planted his feet firmly, anchoring himself into the metal floor. This time, no glowing white tremor halos appeared. He was relying entirely on his body—the same monstrous physique that had once carried an entire era on its shoulders. He pulled.
The ring didn't budge. Rocket opened his mouth to speak, but a dull, heavy groan echoed from the depths of the metal. Thud. Then a second sound. Thud. All of Nidavellir began to tremble. The veins on Newgate's arms bulged like coiled steel cables, and the muscles across his back tightened layer by layer. The intense thermal updraft whipped his black coat wildly around him.
"MOVE... FOR ME!" Newgate roared.
RUMBLE! The colossal metal ring was dragged forward by pure, brute force. The dead star ring shrieked with deafening friction. Shattered gears expelled geysers of sparks. The jammed main shaft was violently ripped free by Newgate's sheer strength. On the outer layer of Nidavellir, the massive, dormant structure slowly began to rotate once more.
A fraction of an inch. Then another. Then, it picked up speed. The blinding light of the neutron star pierced through the widening gap. It started as a thin sliver before erupting into a blinding pillar of stellar fire.
Standing in front of the blast, Thor was bathed in the red-hot glow. He stared at Newgate's back, at a complete loss for words. Eitri was entirely silent. He had met gods, and he had met tyrants who ruled with absolute fear. But this man, this 'Whitebeard', was different. He had simply seen someone on the brink of giving up, walked over, and single-handedly torn a dead end wide open.
The starlight flooded into the forge. The Uru metal boiled once more. Inside the mold, the axe blade began to take shape inch by inch.
Rocket shielded his eyes from the blinding light and muttered under his breath. "Alright. I admit it. This old guy is pretty cool."
Groot stared at the melting metal and extended his own arm. "I am Groot."
Thor reached out and firmly grasped the wooden handle Groot offered. Amidst the brilliant starlight, an entirely new Stormbreaker was born.
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