4. Ignite, My Little Universe! (Please Add to Your Collection!)
Just past midnight.
On the rooftop of the apartment building.
Hawk was practicing his punches.
There was no punching bag.
No martial arts techniques either.
Hawk didn’t even move—he simply stood still, eyes half-closed, seemingly lost in thought as he threw punch after punch into the empty air before him.
This time, he was no longer chasing speed; instead, he appeared to be immersed in a state of sudden enlightenment.
Although each punch before had brought an unusual sensation, tonight it was even more intense.
Hawk felt as though he had entered an infinite darkness, an existence utterly black from every conceivable angle.
Yet...
With every punch he threw, a faint light blossomed within that boundless darkness.
If Hawk had looked up carefully at that moment, he would have noticed something even more extraordinary.
The constellations adorning the night sky—Pegasus, Draco, Cygnus, Phoenix... Scorpius—and all the others among the forty-eight Bronze Constellations visible to the naked eye were responding, flickering in response to each of his punches.
Yes.
It wasn’t just a single constellation responding, but all of them.
Every one of the forty-eight Bronze Constellations flickered in tandem with Hawk’s punches.
One punch, then another... and yet another.
Hawk’s punches were slow this time, yet paradoxically swift.
Though he made sure to fully retract each punch before throwing the next, often the afterimage of the first punch hadn’t even faded before the shadow of the second appeared.
Then came the third, fourth, fifth punches, continuing on—
A sky filled with shadows of punches!
Suddenly, a rumbling echoed in Hawk’s mind.
The sound was barely audible, yet it resonated like a grand bell.
Boom!
A flicker of flame ignited with the sound, and as the flame appeared, the stars reflected in the infinite space beyond reality, stirred by Hawk’s relentless punches, rippled gently, parting the thick black curtain.
At first, it was just a faint tremor.
Then this tremor suddenly expanded, like the universe’s primordial explosion, as the stars scattered across the endless darkness burst forth—
Within Hawk’s body, an invisible, intangible wall collapsed with a thunderous crash beneath the energy released by this cosmic-like explosion. A power that had been dormant for billions of years abruptly awakened.
Swish!
Hawk, his eyes still half-closed, opened them fully.
At that instant, the flame deep within his gaze no longer flickered briefly before fading.
This time, the flame fully blossomed.
Boom!!
Hawk felt his blood surge wildly through his veins, every tiny cell within him trembling fiercely, like ten thousand stars simultaneously expanding. Amid this violent shaking and swelling, every inch of bone shattered and was then swiftly reforged by an overwhelming force akin to the birth of celestial bodies.
Buzz!
A humming sound filled Hawk’s ears, followed by a sudden flash before his eyes, revealing a wondrous vision.
He saw the particles composing his flesh and blood violently spinning, burning, collapsing, culminating in a spectacle reminiscent of the universe’s initial Big Bang.
He saw the blood flowing beneath his skin, like a boiling, roaring river of stars.
He even saw his beating heart, each thump echoing like the primordial, eternal pulse of cosmic creation, sending invisible ripples through infinite void.
Then, in the next moment—
Fortune and blessing reached his heart.
As Hawk clenched his right fist, his heel pressed hard into the ground, his sole plowing through the rooftop tiles as they shattered beneath him. His whole body shifted backward.
Retreating.
Then...
He threw a punch!
Hawk emitted a low, guttural chant—not from his throat, but from the very core of his soul.
“Burn, my little cosmos!!”
Boom, boom, boom!
The surrounding air rippled like water.
The space around him shattered like delicate glass.
Even the flow of time seemed violently torn apart.
Air, space, and time all seemed to freeze beneath Hawk’s mighty blow.
The next second.
“Shshh!”
The air cried out as if being torn apart.
“Bang! Bang!”
Space howled as it was crushed.
“Rumble!”
Time itself was utterly shattered by that strike.
Yet instantly, a brand-new timeline replaced the one that had been broken.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
The glass of a nearby apartment building across the street from Hawk’s apartment shattered with deafening crashes under the force of the wind generated by his punches.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
“Whoa!”
“Whoa!”
Vehicles parked along the opposite street suddenly seemed to be pressed down by an invisible giant hand descending from above.
Car windows shattered at once, triggering blaring alarms one after another.
At the same time—
Kamar-Taj!
“Hmm?”
“Master?”
The sorcerers of the Sanctum glanced toward the Supreme Sorcerer, who had just emitted a puzzled sound.
Clad in yellow robes, the Supreme Sorcerer lowered his gaze to the Sanctum’s sacred relic hanging around his neck—the Eye of Agamotto.
Ancient hands formed a seal; the Eye of Agamotto slowly spun and then opened. A mysterious, profound green glow radiated from the gem, shining with a ghostly light.
This gem has a common name in the Marvel universe.
The Time Stone!
It grants its wielder the power to reach any point in time, enabling time travel—to the distant past or the far-flung future.
The Time Stone commands all known and unknown timelines. To hold the Time Stone is to control time itself.
“What is this?”
“Has the future been altered?”
“...”
Ancient hands formed another seal, closing the Eye of Agamotto. The sorcerer then rose and vanished from sight.
“Ding!”
“Congratulations, you have activated the Little Cosmos training!”
“Ding!”
“It has been my honor to accompany you for a thousand days. The plugin will now be unbound. I look forward to our next meeting!”
“Lastly, the Little Cosmos training method is a method of combat, a method of holy war—to grow in battle, to transcend in battle!”
“Farewell!”
The mechanical voice of the plugin echoed in Hawk’s mind.
A thousand days ago, the plugin quietly came online.
A thousand days later, the plugin quietly went offline.
Quietly it came.
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