"That's right—so long as the sword never breaks, the promise remains forever valid."
As William finished speaking, a blue energy began to swirl in his eyes. With a wave of his hand, the power of the Space Stone swept across the entire forge. Except for Eitri and Loki, everything slowed down as if moving in slow motion, then instantly froze in place.
The overwhelming display of power made Eitri's eyes light up, while Loki stared at William's back with growing fear.
Eitri remained silent for a long time, contemplating, and finally said with a hint of excitement, "If the sword cannot be broken, then the reputation of the dwarves will live on wherever you go."
"Deal."
William agreed without hesitation, fully aware that Eitri was likely just weighing the odds. Now that William possessed the power to destroy the entire Dwarven realm in an instant, and asked only for a weapon without posing a threat to the dwarves themselves, clinging to such a powerful backer made perfect sense.
With a hearty laugh, Eitri retrieved the floating uru metal, while casually tossing the vibranium onto a workbench a hundred meters away.
Noticing William's puzzled expression, he explained, "Vibranium is good for making little trinkets. I'll have my assistant forge some toys for you—better than those Centaurian vibranium arrows you like.
As for the sword you want," Eitri paused, "uru not only repairs itself and stores tremendous amounts of energy, making it ideal for energy transfer, it also has a mind-link property. So if you're thinking about mimicking your Frost Hammer—having your sword fly to you—there's no need to mix vibranium into it."
Snap! William snapped his fingers, suddenly realizing he'd been blinded by how cool those vibranium arrows looked.
The Frost Hammer already flew and struck exactly as he wished, no need to whistle.
Although, whistling to summon it and kill someone looked a lot cooler than just silently thinking about it.
But wait—who said he couldn't whistle while using the Frost Hammer?
Releasing the spatial freeze over the forge, William smiled and extended his hand to Eitri. The two clapped hands three times, formally sealing the agreement between him and the dwarves.
"Shall we begin then?"
"Of course," Eitri laughed heartily. "Dwarves never disappoint their friends."
Nodding to William, he picked up his massive hammer and shouted to the dwarves, none of whom had realized they'd just been frozen in time, "Get moving, my brethren! Soon, we shall make the universe tremble once again!"
Once the forge was bustling again, Eitri turned to William and asked, "Any particular look you want for this weapon?"
The moment he was asked, an image of the Heaven's Inquiry Sword appeared in William's mind.
Soon, the sword's design materialized via virtual projection, stunning both Eitri and Loki.
Loki commented in surprise, "I didn't expect someone as sly as you to have such a noble and upright aesthetic."
"Haha," William laughed. He had no sense of nobility—he just thought the sword looked cool. The hilt did give off a dignified and righteous aura, but the design wasn't even his own idea.
Whatever. If it looked good and worked well, that was all that mattered.
While the dwarves huddled and discussed how to forge the sword, William and Loki were left to wait.
"You really just spent two hundred million star coins to forge an unbreakable weapon?" Loki asked, sounding a bit uneasy. "With all those healing sigils, these dwarves will probably start a war to purge the barbarians of Nidavellir."
"What's that got to do with me—or you?" William replied with zero guilt. "The dwarves can't possibly conquer Earth. I'm only giving them ten thousand healing sigils so they can recover more quickly if they get hurt while forging.
If they repurpose the sigils for something else, that's none of my concern."
Just like the Aesir, the dwarves had no real reason to set their sights on Earth.
With nothing better to do, William noticed Eitri engrossed in design discussions and decided to talk with his assistant. Using the vibranium, they forged ten vibranium arrows.
Since he already had the metal, it would be a waste not to use it. Perfect for Selene and Nyssa, the two vampire women.
If Lara Croft showed any interest, he wouldn't mind giving her one too.
As for the other women? Probably not worth it.
Without dragon-slaying weapons, normal people wouldn't be tempted to go slay dragons. Best to let them live peacefully and avoid unnecessary chaos.
The remaining seven arrows would be kept in reserve. If he ever ran into large groups of enemies, they'd come in handy for clearing out minions. No way he was going to use the Heaven's Inquiry Sword on small fry—that would be a complete waste of its potential.
The reason William demanded that the Heaven's Inquiry Sword be absolutely unbreakable was so he could test whether it could resist the corruption of the Power Stone.
If the sword could truly merge with the Power Stone, it would possess both its unmatched destructive force and the indestructibility of the sword itself—instantly becoming a cosmic-level weapon.
But that also made William realize—he had way too many weapons now.
The Fallen Sentinel's staff, Quintessa's magic scepter, the Frost Hammer, the Heaven's Inquiry Sword, vibranium arrows—just a year ago, he'd still been using the Sentinel Armor's transformation feature to create a giant hammer to fight the flame dragon Snug.
Now he had more weapons than he could even use. A happy problem to have, really.
Upon learning from Eitri that the Heaven's Inquiry Sword would take at least a month to complete, William picked up the finished vibranium arrows and asked Loki, "Want me to send you back to Asgard?"
Loki stared enviously at the set of ten vibranium arrows, knowing full well William wouldn't give them to him.
And he couldn't bear to trade an artifact of equal value for what was, to William, already a surplus.
"Forget it. I'll go back myself."
Then he added, "If I were you, I'd destroy the Space Bridge—or hand it over to Odin. One, it's useless to you. Two, it'll get rid of a source of trouble."
This time, William seriously considered the idea. Loki was definitely eyeing the Space Bridge, but what he said wasn't wrong either.
"You're betting that I won't destroy the Space Bridge's main energy pillar?"
William stared coldly at Loki and asked, "I'm curious—what makes you so confident you can read my mind?"
Loki wasn't fazed by William seeing through his scheme and even implied threat. "If you really wanted to destroy it, you would've done so back in New York.
But deep down, you want to use the Space Bridge to trade for something you need.
Because in your heart, aside from Earth where you were born and raised, you don't really care about the fate of other planets or alien races. Am I wrong?"
At that, William suddenly felt a pang of regret for not having destroyed the main energy pillar of the Space Bridge right away.
He was already aware of its dangers, but deep down—just like Loki said—he was keeping it around in case it could one day net him something valuable.
Now, even if he did destroy it, no one would believe he'd truly given up on its technology.
It seemed that greed really was hard to suppress. Even knowing the risks, very few people had the willpower to give up guaranteed benefits.
But then again, William thought to himself, if someone wanted to come after his stuff, they'd better be tough enough.
It would be the perfect opportunity to test just how powerful the Heaven's Inquiry Sword really was—and find out whether the dwarves' legendary forging skills were truly deserved, or just hyped up.
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