The heat from Eitri's forge struck Jormund even before he crossed the stone threshold. It was not the stifling heat of the underworld, but a creative heat, an ardor that demanded a toll.
The dwarf did not look up from his anvil. The rhythm of his hammer was slow, methodical, as if he were counting the heartbeats of a dying god. Only when Jormund's massive shadow covered his workbench did Eitri stop, wiping the sweat from his forehead with an arm covered in soot.
"You're back," growled the dwarf. "I thought Tartarus would have broken you, or that the gods would have finally pinned you like an insect on a cork board."
"I've learned that the gods are not as precise as they claim to be," Jormund replied in a low voice.
Eitri put down his hammer. His keen eyes, accustomed to detecting the slightest impurity in metal, scanned the giant's obsidian body. He paused at the red veins of the Lycoris, which pulsed with new intensity.
"You've changed," the dwarf observed. "The first time you came here, you were looking for answers. Today, you seek an end."
"I seek a weapon," Jormund corrected.
He placed the bag containing Jormungandr's scales on the stone table. The sound they made as they spilled out made Eitri flinch. The dwarf picked one up between his calloused fingers, fascinated by the way the light seemed to die on its surface.
"The scales of Midgardsormr..." he murmured, his voice a mixture of fear and respect. "You bring me not metal, Jormund. You bring me the carcass of the previous world. To forge this, it will not be enough to strike hard. You will have to leave a part of yourself in it."
"I already have nothing left that belongs to this world," said Jormund, approaching the furnace. "Everything I am is already in this forge."
The dwarf nodded, a dark smile stretching his lips.
"Good. Then come closer. It is not I who will forge this blade, it is us. I will be the hand, but you will be the fire."
For hours, the forge became the center of the universe. Jormund did not merely observe. He used his own essence, that fragment of Chronos that burned within him, to fuel the flames. The temperature rose to a level unbearable even for an elf like Kael, who remained silent at the entrance.
The metal and scale fused together with a shrill cry, an unnatural union between frozen time and eternal matter. With each blow of Eitri's hammer, Jormund felt physical pain, as if his soul were being carved out.
"Do you remember what I told you the first time?" shouted the dwarf above the din. "A tool is nothing without the will that guides it!"
"I will not be a tool!" roared Jormund, grabbing the red-hot metal with his bare hands to hold it on the anvil. "I am the one who breaks the cycle!"
When silence finally returned, a blade as black as an abyss rested on the quenching water, instantly boiling the liquid in a cloud of silvery steam. It was raw, unadorned, a tear in reality.
Eitri looked at his work, then at the being standing before him, still smoking from the heat of the forge.
"It is ready. But remember, Jormund: this weapon does not kill gods. It erases their right to exist."
Jormund grasped the hilt. The connection was instantaneous. The Lycoris in his chest calmed, finally finding its echo. Outside, the sky of Alfheim seemed to darken. Ragnarok had found its weapon.