Burn, My Cosmo! (Seeking Collection!)

Just after midnight!

On the apartment rooftop.

Hawk was throwing punches.

No punching bag.

No martial arts technique either.

Hawk hadn't even moved—he just stood there, eyes slightly closed, as if in a trance, swinging fist after fist at the empty air before him.

This time, he wasn't chasing speed. Instead, he seemed to have fallen into some kind of epiphany.

Though every punch before had stirred an odd feeling in his heart.

Tonight, that feeling was stronger.

Hawk felt as if he had entered some existence of infinite darkness, observable from any angle.

But...

With each punch he threw, a sliver of light bloomed within that boundless dark.

If Hawk had thought to look up, he would have noticed something even stranger.

Namely—

The constellations dotting the night sky, the ones he could see with his naked eye: Pegasus, Draco, Cygnus, Phoenix... Lacerta—the forty-eight Bronze Constellations—were all flickering in response to his every punch.

Yes.

Not a single constellation responding, but all of them.

All forty-eight Bronze Constellations answered Hawk's fists.

Punch, punch... another punch.

This time, Hawk was slow, yet also fast.

Though he made sure to fully retract each punch before throwing the next, the afterimage of the first hadn't even faded before the afterimage of the second appeared.

Then came the third, the fourth, the fifth, all the way to now.

A sky full of fist shadows!

Suddenly, a roar echoed in Hawk's mind.

The sound was faint, barely audible, yet it rang like a great bell or a massive drum.

Boom!

A spark of flame appeared beneath that sound. As it emerged, the stars that had, under Hawk's relentless punches, reflected through reality into infinite space rippled outward like water, silently pushing back the thick curtain of darkness.

At first, it was just a tremor.

Then, that tremor exploded outward, like the primordial Big Bang itself. The stars adorning the infinite dark sky burst apart—

Inside Hawk's body, an invisible, formless wall collapsed under the energy of that cosmic birth. A power that had slumbered for eons suddenly awakened.

Shwoosh!

Hawk, who had been lightly closing his eyes, opened them.

The moment his eyes opened, deep within them, that flame no longer flickered and died out as before.

This time, the flame blazed fully.

Boom!!

Hawk felt the blood surging through his body, every tiny cell trembling wildly, like ten thousand stars expanding at once. Under that violent oscillation and expansion, every inch, every piece of bone was shattered, broken—only to be instantly reshaped by that terrifying force, as if undergoing the birth of a star.

Hum!

A buzzing sound rang in Hawk's ears. Then, his vision blurred, and he saw a wondrous scene.

He saw the particles that made up his flesh and blood spinning violently, burning, collapsing, and finally staging a spectacle like the primordial Big Bang.

He saw the blood racing beneath his skin, like a roaring, boiling river of stars.

He even saw his own beating heart. Each pulse was like the primal, eternal throb of the universe's creation, sending invisible ripples through infinite void.

The next moment.

A flash of insight.

Hawk clenched his right fist, ground his heel into the rooftop, his foot plowing through the concrete like a plow. The moment the ground shattered, his entire body's center of gravity shifted backward.

He stepped back.

Then...

Threw the punch!

A low growl escaped Hawk—not from his throat, but from the very explosion of his soul!

"Burn, my Cosmo!!"

"Boom, boom, boom!"

The air around him rippled outward like water.

The space around him shattered like glass.

The flow of time around him was brutally torn apart.

Air, space, and even time itself seemed to freeze under Hawk's punch.

The next moment.

"Shriek!"

The air screamed as it was ripped apart.

"Boom! Boom!"

Space groaned as it was crushed.

"Rumble!"

Time itself was utterly shattered by this blow.

But instantly, a new timeline replaced the one that had been destroyed.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

Across the street from Hawk's apartment, the glass on the outer walls of a neighboring building exploded, shattered, and burst with a deafening crash under the force of his punch.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

"Wah!"

"Wah!"

The cars parked on the road opposite seemed to be pressed down by an invisible giant hand descending from the sky.

Their windows shattered on impact, and then car alarms went off, one after another, blaring sharp warnings.

At the same time!

Kamar-Taj!

"Hm?"

"Master?"

A sorcerer in the sanctum looked at the Sorcerer Supreme, who had suddenly let out a puzzled sound.

The Sorcerer Supreme, clad in yellow robes, lowered her gaze to the sanctum's sacred artifact hanging around her neck—the Eye of Agamotto.

The Ancient One formed hand seals, and the Eye of Agamotto slowly rotated, then opened. A faint green light bloomed from the mysterious and profound green gem within.

This gem had a common name in the Marvel Universe.

The Time Stone.

It allowed its user to reach any point in time, enabling time travel—no matter how distant the past or how far the future.

The Time Stone controlled all known and unknown timelines. To control the Time Stone was to control time.

"What is this?"

"The future has been changed?"

The Ancient One formed hand seals again, closed the Eye of Agamotto, rose, and vanished from her spot.

'Ding!'

'Congratulations, you have activated Cosmo Cultivation!'

'Ding!'

'It has been an honor to accompany you for a thousand days. The cheat is about to unbind. I look forward to meeting you again!'

'Finally, Cosmo Cultivation is a method of combat, a method of holy war. Grow in battle, ascend in battle!'

'Farewell!'

The mechanical voice of the cheat rang in Hawk's mind.

A thousand days ago, the cheat had quietly gone online.

A thousand days later, the cheat quietly went offline again.

It came silently.

It left silently.

The sky was now fully bright.

"Holy shit!"

"What the hell happened?"

"My glass."

"Ah, my car."

"Who the hell did this."

"Hold on."

"Look, what's that?"

"Holy shit..."

"Jesus Christ."

Standing on the apartment rooftop, Hawk listened to the clamor that seemed to ring right in his ears, slowly opening his eyes to see the rift in the sky above Manhattan, torn open by a streak of deep blue light.

Hawk froze for an instant.

"Hiss!"

"Did I just punch a hole in the sky with one hit?"

"..."

New author, new book, two hundred thousand words in the bank—rest assured and add to your collection!