Hawkeye stood with his feet shoulder-width apart, holding the bow in his left hand and pulling the string with his right.
He drew a deep breath and held it, then slowly applied force with his right hand.
As he exerted himself, the watching Avengers grew tense, all unwittingly forgetting to breathe.
Hawkeye's face flushed red, the veins in his neck bulged, and the muscles of his right arm hardened like rock. At last, the bowstring began to move, little by little.
Seeing the bowstring move, Hawkeye could not help feeling relieved.
Back in the meeting room, he had given it an experimental pull. Although it had only been a test, he had still applied several thousand pounds of force, yet the bowstring had remained completely motionless, as though made of stone.
At the time, he had genuinely wondered whether the bowstring had any elasticity at all.
Only now, with every ounce of his strength, had he slowly drawn the string back, confirming that this was a proper bow. His strength was simply too feeble to do it justice...
Grunting with effort, Hawkeye gave it everything he had and more, finally managing to draw the string back roughly a fifth of the way.
Everyone watched in utter bewilderment.
From what he had said earlier, they had thought he could draw it at least halfway, only to discover that he could manage just a fifth.
But when they remembered that drawing it fully could unleash enough power to shoot down the sun, they understood.
At last, Hawkeye released the breath he had been holding, but he could not draw the string back even a fraction farther.
Just then, an edge of ultimate sharpness suddenly appeared on the bowstring.
That sharpness had neither shape nor form. It was merely an aura.
Yet the