The forge pulsed in response, as if his voice rippled through reality. Both beings turned toward the sound.
Hephaestus's eyes, two molten furnaces, locked onto him through the dark.
"Ah. The consciousness still resists. Good. That will make the forge easier to shape."
A figure emerged from the golden haze — a towering shape outlined in molten veins, every breath radiating steam and light. Karl squinted against the brightness.
"You've awakened," the figure rumbled, voice low and layered like a furnace breathing.
Karl tried to move, but the void constricted around him. "You didn't answer me!"
Thanamira stepped forward — her form bending the light around her like water.
"You are safe, Kurogane Karl. Your soul rests beneath Yggdrasil's root. What you perceive now is only the echo of your mind."
The figure stepped closer, and the ground seemed to form beneath him — smooth metal folding out from the void like sheets being laid by invisible hands.
"Your physical form was lost. What you feel now is your consciousness alone — freed from the bindings of your soul. The rest of you sleeps, sealed within Yggdrasil's roots."
Karl's brows furrowed, anger and disbelief cracking through his confusion.
"You say that like it's normal. You ripped me apart! I don't even have a body anymore!"
"You didn't have one when you arrived," Hephaestus replied calmly. "Only ash and fragments of nanite metal, scattered across your city. You died detonating yourself to save them."
Karl hesitated — flashes of memory seared through the void.
The evacuation. The children. The pain.
The red light.
The countdown.
And then — the silence.
"…I remember," he murmured.
Another voice spoke from behind him — calm, soft, and distant, like an echo from a faraway ocean.
Thanamira's tone softened, though it still carried that haunting echo.
"We did not choose you because of your will, Karl. You were called here because of your lineage. The forge responds to what it recognizes — and it recognized you as one of Hephaestus's blood."
Karl turned sharply. The woman from before — pale, radiant, her body lined with faint trails of soul-light. Thanamira.
Her expression was calm but unreadable, her eyes carrying that cold gentleness that only someone beyond death could have.
Karl's mind reeled. "Blood? I don't even know who that is!"
Hephaestus's hand moved, and suddenly the dark around Karl filled with floating holograms of worlds being built — machines merging with gods, sparks birthing galaxies.
"Then learn," said the molten titan. "I am Hephaestus — Primordial of Creation, the first forger of stars. Your ancestry carries the residue of my design. You are the descendant of a forgotten branch, a spark that never knew its fire."
Karl's awareness flickered in disbelief. "You're telling me I'm—what—your descendant?"
"Not by birth," Hephaestus replied. "By inheritance. Your human shell carried dormant threads of the forge — the same that shaped your nanites, your machines, your will to build. That instinct to create and destroy — it was the spark calling you home."
Karl was silent. His thoughts slowed — logic still spinning, trying to contextualize divine genetics and cosmic engineering.
"If that's true," he said finally, "why bring me back? I did my part. I stopped them. Just let me rest."
Hephaestus's eyes glowed faintly, the molten veins across his body flaring brighter.
"Rest?" Hephaestus said quietly. "The forge does not rest. Creation cannot cease."
"And you, Kurogane Karl, were never meant to end as ash."
Karl's head snapped toward him. "And yet you still need to explain what the hell you want from me."
"Mind your tone, mortal. You stand in a forge where even stars kneel."
The silence that followed was heavy — not hostile, but expectant.
Hephaestus studied him for a moment before answering, tone measured.
Thanamira spoke again, her voice cutting through the tension like mist through smoke.
"But he was never meant to live again either. His human fate has passed."
The molten god raised his hand, and a massive crucible of light opened beneath Karl's drifting awareness. Within it, countless fragments of shimmering metal floated — nanites, yet something far purer, glowing like living mercury.
"Then we will forge something new," said Hephaestus. "A body worthy of his lineage. Something that can bridge what he was… and what he must become."
Karl felt the pull — like gravity and memory fusing together. His consciousness trembled as shapes began to assemble around him: frames of liquid light, runic veins, circuits intertwining with soulstrings.
"Wait—what are you—"
Thanamira's voice layered over his, softer, mournful.
"Hephaestus wishes to give you a body. But he cannot decide what it should be without your will. You must shape your own vessel — what you wish to become."
Karl blinked slowly, disbelief creeping back into his voice.
"Do not fear," Thanamira said softly. "Your soul will be preserved within Yggdrasil's roots until your body is ready. But your consciousness must guide its design. Without your will, the vessel would become hollow."
Karl's awareness flared. "Guide it? I don't even understand it!"
"You will," Hephaestus said. "You are the forge, Karl. Remember that."
"You're saying… I can choose what to look like?"
"Not only how you look," Thanamira corrected, "but what you are. Flesh and steel — the form is yours to command. But your choice will define your existence from now on. Once forged, it cannot be undone."
Hephaestus gestured, and the empty chamber shifted.
And with that, the crucible closed around him — molten light swallowing his perception as countless voices began whispering in the dark: machine blueprints, mechanical schematics, the hum of creation itself.
Karl let out what was a whistle and a whisper of disbelief:
"So this… is what it means to be reborn."
Karl stepped closer, scanning the options. His mind churned with questions, logic clashing against awe.
"Why me?" he muttered, voice almost trembling now. "Why not someone who wanted this? I didn't choose any of this. I just wanted to protect people."
Hephaestus's tone softened for the first time.
"And that is precisely why you were chosen — not by will, but by nature. Your lineage brought you here. But your heart… kept you alive long enough to answer its call."
Karl stared at the glowing designs for a long time — silent, the weight of both worlds pressing on his thoughts. Then he looked back at them both.
"Fine. You want me to pick a form?" His voice steadied. "Then I want one thing — something that can never fail again. Something indestructible. If I'm coming back, I'm not dying twice."
Hephaestus smiled — a faint, proud, almost paternal smile.
"Then we will forge the body of a god — with the soul of a man."