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It was true.
It was an avatar.
If those two Blood Angels possessed x-ray vision and could peer inside the Golden Armor, they would have discovered that it was completely empty.
The golden suit standing before them was merely a shell.
As for Hawk?
He hadn't gone anywhere.
He was still sitting cross-legged, but not on the ground. He was hovering thousands of feet in the air, miles above the battlefield.
Using the Reality Stone to cloak his physical presence, the spectral image of the Phoenix was projected behind him.
His entire universe was contained within that fiery phantom. And right now, the Gemini constellation—one of the twelve Zodiacs, spanning a massive 513 square degrees—was shining with blinding intensity within his inner cosmos.
Driven by his burning Cosmo and the power of the Reality Stone acting as the Eye of the Phoenix, he was projecting a tangible, physical manifestation of the Gemini Gold Cloth onto the battlefield below.
A Gold Cloth!
Gemini.
Hawk wasn't an idiot, and he certainly wasn't reckless.
While he didn't know for sure if Jack and Allen had a trump card hidden up their sleeves, he operated under the assumption that they did.
Better safe than sorry.
A wise man doesn't stand under a crumbling wall.
And most importantly:
Gwen was waiting for him at home.
Did anyone really think he had shown up early just to sit around and wait for the enemy to arrive?
He had come early to turn the desert into his absolute home turf.
Although he hadn't unlocked the Eighth Sense yet, meaning he couldn't fully manifest his Phoenix Universe into physical reality...
Since he had comprehended the Seventh Sense and acquired the Mind Stone, his Cosmo had undergone a qualitative leap. With near-limitless energy at his disposal, using the Reality Stone to project a single, fully functional Gold Cloth was well within his capabilities.
Hawk had originally intended to project his own Phoenix Gold Cloth.
Unfortunately, that wasn't possible.
The Phoenix was his core constellation, the very foundation of his Cosmo. To manifest the Phoenix Gold Cloth would theoretically require manifesting the entire Phoenix Universe.
The power of the Cloth is inextricably linked to the constellation.
To summon the Phoenix Cloth meant summoning the Phoenix constellation, but he had already expanded his constellation into an entire universe.
So, the Phoenix was out.
However, the other constellations were fair game. Since he had established the foundation of the Phoenix Universe, the other constellations were essentially subsets: the Phoenix-Pegasus constellation, the Phoenix-Cygnus constellation, and the Phoenix-Zodiacs.
Fortunately.
When his Cosmo ascended to a Gold Tier after he comprehended the Seventh Sense, it had more than doubled in size.
The sheer volume of stars was more than enough to fully ignite the Gemini constellation. He had arrived early specifically to chart and evolve the Gemini star map within his Cosmo.
The reason he chose to manifest Gemini was simple.
The Gemini Gold Saints possessed a very specific, highly useful ability.
Meditation!
Saga, the former Gemini Gold Saint, had famously used his Cosmo while sitting in the Pope's chamber to remotely control his Gold Cloth, fighting enemies from afar without ever revealing his true self.
That was exactly what Hawk needed right now.
And perhaps more importantly...
It's a well-known piece of lore.
Saga had served as the Pope of the Sanctuary for a considerable amount of time.
And right now!
Using the 'Pope' to slaughter these so-called angels felt incredibly fitting.
Didn't it?
But—
Sitting cross-legged, as if suspended within his own projected universe, Hawk used his meditation to sense the blood-red, spiderweb-like veins that had now fully encased the projected Gold Cloth.
He could feel it. This crimson web... it was actively trying to seize control of the armor.
..............
Far away in New York City, Gwen stood up from her chair, her heart pounding as she stared at the main screen in the S.H.I.E.L.D. command center. She watched the Golden Armor being slowly consumed by the blood-red corruption.
But then.
As she studied the Gemini Cloth on the screen, she blinked, and a sudden realization washed over her.
Sharon, noticing Gwen's intense expression, tried to comfort her.
"Don't worry, Gwen. Have faith in Hawk. He's never lost a fight."
"...Right."
Gwen snapped out of her thoughts, meeting Sharon's concerned gaze with a soft, confident smile. "I'm fine, Sharon. Really. Because that's not Hawk."
Sharon blinked, looking back at the screen where the Golden Armor was now completely covered in the bloody web.
"That's not Hawk?"
"Nope."
"How can you be so—"
"Intuition."
Gwen's smile was radiant.
She had no intention of telling Sharon the real reason. In fact, she wasn't going to tell anyone why she was so certain.
Because Hawk had told her a secret.
Gwen remembered a quiet night, lying in bed with Hawk, watching as he projected the breathtakingly beautiful, radiant image of his Phoenix Universe on the ceiling. She had listened as he told her the stories of the Bronze, Silver, and Gold Saints.
After seeing him manifest the spectral images of so many different Cloths, she had asked him, "If you have all these different armors, why do you only ever wear the Phoenix?"
Hawk had held her close and whispered, "Because I made a pact with the Phoenix."
That was when she learned the truth. The Phoenix Constellation, having chosen him when he was nothing, had wagered its entire divine authority on him, and in doing so, had become his singular, true constellation.
He might be able to evolve the other constellations, wield their powers, and even find worthy hosts for their respective Cloths in the future.
But Hawk would never wear another constellation's armor himself.
Except for Draco.
As Hawk had put it:
Only the Phoenix and the Dragon are mine, and mine alone. I will never delegate them.
Gwen had seen the Draco Cloth before. The brilliant, golden armor currently on the screen was neither the Draco Cloth nor the Phoenix Cloth.
Therefore—
Hawk wasn't inside it.
Gwen was absolutely certain.
Seeing the unwavering conviction in Gwen's eyes and hearing her attribute it to 'intuition,' Sharon felt her own rising panic begin to subside.
Just then.
The blood-red web encasing the Gemini Cloth pulsed with an intense, sickly light, and began to drip thick, viscous blood onto the desert glass below.
As the blood pooled and coagulated on the ground...
Suddenly.
A grotesque, bloody hand thrust upward from the puddle. The next second, a creature formed entirely of coagulated blood dragged itself out. It was a perfect, horrific mirror image of the Gemini Gold Cloth.
The blood creature threw its head back and let out a deafening, monstrous roar!
High above the battlefield.
Hawk looked down, a slight frown creasing his brow as he analyzed the strange suppression field dampening his avatar's power, and the bizarre, resonant energy emanating from the blood-creature mimicking him.
He looked up at Jack, his voice perfectly calm.
"What is this?"
"This, Heretic, is the manifestation of your own sins."
"My sins."
Hawk scoffed.
"According to who?"
"The Lord!"
"Face your judgment, Heretic!"
As Jack spoke, Allen, hovering on the other side, let out a furious roar. His massive blood-red wings snapped forward, transforming into a barrage of razor-sharp 'Spears of Judgment.' With a sickening thwack, one of the spears impaled the blood-creature's shoulder, pinning it to the ground.
And the exact moment the spear pierced the blood-creature...
An invisible force slammed into the hovering Gemini Gold Cloth, violently jerking its corresponding shoulder back as if it, too, had been impaled.
Hawk raised an eyebrow, glancing at the phantom wound on his avatar before looking back at Jack.
"Sympathetic voodoo?"
"Heh."
Jack sneered. Looking at the fully armored, seemingly trapped Hawk, his expression was one of absolute, arrogant triumph.
Like a classic villain, convinced he had already won, he began to monologue.
"Every man is ultimately judged by his own actions. You slaughtered the Blood Spirits, and now, you shall be slaughtered by them in return."
"We originally prepared this ritual for Mephisto."
"But no matter."
"It serves its purpose just as well on you. Once you are dead, no one will be left to stop the Lord's descent."
Hawk listened to Jack's gloating explanation, and the pieces fell into place.
So that's how it works.
No wonder Mephisto said that once the Angel of Death awakens and enters a Death Lord's dimension, the Lord is as good as dead.
It's not that the newly awakened Angel actually defeats the Death Lords in combat.
They use this underhanded, parasitic curse to assassinate them.
Even though he was only controlling the Gold Cloth through meditation, his sensory connection was almost identical to actually wearing it.
He could feel the metaphysical tethers binding the Gold Cloth to the blood-creature on the ground.
How to describe it...
It felt deeply esoteric.
Like the concept of 'Karma' in Eastern philosophy. Countless invisible threads of cause and effect were linking the armor to the bloody effigy.
If the effigy suffered damage, the Gold Cloth suffered the exact same damage.
Considering Yahweh's penchant for the mystical and dogmatic, it wasn't entirely surprising that His enforcers possessed such bizarre, conceptual abilities.
But…
While it was a tricky curse to deal with, it wasn't unsolvable.
There was just one minor issue.
The Blood Angels weren't going to give him the time to solve it.
Sure enough!
A look of fanatical, religious ecstasy consumed Jack and Allen's faces.
"Lord!"
"Almighty Lord!"
"In Your name, we judge this Heretic!"
"Heretic—"
"DIE!"
With that final pronouncement, Jack and Allen didn't hesitate. They unleashed the full fury of their blood-red wings, transforming them into a relentless storm of Judgment Spears that rained down upon the bound blood-creature below, impaling it again and again with sickening, wet thuds.
And with every spear that pierced the bloody effigy...
The Gemini Gold Cloth, hovering helplessly in the air, jerked and shuddered, its golden surface dimpling and cracking as if being struck by invisible, armor-piercing rounds.
"Holy shit!"
In the New York S.H.I.E.L.D. Command Center, Sharon, along with every other agent in the room, gasped in horror, covering her mouth.
"Hawk!"
"Don't worry. I told you, that's not Hawk."
Gwen stared at the screen. The more brutal the damage inflicted upon the Gemini Cloth became, the more certain she was that Hawk was nowhere near that armor.
Soon.
The blood-creature had been reduced to a literal pincushion, pierced by hundreds of spears.
The Gemini Gold Cloth, still hovering in the air, mirrored the devastation, its surface battered and broken.
Jack and Allen exchanged a look of smug satisfaction, admiring the ruined, beggar-like state of the once-magnificent Golden Armor.
But just as their triumphant smiles reached their peak...
Hawk's voice drifted out from the battered shell of the Gemini Cloth, sounding completely unimpressed.
"Is that it?"
"..."
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