Greg didn't know what to say. He couldn't do anything but look at the blood that kept coming and where his arm should be.

There was too much blood, and he was going to die here like Hilda did. Maybe that was fair, or maybe it was justice for thinking he could be better than he was.

His vision was getting worse, and the dark was coming in from the sides. Shock and blood loss were working together to bring him down.

He could hear his family and the fighting, but it all felt so far away. He lost his left arm and Hilda was gone. Everything he had tried to put together had fallen apart.

He could see movement at the edge of his fading vision. Something small and see-through was getting closer. It was Hammy. As it pressed against Greg's other hand, the slime made a soft, worried sound.

Greg felt something warm through the pain and shock. The hammer inside Hammy's body was glowing brighter than ever and beating in time with his heart.

The light was golden, not the purple that Agatha's magic had changed it into. It was something that was old, pure, and strong.

Greg used the last of his strength to reach out with his other hand and touch the hammer through Hammy's see-through body. As soon as his fingers touched, the golden light surged, moving up his arm and into his eyes.

The pain didn't go away, but it felt far away and unimportant, like it was happening to someone else. Until then, the world fell apart.

Not dark.

Not being unconscious.

Something else completely.

Greg felt like he was falling or maybe rising through layers of reality that came apart like pages in a book. He saw pieces of other times and places.

Fights that took place hundreds of years ago.

Forges that have been empty for a long time.

People who made things and died long before his first life began.

After that, the falling stopped, and Greg was in a different place.

He was in a cave, but it wasn't the cold, empty cave system he and Felix and Bork had explored during their winter mining trip. There was a lot of heat and light in this cave.

There was a huge forge in the middle of the room, and the flames burned without any visible fuel. The walls were covered with tools, each one meticulously hung up and clearly used.

The air itself seemed to hum with the promise of new things to come. And there was a figure at the forge, working with outstanding focus.

Greg couldn't see the details. The heat from the forge caused the air to shimmer, creating the illusion that both the figure and their surroundings were moving, but Greg could tell the person was working on something complicated because their hammer fell in perfect time, and each strike was purposeful and precise.

The figure kept working even when Greg showed up, and he didn't even notice he was there.

He just kept hitting, and with each hit, Greg felt something in his chest, not his heart. Something more profound. The place where craftsmanship lived, where the need to make things was more than words or conscious thought.

"Where..." Greg's voice was rough. "Where am I?"

The hammer in the figure's hand stopped swinging. Then, one by one, they turned to face him.

Greg still couldn't see their face clearly. It was like trying to remember a dream when you woke up, where the details kept slipping away. But he could feel their gaze, which was old, wise, and patient beyond measure.

"The better question," the figure said, and their voice was like metal singing, like flames crackling, like the sound of creation itself, "is not where you are, but when you are."

"And, more importantly, who you want to be."

The hammer in Hammy's body pulsed again, and Greg suddenly understood. This wasn't just a regular hammer.

This hammer had never been just any hammer. It wasn't a coincidence that the workshop around him looked just like the cave where he found Hammy.

It was a memory. A record. A message left by someone who knew this day would come.

"You're..." Greg began, but he couldn't find the words. It was like trying to hold water in his hands, but his mind couldn't quite get what he was understanding.

The figure went back to work, and the hammer started to fall in that perfect rhythm again. "I'm the blacksmith who learned too late that not everything can be fixed with weapons."

"Some forge fires burn with sadness instead of passion." Every hammer can build or destroy, and the difference is not in the tool but in the hand that uses it."

They raised what they had been working on and held it up to the light from the forge. Greg couldn't see what it was, but he could feel how important it was.

The figure went on, "You are at a crossroads, Warhammer Saint."

"Behind you is the path you've taken to try to deny who you were. The path that Agatha wants you to take is ahead, and it fully embraces destruction, but there is a third way that I couldn't find but that you might still find."

The person turned to face Greg completely, and even though he still couldn't see their features clearly, he could feel how much they were looking at him. "The question isn't whether you can make weapons or not."

"The question is whether you can make something more important than war or peace. Or maybe... can you make people understand?"

"Additionally, is it possible to build a bridge between your past self and your potential future self?"

The hammer inside Hammy pulsed again, this time brighter, and Greg felt something change inside him, but it's not getting better nor fixing. But things are changing.

They really are changing into something that made the pain of losing his arm, the loss of Hilda, the anger, sadness, and guilt—none of it went away. But it started to change shape, like metal being shaped on an anvil.

Greg said, "I don't know how," and his voice broke. "I don't know how to do both..."

"How to remember who I was without becoming that person again..."

"How to pay tribute to Hilda's death without acting like it didn't mean anything..."

One last time, the figure's hammer hit the ground, and the sound echoed through the cave like a bell. "Then maybe it's time for you to learn."

"But first, you need to get up."

"Your family needs you."

"Your enemy is waiting. And the hammer you wanted..." He pointed to the bright thing inside Hammy. "Has been with you all along, waiting for the right time for you to really understand what it means to forge without hurting yourself in the process."

The cave started to fade, and the forge light got dimmer, but the voice of the figure followed Greg back to life. "Don't forget, Warhammer Saint."

"A hammer is not a weapon by nature. It is a tool for change."

"You always have the choice of what to create and who to become through your actions. Right now. Especially now."

The golden light surged one last time, and Greg felt himself being pulled back toward his body, the pain, the fight, and the impossible choice that was waiting for him. Before the cave disappeared completely, he saw the figure go back to work, the hammer falling in that never-ending rhythm, making something Greg couldn't see but needed to understand very badly.

Then he was back in his body, gasping for air and bleeding, and his severed arm was a screaming hole of pain, but things had changed.

The hammer inside Hammy was still glowing and pulsing with that old golden light. And Greg, even though he was in pain and had lost everything, felt something he hadn't felt since Hilda died.

He was ready.

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