[Olympian surge detected]
The notification crashed into his vision like a physical blow, the glowing blue screen dominating his entire field of view and A split-second later the aftershock hit: the unmistakable ripple of someone channeling an enormous torrent of divinity.
The quantity was staggering enough to set off every single alarm Elyon had painstakingly embedded throughouthis corridor as they erupted in a frantic chorus.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Khorn whirled in alarm as Elyon dashed toward his quarters, hands already flying across control panels. Switches clicked, screens hummed to life with cascading data streams. "Bloody hell," he growled under his breath. "What in all the damned realms are those Olympians playing at now?"
Khorn crowded in beside him, eyes narrowing at the wildly oscillating frequency graph. "My lord, it seems those puffed-up, high-headed snobs still haven't learned their lesson."
Aron dismissed the floating alert with an impatient swipe of his hand and strode over to join them at the main display. "One disaster piles on top of the next. Who's responsible this time?"
Elyon's fingers danced with practiced speed, pulling up his meticulously curated Olympian frequency archive, a digital vault of signatures he had compiled over countless cycles. The incoming signal overlapped with several entries, three partial hits, but one clear frontrunner refused to be ignored.
"I'm not a full hundred percent certain yet, my lord," Elyon said, pivoting to face Aron directly. "Three candidates match to some degree, but one signature stands out far above the rest."
He pointed. "Primarily Hermez."
"Hermez?" Aron echoed, brows knitting. He had anticipated the messenger god's eventual arrival, but the timing felt off, far too premature. Memories of Freya's recent warnings surged, her quiet doubts of him and of ...Peter.
Instinct twisted in Aron's gut like a warning blade. He turned his head toward the entry door, half-expecting to see the familiar figure there. "Is Peter still not back?"
Khorn's face changed in an instant. Earlier she had dispatched Peter to locate Aron, yet here Aron stood, very much present and very much alone. "Let me call him right now," she muttered, already retrieving her phone from her pocket. The screen lit up with notifications, hundred messages. She registered the oddity but pushed it aside, Peter was the immediate concern.
She tapped the call button. The line rang once… twice… three times. Each unanswered tone stretched longer than the last as her brows drawing tighter with worry.
No pickup. No voicemail. Just endless ringing.
The room went still. They all felt it simultaneously, the cold certainty that something had gone horribly wrong.
"Elyon," Aron said, voice low but edged with steel, "pull the exact coordinates of that divinity surge. It has to be nearby."
Elyon didn't hesitate. He extended both hands and summoned a swarm of small, luminous orbs, almost identical to veil balls in shape and glow, but heavily modified. Intricate scanning runes shimmered across every surface, each one slaved directly to his central monitoring array that still held the captured frequency imprint of Hermez. The hunt was on.
From the rooftop high above, the orbs shot outward in a radiant burst, fanning across the sky in every direction like a net of living stars. Data flooded back almost immediately, line after line scrolling across Elyon's screens.
"My lord," he announced, voice tight, "I have confirmation. The source is originating from… the Hephaestus Quisen. Practically right right to our own building."
Aron's fingers moved in a blur, fastening the last buttons on his jacket as speed began to coil in his limbs. His golden eyes fixed on Khorn with unyielding focus. "We locate Peter first. All explanations and consequences come after that."
"Wait, my lord, I'm com—" Khorn began, stepping forward.
But the words died in her throat. Aron simply ceased to occupy the space he had been standing in. A golden surge of displaced wind blasted outward, whipping hair and papers alike as he vanished.
"—ing," she finished weakly, heart slamming against her ribs.
She rounded on Elyon and delivered a solid slap to his back. "Why did you blurt it out like that?! I was going to break it to him gently, step by step!"
"What? Please," the old man retorted, rubbing the spot. "I know exactly how you operate, you would have danced around the truth until the final second, hoping to soften the blow. Better he hears it clean and fast." He yanked open a cupboard and began stuffing tools into his belt. "Hold on, I'm coming too… wait up, you stubborn crimson rascal!"
Meanwhile Aron tore through the streets at velocities that rendered him nearly invisible to mortal perception. Each footfall was surgically precise, each stride impossibly long; to the people he passed he existed only as a fleeting golden blur, a streak of motion that scattered market stalls, kicked up dust clouds, and left trailing eddies of razor-sharp wind.
"What in the hells was that thing?" a vendor yelped, clutching his awning. "Did God Hermez just sprint past us?"
Aron never heard the speculation. He had already reached his destination.
Boots slammed down, gouging long furrows in the pavement as he arrested his momentum outside the restaurant and the moment he stopped, the air reeked of Olympians, arrogant ozone and old incense but beneath it lay something far worse: the thick, coppery tang of iron.
'Blood…'
He didn't knock. The door exploded inward under the flat of his palm, hinges screaming as they tore free. Golden eyes flared wide, pupils contracting against a sea of red as what he saw was blood painted the interior in chaotic arcs, splattered across tables, dripping from the counter edge, pooling on the tiled floor, even streaking the ceiling in thin, violent sprays.
Breathing turned ragged. Concern for Peter climbed into outright panic. "Peter!" he shouted.
Only silence answered.
"PETER!!" The roar thundered outward, rolling across the entire realm like a shockwave, searching desperately for any fragment of response.
Nothing.
Aron forced himself to breathe, to think but He failed. His gaze darted wildly until it snagged on the old leather purse, Peter's unmistakable one, lying half-submerged in congealing crimson. He crossed the room in three strides, lifted it with shaking fingers. A photograph tumbled free and landed face-up in the gore.
He knew it at once.
'His daughter.'
The same bright-eyed girl who had been clinging to her father's leg the day they first crossed paths in that narrow alley. Her single call had once pulled Peter his fists. Now her smiling face stared up through smears of drying blood.
'If Peter dies… she...'
The unfinished thought sliced deeper within him. Aron's chest rose and fell in harsh bursts. He tried to rein in the rising fury, he tried but... failed completely.
'Am I really going to stand here and let another one die under my watch?'
His golden eyes ignited, light spilling outward. Where were the sacred rules the realm's masters had sworn to uphold? Where the hell were the two so-called genius dwarves who boasted of enforcing them?
"Where are you both!!!!" The bellow shook the walls, divinity exploding from his core in a blinding golden corona. The entire restaurant turned midday-bright, as though a newborn sun had detonated in the center of the room. At the peak of the searing radiance, two dark silhouettes gradually resolved within the glare.
"We are here, Immortal." one of them intoned as the light reluctantly dimmed.
Two dwarves stood revealed. The first was clad in priceless mithril armor chased with dragon-scale inlays, his bleak brown eyes steady beneath a furrowed brow. The second stood slightly taller, armored in dense orichalcum that gleamed like molten bronze; his massive beard hung heavy as anchor chains.
Sindri and Brokkr.
"We heeded your summons, immortal," Brokkr said, one thick hand smoothing his beard in a habitual gesture.
Aron exhaled slowly, forcing composure. He closed his eyes briefly, then slipped the bloodied purse and photograph into an inner pocket with careful reverence. When he opened his eyes again, the gold burned cold. "I shouldn't have to spell this out for either of you gentlemen," he said, voice dangerously quiet. "Just look around this place and tell me, exactly why this happened."
The sheer force behind the words drove both dwarves back half a step. They shared a quick, uneasy glance and swallowed hard.
Sindri spoke first, armor catching the dying light. "We will be completely honest with you. Our law did activate. The moment the crime was committed, our magic surged and expelled the perpetrator from the premises, but…"
"But?" Aron cut in.
"But he was simply too fast, immortal," Sindri admitted.
Brokkr edged forward, tilting his head back to meet Aron's gaze. "Besides, who even was that human to you? Our archives indicate the Olympian only interfered with a minor awakened mortal—" He broke off as Sindri's heavy hand clamped onto his shoulder, the silent shake of the head unmistakable: shut up now.
Aron had anticipated the dodge. It was practically in their racial programming to deflect blame, reframe fault, preserve the illusion of infallibility.
"You two truly never change," he murmured, "not even across this timeline." Divinity began to gather around his right fist, crackling softly.
'Charge…'
[Charging…1%]
Both dwarves sensed it instantly, the unmistakable flow of golden power they had tried and failed to recreate. The same power that had branded him Slayer in the old tales.
"Immortal! This is Asgardian territory. You cannot possibly da—"
[Charging…2%]
Sweat glistened on their foreheads as the energy visibly intensified, doubling in an eyeblink.
"Stop this at once!" Sindri pleaded. "We can still discuss the matter reasonably. There is no need for violence!"
Aron looked down at them, something almost like sorrow flickering in his gaze. "I'm afraid there is," he said simply.
[Charging…3%]
[Charge Full]