"You will no longer be able to answer me…

...once you're dead."

Even with Gerald and Surtr going wild in the background, Vanya and Van's attention was completely on the young man in front of them, Hermod. With him threatening Van, Vanya's hands could not help but tremble as a slight rage was starting to grow inside her.

Her father had been threatened by Gerald before, but this was the first time someone threatened to take her father's life-- and she won't just let that pass.

"Be careful with your next words, Aesir," Vanya muttered. She knew that his father was not entirely faultless; one could even say it was entirely his fault as he did this to provoke the Aesir in the first place. But still, Van is her father.

"I have no qualms with you, Vanya," Hermod let out a sigh as he shook his head, "Odin has quite a liking to you, as you are the tamest of the Progenitors-- not even once questioning our rule."

"Because I never had to."

"And you think that you can, now that you have to?"

"..."

Van slightly furrowed his eyebrows as the conversation of the two became more and more intense with every word that they utter. And when you add all the thunders and tremors in the background, it felt as if the two were in a war of their own.

Gerald's fight with the progenitor of the fire giants seemed to have no end in sight, as the two do not seem to cause any life-threatening damage to each other. He could also hear Gerald's laughter from all the way up there, as he pushed himself in the air, only to be swatted away by Surtr. But still, even with that, Gerald stands back up without any hesitation, as if the thing that hit him was only a pat and not the first of a fiery colossus.

It truly made Van wonder just how strong Gerald has gotten. After a hundred years, was he now at the same level as Charlotte, before the Hermes Explosion incident, in terms of strength?

Van truly wanted to watch his fight in detail. But alas, he could not. The conversation between Hermod and his daughter was turning to its climax and would soon probably turn into a fight.

"...as a progenitor, for you to allow someone of your kind to wreak havoc into someone else's territory, you know what this means, right?" Hermod continued to talk, "This is war-- a war between races; between the forest and the fire giants. And at this point, the Aesir would have to get involved."

"..." Vanya did not respond to Hermod's words.

"But seeing as the one who started this is your father, who is not in any way registered to our archives, we could consider this an act of a rogue primal god. And based on our testament, there are only two ways to deal with rogues…" Hermod then turned his attention towards Van, "Either submit to our rule or perish for eternity."

"N--"

"That is unacceptable."

"..." Before Van could even say a word, Vanya once again stood in front of him, covering him with her body.

"The Aesir and us progenitors have an unspoken rule, and that is mutual respect with one another. You are undermining my father's autonomy by making him submit to you," Vanya muttered, "My father has only been here for months, it is not fair to subject him to such treatments."

"He has only been here for months? Is he one of the Transported? The very same people that were responsible for your family's death?"

"It doesn't matter."

Hearing Hermod's words, Van could not help but slightly let out a small breath. The 'Transported'? Is he talking about the System Holders and other special individuals like the Olympians? Does that mean… that the Aesir was actually aware of their existence?

"That is quite interesting," Hermod muttered as he placed his hand on his chin. And after a few seconds, he once again placed his attention towards Van, "It would seem that you won't be dying here after all. The others will have questions for you. I would very much like it if you come with me without making a fuss, Prime Progenitor."

"That is not going to happen," Vanya quickly stepped forward to block Hermod's path, looking down at him with her eyes watching all of his movements.

"And here I thought you like peace, progenitor of the forest giants."

"Not always."

"!!!"

And as if a signal to the start of their battle, Surtr's body suddenly fell towards them, swinging on the very same earth on which they stood. Surtr, however, did not spend even a second lying on the ground as it quickly stood up, changing the terrain with its every movement.

And as he did so, Hermod, Vanya, and Van were nowhere to be found. Instead, several kilometers away from where Surtr fell, a stream of golden light flickered, producing thunder with every flash.

The only thing that stopped the march of the golden light was a blur; a dark blur that blocked each and every step in its path. From afar, it looked like this; but if one were to look close enough, if one were to be fast enough to see what was really going on-- they would see two seemingly matching entities having a bout.

And this is exactly what Van was seeing as his [Time Perception] Skill was turned on-- for once not used while he was running but only to watch.

Like Van, Vanya was producing streaks of lightning while she used her speed. As for Hermod, he seemed to just be solely using… his body. How he was able to achieve that, or if there was some sort of magic going on that Van was unaware of, he truly had no idea. The enhanced humans that Van had met pre-transportation were, suffice to say, weak; or at least not at the same level where they could match up with high-leveled System Holders.

For their future generation to evolve into something like this… was truly something that Van could never imagine possible.

The only thing that he knew was that the two seemed to be equally fast.

Vanya was able to get a hit, which made Hermod bleed or stumble. The wound or fracture, however, would just instantly heal as they were made. Vanya's moves were more brutish-- similar to how Van moves-- and one could even say even more similar to how Gerald moves.

As for Hermod, his moves were precise-- targeting only the areas which would most make Vanya flinch or pause-- which was the only time the both of them needed to get ahead. Like Vanya, Hermod was also successful in landing a few hits, which Vanya only scoffed at as a sort of vine that instantly covered her wounds.

The other Realms probably had no idea that there were two dominant battles happening in Muspelheim right now-- a battle that would probably decide the fate of the whole 9 Realms…

...and Van was the only clear witness to it.

And a, "Hm," was his only reaction. If this keeps up, both the battles would probably not end anytime soon, or just end after the whole of Muspelheim was completely literally gone from the map.

Perhaps because it was his first time getting drunk, he felt a little weird. He was slowly sobering up now, but there was also this sense of irritation growing inside of him that he couldn't shake off.

The memory of what he was doing earlier slowly returned back to him as well; with him plowing down the realm with a speed that he wouldn't normally use if not needed. And so, right now, watching Hermod and Vanya fight, he could not help but mutter to himself,

"...Why are they so slow?"

Maybe due to the fluidity of their movements, the excitement he felt from watching Vanya and Hermod's fight was less compared to Gerald's match. For him, it just seemed like they were dancing-- each dodge was just a step in a bigger choreographed performance.

Compare that to Gerald, whose attacks were completely unpredictable-- like an arrow lost in the wind which would make one guess in anticipation of where it would hit.

He was sort of curious at first, as this Hermod slightly reminded him of the Hermes that he had seen in his earlier dreams and visions. Add that to how he made his entrance, introducing him as the Messenger of the Gods, similar to Hermes's role-- Van was truly taken aback.

He had initially thought that he would be seeing someone faster than him; someone that was able to achieve Hermes's speed, but if it was just this, then Van no longer had any reason to make this fight any longer than it should.

Perhaps it was his fault too, for expecting too much. According to Athena's story, Hermes was able to jump from galaxy to galaxy in a single breath. Now that he was repeating it in his mind, it was probably ridiculous to expect something like that would be possible.

And so, with a sigh, a small trickle of golden lightning emerged from Van's eyes as he disappeared from his spot, only to appear right in the middle of Vanya and Hermod, who were about to once again rush towards each other.

He then quickly summoned his shield, using it to block Hermod's kick, and using his other hand to gently block Vanya's knuckle.

"W… what?"

"...Father!?"

The two could not help but slightly open their eyes wide in shock as Van suddenly appeared right in front of them, without even a single sign or warning.

And with a sigh, he said,

"That's enough…

...children."