Kael groaned while keeping his eyes shut, feeling pain all over his body.
Pain?
He hadn't felt that crap in ages.
"Why the hell does it hurt?" he growled, keeping his eyes shut tight.
When he opened his eyes and saw the wide, clear sky stretched out above him.
"Tch... the sky looks beautiful now. The last time I saw it, it was always dark and covered with that tentacle's shit..."
He closed his eyes again, feeling the pain once more, but suddenly snapped them open.
He tried to lift both of his arms, but he felt his left arm was numb, unable to move.
Eventually, he managed to raise only his right arm and held it above his face, shielding his eyes from the bright sunlight.
His hand was covered in scratches here and there, but what surprised him the most was how smooth it still was.
The hand of an office worker who never went outside except to work or grab a meal. A hand that had never once touched anything resembling hard labor. And weak.
"What the fuck is this?" he muttered. "This isn't my hand."
He flipped his hand back and forth, trying to figure out why it had returned to this state.
Grunting, he struggled to sit. Groaning from the pain across his body, he finally managed to sit.
Yet he grew increasingly puzzled as he observed his body, now thin and frail, lacking the muscular build he was used to.
"Why is my body like this? Where's my strength?" he snarled.
But then, his eyes fell on the sight before him.
'Where am I...?'
Looking around, he suddenly remembered a pivotal event, an event that caused humanity to experience the power of another world.
And he was sitting in the middle of a ruined city, surrounded by the debris of buildings and scattered wreckage of vehicles.
Broken streetlights and fallen power poles were scattered among human bodies lying here and there.
'This is impossible...'
He stood up, holding onto a piece of building rubble nearby with only one hand, then turned to survey the entire area.
As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but ruins everywhere.
Flames flickered here and there, their glow weak, as if they had been burning for a long time and were close to dying out.
The sounds of crying and groaning from survivors echoed faintly, but he paid no attention to them.
His body felt incredibly weak, and his left leg throbbed with pain. When he looked down at it, he saw it was covered in blood.
He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to endure the sharp pain in his leg that surged whenever he attempted to stand.
"Fuck...this hurts like hell," he hissed.
As he kept his eyes shut, he became aware of the unpleasant smells reaching his nose.
The stench of blood and charred corpses filled the air, making him feel slightly nauseous, and his nose wrinkled.
"Ugh. Shouldn't even faze me anymore."
But it did. The nausea, the weakness—it was all wrong.
Feeling that something was definitely off about himself, he dragged his left leg as he walked, searching for a mirror or glass. He reached a car with partially shattered windows and tried to see his reflection in the glass.
What he saw was the figure of a man, around twenty-three years old, with a thin body.
A figure he knew all too well from his past.
"No fucking way," he spat.
Angrily, he tried to punch the car window with his right fist, but failed to break it. Weak. Too damn weak.
Sliding down to sit againts the car, he tilted his head back with eyes narrowing at the sky.
"Kronos, you bastard," he muttered. "You and your time tricks. Sent me back to this hellhole? I'll rip your head off."
***
At that age, in that time, he was still so weak. It was proven now as he couldn't even break a car window.
Just hours ago, he had been a human who had evolved into a god.
And not just any god—he was Argos, the God of Power.
All other gods were either his allies or submitted to his commands.
But even he had been defeated by the Outer Gods, and he refused to accept his loss.
He stood, blood dripping from his wounds that barely healed.
"Argos! Stop! You'll get yourself killed!" Vishnu grabbed his arm.
"That's right! Calm down for a moment, you moron!" Huitzil exclaimed hurriedly, "We've got a way to end this!"
Argos kept his gaze fixed on the sky above, where several giant tentacles waved amidst the shattered sky.
It was Azathoth, a formless mass full of tentacles that inhabited the center of the primal chaos, which in reality was still an extension of his own being.
Just the mere presence of these tentacles in the atmosphere had already brought ruin to the Earth.
'And this is only one Outer God appearing...' he thought.
"Way? I've tried it all. Move." He yanked his hand free and ready to charge.
Huitzil blocked him. "We need Amrita to kill them. The only shot we've got."
Argos froze, then smirked viciously.
"Bullshit. Amrita is gone, that fool Loki burned that shit to nothing!" Argos scoffed and started to turn back to fight the tentacles.
But suddenly, someone stepped forward from behind the other gods and said in a cool tone, "No, we can get it if one of us goes back in time."
Argos ignored them and started walking back toward the tentacles in the sky.
"Time travel? Bullshit. Tell Kronos to shove it."
After just two steps, his body was suddenly engulfed in glowing lights and swirling blue currents, with clock gears spinning around him.
He was shocked by what was happening and turned back, shouting, "Kronos! What the fuck?!"
Kronos stood there, stretching his hand out and his face hardened. "You're the only one who can do this, Argos."
"Do this?" Argos laughed coldly. "You're screwing me over without a word? I'll gut you for this."
"We are sorry, Argos. We've decided that you are the most suitable one to go back in time to retrieve Amrita," Huitzil called out with a guilty expression.
Argos glared at all the gods and divine beings who had survived the battle, all of them begging with their eyes.
"You think I'm your errand boy?" he spat. "When I'm back, you're all dead."
Kronos didn't blink. "If you make it back, we'll be here."
Light swallowed Argos. Last thing he saw was Kronos's hand as everything went black.