He groaned while keeping his eyes shut, feeling pain all over his body. It had been a long time he never felt any pain.
'Why am I feeling pain now?'
He opened his eyes and saw the wide, clear sky stretched out above him.
'Ah...the sky looks so beautiful now. Last time I saw it was always dark and covered by thick clouds because of that cursed tentacles...'
He closed his eyes again, 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.
'WTF is this...'
He flipped his hand back and forth, trying to figure out why it had returned to this state.
With all his strength, he struggled to sit up. Groaning due to the pain here and there on 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 not like it used to be?'
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.
'F*ck...this hurts like hell,' he thought.
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.
But the nausea only added to his confusion.
'I should be used to this smell by now...'
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.
Angrily, he tried to punch the car window with his right fist, but failed to break it.
Then, he leaned on the car with both hands, panting heavily as he muttered to himself.
"I've gone back to the past... D*amn that f*cking brainrot of the Time God..."
He then turned around, enduring the pain, and sat down, leaning against the car's body.
***
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 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 kept trying to fight them with all his strength, even though his body was barely intact anymore, covered in severe wounds everywhere.
"Argos! Stop! You could vanish!" shouted Vishnu and pulling on his arm.
"That's right! Calm down for a moment!" Huitzil exclaimed hurriedly, "I have a better plan to defeat them!"
Argos kept his gaze fixed on the sky above, where several giant tentacles waved amidst the shattered sky.
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.
Finally, he turned his eyes to his companions, who looked at him with pleading expressions, hoping he would listen to them.
"Explain," he said in a deep and commanding voice. His massive and muscular frame, unusually large for a human, stood imposingly with open wounds across his body, though the wounds were slowly starting to heal.
Huitzil quickly said, "There's only one way to defeat them, Argos. We need to find Amrita to take them down."
"B*llsh*t. Amrita is gone, that fool Loki already destroyed it!" Argos scoffed and started to turn back to fight the tentacles.
But suddenly, someone stepped forward from behind the other gods and said, "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.
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 are you doing?!"
"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 looked at all the gods and divine beings who had survived the battle, with Kronos standing at the front, extending his hand toward him.
And slowly, they began to disappear from his sight.