Agonizing pain seized him the moment Kael's eyes opened. His breath hitched, lungs feeling heavy, struggling to draw air.
He blinked once, twice, trying to comprehend what had happened to him. He tried to lift his arm, but only his right arm responded; his left felt numb, dead. His hands looked alien to him, fragile, and thin.
'What the hell happened…?'
His mind raced, desperately searching for answers, but his thoughts were shrouded in a thick fog.
The sky above him stretched clear and blue, almost cloudless. Kael stared at it, his brow furrowed.
This was wrong, the sky should be dark, filled with ominous clouds and tendrils reaching down. He remembered that terrifying sight.
But now, sunlight streamed directly onto his body, sprawled on the cracked asphalt.
'This doesn't make sense…'
He pushed himself to a sitting position with great difficulty, wincing as pain shot through his entire body.
Around him, he saw cracked roads, broken traffic lights, fallen power poles, and tangled, severed cables. In the distance, a fire weakly consumed the remains of a building he remembered as a bank, thin black smoke curling into the air.
The stench of blood, burnt flesh, and dust assailed his nostrils, making his stomach churn. Faint screams and groans of injured but still living people echoed in the distance.
Kael looked at his hands—thin fingers, pale skin with blue veins visible beneath, so translucent. These weren't his hands; this wasn't his body.
He dragged himself sideways, leaning against the mangled remains of a car. The car window was shattered but intact enough to reflect his face.
He stared at his reflection, and his breath caught. A young face stared back at him—messy black hair, confused brown eyes, a smooth chin devoid of any shadow of a beard.
This was not the face and body of Argos, God of Strength, who could shake the heavens with a single punch. This was Kaelan Riverwind, his former self, weak, insignificant.
"How the fuck did this happen?" he muttered in a hoarse voice, alien to his own ears. He pressed his temples, trying to dig deeper into his memories.
Then images flooded his mind: his battle against the Outer Gods, monstrous beings from beyond. Azathoth, shattering cities across the world with merely its presence and countless tentacles, treating them like toys.
And he, Argos, stood on the front lines, blood flowing from his slowly closing wounds, but he kept fighting. He refused to yield, even if his body would be destroyed.
"Stop, Argos!" Vishnu's voice echoed in his memory, trying to stop him. "You'll die in vain!"
Huitzil, with her shimmering wings, pulled Argos's arm, looking at him with deep concern. "Listen to us. We have another plan."
Kael shook his head, trying to recall the continuation more clearly.
'Another plan...'
He remembered now. Fragments of memory about Huitzil speaking of Amrita, the only source of Divine Items that could defeat the Outer Gods.
But Loki had long ago destroyed it, making it impossible to retrieve.
And the gods, Argos's comrades, had conceived a last-ditch plan, gambling on its success—time travel. Someone had to return to the past before Amrita was destroyed by Loki, to retrieve it.
Argos had refused, he preferred to fight, not flee as they suggested. But they gave him no other choice; they sent him directly into the past. Kronos, simply by raising a hand, enveloped Argos in light and giant spinning clockwork gears, making everything, including those tentacled horrors, disappear.
And now he was here, inside the weak body of Kaelan Riverwind once more, in the heart of a city just destroyed by Azathoth's initial assault. He clenched his fists and took a deep breath, trying to calm his mind.
He now felt and realized that something was missing within him—his divine power, and his Soul Rank was gone.
When he was Argos, his Soul Rank had reached the highest level. But now, in this body, there was no trace of the power he had gained from his Soul Ranks.
Though he knew from his memories as Argos that this rank could be improved—through battles, trials, or absorbing Divine Essence. But for now, he was truly just a weak, fragile, ordinary human.
Kael slowly stood, his legs trembling. He knew he had to move, if these were the first hours after the world's destruction.
Carefully, he stepped, avoiding the bodies strewn across the street. He saw a woman lying near him. She was dead, her eyes open and staring at the sky, blood gushing from her chest, impaled by a steel rebar from a building frame, her hand still clutching a torn shopping bag.
Kael looked away, a pang of guilt in his chest. He should have been able to prevent this; as Argos, he should have protected them.
He stopped near a bent lamppost, examining his left arm. The numbness was still there, but he could move his fingers slightly.
His wound—a deep gash on his arm—bled slowly. He tore a strip of cloth from his jacket, tying it tightly to stop the bleeding.
Every movement was painful for him, but he ignored it. He had felt worse wounds as Argos, and this was nothing.
In the distance, other screams echoed, followed by a rumble, apparently, another building had collapsed, falling onto the people below.
Kael's body tensed slightly, his hand instinctively moving to his waist, searching for the weapon that was always there—but now it wasn't. He cursed inwardly.
This body now had no power, nor weapons. He only had the memory of what would happen next, hordes of monsters that would infest the entire city, creatures born and emerging from the influence of the Outer Gods' appearance.
He knew when they would attack, where they would gather. And he also remembered, somewhere in this city, there was a Divine Essence shard that could help him rebuild his Soul Rank.
Kael stared into the distance, towards the Cathedral, where in his memory, its spire was broken. That was where the Soul Splinter lay, and reaching it wouldn't be easy.
He had become Kaelan Riverwind again, and this weak body had almost no chance against the monsters that would soon roam.
Kael began walking towards the Cathedral, even though his body ached. This was his second chance, and he wouldn't squander it.
'I will become Argos again, even stronger than before. And this time, I will win.'