The Rise Of A Porter

"I see you have completed half of your task already. I had my full strength, it shouldn't have taken this long." Shiva gave Arnold one of his ever so mysterious smiles, "You need to get stronger if you want to shelter the universe on your shoulders."

"Not interested. I'm only doing this to get Nicole back. Once that's done, we'll go our separate ways." Arnold retorted before rushing towards where Loki and Talos were fighting. 

Shiva just kept smiling without a tinge of worry on his face. Although it wasn't showing on his face, he was worried to his bones. Both he and Arnold had seen a future where everything goes right. But the one who they were about to face later was someone who could manipulate time on his own. A true god, both in name and sense. 

That being said, worrying about the future unnecessarily wasn't something Shiva looked forward to. Although he was hailed as a destroyer, he didn't enjoy killing or destruction for that matter. But for the sake of the universe, he had to take up arms again and again. Much like now.

But for Arnold, it was something else. He was slowly becoming drunk on power. But it wasn't a bad thing. After all, it was necessary to have a certain level of lust for power, at least to defeat the Primordial. 

'Defeating the Primordial has to be the answer to all our questions. But to lure him out, someone has to deal with his pawns first.' Shiva thought before sitting down while Arnold handled Loki. 

Shiva was referring to Loki and Zeus as Primordial's pawns. It was no coincidence that the two of them had retained their memories even after dying by Shiva's hands. It was all part of Primordial's plans to destroy the universe as Shiva had failed his task of recreating the perfect universe. 

However, Shiva wasn't willing to give it all up just yet. Thankfully, even though he was nowhere near as strong as he used to before, with Arnold by his side, they could just manage to defeat the Primordial and free the universe and everyone in it from the curse of being 'perfect'. 

It took Shiva to destroy and recreate the universe about a thousand times before the realisation hit him. The universe had always been perfect. He didn't need to change anything. Everything was perfect just like they were born. The imperfections in the universe had their own charm to them. 

It took Shiva all this time to realise that the Primordial might have had a different plan right from the start. A plan to get rid of Shiva along with the universe. Maybe the Primordial wasn't the one who created the universe, instead, he was the one born to destroy it.

But when Shiva beat him to it, he decided to do something else. As neither Shiva nor the Primordial were able to kill each other back when they met, the Primordial decided to fool Shiva into creating a universe worthy of being destroyed by his hands. 

But as time passed and Shiva got weaker and weaker... the primordial decided now was the right time to act and thus interfered during Zeus' and Loki's reincarnation so that they could plan a way to get rid of Shiva. 

However, his plan failed when a new god rose amongst the existing ranks. No god or even the primordial was able to foresee this outcome. The next thing they knew, Shiva was no longer alone. His vassal wasn't a proper god yet, but he was stronger than any god to have ever been born. 

An unstoppable force just like Shiva had been when he ascended to godhood for the first time. If they worked together, they just might be able to defeat the primordial and ensure peace in the universe once and for all. 

As for Nicole... Shiva had a good reason why he didn't intervene in the matter, despite wanting to. He needed to conserve his strength for the battle that was to come next. As things stand, Shiva was weakened to the limit where he could no longer use mana to cast his abilities.

Instead, even the most basic of his abilities were consuming his life force or HP. Even though he had more than enough HP to create one last universe from the scratch, fighting the primordial would take most if not all of it away from him.

In other words... Shiva was destined to die fighting the Primordial. 

"Remember you need to bring them to me alive," Shiva shouted as Arnold began fighting Loki, "or else I won't be able to summon him!"

Arnold simply shook his head and continued to turn Loki's army into mashed potatoes. At the moment Arnold was the only one on the field who was unstoppable in all sense of the word. 

But there were a lot of things that could go wrong leading up to the moment of the Primordial's arrival. These uncertainties could even end up in Arnold's and Shiva's loss which meant... the loss of everyone in the universe. 

That was the reason why Shiva had arrived there so early. This was the one and the only chance they had and couldn't risk messing it all up. Shiva was going to keep an eye on things to make sure everything proceeded smoothly till the ultimate collision starts. 

"Who is this person the two of you keep referring to?" Odin couldn't hold back his curiosity anymore and blurted out, "He must be someone really strong for the two of you to get this tensed. Needless to say, Asgard will be standing right by your side through it all!"

"It's more of a what is he than who is he, old friend." Shiva replied, "There are some things that even you don't know about me. Things that only Arnold knows apart from Nandi and Parvati. But to satisfy your curiosity, let's just say he's someone not even I could defeat, despite being in my prime. Do you still think you could help us out?"