The Rise Of A Porter

Five years later, In the eternal city on the back of Cetus.

Arnold was standing on the beach by himself, staring at the endless sea that didn't seem to be endless anymore. The mysteries of the world and the universe existed no more for him now that he had been crowned as their protector. 

From the hidden sea creatures lying in the bowels of the earth to the secret behind the supermassive black holes, he was aware of everything and yet, he wished he didn't. Being the all-knowing was a bit boring.

So much so, that Arnold wondered, how the hell Shiva managed to keep himself busy for all those years when it only took Arnold about five to get bored to death. 

"Maybe I should start meditating like him for centuries at a time." Arnold smiled while stone-skipping in the ocean.

Even doing that had lost its fun. All because he couldn't use even 0.1% of his strength to do so without destroying the entire solar system. He had to ask Natasha to cast a spell on the beach that made it possible for Arnold to do stone skipping and feel like he was actually throwing stones, not merely touching them. 

"You know, you could have used the spell yourself." Nicholas's voice echoed inside his head.

"Do make me regret bringing you back." Arnold said playfully, "Come on, I'm the one above all. Show me some respect!"

"To me, you'll always be that weak brat who used to carry a bag thrice his weight to make mere cents." Nicholas replied, "In a way, you're still carrying that bag. Only this time, you're carrying the entire weight of the universe in it."

Arnold nodded and kept idling till the sun took the day off. He got off the enchanted beach and saw people partying around. Gods, humans, and demons, all of them existing in harmony. It had been like this since the day he defeated the Primordial and it seems... the party never came to an end. 

"You made a wise decision not restoring all of the gods back to their glory." Nicholas chimed in.

"That's what Shiva wanted. To let the gods rest, just like he did." Arnold replied while leaning over the world tree and watching over everyone. 

Back when Shiva gave him everything the universe had to offer, he also stripped the gods that existed back then of their powers. All of which, was given to Arnold in order to defeat the primordial. 

Some of the gods would have loved to have their powers back, but Shiva urged Arnold to do what he deemed right. He needed allies, there was no doubt about it, but most of the old gods like Odin and Hera refused their godhood. 

In their words, they were tired of being gods and wanted to live a normal life. A life they had longed to live. This left Arnold with one choice... make new gods and he had no shortage of capable candidates. But before all that, he did something else.

He revived all of his undead summons. Of course, he would have had to give up a chink of his life force to revive them... but there was a loophole.

Arnold was their lord but he wasn't the one who revived them, Talos did and since Talos wasn't a living creature, he could never 'die'. That meant no one had to be sacrificed to revive the summons.

Why did he do something like that? Well, because they had served their purpose and Arnold did not want them to be shackled to him forever. He thought they would be eager to get away from him because at the end of the day, he had killed most of them.

But much to his surprise, all of them decided to keep following him as their master. They did not care about whether he had killed them or not, the time that had passed between them made them realise that whatever Arnold did was for the sake of the universe.

Thus in a weird sense, he saved them by killing them? It was very confusing but at the end of the day, all of them were happy with what happened. 

Back to the topic of granting godhood, Arnold shortlisted a group of people and asked them whether they would like to become literal gods. Naturally, all of them were excited till he began explaining the problems they would have to face like being immortal and all that jazz. 

Still, most of them agreed. The only one who disagreed was... Nicole. She did not like the idea of being immortal and having powers at all. She had grown tired of it all, the creatures, the powers, everything. 

But upon her request, Arnold planted a dormant seed of godhood within her. So she could become a goddess whenever she felt like it or if a need arises for her to take a drastic measure like that. 

That being said, all of his former summons were granted godhood. Making them even more powerful. These gods then proceeded to establish their own pantheons looking for more candidates to be crowned as gods of lesser, but important entities. 

As the concept of Lesser or higher gods had been abolished as soon as Arnold ascended to being the protector of the universe. In his eyes, all of the gods had fought bravely in the time of crisis and hence all of them should be valued equally. 

As for the demon, since Lucifer and all of the other lords of the underworld followed Shiva, they willingly surrendered themselves for Arnold to do as he pleased with them. 

So, Arnold did what he thought would be the best and made them the rulers of the various parallel underworlds, including Muspelheim. Life was... good.

"Finally at peace?" Nicholas said knowing that Arnold was never at peace before, but now it seemed to have changed. 

Arnold nodded while looking at his beautiful family. Both Aiden and Orco were going fine, although Orco had developed a lot of Orc-like features, he still looked more like a human than a monster. 

Nina met his gaze and smiled, their love has only gotten stronger as time passed and they had all eternity to be in love with each other for Nina was her queen and also a goddess. As for their sons, they were still a bit immature to grant them godhood.

But hopefully one day they'll be able to decide whether they want to be gods or not. Till then, Arnold would look over them, just like he was looking over the universe. 

"My lord, the feast is ready," Nandi called Arnold. 

When Shiva said he gave him everything, he meant every word of it. His domain, his trident, his army... everything was now Arnold's and that's why Nandi addressed him as his lord. 

"Coming." Arnold patted the world tree and left to enjoy the party as usual.

"There he is!" Hercules, the god of strength and willpower greeted his old master like a war buddy, passing him some liquor. 

"Go easy on the alcohol, or I'll show everyone who has the real strength in bed," Natasha warned her now-husband.

That's right, the pervert married a masochist, a pair made in heaven. They weren't the only ones either. Talos had a flame of his own with Dani.

As for Thor, well, Arnold resurrected Sif to be with him so he was happy, although he was a bit taken aback when he got to know about Odin's choice to live as a human, he was happy as long as his father was happy. 

Alice on the other hand decided to devote her life to Arnold, knowing that something between them would never be possible. Asterios... well he was already married to war and violence so there wasn't any need for him to find a mate.

As for Johnny... Nicole forgave him for doing what he did to her. But Johnny decided to punish himself and begged Arnold to imprison him. Which Arnold did... in a place where the concept of time was void. Johnny would stay there for as long as he thought he needed to be for the sake of punishing himself. 

Despite living a happy life, none of them ever stopped their training. All because of the Primordial's parting words. There were more creatures like him, an entire universe filled with them but the most dangerous among them were the 11 remaining generals and their king as the primordial called them.

But Arnold wasn't scared of them. Because he wasn't alone anymore. He didn't need to do everything by himself and as long as he had his allies, no matter how strong the enemy was they would defeat them. 

"There are more than 12 of them you'll need to take care of. It's just a hunch though." Nicholas gave his two cents to Arnold. 

"Let them come." Arnold grinned, "It'll be fun to tear them to shreds, just like everyone else before them."

***

Author's note: (I'm adding this after publishing the chapter so the cost of it remains the same.)

Hmm... what should I say? I always wanted to type a final author's note and talk to my readers like this, but now that the time has come, I'm out of words. 

Firstly, let me say this, The Rise Of A Porter might be over, but there are other projects of mine you can read and show your love to. and are two stories I decided to write when I realised it was the time to end Porter and hopefully, they'll be worthy successors of the legacy Porter will leave behind. 

That being said, I can't thank you, the readers, enough for showing all the love and support through the years. Sadly, due to my regular health issues, I had to rush the ending quite a bit as I wanted some time off to recover as well as give you guys a proper ending to the epic saga as that was the least I could do to honour all the love and support you gave me.

Haha, I am a bit emotional as I'm typing this so please, forgive me cringeness. But it's a bit overwhelming as the novel finally got its ending after about two years. Two amazing years, let's go!

"Wrap it up, I have to go." Arnold mocks the author, "The Outers don't have to sit through your BS, then why should I?"

Do you want me to inform them about the sequel or not?

"Oh, right I forgot about that."

Ahem... so, there will be a sequel to the story (eventually). I just need a couple of years to finish the ongoing novels and make a proper outline of the story. So till then, it's goodbye (Unless you want to read my other novels *Wink* *Wink*).

Lastly, I would like to thank everyone who managed to get through my horrible work. I would like to thank you for all the creative criticism you gave me, for all the love you gave me, and for the comments that cursed me out and a special thanks to Sinclair for sticking to the story till the end and giving it the one and only super gift the novel ever got.

Also, don't remove the novel from your library because I will announce the sequel here itself. And now that it's time for the final goodbye, I wish you all the best in whatever you do. Thank you for being a part of Arnold's journey, of my journey. 

See you next time.

With love and tear in his eyes...

Akshat Arpit.

P.S. Try to ignore the typos like I ignore my health.