Chapter 347: Are you suggesting we cannot win?
The silence on Olympus was the kind that suffocated.
No birds. No winds. No hymn of the mountain nymphs. Even the streams that wound like veins across the divine seat had stilled, frozen under a weight that could not be named.
Word had arrived, not by messenger, but by the tearing of the heavens themselves.
Three thrones, once eternal, now sat empty.
The Throne of Sky, which had blazed with Zephyros’s light for millennia, was cracked down the middle, lightning flickering in and out like a heart that no longer beat.
The Throne of Flame, Seraphin’s seat of fire, guttered into ash, its sacred brazier extinguished for the first time since the world was born.
The Throne of Shadows, Nymera’s veil, had dissolved entirely into nothingness, leaving behind a hollow void that gnawed at the chamber.
Gods gathered in the Great Hall of Olympus, their faces pale, their voices hushed. They stared at the empty seats, unwilling to accept what their immortal senses screamed to them:
Zephyros. Seraphin. Nymera.
All dead.
Killed not by mortals, not by Titans, not by accident.
But by Poseidon.
The Murmurs of Panic
"Three in a single night..." muttered one lesser deity, clutching his mantle. "Not slain in battle against armies... but directly, by his hand."
"He didn’t even give warning," another whispered. "There was no clash of storms across Olympus, no thunder heralding their fall. Their flames just—went out."
A goddess of grain pressed her hands together, trembling. "If the gods of judgment, flame, and shadow could be destroyed, what chance have any of us?"
Panic rippled like a sickness through the chamber. Some deities shouted to flee to distant realms. Others demanded vengeance. But beneath it all was something heavier than fear: despair.
For gods did not die easily.
And yet three pillars of Olympus had been broken like brittle wood.
When Athena strode into the chamber, clad in gleaming bronze, her eyes hard as honed steel, the whispers fell silent.
Her gaze swept the council, lingering on the empty thrones. For the first time in centuries, her jaw clenched.
"Zephyros is gone," she said flatly. "So is Seraphin. And Nymera."
Her words struck like hammer blows.
"They fell to Poseidon. And this is not rumor. I saw it with my own eyes across the threads of strategy. His power was absolute. Their resistance was nothing."
The hall shuddered with disbelief, but none dared contradict her.
From the highest dais, a heavy footstep rang. Then another.
And then Zeus appeared.
The King of Olympus had not moved from his inner sanctum in decades, leaving matters to the council. But now, his presence burned like a thunderstorm barely caged in human shape.
His eyes, molten gold and stormlight, pierced the hall as his voice rolled like thunder.
"Three of my pillars... broken."
He raised a hand toward the empty thrones. Lightning crawled from his fingertips, striking the stone floor. The chamber shook.
"The god of judgment, the goddess of flame, the goddess of shadows—all fallen. This is no longer a war of mortals. This is annihilation."
A hush descended.
"Poseidon," Zeus spat, the name bitter as venom. "He defied the order of Olympus once. We bound him. We buried him. And now—reborn, he has the audacity to strike at us again."
He leaned forward, the weight of his fury radiating like a collapsing star.
"But this time, I will not allow a council to weaken my hand. This time, Olympus will march."
"March?" cried Dionysus, staggering forward, his wreath of ivy askew. "March against him? Have you lost your sense? Three gods stronger than I are gone! What makes you believe more deaths will save us?"
Ares snarled, rising with sword already half-drawn. "Coward! If we do not strike, he will come for all of us! Better to die fighting than to drown like rats!"
"Enough," Hera’s voice cut through, cold and sharp as winter. She stood beside Zeus, her expression carved in frost. "This is not about courage or cowardice. It is about survival."
"Survival?" sneered Hecate from the shadows of the chamber. "Then know this: there is no surviving him. Poseidon is no longer what he once was. He is not merely god of the sea. He is the abyss given form. Every drowned thing, every forgotten tide, every ancient hunger has fused into him. He is becoming something beyond godhood."
The words struck like knives. Even Zeus’s fury faltered, if only for a heartbeat.
Then, from the back of the chamber, the blind Oracle of Olympus rose. She had not spoken in over a century, her tongue long silent, her face veiled in silver.
Now she lifted her head, and her voice rasped like dry waves over bone.
"The death of three is but the first tide.
The drowned god does not rise—he replaces.
Olympus will fall not in fire, nor in shadow,
but in silence, beneath an endless sea."
Her words sent a chill through immortal veins.
Many gods clutched at their thrones, unwilling to meet her veiled eyes.
The prophecy of the Drowned Age—long buried, long dismissed—was surfacing again.
And with it came the knowledge that perhaps the three deaths were not isolated. They were the beginning.
"Are you suggesting we cannot win?" Athena’s voice was sharp, but beneath it lingered doubt.
The Oracle tilted her head. "Not by blades. Not by thunder. He is not what he was. He is not Poseidon the Brother, Poseidon the Oath-Bound. He is Poseidon the Tide Eternal. And when tides rise, they do not fall by decree. They consume."
The hall broke into chaos again—voices overlapping, arguments raging.
Zeus’s hand slammed down, and lightning exploded across the ceiling. Silence fell once more.
"We will not bow to him," Zeus growled, his voice shaking Olympus itself. "I will not bow to any tide. If he wishes war, war he shall have. I will gather the legions of Olympus, summon every demi-god, every chained Titan if need be. I will meet him not as king—but as executioner."
But even as he spoke, some gods exchanged uneasy glances. For the first time in countless ages, the King of Olympus sounded less like an immortal sovereign... and more like a man terrified of drowning.
Far below, in the mortal realms, strange phenomena mirrored the panic of Olympus.
Storms with no clouds. Cities where wells filled with saltwater. Statues of Nymera crumbled to dust. Flames in Seraphin’s temples guttered out no matter how much oil was poured. And in the skies where Zephyros’s judgment once rang, no lightning came, no wind blew.
The world itself felt thinner. The loss of three gods tore holes in its fabric. Mortals whispered of omens:
The sun dimmer.
The stars shifting.
The tides higher each dawn.
Poseidon’s shadow was spreading.
Back in Olympus, the council dissolved into shouting once more. But none noticed when the fountains at the edge of the chamber began to overflow, their waters rippling outward.
None but Athena.
She turned sharply, eyes narrowing.
The water rose without spilling, forming a sphere that pulsed with blue light.
And then—words, like the whisper of a tide against stone, filled the chamber.
"You send decrees. You send threats. You send armies. But thrones mean nothing beneath the sea."
Every god froze.
The voice was not in their ears. It was inside their veins.
"Zephyros judged me. He is gone.
Seraphin burned me. She is ash.
Nymera sought to bind me. She is nothing.
You are next. All of you.
Olympus will drown."
The sphere of water collapsed, vanishing into the floor as though it had never been.
The gods sat frozen.
Even Zeus.
For Poseidon’s voice had reached Olympus itself.
And if his voice could reach them...
so could his tide.