Chapter 344: Let’s try one more time (Three against one)
The battlefield was no longer land, no longer sea—it was both and neither. Waves rose high enough to scrape the skies, their crests lashing with lightning. Islands shattered like clay under the pressure of divine strikes. Mortals far away whispered that the world itself was splitting, but here, among gods and titans, such destruction was only the beginning.
Poseidon stood at the heart of it all. His trident pulsed with the will of oceans yet unseen, the pressure of forgotten tides that predated Olympus itself. His hair whipped around him in sprays of saltwater, his eyes burning with abyssal light that made even gods hesitate.
Across from him, three figures hovered on pillars of divine radiance.
Zephyros, God of Sky and Judgment, his golden wings spread wide, lightning etched across his armor.
Seraphin, Goddess of Flame, her body wreathed in fire hot enough to split the sea into boiling trenches.
Nymera, Goddess of Shadows, her cloak shifting like a hole in existence, tendrils writhing as if hungry for blood.
They were wounded from past battles, but united, their strength was still immense. The council had decreed: Poseidon must fall.
"Three against one," Poseidon said, his voice a low rumble that shook the sea floor. "Even Olympus fears the tide."
Zephyros’s eyes narrowed. "We fear not the tide. We fear the abyss you carry. Thalorin’s hunger has no end, and you are his vessel."
Poseidon smirked, tilting his head. "You still don’t understand. I am not vessel. I am not shadow. I am sea itself. You can strike at me, and still, when your hands are empty, the ocean will remain."
Seraphin snarled. "Then let us see how long you remain when heaven itself burns."
With a shriek like a comet splitting the air, she hurled a spear of fire that pierced through the storm clouds, melting raindrops into steam. The spear fell toward Poseidon like a sun breaking apart.
He did not raise his hand. Instead, the sea bent. A wall of water surged upward, but this was no mere wave—it was shaped, sharpened, every droplet aligned by Poseidon’s will. The fire-spear struck the torrent, hissing, fighting, and then was swallowed whole, its brilliance extinguished beneath endless blue.
Nymera moved next, silent as a dagger. Shadows poured from beneath Poseidon’s feet, crawling up like black serpents, seeking to bind him. They wrapped around his legs, his chest, his arms, threatening to sink him into void.
Poseidon lifted his trident. The water around him shimmered, then hardened into crystalline chains of salt, lashing outward. They clashed with Nymera’s shadows, lightless against liquid, each strike cracking reality itself.
"Do you think darkness frightens the sea?" Poseidon growled. "Even in the blackest trench, the tide remains."
Zephyros descended like judgment itself, his sword forged from stormlight. With one sweep, he cleaved apart the battlefield, lightning racing down his blade like serpents of wrath. The sea boiled where his strike landed, vapor rising into thunderheads.
Poseidon’s eyes glimmered. He spun his trident once, stabbing upward. The sea itself rose to meet the blade of sky. Lightning struck water—yet instead of dispersing, Poseidon caught it, channeled it, twisted it. Bolts that should have scorched him bent backward, arcing into the storm clouds, striking Zephyros himself.
The sky-god staggered, golden wings cracking under his own fury.
Poseidon’s laughter rolled like thunder. "Do you feel it, Zephyros? The heavens feed the sea. Your storms make me stronger."
Far away, mortals watched the sky and sea wage war. Villages along the coastlines were swallowed, mountains cracked, rivers reversed their course. Priests screamed in temples, begging their gods for protection, only to hear silence in return.
Children cried as waters rose around their homes, yet some fell silent, their eyes glowing faint blue as Poseidon’s whispers touched them. "Fear not the flood," his voice echoed in their hearts. "For the sea remembers its own."
Across the world, more and more mortals began to kneel, not to Olympus, but to the drowned god.
The gods regrouped. Seraphin’s flames blazed hotter, turning the air into molten glass. Nymera’s cloak spread wider, drowning the horizon in shadow. Zephyros’s lightning crowned him like a halo of wrath.
Together, they raised their voices, a hymn of war. Their combined divinity merged into a single strike—a pillar of pure destruction, sky-fire-shadow entwined. It screamed downward, meant to erase not just Poseidon, but the very sea beneath him.
Poseidon lifted his trident with both hands. The ocean answered. Not just the nearby waves, not just this battlefield—but all seas across the world stirred. Tides in distant kingdoms rose. Rivers reversed. Glaciers cracked. The world’s waters bent toward their master.
The divine strike fell.
Poseidon roared, plunging his trident into the heart of the sea.
The waters exploded upward, a spiral vortex the size of a mountain, swallowing the gods’ combined attack. Fire hissed into steam, shadows dissolved, lightning vanished into the maelstrom. The spiral rose higher, higher, until it seemed to pierce the heavens themselves.
From within that torrent, Poseidon stepped forward, his body wreathed in storm and tide.
"You call yourselves gods," he said, voice booming across sea and sky alike. "But I am the ocean. And oceans... do not bow."
He struck first.
The trident lashed outward, summoning a tidal spear that crashed into Seraphin. Her flames sputtered as she was hurled backward, her divine armor cracking, her scream lost in boiling steam.
A whip of water snapped into Nymera, dragging her cloak of shadows into the light. She shrieked as Poseidon’s tides ripped her apart, scattering her into a thousand fragments of darkness that fled into the cracks of reality.
Only Zephyros remained.
His golden wings spread wide, his sword raised high. "Poseidon!" he roared, fury and desperation in equal measure. "If you rise, Olympus falls. And I will not let the sky fall."
Poseidon met his gaze with abyssal calm. "Then drown with it."
Their weapons clashed—trident against stormblade. Each strike shook the heavens, broke islands, shattered mountains. The clash of sky and sea was so vast that mortals thought the end of the world had come.
Finally, Poseidon drove his trident forward. It pierced Zephyros’s chest, shattering armor, breaking light. The sky-god gasped, golden ichor spilling into the sea.
Poseidon leaned close, whispering in his ear: "The ocean has no master. Remember that when you sink."
With one push, he hurled Zephyros into the abyssal trench, his light vanishing into the black.
The sea fell still. Steam drifted across ruined waters. Broken islands floated like corpses.
Poseidon stood tall, his trident glowing, his power undeniable. He had faced three gods at once—and triumphed.
Yet deep in the water, something stirred.
Thalorin’s voice whispered within him, not as hunger, but as warning. This is only the beginning. Olympus will send more. The council will not stop. And soon... even greater things than gods will come for you.
Poseidon’s grip tightened on his weapon. His eyes turned toward the horizon, where mortals still prayed, where temples still burned, where fate itself shifted like a tide.
"The sea has risen," he said softly. "Let Olympus tremble."