Chapter 314: The Struggle of Gods
The battlefield stretched from horizon to horizon, a scar across land and sea.
Once fertile plains had become a drowned wasteland, half-submerged beneath furious tides. Towering waves froze mid-crash, suspended by divine will, while shattered mountains rose like jagged teeth, remnants of gods tearing at creation itself. The air shimmered with divine fire, shadow, and storm.
And at its center stood Poseidon.
He no longer looked merely like a god of seas. His presence bent the world itself. Every droplet of water in the air gravitated toward him, trembling like worshippers before a king. His trident burned with abyssal light, its three prongs humming with power ancient enough to silence mortal minds.
Across from him, the coalition of gods tightened their ranks.
Ares, God of War, bloodied and furious, planted his spear into the earth, sending cracks racing outward. Athena, cold-eyed and unyielding, her shield glowing like a second sun, murmured strategies to the gods beside her. And Hades himself had stepped from the underworld, shadow and death curling around him like smoke. His eyes burned black flame.
Three pillars of Olympus. Three forces united by one decree: Poseidon could no longer be allowed to exist.
The silence before the clash was unbearable. Even the mortals, cowering miles away in ruined villages, pressed hands to their ears. They could not hear the words exchanged, but they felt the weight of them, each syllable like thunder in their bones.
"You’ve drowned too much," Athena said, her voice sharp as steel. "Your fury may have been justified once—but no longer. This war ends now."
Poseidon’s lips curved, neither smile nor snarl. "Ends? You think you have the power to end the tide? You think war, wisdom, and death are enough to chain the abyss?"
Hades stepped forward, shadows tightening around his skeletal hands. "Not chain," he said simply. "Bury."
The battlefield erupted.
Ares was the first to strike, roaring as his spear tore through the sky, splitting storm clouds with its crimson arc. Poseidon raised his trident and met it. The collision was cataclysm. The ground caved. Waves surged miles inland, swallowing forests. Mortals screamed as entire rivers reversed their course.
Athena followed instantly, darting past with blinding speed, her blade thrusting toward Poseidon’s side. But the sea itself moved for him—water solidified into a wall of glass-hard density, catching the strike. The impact rang like a temple bell, vibrating the marrow of gods and men alike.
Hades whispered a word. The battlefield dimmed. The sun itself faltered, smothered beneath the weight of underworld power. Chains of shadow erupted from the ground, clawing toward Poseidon’s legs. They hissed as they touched the sea-water cloaking him, darkness and abyss tearing at one another.
But Poseidon roared, and the sea roared with him. The suspended waves came crashing down in answer, engulfing all three gods in the wrath of oceans.
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The Weight of the Abyss
In that moment, Poseidon wasn’t merely a god. He was inevitability.
The ocean surged through his veins. Every strike of his trident summoned not just water, but the memory of water: floods that drowned empires, rains that birthed civilizations, rivers that carved mountains. The abyss itself answered him, whispering in tongues only he could understand.
"You are not fighting me," Poseidon thundered, his voice carrying across miles of chaos. "You are fighting the weight of eternity."
Ares bellowed in rage, breaking through the waves with sheer brute force, his body dripping with salt and blood. He leapt, his spear coated in divine fire, and aimed straight for Poseidon’s heart.
But Poseidon met him head-on.
Trident and spear collided, neither breaking, each fueled by an aspect of existence itself. The sound of their clash was louder than storms. Mortals collapsed, ears bleeding. Even gods in distant realms paused, feeling the tremor of it ripple through their domains.
Athena circled, waiting for her chance. Her eyes narrowed. Wisdom, not fury, would win this war.
"Hades—now!" she cried.
From the abyss below, the chains of the underworld surged upward, countless black tendrils lashing around Poseidon’s arms, his legs, his throat. They dug into him, not just physically, but spiritually. Each chain was woven with the weight of every soul Hades had ever claimed. To fight them was to fight death itself.
For the first time, Poseidon staggered.
Athena moved in, her sword glowing with divine light, and struck. The blade pierced through the water wall, grazing his shoulder, spraying ichor that burned like molten sapphire.
The gods pressed their advantage.
Pain lanced through him, but Poseidon did not falter. His ichor spilled into the ground, into the rivers, into the very rain—and the world drank it. Every drop birthed whirlpools, lightning-filled waterspouts, and storms that should not exist.
He gritted his teeth, fury rising in his chest like the tide.
"You think to bind me? You think chains forged from the dead will hold the abyss?"
His voice deepened, no longer entirely his own. Something older resonated beneath it—Thalorin, the Drowned King, the ancient abyss stirring within him.
The chains shuddered.
One by one, they snapped.
Hades staggered backward, his shadows recoiling like wounded animals. Athena’s eyes widened as her blade was forced away, parried by a wave solid as steel. Ares roared, but this time his strike met only empty air as Poseidon surged upward, his entire form wrapped in oceans that defied gravity.
Above them, the storm broke.
A tidal wave rose higher than mountains, blotting out the horizon. Its shadow cast darkness across leagues of battlefield. Mortals fell to their knees, their screams drowned beneath the roar of water.
Poseidon’s voice rolled like thunder across the heavens.
"I am no longer your brother. I am no longer your equal. I am the abyss. And you will drown in me."
And with that, he brought the wave down.
The impact was apocalypse.
Mountains crumbled. Valleys became seas. The force of it shattered temples, drowned armies, and carved new coastlines in an instant. Mortals who survived by chance would tell their grandchildren of the day the sea itself tried to erase the land.
But the gods were not so easily ended.
From within the drowning wave, Athena’s shield glowed like a burning sun, parting water and holding a dome of air around her. Ares carved through torrents with his spear, roaring louder than the storm. And Hades stood untouched, his body becoming shadow, water passing through him as though he were not there.
They rose from the devastation, battered but alive, their fury unbroken.
And Poseidon, chest heaving, trident blazing, stood waiting for them.
This was no longer a skirmish.
This was war.