Chapter 150: The Olympian had come(Apollo)
A voice, low and vast, speaking not in words but in currents, in tides, in the weight of crushing oceans.
You are mine.
The cavern walls rippled as if the stone itself bent under pressure. His vision blurred—Dominic’s hospital bed flickered before his eyes again, then a battlefield of gods, then a world drowned in endless storm.
"No!" he roared, forcing the vision back. Lightning cracked overhead, striking the cavern roof. Rocks fell, crashing into the pool and sending pillars of water skyward. "I am not yours. I am Poseidon."
The reply came like the collapse of continents.
You are nothing but a vessel.
The pool exploded upward, a column of water wrapping around him, dragging him toward its depths. He fought, summoning whirlwinds to resist, but each surge of power fed the pull instead of breaking it. He was dragged under, swallowed into a place that wasn’t water but memory, a drowning not of body but of self.
He opened his eyes and found himself not in the cavern, but in an ancient throne room beneath the sea. Coral pillars loomed like twisted skeletons, and on a throne of abyssal stone sat a colossal figure—Thalorin himself, or what remained of him. His form was fluid, shifting, his face more suggestion than shape, but his eyes—those fathomless eyes—were locked upon him.
Poseidon’s breath hitched.
"So this is the truth," he whispered.
Thalorin leaned forward, his voice an undertow in Poseidon’s mind. "You wear my crown. You wield my weapon. You speak my name. Do you truly believe Olympus will accept you? They already fear you. They already plot. Soon, they will move."
Poseidon clenched his fists, defiant. "Let them come. I’ll fight."
"Fight?" The abyssal god’s laughter echoed like collapsing waves. "You cannot fight Olympus and me. Choose, vessel. Submit... or be torn apart."
Poseidon raised his trident, the storm gathering in his veins, lightning arcing between the coral pillars. His voice rang with both Dominic’s fire and Poseidon’s command:
"I am not your vessel. I am not your shadow. I am the storm that drowns both gods and monsters. And I will not submit."
Thalorin’s smile widened, dark and infinite. "We shall see."
The throne room trembled, then shattered into shards of water and memory. Poseidon gasped as he broke free, bursting from the cavern’s pool, landing on the stone floor soaked but alive. His chest burned, his veins thrumming with the clash of wills.
Somewhere, deep within him, Thalorin laughed still.
Poseidon staggered to his feet, gripping the trident tight. He knew now: his greatest enemy was not just Olympus, not just the gods who feared him. It was the ancient tide inside, the devourer, the abyss that wanted his soul.
And sooner or later, one of them would win.
The ocean floor groaned beneath Poseidon’s feet as if it recognized its rightful master. The weight of the trident pulsed in his hand, sending surges of power up his arm that crackled in his blood like storms begging to be unleashed. The sea around him was alive—currents twisting in spirals, ancient creatures stirring from the trenches, schools of silver-scaled fish scattering as though paying homage.
Yet beneath all of that grandeur, Dominic—the boy who once lay frail in a hospital bed—remained uneasily aware of himself. The voices in his mind had not quieted.
"This ocean is ours. Yours and mine," Thalorin whispered, his tone velvety, tempting, but edged with hunger. "But beware. Olympus will not wait long. They fear what you will become."
Poseidon’s grip on the trident tightened. "Let them come," he muttered, his voice deeper, resonant, carrying power that made the very seabed vibrate. And yet... his chest was heavy. He remembered the gods’ council, their eyes burning with suspicion. He remembered how Zeus’ words had struck like lightning.
They will hunt me.
As if in answer, a sudden tremor ripped through the water. Poseidon’s eyes snapped to the horizon where the sea darkened unnaturally. The waves bent toward a single point, collapsing into a spiral of black current. He sensed a disturbance—power, ancient and hostile.
From the depths, something vast and terrible rose.
A creature of shadow, scaled with obsidian plates, its eyes glowing a sickly green. A Leviathan—one of the old guardians, bound during the first wars of the gods. It should not have been awake. Yet here it was, coiled like an abyssal serpent, its maw opening wide enough to swallow a fleet.
The voice of Thalorin thundered inside him. "It recognizes us. It remembers the mark of the Abyss. Command it."
Poseidon’s pulse quickened. His human mind screamed in awe and terror, but his divine instincts surged forward. Raising his trident, he let his voice echo through the currents. "Bend the knee, beast of the deep. I am your king now."
The Leviathan hissed, its screech tearing the water like blades. Instead of bowing, it lunged.
The impact shattered coral towers, sending plumes of sand billowing upward. Poseidon was hurled backward, spinning through the crushing pressure. His bones would have broken had he still been mortal, but now, the ocean itself seemed to hold him together. He landed upon a ridge of jagged rock, trident braced.
"Stubborn creature," Poseidon growled, lips curling into something halfway between defiance and bloodlust. He slammed the trident against the seafloor. Lightning, not of the sky but of the abyss, burst outward. The water screamed as currents twisted into spears, lashing at the Leviathan.
The beast writhed, thrashing its colossal tail, sending shockwaves that toppled ridges and shattered shells. Poseidon darted forward, moving with impossible swiftness as though the tides themselves carried him. He drove the trident into the Leviathan’s side. The weapon sank deep, glowing, tearing through scale and flesh.
A roar of agony shook the ocean.
For a heartbeat, victory surged in Poseidon’s chest. Then the Leviathan’s tail struck him with the force of a tsunami. The god was flung across the chasm, colliding against a cliff face that cracked under the impact. Blood leaked from his lip, dark tendrils curling into the sea.
And then came the voice again. Thalorin’s voice—this time less of a whisper, more of a command. "Do not hold back. Stop thinking like a man. Become what you are. A god... a monster."
Poseidon trembled. The human in him recoiled at the word monster. But as the Leviathan coiled again, rage burned hot within him. His vision flickered—the world drowned in crimson, the edges of his form shimmering with unnatural energy. His hair billowed, his eyes burned silver-blue, and when he raised the trident once more, the ocean itself howled.
This time, he didn’t simply strike.
He unleashed.
The seabed split as torrents of pressurized water erupted upward, ripping through the Leviathan’s scales like blades. Lightning infused the torrents, arcs snapping across its length. The creature shrieked, body convulsing, and for the first time, it faltered.
Poseidon lunged, spinning the trident with fluid grace, and drove it through the beast’s skull. The glow was blinding. For a moment, silence fell—the only sound was the hiss of escaping bubbles and the soft groan of a dying god-beast.
Then, slowly, the Leviathan lowered its head.
Its massive eye, once burning with fury, dimmed as it gazed at him. Poseidon felt the bond settle like a chain clicking into place. The Leviathan had not been slain—it had been broken. And now, it was his.
The boy in him gasped. The god in him exhaled with satisfaction. And Thalorin laughed, dark and victorious.
"You see? Even the greatest bow before us. Olympus should tremble."
But Poseidon could not savor the triumph. For as the Leviathan sank into the depths at his command, a sudden light slashed through the water above.
A spear of golden fire.
His head snapped up, heart seizing. Descending through the ocean’s veil was a figure wreathed in radiance, his armor gleaming with celestial fire that no sea could smother. His presence was suffocating, divine. His wings, though dulled by water, shimmered like a dying sun.
Apollo.
The Olympian had come.
Poseidon raised the trident instinctively, his chest tightening. He knew what this meant. Zeus had sent his hunters. The first trial had already begun.
And as Apollo’s eyes locked onto his, glowing with divine judgment, the ocean itself seemed to fall silent.