Chapter 294: I AM POSEIDON! THE SEA IS MINE!”
No longer mistaken for a boy, no longer whispered about as a vessel—he was god, storm, abyss incarnate. His trident gleamed with liquid fire, each movement carrying the weight of oceans. His presence bent reality, drawing waves even where none should exist. With every breath he exhaled, the tide rose.
And yet, for the first time in years, the god of seas faced hesitation.
Three figures blocked his path, their combined auras like walls of flame, sky, and shadow.
Zephyros, God of Sky and Judgment, clad in a mantle of stormclouds, lightning coiling around his fists.
Seraphin, Goddess of Flame, her body blazing with an inferno that burned without consuming, her eyes sharp as molten iron.
Nymera, Goddess of Shadows, ever-shifting, a phantom cloak woven from the silence of forgotten graves.
They stood as one, forming a trinity meant to cage him.
The ground trembled beneath their presence. Mortals fled from the edges of the battlefield, unable to withstand the weight of so much divinity pressing against the air. Even hardened warriors dropped weapons and ran, leaving only silence, sea, and gods.
"Poseidon," Zephyros’s voice cracked like thunder, his wings of lightning spreading wide. "The council decreed your end. Stand down, or be unmade."
Poseidon tilted his head, saltwater dripping from his hair, his eyes like abysses reflecting endless tides. "Stand down?" His voice rippled like a crashing wave, drowning the air itself. "You would demand the sea retreat to its shore?"
He lifted his trident, water surging behind him like a living wall. "I do not stand down. I rise."
With a single strike, the ocean obeyed.
A tidal surge erupted from nowhere, a wall of water that swallowed the battlefield whole. It rushed with such speed that even gods blinked.
Zephyros raised his hands, thunder cracking, lightning spearing down into the tide. The water sizzled, boiling into mist.
But Seraphin was faster. She thrust her palms forward, unleashing a sun’s worth of flame into the flood. Water met fire, steam exploded outward, scalding the air. Mortal eyes could not have seen it, but to gods, it was clear—each drop of water fought, clung, and resisted incineration. Poseidon wasn’t merely commanding liquid; he commanded its will.
Nymera disappeared. Then her shadow wrapped around Poseidon’s ankle, dragging downward like chains of midnight. "The sea is vast, but shadows fall even on water," her voice whispered from nowhere.
Poseidon snarled, waves collapsing inward, crashing against his bindings. For a moment, he was caught.
And in that heartbeat, Zephyros descended, lightning spear in hand, aiming straight for Poseidon’s chest.
The strike connected—
—but instead of piercing him, the weapon dissolved into foam.
"Fools." Poseidon’s voice deepened, the sea in his veins answering with fury. "Do you not understand? The ocean does not resist. It consumes."
He slammed his trident into the drowned earth. The ground cracked. From the fissures, seawater erupted, bringing with it serpents of tide and colossal leviathans made of salt and scale. Creatures older than Olympus, forgotten even by mortals, now slithered free.
A serpent of barnacle-crusted armor coiled around Zephyros’s wings, crushing lightning against its scales. A leviathan roared, lashing its tail of coral and teeth toward Seraphin, scattering fire into sparks. Shadows quivered as Nymera’s cloak struggled to wrap around the beasts—but every shadow drowned in water’s reflection.
Poseidon advanced, every step birthing a new surge.
"You chained me once," Poseidon growled. "Cast me into the Rift. Buried me under centuries of silence. And yet, here I stand. Stronger. Eternal. Your council was nothing more than sand trying to hold back the tide."
Seraphin cut her way through waves, fire blazing hotter, enough to evaporate entire walls of water in an instant. Her voice was harsh. "You were banished for good reason! You are not the sea—you are its hunger! You bring ruin!"
Poseidon’s laughter shook the battlefield. "Ruin? No. Renewal. Drown the old world, and a new one rises from its depths."
Zephyros broke free of the serpent, lightning arcing wildly. "You speak with Thalorin’s tongue, drowned one. Not with your own."
For a heartbeat, Poseidon stilled. His gaze flickered—something ancient, deeper, stirring within. A whisper only he could hear, rolling in his blood like undertow.
Yes. Speak for me. Consume them all.
Poseidon’s grip tightened on the trident. His jaw clenched. He drowned the whisper with his own roar. "I AM POSEIDON! THE SEA IS MINE!"
The battlefield erupted.
Water surged into a dome, trapping the four gods within a sphere of ocean hundreds of feet across. To mortals, it looked like a globe of sea had dropped from the heavens itself. Inside, lightning crackled, fire burned in spheres, shadows darted like blades—yet all of it was drowned by the will of the tide.
Poseidon moved like a storm given flesh, striking with currents sharp enough to cut steel. His trident clashed against Zephyros’s lightning, sparks boiling water around them. Seraphin ignited pillars of flame, evaporating oceans in seconds, only for more to pour endlessly from Poseidon’s command. Nymera struck from behind, her shadows reaching for his throat, but even they faltered against reflections of moonlight off endless water.
Every clash bent the world. Every strike could have leveled cities.
And still, none yielded.
Blood spilled—godly ichor staining the sea with hues no mortal eye could name. Poseidon bled salt and abyss, while the others dripped starlight and flame. The ocean drank it all greedily.
At last, Seraphin screamed, her body bursting into an avatar of fire, a phoenix of pure flame. She dove into the sea-sphere itself, evaporating the prison from within. Steam engulfed them all, boiling, blinding.
Poseidon staggered, flesh burning—but he roared, swinging his trident in a spiral. The boiling water turned to whirlpool, sucking flame and shadow alike downward.
Zephyros struck from above, wings beating hurricanes, thunder splitting the sky. His lightning speared Poseidon in the chest, driving him to one knee.
For the first time, Poseidon faltered.
The ocean inside him writhed, screaming, whispering again:
Let go. Let me take them. You cannot win without me.
His vision blurred. His grip trembled. The line between himself and Thalorin grew thin.
But then—Poseidon rose.
Bleeding, burned, chained in shadow, lightning scarring his chest—he lifted his trident high.
"The sea does not beg. It does not yield. And neither do I!"
The world answered.
The ocean roared louder than flame, thunder, and shadow combined. From miles away, waves surged toward the battlefield, towering tsunamis rushing with the promise of erasure. Leviathans bellowed from the deep. The air itself drowned.
The three gods braced, pouring everything into resistance. Flame collided with flood. Lightning split whirlpools. Shadows carved riptides.
The clash shook Olympus.
And when the water finally fell—
—nothing stood untouched.
The battlefield was a crater. The land itself had been scoured into reef.
Poseidon stood in the center, trident planted, chest heaving. His wounds glowed, seawater dripping from cuts that refused to close.
Zephyros knelt, one wing broken. Seraphin staggered, her flames flickering. Nymera’s cloak had been torn, her form shuddering like fading dusk.
None were dead. But all were broken.
Poseidon’s voice rolled like surf, low and unyielding.
"Tell your council. Tell Olympus. Tell every trembling god that still clings to their thrones."
He raised his trident, the horizon behind him shifting into a wall of endless tide.
"The sea does not ask. The sea takes."
And with that, he turned, the tide following him, leaving the three gods gasping in his wake.
The war had only begun.