Chapter 138: Atlantis 4( Dione)
The ocean had no sound but his heartbeat.
The waves bent around him as though they knew his name, as though the very depths of the sea had always waited for this moment. Dominic—no, Poseidon—stood at the heart of a trench that spiraled endlessly into blackness. The pressure here should have crushed him to bone dust, yet he stood untouched, his breath flowing as if the waters were air. His skin shimmered faintly, glowing blue veins running across his arms, proof that Thalorin’s essence pulsed within him.
But that same presence was no longer silent.
You hesitate.
The voice resonated like a current slamming against rocks, ancient and cruel, not quite separate from his thoughts. It had been whispering since he awoke in this god-forged body, but here, in the abyss, it roared.
"I’m not your vessel," Poseidon muttered through gritted teeth. His voice didn’t echo but sank, devoured by the dark. "I’ll wield this power as mine, not yours."
You mistake yourself, mortal-turned-god. Power is not owned. It owns.
His fists clenched, water swirling violently around him. The sea reacted to his emotions like a mirror—each throb of anger cracked the trench walls, each flicker of doubt sent tides collapsing into whirlpools. And yet, even as his newfound divinity obeyed him, he knew it was not wholly his will that commanded it.
"Then I’ll master it," Poseidon whispered. "Even if it kills me."
A sudden ripple trembled through the currents. Not natural. Not his. Something approached.
The abyss lit faintly as a school of silver-scaled leviathans circled, their eyes glowing with unnatural intelligence. He recognized the marks burned across their fins—runes of servitude. Someone had sent them.
"Zeus," Poseidon muttered. Who else would dare tamper with the seas themselves?
The creatures lunged as one. Teeth jagged as spears. Tails cracking like whips. The water shuddered under the sheer violence of their charge. Poseidon’s instincts screamed at him to run, but another voice—cold, commanding—rose inside his skull.
Do not cower. You are the sea.
Power surged in his chest, spilling through his arms. With a sweep of his hand, the currents bent backward, slamming into the leviathans with hurricane force. Two were dashed against stone, bones cracking like thunder. The others twisted, regrouping, their glowing eyes narrowing.
Poseidon’s breath caught. He hadn’t thought about the technique—it had come unbidden, like muscle memory he’d never earned.
"That wasn’t me," he hissed.
No, Thalorin’s voice rumbled. That was us.
The leviathans surged again. Poseidon braced himself. This time he chose. He let the sea’s weight compress in his palms, condensing into a spear of hardened current. It glistened, water sharper than any steel. When the beasts neared, he hurled it.
The spear exploded through three leviathans at once, impaling them before dissolving into foam. Blood—black in the depths—spread like ink. The survivors recoiled, their runes dimming as if their master’s grip faltered. Then, with a screech that vibrated through bone, they fled into the endless dark.
Silence returned, save for the distant hum of the trench. Poseidon floated, chest heaving, his veins still glowing.
You see now? Thalorin whispered, softer but no less insidious. This ocean bends for you. For us. And Olympus fears it—fears what you will become.
Poseidon’s jaw tightened. Olympus. His thoughts spiraled back to the mountaintop halls where gods plotted, where Zeus had already vowed to destroy him. He could picture their golden council chamber, their thrones gleaming with authority and arrogance. He could almost hear them debating whether to brand him an abomination or a weapon.
"They want me gone," Poseidon muttered bitterly. "And you—" he pressed a hand to his chest, "—you want me consumed. So what choice do I have?"
Thalorin chuckled, a sound like waves dragging a ship under. You already know the answer. Become me. Become more than mortal fears, more than divine decrees. You are Poseidon, Lord of the Deep. Claim it.
For a moment, Poseidon let the words linger. He imagined what it would mean to embrace it fully—Olympus bowing or burning, the seas rising at his will. Yet another image forced itself against the vision: his human past. A hospital bed. Weak lungs. His brother’s tear-streaked face. The quiet, powerless death of Dominic.
He gritted his teeth. "No. I’ll carve a third path. My own."
But before he could ground himself further, the trench trembled—not from his power this time, but from something older, deeper. A colossal shadow stirred in the dark below.
Poseidon froze.
The water seemed to pull downward, as if the ocean itself was being inhaled. A monstrous eye opened in the abyss, burning like molten amber. Scales vast as cliffs shimmered faintly in the gloom. A leviathan greater than cities, chained in silence for centuries, was waking.
And it was looking at him.
The sea stirred like a restless beast. Waves crashed harder against the jagged cliffs, and the water carried an unusual weight—like the ocean itself was holding its breath.
Dominic—no, Poseidon now—stood alone at the heart of a vast coral hall, deep within the sanctum that once belonged to the god he had unknowingly inherited. Columns shaped like towering kelp spirals rose around him, glowing faintly with bioluminescence. The place thrummed with power, each ripple of current vibrating through his chest.
He still wasn’t used to it. His skin shimmered faintly with scales when he touched the water, his breath filling with brine as if his lungs had been rewritten. The ocean sang to him in ways it never had before, carrying the whispers of shoals, the pulse of whales, and the hidden tremors of tectonic shifts.
It was exhilarating. Terrifying. A weight far heavier than the hospital bed where he had once wasted away, tethered by tubes and silence.
"Thalorin," Dominic muttered under his breath, pressing his palm against a coral pillar. He could feel the echo of the ancient entity thrumming within him. It wasn’t gone. It wasn’t silent. It lingered, like a phantom heartbeat beneath his own.
And it made him restless.
---
A Summoning from the Depths
The ocean stirred again, and a pressure closed around him—a voice carried through water itself.
"Poseidon."
The voice was ancient, feminine, and commanding. It wasn’t Thalorin. It came from beyond.
Before he could react, the coral pillars began to vibrate, and a circular tide opened in the center of the sanctum. A vortex of seawater rose like a column, spinning until a figure emerged from it.
She was clad in flowing kelp-green robes that clung to her like silk, her eyes a stormy gray, her hair flowing like strands of silver seaweed. A Nereid—one of the ancient sea nymphs sworn to the old Poseidon.
Dominic stiffened. "Who are you?"
The woman bowed, her expression unreadable. "I am Dione. First of the Nereids, bound to serve the Lord of the Seas. You are... not the one we knew."
Her tone carried suspicion—no, thinly veiled doubt.
Dominic clenched his jaw. He hated this. Hated the reminder that he was an impostor in their eyes. "The one you knew is gone. The seas chose me. Or perhaps Thalorin did."
At the mention of the name, the Nereid flinched. Her gaze sharpened. "Do not speak that name lightly. The gods already stir. Olympus is watching. You carry something... dangerous."
Dominic stepped closer, water swirling around his ankles as if it bent to his moods. "Dangerous, maybe. But it’s mine now. And if Olympus is watching, then let them watch."
Dione hesitated, studying him carefully. Then, slowly, she inclined her head. "If you are to be our lord, then the seas must test you. Already whispers spread through the ocean trenches—creatures forgotten stir again. You must prove you can master what comes."
Before Dominic could ask what she meant, the water around them shook violently. The coral hall groaned as a tremor tore through it, and from the far side of the sanctum, a fissure split open.
A low, guttural roar echoed through the rift.
Something ancient was waking.
---
The Leviathan’s Trial
The water grew darker, the light of the coral dimming. A massive shadow moved through the fissure, and Dominic’s breath hitched. The creature that emerged was no ordinary beast—it was colossal, its body serpent-like but armored in jagged obsidian scales. Its eyes glowed like molten lava, and its maw split open to reveal teeth longer than spears.
The Leviathan.
Dione’s voice was sharp, urgent. "It was bound in the abyss long ago. A creature only the true Lord of the Seas can command. If you fail, it will tear this sanctum—and you—with it."
Dominic swallowed hard. Every instinct screamed to run, but he forced himself still. He wasn’t the sick boy in a hospital bed anymore. He wasn’t just Dominic.
He was Poseidon.
The Leviathan roared, and the water surged violently. Waves crashed inside the sanctum, the pressure nearly crushing him against the coral walls. Dominic raised his hands instinctively, and the sea bent with him—the water swirling into a protective vortex.
He gasped, chest heaving. It wasn’t perfect control—it was like trying to hold back a storm with bare hands—but it worked.
The beast lunged.
Dominic thrust his hand forward, and a wall of water slammed against the Leviathan’s head, staggering it back for only a heartbeat before it thrashed again. Its tail smashed against the coral, shattering one of the glowing pillars.
"Think, Dominic!" he cursed himself. "No—think like Poseidon."
The water wasn’t his enemy. It was part of him.
Closing his eyes, he reached deeper—past his fear, past the frantic pulse of his mortal instincts—into that other heartbeat. That deeper rhythm.
Thalorin’s voice whispered in the dark of his mind.
"Command. Do not beg."
When Dominic opened his eyes again, they glowed faintly with cerulean light.
The sea responded.
The Leviathan lunged once more, but this time Dominic didn’t resist—it surged past him, and with a sweep of his arm, he bent the current itself, wrapping it like chains around the beast. The ocean roared with his will, dragging the serpent to a halt, thrashing and snapping but caught.
"Enough!" Dominic shouted, his voice reverberating through the hall. "I am Poseidon now. You will obey!"
For a long, terrible moment, the Leviathan fought. Its glowing eyes locked with his, testing him. Then—slowly—it stilled. The coils loosened, and the beast lowered its massive head.
It had submitted.
---
A Lord Accepted
Silence returned to the sanctum, broken only by Dominic’s ragged breathing. The water calmed, the fissure closing as the Leviathan sank back into the abyss, but not before letting out a low rumble that almost sounded like a bow.
Dione stared at him, her storm-gray eyes wide with something between awe and fear.
"You..." she whispered. "You truly are chosen. Even the abyssal beast bends to you."
Dominic straightened, though his chest ached and his limbs trembled. The victory felt hollow—because deep down, he knew it hadn’t been just him. Thalorin’s whisper had been there. Guiding him. Feeding his power.
But he didn’t admit that. Instead, he said, "The seas have their master again."
Dione bowed low, her silver hair drifting like seaweed. "Then Olympus will not ignore you any longer. Prepare yourself, Lord Poseidon. They will come for you soon."
Dominic’s eyes hardened, the glow in them fading. He turned toward the heart of the sanctum, where a massive conch throne stood untouched for centuries. Slowly, deliberately, he approached it and laid his hand upon its cold surface.
The throne pulsed, awakening under his touch. The ocean itself seemed to bow.
And Dominic—Poseidon—felt the tides bend to his command.
But in the dark recess of his soul, Thalorin’s voice lingered like a promise.
"This is only the beginning."