Chapter 288: This has gone far enough.”
The night sky above Olympus was no longer serene. Where constellations once danced in divine symmetry, cracks now ran across the heavens like shattered glass, glowing with faint blue veins of water-light. The firmament itself trembled under Poseidon’s will, and mortals below prayed in confusion as their stars realigned into patterns not set by fate, but by tide.
The throne hall of Olympus was a battlefield of silence after the storm. Marble pillars, once flawless, now bore scars where the sea’s fury had slammed against them. The scent of brine clung to every surface, mixed with the copper tang of divine ichor spilled in battle.
Poseidon stood at the center, his trident planted firmly into the cracked floor. Around him, the remnants of the gods’ resistance lay broken—three thrones overturned, divine banners shredded, and the sound of fleeing footsteps still echoing in the upper halls.
His aura did not rage like a tempest now. Instead, it rolled outward in steady pulses, calm but inexorable, as though the ocean had already swallowed Olympus and was waiting for the rest of existence to notice.
From the shadows, Nymera, Goddess of Shadows, emerged, her figure flickering like smoke caught between firelight. Her lips curled in the faintest of smiles.
"You’ve done what none dared to imagine," she whispered. "Even Zeus himself never silenced Olympus the way you have."
Poseidon’s gaze turned to her, those abyssal eyes where no star shone. "Zeus ruled by lightning. I rule by inevitability. You can defy the storm... but never the tide."
Before Nymera could answer, a ripple coursed through the chamber—an arrival.
Aegirion.
The young god of tides stepped through a breach of foam, trident in hand, eyes burning with conflict. His armor dripped with seawater that was not his own, the weight of indecision written into his every stride. He had fought at Poseidon’s side once, but had also sworn oaths to Olympus.
"Poseidon," he said, his voice carrying both reverence and defiance. "This has gone far enough."
Poseidon tilted his head, expression unreadable. "You sound like a child scolding the sea for rising. Speak plainly, Aegirion. Do you come to kneel... or to break?"
A silence stretched between them, broken only by the faint dripping of saltwater down the marble steps. Nymera’s grin widened, enjoying the tension like a predator waiting for blood.
"I come," Aegirion finally said, lifting his trident, "to stop you before the world itself drowns under your madness."
The hall trembled again as another portal split open—not of the sea, but of fire and sky. Seraphin, Goddess of Flame, strode forward, her body lit with an inferno that burned even the ocean’s damp air. Behind her came Zephyros, wings outstretched, his voice heavy as judgment.
Three gods. Three thrones reclaimed.
They had come not just to oppose Poseidon—but to end him.
The first strike was fire. Seraphin hurled a spear of flame that split the air like a comet. Poseidon did not flinch. Water bent upward from the cracks in the floor, swallowing the spear whole, steam hissing and blinding the room.
Zephyros followed, lightning tearing downward in jagged arcs. This time, Poseidon moved. His trident spun once, and the bolts shattered like brittle glass, redirected into the marble pillars which exploded under the force.
Aegirion closed in, his trident clashing with Poseidon’s in a shockwave that rattled Olympus. For a brief moment, god met god in perfect symmetry—two wielders of tide, two rulers of ocean’s pulse. But Poseidon’s weight was not merely divine; it was primordial. His strength pushed Aegirion back step by step, the younger god’s arms trembling under the pressure.
"You feel it, don’t you?" Poseidon said, voice carrying like waves across cliffs. "The tide in your veins. It answers not to you, but to me."
Aegirion roared, breaking free with a surge of energy, but the doubt lingered in his eyes.
Nymera watched from the sidelines, her shadows coiling like serpents, her laughter barely restrained. She thrived in this chaos. Olympus had never felt so close to ruin.
---
The Turning Tide
The battle stretched across the hall. Firestorms clashed against walls of water. Lightning lit the shattered thrones. The air grew so thick with steam and salt that even gods struggled to breathe.
And Poseidon—Poseidon only grew stronger. Every strike against him seemed to sink into his current, absorbed, twisted, and returned in doubled force.
Seraphin staggered, her flames dimming as saltwater clung to her skin, suffocating her fire.
Zephyros faltered, his wings heavy, lightning misfiring as stormclouds refused to obey him—choosing instead to spiral toward Poseidon’s orbit.
And Aegirion... his strikes slowed, his trident shaking as his power bent under Poseidon’s pull. He was a god of tides, yes, but Poseidon was the tide itself.
At last, Poseidon planted his trident into the floor, and the entire hall split. Water surged upward like a geyser, forming a towering serpent of the sea. It struck once—coiling around Seraphin, extinguishing her flames in a hiss. It struck again—slamming Zephyros against a broken pillar, his wings bent and ichor spilling.
Aegirion was left standing, alone, panting, his body trembling not with exhaustion but with choice.
Poseidon stepped toward him, his aura pressing down like the abyss itself. "You are of the sea, Aegirion. The council sent you here to die. But I offer you a different end."
The serpent of water loomed above, ready to strike down.
"Join me. Or drown with them."
---
Silence After the Storm
For a long moment, the hall was still. The only sound was the drip of seawater down broken marble and the ragged breath of defeated gods.
Aegirion’s grip on his trident loosened. His gaze flickered to Seraphin, bound in suffocating water. To Zephyros, crushed and coughing blood. Then back to Poseidon—unchallenged, unshaken, inevitable.
The choice carved itself into the air.
And Aegirion... knelt.
The water serpent dissolved into mist, Poseidon’s trident lowering. A faint smile, cruel and knowing, touched his lips.
"Olympus burns in silence tonight," Nymera whispered from the shadows, her laughter curling like smoke. "The age of balance is over. The age of tides begins."
Above them, thunder rolled—not Zeus’s wrath, but the echo of a world tilting under a new weight.
Poseidon turned toward the shattered windows, watching the stars fracture further across the sky. "Let them come," he murmured. "Gods, mortals, monsters. The sea has no equal... and soon, no rival."
And Olympus, once the unshaken heart of divinity, stood half in ruin—its throne hall drowning in silence, its gods broken, its future claimed by the drowned god reborn.
The battlefield smelled of salt, blood, and thunder.
Above the shattered coast, Olympus’s banners flapped in tatters, scorched by divine fire. The heavens themselves were torn, split by gashes of lightning where gods had clashed for nights uncounted. Mortals huddled in caves and ruins, afraid even to whisper, because every whisper now echoed in Poseidon’s tide.
And Poseidon stood at the heart of it all.
His trident gleamed like a shard of the abyss, dripping seawater though no rain had fallen. His skin bore cracks of glowing cerulean, veins where the ocean itself surged, alive inside him. His eyes — not mortal, not divine — blazed with the terrible calm of the deep: a gaze that did not rage, but promised drowning.
"Three councils broken," he murmured, his voice carrying like a wave across the ruined coast. "Three gods fallen. Yet Olympus sends more."
He lifted his hand, and the sea obeyed. From behind him, the horizon tilted. Water rose in a wall higher than mountains, blotting out the moonlight, casting half the battlefield into shadow.
Across from him, the survivors of the last divine strike regrouped — Athena, Helios, and Boreas, their bodies bloodied but unyielding. Athena’s shield was fractured, spiderweb cracks glowing faintly. Helios’s flames guttered, his once golden skin stained with burns of his own making. Boreas, the North Wind, staggered, his breath ragged, his gales choked by seawater lodged in his lungs.
And yet, even wounded, they stood.
"Poseidon!" Athena’s voice was sharp, hoarse, unrelenting. "You bring ruin upon mortals who once prayed to you. You wage war on Olympus itself. End this madness before you drown the world!"
Poseidon tilted his head. His hair moved as though floating underwater, though no water touched it. "Madness?" His tone was quiet, yet the waves trembled with each syllable. "You bound me in chains of silence. You left me rotting in the Rift. You denied me even the memory of my name. And now you speak of madness?"
The sea wall behind him rumbled, cresting higher. Lightning flashed inside its body as though the abyss itself had opened its eye.
Helios snarled, raising his burning spear. "Then we finish what was once done! The world cannot survive your return!"
He lunged, light exploding from his body, a solar flare that seared the darkness. The night turned into day. Mortals far inland covered their eyes, thinking dawn had come early.
Poseidon did not move. He raised one hand.
The sea wall collapsed forward.
A mountain of water met the sun’s fury. Fire and flood collided with a roar that tore mountainsides apart. The wave hissed, boiled, and rose again, undying, swallowing flame as though drinking it. Helios screamed as his spear melted, quenched by depths that refused to burn. He fell to one knee, chest heaving, his radiance flickering like a candle in storm winds.
Boreas staggered forward, desperate. He drew in breath, and the wind shrieked. A hurricane burst from his lungs, tearing apart drowned houses, ripping stone from cliffs. The gale sought to scatter the flood, to break its shape.
But Poseidon’s eyes flashed. The hurricane bent. Winds that had never bowed to any god curved, shackled, and sank into the sea like birds dragged beneath waves. Boreas’s eyes widened, blood filling his throat as he felt his lungs seize. Water poured from his own mouth — Poseidon drowning him without touch.
Athena charged last, her cracked shield lifted, spear drawn, her every step shaking the battlefield. She knew she could not win by force. She aimed for the boy beneath — the remnant of Dominic, if such a soul still lingered.
"Remember!" she shouted, thrusting her spear toward his heart. "You were mortal once! You are not only the abyss!"
The trident met her spear.
The sound was not of metal striking metal. It was the sound of a world breaking.
Athena was hurled back, crashing through stone pillars, her shield shattering into fragments that sank into the mud. She spat blood, trying to rise, her breath ragged. Her eyes locked with Poseidon’s — searching, pleading.
For a moment, something flickered there.
A voice, deep in the abyss, whispered — not Thalorin, not god, but something older. Dominic’s face ghosted across Poseidon’s features, pale, fragile, human.
"I... remember," Poseidon whispered.
Athena’s eyes widened in hope.
Then his aura erupted, drowning even that whisper. The sea roared through his veins, and Dominic’s ghost sank beneath the tide.
Poseidon’s trident pointed down at her.
"You bound me. You hunted me. You chained me. Now Olympus will learn what it means to be drowned."
He thrust the trident into the earth.
The ground split.
A crack opened from the cliffs to the sea, a canyon wide and endless. From its depths, black water surged upward — not mere ocean, but the Forgotten Tides. Water that had never seen sun, never known surface, water thick with ancient hunger.
The battlefield tilted. The coast leaned inward. Mortals screamed as the land itself began to sink.
Athena dragged herself to her knees, blood pouring from her wounds, as Helios clutched his chest and Boreas collapsed unconscious. Above them, Olympus itself trembled, sensing what was being unleashed.
The abyss was no longer below.
It was here.
Poseidon lifted his trident once more, his voice echoing like a hymn of ruin:
"This world drowned me once. Now I drown it in return."
And the abyss opened wider.