CHAPTER 168: THE WEIGHT OF THE DEEP

The ruins of the drowned harbor steamed under the early morning sun. Shattered piers jutted like broken teeth, and bloated corpses floated against the jagged remains of merchant ships. The once-proud city was no longer a city at all—it was a half-sunken grave, a lagoon of silence broken only by the groaning wood of debris.

Poseidon stood at the shoreline, water lapping gently at his ankles as if bowing in reverence. His chest rose and fell, but it was not mortal breath that moved him. It was the sea. The ocean inhaled through him, exhaled through him, and every pull tugged at the marrow of the world.

His eyes glowed faintly with abyssal light, and when he blinked, mortals saw the tides shift.

He did not need to move. The sea moved for him.

And yet—there was a heaviness pressing at his skull, like chains forged not of iron but of memory. Dominic’s voice lingered there, quiet, a boyish whisper.

You didn’t mean to kill them all.

Poseidon’s jaw tightened. His reflection in the water rippled—not as his face, but as an endless abyss staring back.

"I warned them," Poseidon murmured, his voice low, carrying like thunder underwater. "The sea takes what it wills."

But still, the boy’s whisper lingered. You drowned them. Families. Children. Was this justice... or hunger?

Poseidon closed his eyes. His grip on the shoreline deepened, sand sinking under his bare feet. The sea hissed with foam at his command, eager to silence such doubts.

Yet he did not silence them. Not yet.

Because part of him feared they were true.

---

The Mortal Survivors

High on the cliffs above, survivors gathered. A dozen fishing families who had scrambled uphill during the flood, merchants clutching whatever coin purses they had saved, and temple priests stripped of their shells and idols, their gods gone mute.

They watched him.

The figure on the shore. The man who was no longer a man.

Some whispered prayers. Others cursed his name. But none dared to descend.

The Watcher of Tides, robes tattered and wet, finally broke the silence. His voice was hoarse, but every word carried weight.

"The drowned god has returned."

A woman clutched her child tighter. "Then we’re all doomed."

But the Watcher shook his head. "No... we are claimed."

---

Beneath the Waves

Far below mortal eyes, the trench opened like a yawning mouth. The waters here were not blue, not green, but black as pitch, lit only by pale bioluminescence from ancient things that should not still exist.

And here, Poseidon felt strongest.

He sank beneath the surface without movement, the sea cradling him like an embrace. Every drop of saltwater carried his will. Schools of fish spiraled around him in patterns too precise to be natural. Massive shadows stirred in the depths—leviathans older than nations, answering his call.

The Abyss whispered, a voice older than Olympus.

Rise, drowned god. Rise and remember.

Poseidon stretched out his hand, and the trench itself quivered. Memories returned, fragments of another age: standing in defiance against the gods, his trident raised against Zeus’s lightning, the roar of oceans swallowing continents.

But the memory ended in chains. Bound. Cast into the Rift. Forgotten.

Until now.

Poseidon clenched his fist, and the water surged upward, a geyser piercing the surface far above. He would not be bound again.

---

Olympus

While the drowned harbor mourned, Olympus itself trembled.

The council gathered in the golden amphitheater, their seats hewn from marble veined with lightning and fire. Gods argued over wine and thunder, but none dared to smile.

Zeus sat at the center, his eyes alight with stormfire. He did not speak at first. He let the others roar.

Ares demanded war. Hera demanded balance. Apollo spoke of omens in the sun, Artemis of wolves howling at rivers turned to salt.

Finally, Zeus raised his hand, and silence fell like a guillotine.

"You all feel it," he said, voice sharp as thunder cracking across a mountain. "The drowned god rises again. Poseidon does not creep in shadows. He floods openly. He challenges Olympus itself."

Athena leaned forward, fingers steepled. "We should not rush. A mortal shell still binds him. He is powerful, yes, but not yet whole."

Ares slammed his fist against the marble. "Not whole? He drowned a city. He raised leviathans from trenches older than time. Tell me, sister—what will he do when he is whole?"

Zeus’s gaze hardened. "He must be hunted. Cut down before his dominion spreads."

Hermes, ever sly, tilted his head. "And if we strike too soon? If killing him only hastens Thalorin’s return?"

That name silenced even the thunder.

Zeus finally spoke the decree. "Then we will strike with everything Olympus commands. If Poseidon is vessel, then we will break the vessel. If he is god, then we will wage god-war."

The council murmured in unease. None spoke against him.

War was inevitable.

---

The Cracking Shore

Poseidon emerged again on the shoreline. His hair dripped with seawater, but it did not fall—it rose, curling like tendrils seeking the sky. His eyes scanned the survivors above, watching them scatter when his gaze found them.

He did not chase.

Instead, he knelt and pressed his palm against the wet sand.

A tremor rolled outward. The earth groaned. Cracks split across the beach, and water surged upward through them, forming spiraling pools. From those pools, saltwater creatures dragged themselves free—serpents of brine, crabs the size of wagons, eel-like monstrosities that shimmered with abyssal light.

The survivors screamed as the tide-born beasts slithered into the city’s ruins.

Poseidon rose slowly, his expression unreadable. These were not mindless monsters—they were his heralds. His armies. The sea no longer needed to fight alone.

And yet... he felt no triumph. Only inevitability.

You’re building a kingdom on bones, Dominic’s voice whispered again. How many more will drown before you realize you’ve become the thing you once feared?

Poseidon closed his eyes. The whisper was maddening. But he did not silence it. He could not.

Because he remembered, faintly, the boy’s heart—the one who wanted to save, not drown.

The one Olympus would now come to kill.

---

The Whisper of Thalorin

That night, as the moon burned silver over the drowned city, Poseidon dreamed. Or perhaps it was no dream at all.

The water thickened around him, pressing close like a living thing. From the trench below rose a presence deeper than darkness, heavier than the ocean itself.

A voice, vast and hollow, filled his skull.

You are not only Poseidon. You are mine. My heir. My abyss.

Poseidon’s throat tightened. "Thalorin."

The abyss pulsed. Yes. They bound me, but I lingered. In you, I return. Let go of the boy’s voice. Let go of doubt. Become what you were born to be—the sea that drowns gods.

For a moment, Poseidon faltered. The vision of Olympus burned in his mind: Zeus with his storms, Athena with her wisdom, Ares with his endless hunger for war.

Enemies. Rivals. Tyrants who had buried him once.

And yet—Dominic’s whisper pushed back. You are more than hunger. More than abyss.

Poseidon roared, and the sea roared with him, splitting the night with a tidal cry that echoed across both mortal and divine realms.

---

The Watcher’s Prophecy

On the cliffs, the Watcher of Tides scribbled furiously on soaked parchment, his hands trembling. The drowned city behind him, the god below him, the storm above him.

He wrote not for men but for memory.

"The drowned god has risen. Poseidon walks as flesh again. He is neither wholly mortal nor wholly abyss. He is tide unbound. Olympus prepares for war, yet they do not see—if they slay him, the abyss rises entire. If they fail, their thrones will sink beneath the sea. The age of balance is over. The age of tide begins."

He dipped his pen once more, the ink mixing with saltwater dripping from his sleeves.

And then the ground shook again.

The Watcher looked up, wide-eyed. In the distance, beyond the ruined harbor, the sea itself was splitting apart. A trench was forcing its way upward, as if the abyss could no longer remain buried.

The drowned god was no longer waiting.

He was preparing.

Poseidon stood at the edge of his growing kingdom of ruin. The ocean surged behind him, endless and loyal. The city was gone, the mortals scattered, Olympus sharpening blades above.

And deep within, the abyss whispered louder than ever.

He would drown nations. He would rewrite the world. He would rise as more than god.

He would rise as judgment.