CHAPTER 173: THE RUINS OF THE HARBOR

The Ruins of the Harbor

Bodies floated in silence. Shattered masts stuck from the water like broken spears. Firelight shimmered across the surface where oil leaked from drowned ships, flames burning upon the sea itself. Mortals who had escaped to higher cliffs clung to one another, their prayers cracked and hollow.

Poseidon stood on the crest of a half-sunken temple, the stone floor groaning beneath the water’s relentless shift. His trident glowed faintly in his hand, though no forge had made it—it was drawn from his will, coalesced from the authority that marked him as god once more.

Yet even as the city moaned and crumbled, Poseidon’s gaze was far away.

The waters brought whispers. Not mortal ones. Divine.

Zephyros, Aegirion, Nymera, Seraphin—their names drifted like shards of light across his mind. The Council had declared him a threat. Their decree burned faintly against his skin, a divine mark meant to signal all pantheons.

He was not merely a god returned.

He was now the hunted.

Poseidon let the trident lower, its tip stirring the water. Ripples fanned outward, carrying his thought into the current. Mortals gasped on the distant shore as the tide rose briefly at his whisper, though he had not spoken aloud. He did not need to.

The sea was his tongue now.

---

A Voice from the Deep

You hesitate.

The voice came from everywhere. From the waves brushing his ankles, from the stone temple beneath his feet, from the abyss pulling at his bones.

It was Thalorin.

Poseidon’s jaw tightened. "You are gone."

Fragments do not vanish. They sharpen. The voice chuckled, though it was more like the grind of rock against rock. You unleashed the tide, boy. But you hold it back even now. Why?

"I am no boy," Poseidon growled. "And I will not be your puppet. The tide rises because I will it—not because you hunger."

The sea hissed around him, and for a heartbeat the water at his feet turned blacker, colder, as if the trench itself had surfaced.

We shall see.

The voice faded, but the hunger did not.

---

A Mortal Survivor

A splash caught his attention. Not all had drowned.

A figure dragged themselves onto a floating beam—a woman, hair plastered to her pale face, eyes wild with salt and terror. She stared at him, and though her lips trembled, she found her voice.

"Why?" she rasped. "Why do this? Were we not faithful to the currents? We prayed. We offered."

Poseidon turned to her fully, and in the reflection of his gaze, she saw not Dominic, not man, but the abyssal storm that now bore his name.

"Your priests prayed to balance," he said. "Not to me. Balance kept the seas chained, docile, broken into pieces for weak gods to divide among themselves. I am not balance. I am tide. And tide does not ask permission before it rises."

The woman’s tears salted the saltwater. "Then we are nothing to you."

Poseidon paused. For a moment, the flicker of Dominic—the boy, the shell—stirred in his chest. But he crushed it.

"You are part of the sea now," he said simply, and turned his back as the beam drifted, carrying her into the ruins.

---

Olympus Stirs

Far above, Olympus did not sleep.

From his throne, Zeus himself gazed down upon the mortal coast. The stormless drowning had unsettled even him. No thunder. No wind. Only a tide that rose where it chose.

"Poseidon returns," Zeus muttered, the taste of the name bitter. "But not as he once was. Something darker coils in him."

Hera stood at his side, her fingers tight on the arm of her throne. "You banished him once. Can you do so again?"

"Banished," Zeus repeated, eyes narrowing. "Not destroyed. That was our mistake."

Lightning crawled across his fingertips, crackling against the marble. "This time, I will end him."

But far away, in the depths Poseidon walked, the sea chuckled. It had heard. And it was not afraid.

---

The Abyss Uncoils

Back in the drowned harbor, Poseidon moved into deeper water. The ruined city behind him was silent save for the lapping of waves against broken stone. He dived, body cutting through the water effortlessly, each motion carrying him deeper, faster, until the light above was little more than a fading shimmer.

Below, the Abyss opened.

It was no longer just a trench. It was a mouth. Walls of stone carved by impossible pressure leaned inward, and shapes moved in the dark—long, coiling silhouettes with teeth too many to count.

They bowed.

Not to Thalorin.

To him.

Poseidon stretched out his hand, and the abyssal creatures pressed closer, their eyes glowing faintly like drowned lanterns. They had waited centuries for their king.

And though part of him feared what it meant, another part—the deeper, older part—smiled.

"This world has forgotten the sea’s true shape," Poseidon whispered. "Let them remember."

The Abyss answered with teeth.

---

The Mortal Shore

Above, survivors gathered on the cliffs, staring at the ruins below. Some wept. Some cursed. But all knew one truth.

The god of the sea had returned.

And he was not merciful.

One priest clutched a broken conch and whispered a prayer—not to the Seven Currents, not to balance, but directly to Poseidon.

"O drowned one... spare us, and we will serve."

The tide rose, just enough to kiss the cliff. And though Poseidon did not appear, the priest smiled grimly.

The first worship of a new age had begun.

---

Closing

Poseidon rose from the Abyss, water cascading from his form, eyes burning with abyssal blue. Olympus sharpened its blades, but mortals were already kneeling.

The world tilted between tides and thunder.

And only one truth remained certain:

The sea was no longer a domain.

It was a throne.

And Poseidon meant to claim it.

The sea was not silent anymore.

Every inch of it moved with purpose, every wave rolling as if following a heartbeat that did not belong to the world, but to him. Poseidon stood on the edge of the drowned ruins, bare feet pressed against stone slick with salt. His eyes burned with an ancient glow, the kind that did not fade when he blinked.

For three nights and three days, the mortals of the coast had wailed his name—half in prayer, half in terror. And he had listened.

The tide did not rise because mortals asked. The tide rose because he willed it.

Yet still, deep within the vast silence of his mind, he felt them—the council, Olympus, the gods who watched from their ivory towers and whispered judgments with lips that had never tasted seawater.