CHAPTER 178: “YOU WOULD DROWN BEFORE YOUR SPEAR TOUCHED SAND,”

The sea no longer moved as mortals once knew it.

It did not follow moon or wind, nor bow to the pull of stars. It bent instead to the will of one — Poseidon, the god reborn.

He stood at the edge of the drowned city, the tide lapping obediently around his ankles. Corpses floated where streets once stood, lanterns flickered atop half-sunken rooftops, and gulls circled with confused silence.

Yet Poseidon’s gaze was not on the ruin. It was on the horizon.

The ocean hummed with his heartbeat. Every surge, every retreat, was his breath. The drowned bell’s last toll still clung to the air, echoing across realms. Mortals whispered his name with fear; gods above spat it with dread. But Poseidon only listened to the waves, and to the deep whisper that lived within him.

They will come for you, the voice of Thalorin murmured, sliding through the marrow of his soul like dark current.

The council, Olympus, even those who once named you brother. But remember this: the ocean does not ask. It takes.

Poseidon’s lips curled in a cold smile. "Then let them come."

---

The Mortal Echo

Far inland, survivors staggered up hills, soaked to the bone. Mothers clutched silent children, merchants dragged chests filled with more water than coin, and priests of the Seven Currents knelt in mud, their prayers broken and hoarse.

The name of Poseidon spread through their whispers. No longer a myth. No longer a forgotten god. He had returned, not in temples, not in shrines, but in the flood that stole their homes.

Some cursed him. Some worshipped him. Some did both in the same breath.

And Poseidon felt it.

Every word carried by salt into his veins. Every drop of devotion, every spasm of hatred, added weight to his throne. The sea was fed by rivers — and so too was he fed by mortal voices.

---

The Sea God’s Resolve

He waded deeper into the rising tide until the water swallowed his waist. The waves did not buffet him — they parted, swirling into a vortex that crowned him in spirals of foam.

With a thought, the drowned ships around him righted themselves. Broken masts knitted back into form, hulls sealed, ropes coiled. But they did not rise as mortal vessels. Their wood gleamed with abyssal sheen, barnacles glowing faintly with deep-sea fire. They were no longer ships. They were war-beasts of the tide.

Poseidon raised his hand, and a dozen of them turned in unison toward the open ocean.

"The harbors will not resist me," he said softly. "The coasts will kneel. One by one, the continents will remember who commands their edges."

---

Olympus Watches

High above, in the halls of Olympus, thunder cracked.

Zeus sat on his throne, fingers drumming the armrest. His stormy gaze pierced the distance toward the mortal sea. Around him, the Olympians argued — voices rising, overlapping, clashing like spears.

"Hear it for yourselves!" Hera’s voice cut sharp. "The mortals already cry his name. If Poseidon spreads further, he will drown worship of us all."

Athena leaned forward, eyes cold with calculation. "He is no longer merely the sea-god. The Rift taints him. He carries Thalorin’s shade. This is not my uncle returned. This is something worse."

Ares laughed, though unease lingered in his tone. "Then let me march. If he thinks the sea makes him untouchable, I will bleed him on the shore."

"You would drown before your spear touched sand," Athena snapped.

At last Zeus rose, and the room silenced. His voice boomed like sky breaking:

"Poseidon has declared himself through flood. He has chosen dominion through fear, not council. Then Olympus will answer in kind."

But as his words thundered, even Zeus could feel it — the slow pull beneath his storm. The sea’s hum rising against the sky’s crackle.

---

Back to the Depths

Poseidon sank into the sea until the surface closed above him. Down here, the world was dark and endless, but it belonged wholly to him. Creatures stirred from trenches where no mortal had seen light — serpents longer than ships, colossal crabs with shells of stone, jellyfish pulsing with pale lightning.

They swam to him, not with hunger, but with reverence. Their god had returned.

"Rise," Poseidon commanded, and the abyssal choir obeyed. The ocean floor trembled as the old beasts moved upward, drawn by his call.

This was no army forged in iron and fire. This was the ocean itself given teeth.

---

The Stirring of Memories

Yet as his power grew, so too did the whispers.

You remember, don’t you? Thalorin’s voice slid into him again, colder than the deepest trench.

The last time you stood against Olympus. The last time they bound you. Their chains are still ready. Do you not hunger to snap them?

Poseidon’s hand clenched, bubbles spiraling upward. He remembered — flashes of betrayal, of gods standing against him, of storms broken by Zeus’s lightning. He remembered being cast down, drowned not in his own waters but in their judgment.

But there was another memory too. Softer. Human.

Dominic.

The boy he once was. The harbor laughter, the fragile friendships, the fleeting hope. The one who dreamed not of thrones, but of freedom from pain.

That name surfaced in him like driftwood after a wreck, and for a heartbeat Poseidon faltered.

But then the tide swallowed it.

"I am not Dominic," he muttered into the deep. "I am the ocean. And the ocean does not ask."

---

The First Tremor

The mortals thought the flood was the worst. They were wrong.

As dawn spread over the drowned coast, the earth itself shook. The shoreline split as if claws had raked it. Entire blocks sank into the sea while others were thrust upward, breaking into jagged cliffs.

It was not an earthquake. It was Poseidon shifting his weight.

Veyrus, the chancellor who had once ordered the search for the vessel, now stood on the surviving heights, watching his city vanish piece by piece. His face was pale, his lips trembling.

"It’s not destruction," he whispered, almost in awe. "It’s... remodeling. He’s reshaping the world for himself."

---

The War to Come

Back on Olympus, Athena pressed her hand against a map etched in golden light. Coastlines flickered, shifting with every surge of Poseidon’s will.

"He will not stop," she said. "He will carve new continents, sink the old. The balance will not survive him."

"Then he dies," Zeus declared.

"No." This time it was Aegirion, the young god of tides, who spoke — his voice low, conflicted. "If you strike now, you will awaken Thalorin fully. He is not just Poseidon — he is both. Kill the man, and you might free the abyss instead of binding it."

The hall quieted. Even Hera paled.

For the first time, doubt rippled through the council.

And far below, Poseidon’s laughter shook the waves, as if he could hear their hesitation.

---

The Claim

Poseidon rose again to the surface, the sun igniting his wet skin like bronze. Around him, the abyssal ships formed a fleet, the monsters of the deep circling like wolves around their king.

He lifted his trident — newly formed, no longer the one Olympus once granted him, but a darker thing, forged of coral and abyssal stone.

He drove its point into the sea.

The waters rose in a column so vast it blotted out the sky.

"This is mine," Poseidon said, voice carrying across waves, through salt, into the hearts of mortals and gods alike. "The sea, the shore, the sky above it. All of it will kneel. Not to Olympus. Not to the council. To me."

The column of water collapsed outward, racing toward distant lands. Not a tidal wave. A wall. A declaration.

The war had begun.