CHAPTER 184: “THEY PREPARE THEIR CHAINS AGAIN,”

The ruins still wept.

The drowned city lay behind Poseidon like a scar upon the shore. Its towers were broken teeth jutting from the waves, its streets replaced with currents, its people scattered like driftwood. Yet, amid the silence of ruin, the sea hummed—not in mourning, but in satisfaction.

Poseidon stood on the jagged edge of a fallen temple, the moonlight glinting off water that clung to him as if he were its anchor. His chest rose slowly, each breath harmonizing with the rhythm of the tides. Mortals would call it destruction. To him, it was correction.

He whispered into the stillness.

"Land forgets. But the sea remembers."

And the sea answered.

A thousand small ripples circled outward, carrying his words into every current. Fish darted closer, sensing their sovereign. Salt thickened in the air as though the world leaned toward him. Even the moon’s reflection upon the water seemed brighter, as though recognizing its twin.

Yet beneath that mastery was unease.

Poseidon could feel them—threads of divine intent tightening above. Olympus had stirred. The council’s judgment was written into the currents. They were watching. They would come.

He closed his eyes. And in that silence, something darker moved.

Thalorin.

The abyssal presence within him slithered up from the deep of his soul, a voice that was neither spoken nor thought, but felt.

You drowned them well, little vessel.

But drowning is only the beginning. The sea does not claim in halves—it swallows whole. You feel it, don’t you? The weight of every soul pulled beneath? That weight is power.

Poseidon’s fingers tightened around his trident. For a heartbeat, his reflection in the water darkened—the blue of his eyes replaced by bottomless void.

"I am not your vessel," he growled. "I am the sea. Not its hunger."

The abyss laughed. The sea without hunger is a tide without pull. You cannot deny me forever. Mortals scream, and gods sharpen blades, but you? You will tire. And when you do, I will rise.

Poseidon’s jaw set. He opened his eyes, the glow of oceanic blue returning. "You rise only because I allow you to. Remember that."

The voice receded, though not silenced. Like a storm lurking just beneath the horizon.

---

The Mortal Survivors

Far across the shattered harbor, survivors gathered upon the higher cliffs. Their faces were gaunt, their eyes wide from sleepless terror. Mothers cradled children whose lips were cracked with salt. Fishermen stared hollowly at the empty space where their boats had been.

Some prayed. Some cursed. Most remained silent.

And then, one dared to speak his name.

"Poseidon."

It spread like fire through the crowd. At first whispered, then shouted, then screamed into the night.

"Poseidon! Poseidon!"

But these were not the hymns of temple priests. They were raw, desperate, soaked in both fear and awe. The mortals had no other explanation. Their city had been tilted, drowned, and reshaped by something beyond storm or tide.

A new kind of worship had begun.

From the temple ruin, Poseidon heard it. Their voices reached him like currents brushing against his skin. He turned his gaze toward the cliffs, and though they could not see him in the moonlight, every throat silenced at once.

For in their hearts, they felt his eyes upon them.

---

The Gathering Storm on Olympus

Far above, Olympus thundered.

The gods stood upon the marble expanse of the council court, the air thick with ozone and golden fire. Zeus himself sat at the head, his scepter striking sparks each time it touched the ground.

"He has awakened," Zeus declared. His voice cracked the air like lightning. "Poseidon breathes not as a shadow, but as dominion. Already one city is erased. Do we wait until the oceans themselves kneel to him?"

Hera’s veil stirred in the windless chamber. "The seas were always his. You bound him once, and he returns as though chains mean nothing. If we strike and fail, Olympus itself will tilt."

Athena, eyes sharp as honed bronze, stepped forward. "Failing to strike at all is worse. His presence grows. Mortals call his name not as a god in myth, but as one present among them. That is how power solidifies."

Zeus’s gaze darkened. "Then it is war. Olympus against the sea."

But not all voices agreed. Aegirion rose from his seat, trident raised in defiance. His young face was fierce, but shadowed by uncertainty.

"You speak of war against him, yet you forget—he is not merely Poseidon. He is becoming something greater. Something... different. To destroy him may unleash the very abyss we once buried."

"Then we bury it again," Zeus snapped.

The council’s verdict was clear. Armies of gods would march. The sea would be challenged.

And Poseidon would be hunted.

---

Poseidon’s Resolve

On the shattered temple, Poseidon raised his trident high. The sea beneath him roared—not in waves, but in resonance. Water curled upward as though reaching for his hand, embracing its master.

He could feel Olympus’s decision in the pull of the heavens. He could almost hear the clang of divine armor being readied.

"They prepare their chains again," Poseidon murmured. His voice was steady, but within it was a rising tide of wrath. "They fear the sea because it bends to none. They fear me because I am not bound by their laws of balance."

A gull circled overhead before plunging into the water, surfacing with a silver fish that gleamed under the moon. Even the smallest life moved as his extensions now.

He looked once more toward the mortals huddled on the cliffs. Their faces pale, their voices silenced. Yet their fear had already shifted into something sharper—expectation.

"They look to me as god," Poseidon said. "Then a god they shall have."

The water around him rose higher, pooling into a spiraling vortex. It licked the ruins, lifted the shattered stones, and began to knit them into new shapes. A drowned city reborn, not by mortal hands, but by Poseidon’s will.

He was not merely destruction. He was reclamation.

And Olympus would see what it meant when the sea no longer bent to the sky.

---

The Whispering Abyss

As the vortex swelled, Thalorin stirred once more, his voice a hiss of satisfaction.

Yes... Build. Rise. They will come with lightning, with fire, with spear and law. And you will break them as you broke the city. One tide at a time, until the world is sea and the sea is you.

Poseidon’s lips curved into a grim smile.

"Perhaps."

He tightened his grip on the trident, eyes burning like deep sapphire storms.

"But I am not your abyss, Thalorin. I am Poseidon. The god who will teach Olympus what drowning truly means."

The sea answered in thunderous silence, stretching outward until the horizon itself seemed to bow.

And in that silence, every mortal heart, every shipwreck, every creature of the deep whispered the same truth:

The sea no longer belonged to Olympus.

The sea belonged to Poseidon.