CHAPTER 186: THE FIRST GOD HAD COME TO KILL HIM.

The sea was quiet. Too quiet.

Poseidon stood at the edge of the shattered harbor, the ruins of Veyrus’s city sprawled behind him like a carcass stripped bare by scavengers. Once-proud towers leaned at odd angles, their bases already claimed by the tide. The drowned bell lay cracked upon the seabed, muffled forever by salt and silence. Mortals clung to rooftops or floated upon driftwood, too terrified to even weep.

And yet, it was not their fear that reached Poseidon most.

It was the silence of the ocean itself.

Every wave, every current, every deep pulse of tide was bent inward, waiting upon his will. He inhaled, and the water obeyed. He exhaled, and the drowned streets groaned under its shifting weight. It was intoxicating—this dominion, this union between man and abyss.

But beneath it, he felt something else. A stirring. Not Thalorin—not yet—but the abyss Thalorin had once commanded. The ancient trenches whispered, begging release.

Poseidon raised his hand. The water along the ruined quay stilled, glass-smooth. In that reflection, his face warped—half Dominic’s, the boy who had once died of mortal sickness, half something older, crowned with shadows of coral and bone. His own reflection seemed to smile back at him.

"You are not merely a vessel anymore," the reflection whispered. "You are the tide reborn."

Poseidon’s lips did not move. Yet the words thrummed in his skull like the tolling of the bell.

---

The Survivors

Behind him, survivors began to stir. A group of dockhands huddled together, dragging a child out from the wreckage of a capsized boat. A woman knelt on the shore, clutching a soaked prayer-charm to her chest. Her voice was hoarse, cracked by salt, but her words carried clearly:

"Poseidon... spare us."

Others joined her, their chants trembling, desperate. Not prayers to the Seven Currents, not offerings to the pantheon of balance. No. These were raw, unfiltered pleas to him.

And for the first time in centuries, Poseidon felt mortal faith bleed directly into him. It was not structured. It was not ritual. It was raw need.

Power.

A shiver ran through him.

Dominic’s memory flickered—of hospital beds, of tubes and machines, of praying into sterile air for a miracle that never came. No god had answered him then.

But now, he was the god. And they were praying to him.

Poseidon closed his eyes, the weight of the moment heavy. If he answered... if he fed upon their prayers... Olympus would feel it. The other gods would know.

And perhaps, that was precisely what he wanted.

---

The Omen Beneath

The sea beneath the harbor stirred. No mortal eye could see it, but Poseidon felt it: the pressure of a door. A threshold deep below the trenches, bound long ago by chains of light. The Forgotten Tides.

Every act of faith, every drowned stone, every mortal whisper was loosening that seal.

He lowered his hand to the water.

The surface rippled outward, concentric circles stretching farther and farther, until they bent the horizon itself. A groan echoed from the depths, the voice of something older than Olympus.

"Yes..." the abyss whispered, not as Thalorin but as itself. "We remember you. We remember the king who drowned the world. And we remember the betrayal."

Poseidon’s chest tightened. These were not Dominic’s thoughts, nor Thalorin’s. These were the tides themselves—alive, ancient, bitter.

And they were calling him master.

---

Olympus Watches

Far above, upon Olympus, the gods stirred uneasily. From the silver pools of foresight, they watched the drowned city and the mortal prayers rising like smoke.

"He dares accept worship," hissed Seraphin, Goddess of Flame, her eyes narrowing. "This is no child. This is rebellion."

Zephyros, Lord of Sky and Judgment, slammed his palm against the table of stars. "No pantheon can tolerate this. Poseidon must fall before he raises the Forgotten Tides."

But Aegirion, the young sea-god, clenched his trident and said nothing. His gaze was fixed upon the reflection of mortals kneeling in ruined streets, whispering Poseidon’s name. He remembered Dominic—the boy’s fear, his humanity.

And yet, the being in the reflection was no boy. It was something far more dangerous.

"War, then," murmured Nymera, Goddess of Shadows. "But tell me—do we strike him? Or do we strike the mortals first, to cut his faith at its root?"

No one answered. The council chamber darkened.

---

The Harbor Shifts

Back upon the mortal shore, Poseidon finally turned from the sea to face the survivors. His gaze swept across them—not as Dominic, not as boy, but as god.

"You call to me," he said, voice resonant with waves. "Do you even know what you ask?"

The woman who had prayed first fell prostrate, forehead pressing into the soaked stone. "Not life, not riches. Only that you spare us. Only that you claim us, instead of killing us."

A bitter smile touched Poseidon’s lips. Mortal desperation was always the same. They did not ask for justice. Only survival.

And yet... something in their pleas softened him. A thread of Dominic remained, whispering: They suffer as you once did. Alone. Forgotten.

He raised his hand. The waters that lapped at their ankles receded, pulling back toward the quay. The survivors gasped, clutching one another.

"You live," Poseidon said coldly. "But you live as mine. This harbor is mine. This coast is mine. Tell the world who rules your tides."

The mortals wept—not in defiance, but in surrender.

A chorus of voices rose in his name.

And with every word, Poseidon felt Olympus tremble.

The ground shook beneath his feet. Cracks spiderwebbed across the stone. Water frothed violently in the bay as something deep below strained against ancient locks.

The Forgotten Tides were waking.

Poseidon’s eyes blazed, glowing with abyssal light. He could see it—the shadow of chains breaking, the phantom of an ocean-within-an-ocean, its currents twisted, endless, hungry.

"Soon," he whispered. "Soon, the abyss itself shall rise."

But even as he spoke, a new voice thundered across the sky.

Not mortal. Not abyssal. Divine.

"POSEIDON!"

The heavens themselves split as a figure descended, wings radiant, blade of lightning in hand. Zephyros.

The first god had come to kill him.

And Poseidon, standing upon drowned stone, smiled as the sea rose behind him like an army awaiting command.