CHAPTER 196: FATHER... YOU HAVE RETURNED.

The sea never forgot.

Every ship that had ever sunk, every body dragged beneath its surface, every prayer whispered in desperation—it all lived within the water. The tides carried memories as surely as they carried salt, and Poseidon had begun to hear them.

He stood at the edge of the drowned city, barefoot on the slick stones that had once been a marketplace. The water still clung to the ruins like a possessive lover, unwilling to release what it had claimed. Moonlight reflected on the ripples, turning them into shards of silver.

His hair clung wet to his shoulders, eyes glowing faintly with abyssal blue. He inhaled, and the harbor itself seemed to breathe with him.

"Do you feel it?" he whispered to the sea. "They still remember."

And the sea answered. Not in words, but in waves that lapped against the stones in steady rhythm. Like a heartbeat. Like worship.

Poseidon closed his eyes. He could hear voices in the water—fragments of mortals lost long ago. Fishermen begging for one more sunrise. Soldiers gasping as their armor dragged them under. Lovers entwined in death, their last embrace swallowed whole.

All of them whispered his name.

Poseidon.

Once forgotten. Now reborn.

---

Far behind him, survivors of the city dragged themselves to higher ground. He heard their coughing, their cries, the soft wails of children. He didn’t turn.

Once, he might have. Once, the mortal shell that had carried his awakening might have knelt beside them, might have tried to save. But Dominic was gone. All that remained was the ocean’s will made flesh.

And that will did not save. It claimed.

---

The sea stirred.

A shadow moved beneath the black water, vast as a mountain range. Poseidon’s eyes snapped open, and he smiled faintly.

One of his children was answering.

The surface broke. Not with foam or spray, but with reverence. A great serpentine head rose, scales glistening with barnacles and moonlight. Eyes like twin pearls fixed upon him.

The Leviathan.

It bowed.

Poseidon raised a hand, and the tide swelled in answer. The great beast’s voice was not words, but the grinding of tectonic plates, the groan of crushing depths.

Father... you have returned.

"Yes," Poseidon murmured, stepping into the rising surf as though it were nothing but silk. Water curled around his legs like adoring limbs. "And the sea remembers me still."

The Leviathan lowered its massive head, resting its jaw against the half-sunken docks. Entire ships trembled with the motion. Mortals on the cliffside screamed at the sight, but Poseidon only placed a hand on the beast’s scales.

"Rise with me," Poseidon commanded softly. "For the gods above think me weak. They forget what it means when the sea walks the earth."

The Leviathan’s breath boiled the water. It slipped back beneath the waves, vanishing into the black depths, but its promise remained.

The tide was no longer his alone.

---

Yet even as he exhaled, Poseidon felt the pull.

Olympus.

The threads of fate twisted like harpoons dragging at his chest. The gods had spoken his name in council. Their decree hung heavy in the air like a coming storm. He tasted it in every ripple, in every prayer that tried to rise above the water only to be drowned.

"They are preparing to strike," Poseidon said quietly.

The sea whispered back. Not with fear, but with hunger.

---

Suddenly, his vision shifted.

The world of water bent. For a heartbeat, Poseidon stood not upon the ruined harbor but within a cavern of starlit waves. He recognized it immediately—the Oracle Current. The place where the sea itself revealed possible futures.

Waves rose around him, forming shapes.

He saw Olympus, radiant and proud, gathering armies of light. He saw Aegirion, trident in hand, descending with fury in his eyes. He saw Nymera’s shadows spreading like ink over the oceans. And behind them all—Zephyros, the Sky-Judge, his gaze fixed on Poseidon with merciless resolve.

But then, another shape rose.

A mirror of himself. Not the Poseidon he was now, but something greater—vast, terrible, crowned by storms and wielding the Leviathan as a weapon.

And mortals knelt in drowned cities, not in prayer, but in inevitability.

The Oracle Current collapsed, leaving him once more in the mortal harbor. His breath fogged in the moonlight.

"So that is the choice," he murmured. "War. Or dominion."

The sea lapped higher around his ankles, as if impatient for his decision.

A sound interrupted his thoughts.

Boots sloshing through water.

Poseidon turned his head slightly, eyes narrowing. From the far end of the drowned street, figures approached. Not gods. Not priests. Mortals.

Survivors armed with steel and desperation.

They carried torches and spears, their eyes wide with terror—but also with determination. At their head marched a woman in bronze armor, her hair tied back, her jaw set.

"Poseidon!" she shouted, her voice raw from salt and smoke. "We know who you are! And we will not kneel to you!"

Her words echoed strangely against the walls of water.

Poseidon regarded her with something between amusement and pity. "You do not kneel to the sea," he said softly. His voice carried without effort, rippling through the very water they stood in. "You only drown."

The woman lifted her spear. "Then drown me!"

The mortals roared as one, charging forward, splashing through knee-deep water.

Poseidon raised his hand.

The tide answered.

Water surged upward like a living serpent, coiling around the woman’s spear, snapping it like driftwood. Mortals were hurled back as waves crashed down upon them. Torches hissed and died.

But Poseidon did not finish them. He let the tide settle, leaving them gasping, coughing, sprawled in defeat.

He stepped forward, the sea parting for his bare feet. The armored woman struggled to her knees, glaring up at him through wet hair.

"You..." she rasped. "You’ll destroy us all."

Poseidon crouched before her, his glowing eyes inches from hers. "No," he whispered. "I will remind you all. The sea is not your servant. It never was."

He rose again, leaving her trembling but alive. For now.

The Leviathan’s shadow passed beneath the water once more, a silent reminder of what he could unleash.

Poseidon looked out at the horizon, where the first light of dawn touched the waves. He could feel Olympus stirring above, could feel the sharp edge of divine judgment cutting its way toward him.

And still, he smiled.

"Let them come," Poseidon murmured to the sea. "The tide remembers what they tried to bury. And this time... it will not recede."

The water surged in answer, rising higher against the cliffs, as though the ocean itself laughed with him.

The age of still seas was over.

The drowned god walked.

And Olympus would tremble.