CHAPTER 202: VEYRUS

He saw the harbor as it had been a century ago — bustling with sails, laughter spilling from taverns. He saw kings crowning themselves on its steps. He saw children skipping stones along the seawall. The sea remembered everything. Every voice. Every life. Every lie.

And now it remembered drowning them.

Poseidon whispered, his voice low, carrying across the still tide.

"I gave them a chance to kneel. They chose to cling to stone."

The waves lapped at his ankles like loyal hounds.

Yet even as he spoke, something in him churned. A flicker — not of Dominic, not of the mortal boy he had been, but of the sorrow Dominic had once carried. The memory of helplessness. The ache of loss. It flickered, then drowned beneath the weight of the god he had become.

---

The Whispers of the Abyss

Beneath his skin, the deeper voice stirred.

"Not enough," it growled. "This was a city. You must drown kingdoms. Empires. The surface world thrives because it has forgotten fear of the tide. Remind them."

Poseidon’s jaw clenched. "I will choose the pace. Not you."

The abyssal presence laughed — a sound like shifting trenches and cracking icebergs. "You call yourself Poseidon, yet you still hesitate. Do you not feel their fear? The gods above sharpen their knives even now. If you delay, you’ll give them time."

His fist tightened until the water spiraled upward in a violent whirlpool. He wanted to silence the voice. But he could not — because the voice was him. A part of him, an inheritance of Thalorin’s abyss, now laced into his veins.

The ocean within him boiled. He exhaled, and the whirlpool stilled.

"I am Poseidon," he said. "Not Thalorin. Not Dominic. Me. And the seas will bend in my name, not in hunger’s."

But the whisper did not fade. It waited, patient as the deep.

---

Survivors

From the far edge of the wreckage, voices carried. Survivors.

Poseidon turned. A cluster of mortals had escaped to the cliffs, their torches guttering in the salt wind. Among them was Veyrus — the chancellor who had once ordered his capture when he was still called a vessel. His fine robes were torn, soaked, his dignity drowned with his city. Yet his eyes burned with fury, not despair.

"Monster!" Veyrus screamed across the waves. His voice cracked, but it carried. "You are no god. You are plague! Abomination!"

Others clutched the chancellor’s arms, begging him to stop, but he wrenched free, spittle flying with his words.

"Poseidon was bound for a reason! The seas were divided because of you! And now you rise again to drown us all!"

Poseidon’s gaze was cold, unblinking.

The tide shifted.

The cliff beneath Veyrus’s feet trembled as water seeped into its cracks. Mortals screamed, scrambling higher, but Poseidon’s voice rose above their panic — calm, terrible, echoing like the tide against caverns.

"You built your walls against the sea and thought yourselves safe. You fattened on trade the tides carried, yet never bent your knees in gratitude. You took from me, but gave nothing back. And now you call me plague?"

He raised his hand.

The cliff face shuddered. Water exploded upward, swallowing the rocks, dragging shrieking men and women into its depths. Torches hissed out, one by one, until only the chancellor’s remained, his scream echoing before the tide silenced him too.

Poseidon lowered his hand. The waves stilled again.

The survivors who remained did not shout. They did not beg. They knelt.

---

Olympus

Far above, in the marble spires of Olympus, the gods watched.

Zeus himself stood at the edge of the cloud-forged balcony, his thunderbolt in hand, face carved from stormclouds. His eyes narrowed at the sight reflected in the divine mirror — Poseidon claiming mortals like worshippers, drowning cities without remorse.

Beside him, Athena’s grey eyes were sharp, calculating. "It is worse than we thought. He no longer wears Dominic’s hesitation. He wears the ocean like a crown."

Ares laughed, though unease lurked beneath his tone. "Let him drown cities. What do I care? War is war, and mortals will bleed either way."

But Hera’s voice was cold as iron. "Do not be a fool. Every city he takes strengthens him. Every mortal who kneels swells his tide. If he drowns empires, even Olympus will not stand."

Zeus said nothing. His hand flexed around the thunderbolt, veins of lightning crawling along his knuckles. "He dares to rise without my leave. He dares to claim the seas again."

Athena stepped forward. "Then the council’s verdict must be enacted. He cannot be reasoned with. Not now."

For a long moment, Zeus was silent. Then, slowly, his lips curled.

"Summon the hunters. The new age of Poseidon ends before it begins."

The hall rumbled with the decree. The gods had spoken.

-

Back below, Poseidon stood alone amid the ruins, his eyes closed, listening.

He could feel it — the shifting above. Threads of divine will tightening like a net. The air crackled faintly, even here, as if lightning sought him already.

He smiled.

"Let them come."

The sea beneath him surged, towering upward in a spiral. From its depths, shapes began to emerge — not mere water, but memories the sea itself had preserved. Serpents of tide, leviathans long extinct, drowned kings with coral crowns. Phantoms of forgotten ages, drawn from the ocean’s memory, rose to answer their lord.

The drowned god lifted his arms, and the sea obeyed.

"The world forgot to fear me," Poseidon said, voice carrying into the horizon. "But it will remember."

And in Olympus, the gods felt the sea’s roar shake even their sacred halls.

The war was no longer distant.

The sea did not sleep.

It never had.

Yet tonight, it was not merely restless. It was alive.

From the depths where sunlight never touched, where bones of leviathans carpeted the trench floor, Poseidon sat in silence. The water around him vibrated, responding not to currents but to his heartbeat. Every inhale made the tides lean toward him. Every exhale made the oceans bow.

Above, mortals screamed at drowned cities, priests begged at silent altars, and kings abandoned thrones as salt swallowed their streets. The storm was no longer a storm. It was a coronation.

Poseidon had stopped hiding.