CHAPTER 212: CLASH OF DIVINITIES

The sea lay unnaturally calm.

Not the kind of calm that brought sailors comfort, but a silence so heavy that every gull, every fish, every mortal heart knew it was wrong.

And at the center of that impossible stillness stood Poseidon.

No longer the fragile shell of Dominic, no longer just a vessel trying to contain a god’s wrath—he was himself now. The Lord of Tides. The Sea Incarnate. His body radiated with shifting power, every vein carrying the pulse of an abyss deeper than the world could measure.

The drowned city lay behind him, broken, waterlogged, abandoned. The bell tower was half-swallowed, its bronze tongue silenced forever. Its ruins were nothing more than an afterthought in his gaze.

For Poseidon had not drowned the city.

He had claimed it.

Each stone, each shattered ship, each whisper of prayer once made within those walls was his now. The drowned bell had become part of his dominion, and through it, he listened.

---

The Whispers of Thalorin

"More."

The voice slithered through his mind like black ink curling in clear water. Ancient. Hungry. Unrelenting.

"You are only tasting the edge of it. One city? A single bell? Pathetic. When I wore your skin, oceans cracked. Empires sank in a single breath. Do not crawl. Do not restrain. Drown them all."

Poseidon closed his fists, knuckles whitening. Saltwater dripped from his palms, even though he stood above the tide.

"Thalorin..." he growled, his voice shaking the horizon. "You may whisper. But I am not your shadow. This world will not remember you."

"It will," Thalorin hissed, his voice carrying the scent of rotting kelp and brine. "Because you are me. You think you’ve built something separate, but you are nothing more than my echo given flesh. The sea does not divide. It only swallows."

Poseidon turned away from the ruined harbor, his gaze sweeping across the horizon. He could feel the gods above—Olympus stirring, currents of divine attention tightening around him like nets. Their eyes were daggers, their judgment heavy.

"They prepare their blades," Poseidon murmured. "And yet they’ve forgotten what water does to steel. It rusts."

---

The Mortal Shore

Beyond the drowned city, refugees stumbled along the higher cliffs. Mothers clutched children, fishermen clung to cracked oars, soldiers dropped their rusted spears into the seafoam.

And Poseidon felt them.

The salt in their tears.

The water in their blood.

The fear clinging to their breaths.

Every mortal body was a tidepool, and every tidepool belonged to him.

He could reach inside them if he willed it. He could still their hearts. He could twist their veins into rivers. He could raise them into drowned wraiths that served only the deep.

"Do it," Thalorin urged, pressing at the edges of his thoughts. "Bend them now. Show Olympus that every prayer will turn to your name whether they resist or not."

But Poseidon only narrowed his gaze. He lifted his hand, palm out, and the rising waters paused. The tide, which should have surged over the cliffs and dragged the survivors into the abyss, instead stopped at their ankles. The mortals froze, staring wide-eyed at him from the distance.

"Live," Poseidon said, his voice a low thunder that carried across leagues of open water. "And remember who spared you."

The water fell back, retreating like a curtain drawn from the stage. The mortals collapsed to their knees, sobbing, praising, whispering his name.

And in that moment, Poseidon realized something deeper than Thalorin’s hunger.

It wasn’t destruction that gave him power.

It was memory.

The sea didn’t need to swallow everything to rule. It only needed mortals to know that it could.

The Sky Trembles

Above the clouds, Olympus stirred. Poseidon felt the ripple before the lightning cracked.

A divine spear of thunder tore across the heavens, striking the ocean not far from where he stood. The sea hissed, boiling white, but the water obeyed him and parted before the storm.

From the rift of lightning descended three figures.

Zephyros, God of Judgment, wings blazing with solar fire.

Seraphin, Goddess of Flame, her hair a crown of burning embers.

And Aegirion, the sea-born god who had once pitied him, trident heavy in his grasp.

They did not descend in silence. Their arrival shook the air, sent waves rippling in unnatural patterns. Mortals watching from the cliffs screamed and fled at the sight.

Poseidon did not move.

"You come down from your throne so soon?" Poseidon called, voice rolling like thunder across the waters. "Afraid already?"

"Afraid?" Zephyros’s voice thundered in reply. "No. We come to end what should never have risen. The council has decreed it. Poseidon—your name is outlawed. Your existence is a crime."

Seraphin’s fire flared. "You’ve drowned an entire city. How many more before your hunger swallows continents?"

Aegirion said nothing, though his eyes burned with conflict.

Poseidon stepped forward, water lifting him until he stood level with their descent. His presence alone bent the sea upward, holding him in the air as though he were standing upon a mountain of waves.

"You dare call it crime?" he snarled. "When you caged me in the Rift? When you erased my temples, silenced my name, fed mortals lies of balance while they bled beneath your order?" His gaze hardened, voice shaking the heavens. "The sea does not ask permission. It does not bow to decrees. It only rises."

The air quaked with his words.

Clash of Divinities

Zephyros raised his blade, forged of storm and judgment. "Then let the council’s will be tested upon your defiance."

And he struck.

Lightning cracked downward, a column of white fire that split the air itself. It would have leveled mountains, shattered continents.

But Poseidon lifted his hand.

The sea obeyed.

Water rose in a spiral wall, not merely a shield but a living force. The lightning struck, tore through layers of salt and tide, but the water swallowed it, drank it, and spat it back as a million streaks of blue fire racing across the horizon.

Mortals on the cliffs fell to their knees, screaming, blinded by the spectacle.

Seraphin leapt next, her flames forming into spears, each one burning hot enough to turn sand to glass. They fell like meteors.

Poseidon did not flinch. He exhaled, and the ocean itself drew upward, birthing colossal serpents of water. Each serpent caught a flaming spear in its fanged jaws, hissing steam as fire and sea devoured each other.

The sky and ocean warred. Fire turned to mist, lightning turned to boiling spray. The world itself shook with their clash.

And still, Poseidon stood, unbowed.

---

The Choice of Aegirion

Through the chaos, Aegirion gripped his trident. His heart thundered louder than the storm. He had once pitied the vessel. He had once seen Dominic’s humanity flicker inside. But now? Now he stood before the true Poseidon, a god not to be pitied but to be feared.

"Strike!" Zephyros roared at him. "Fulfill your oath!"

But Aegirion hesitated. His trident trembled.

Poseidon turned his gaze upon him, eyes like endless whirlpools. For just a breath, Poseidon’s voice lowered, not to a roar but to a whisper carried upon the tide.

"You, of all of them, understand. The sea cannot be chained. Join me, Aegirion. Or drown with them."

The younger god’s breath caught. In his veins, he felt the call of the tide—the same tide Poseidon commanded. The same tide that had given him birth.

And for the first time in centuries, Aegirion faltered.

---

The Rise of the Deep

The battle raged on, fire and storm tearing at the sea, but Poseidon’s power only grew. Every wave that struck was his strength. Every droplet of spray was his blood.

And beneath it all, Thalorin whispered still. "Yes. Yes. This is what we are. Do not hold back. Drown them. Claim Olympus itself. Let no throne stand above yours."

Poseidon closed his fists, and the ocean around him rose higher, forming a wall that reached toward the clouds.

Not a wave.

Not a tide.

A wall of ocean, rising as though to eclipse the sky itself.

Mortals screamed. Gods stared in horror.

And Poseidon’s voice thundered over all:

"The ocean does not ask. It takes."

The sea began to fall.

And Olympus itself would feel the tilt.