CHAPTER 155: “YOUR GRANDFATHER TOLD DRUNKEN STORIES,”

The city was silent now.

Not the silence of peace, but of aftermath.

The waves had retreated, leaving behind streets carved into salt-laced canals. Bodies drifted in doorways, tangled with seaweed that had no business growing on land. Statues of forgotten saints leaned sideways, half-swallowed by brine. And amid it all, Poseidon stood barefoot upon the broken seawall, the tide bowing at his feet like a loyal beast.

The mortals who had survived—those who clung to rooftops or floated on driftwood—stared at him with equal measures of awe and terror. Some whispered prayers. Others spat curses. Yet none dared to approach.

The drowned bell had silenced their city, and Poseidon’s presence had crowned it in fear.

He tilted his head back, inhaling. The scent of blood and brine mingled like incense, an offering that rose unbidden. The ocean inside him exhaled, and every wave rolled outward as if the world itself breathed in time with him.

For the first time since his rebirth, he no longer felt like a fractured soul wrestling for dominance. He was not Dominic the boy, nor Thalorin the abyss. He was Poseidon. Entire. Complete. Sovereign.

And yet... not unchallenged.

The horizon shivered. He could feel them—threads of divinity pulling taut across the world. The gods above had stirred. Their eyes were upon him, and their decree already slithered through the currents like venom.

He was marked. Hunted.

"Let them come," Poseidon murmured, voice low as a rolling tide. His words carried across the ruined harbor, and the mortals trembled though they could not understand them.

---

The Survivors’ Whisper

From a collapsed warehouse, a group of sailors huddled. One pointed at Poseidon’s silhouette framed against the moonlit waves.

"That’s no man," he rasped. "That’s the sea itself walkin’ on two legs."

Another shook his head violently. "No. That’s a god come back. Poseidon. The Drowned One. My grandfather told me tales—"

"Your grandfather told drunken stories," spat a third, though his voice quivered. "No god would take sides with mortals. Look what he’s done—he’s drowning us like rats."

Yet even as they argued, one of the younger sailors—a girl no older than sixteen—dropped to her knees in the flooded street. She clasped her hands and whispered a prayer. Not to the Seven Currents, nor to the Azure Council.

But to him.

Poseidon’s head turned slightly, and though she was far away, her voice brushed against his mind like a feather. A prayer born not of doctrine but of desperation.

And he answered.

Not with words. With presence. The water that lapped at her knees warmed, lifting her higher, bearing her out of the ruin to safety.

The others gaped. The girl gasped, weeping. "He... he heard me."

Thus the first prayer to Poseidon in centuries was spoken.

---

The Deepening Rift

Beneath the surface, the sea itself changed. The currents that had once bent to the Azure Council now pulled in strange new patterns, as though a second sun had been born beneath the waves. Creatures of the trench stirred—behemoths that had slept since before empires rose. Their eyes opened in the dark, drawn to their new master’s call.

Poseidon did not summon them. He did not need to. His awakening was enough.

But among them, a deeper hunger moved. Thalorin. Not gone, not silent, merely submerged within Poseidon’s veins like black fire under ice. His laughter rippled faintly through Poseidon’s chest.

You wear the crown well, the abyss whispered. But how long before they tear it from your head?

Poseidon clenched his fists, his nails biting into his palms. "They cannot tear what they cannot hold."

And yet, Thalorin mused, they will come. Zephyros with his thunder. Seraphin with her flame. Aegirion—ah, he will weep as he raises his trident against you. And Olympus... do you think Olympus will watch quietly while you rise?

At the name, Poseidon’s gaze darkened. Olympus—the throne above thrones. The council that had sealed him once before.

He remembered chains of celestial bronze, storms pinning him beneath mountains of ice, centuries spent in silence. He remembered betrayal.

"They will not bind me again," he said. "Not while I breathe."

Then drown them first, Thalorin whispered with glee.

Poseidon did not answer. But the sea around him surged, waves colliding as if echoing the thought.

---

Olympus Watches

Far above, upon Olympus itself, the gods did indeed watch.

From marble terraces where clouds curled like silken drapes, they peered through pools of starlight at the drowned harbor below. The Sea’s rebellion was undeniable.

Zeus stood at the edge, his form vast, beard crackling with stormlight. His expression was carved in fury.

"Him," he growled. "He dares walk again."

Athena, calm and sharp-eyed, folded her arms. "It is not simply him. This is not the Poseidon we knew. He is changed—fused with something deeper."

"Thalorin," murmured Hera, distaste curling her lips. "The abyss-born."

Zeus turned, lightning flashing in his gaze. "I will not allow this to fester. We cast him down once. We will do it again. He will not claim the sea while Olympus rules the sky."

But Athena’s eyes lingered on the mortal girl whose prayer Poseidon had answered. Already, faith shifted. Already, mortals whispered his name again.

"This is not merely rebellion," she said softly. "This is revival."

---

Poseidon’s Oath

Back at the shattered harbor, Poseidon finally moved from the seawall. He stepped into the drowned streets, water parting respectfully at his ankles. The survivors scurried back, eyes wide, breaths shallow. None dared oppose him.

He paused before the bell tower, now broken and half-submerged. Its final toll still echoed faintly in the water, like the last heartbeat of a dying beast.

Poseidon reached out, laying his hand on the fractured bronze. Salt hissed beneath his palm, and for an instant, the bell rang again—not in sound, but in resonance. He closed his eyes, listening.

This city had fought him. It had drowned under his will. Yet within it, prayers had risen. Faith had sparked.

That was enough.

When he opened his eyes, his voice rolled across the ruins, carried on the water into every surviving ear.

"This city is mine now. Its bones belong to the tide. Its breath belongs to the sea. And its people—" His gaze swept across the huddled survivors. "—belong to me."

None answered. None refused.

And so, with the broken bell at his side and the drowned streets before him, Poseidon crowned himself not with gold, but with salt and silence.

The Salt Crown.

---

Foreshadowing the War

Above, thunder grumbled where no storm should be. Olympus was restless. The Azure Seat trembled. And deep within Poseidon’s veins, Thalorin laughed and whispered of war.

The harbor had tilted. The bell had drowned.

And the world had taken its first step into a new age—an age where Poseidon no longer knelt to the sky or the council.

But ruled.

The sea would not wait.

It had already chosen.