CHAPTER 156: NOT A CITY ANYMORE

The city was silent.

No birds, no bells, no merchants haggling over spice or steel. Only the sound of water lapping against broken rooftops, sloshing in windows, dripping endlessly from every carved gargoyle and drowned arch.

Poseidon stood at the heart of it.

The ruined marketplace stretched before him, now a half-submerged basin, its cobbled streets lost under dark water. Lanterns floated like orphaned stars, bobbing gently in the brackish tide he had birthed. He could feel the salt in every broken stone, hear the faint gurgle of water squeezing through cracks in foundations centuries old.

He breathed.

And the city answered.

Each inhale pulled water higher. Each exhale eased it back, like the lungs of a slumbering giant. The harbor did not merely drown—it pulsed with his will.

"Not a city anymore," Poseidon murmured, voice rippling over the surface. "A vessel."

For years, mortals had called this port a crown jewel of the coast. Now it was his chalice, carved hollow, ready to hold whatever tide he wished to pour into it.

Yet as he turned, listening to the echoes of mortal fear still clinging to the stones, something deeper tugged at him. Not mortal. Not the drowned whispers of sailors begging their gods. Something higher. Watching.

Olympus.

Their gaze pressed faintly against him like a storm far on the horizon. He could not see them, but he felt the weight of their judgment—thin threads of attention trailing down from heavens, testing him, measuring him.

Poseidon smiled bitterly. "They smell blood in the water."

He spread his hand across the flooded square. The tide swirled, forming a mirror, and in it he glimpsed the shimmer of constellations bending. The council. Their debating voices were muffled, but the intent was clear: the drowned god walks, the drowned god must fall.

The decree did not anger him. It amused him.

"They believe me the same as before," he said softly. His reflection flickered—not Dominic, not Thalorin, but something sharper, crowned with salt and shadow. "But I am not the abyss that devours. I am not the child who begged. I am what neither could become."

The water beneath him pulsed, sending ripples outward through every submerged alley. He felt mortals clinging to rooftops miles away, their breaths shallow, their prayers frantic. He felt their blood. It carried water. It carried him.

One thought curled inside him like a seed: why stop at harbors?

The tide was not bound to coasts. It was not meant to obey seawalls or chains. If he exhaled hard enough, rivers would reverse their course, lakes would split mountains, deserts would bloom into salt marshes.

But first—he had to teach the mortals what their gods never did.

He raised his hand. The drowned bell tower—broken, cracked, half-swallowed by water—rose from the flood, barnacles creaking along its sides. Mortals screamed as they saw the impossible. From the tower’s peak, he tore free the bronze bell itself. It groaned like a living thing, dripping with kelp.

Poseidon let it hang in the air. Then he rang it.

The sound was not the same as before. It did not toll for fire or war. It vibrated through water, through marrow, through memory. Every mortal still alive in the city felt it tremble inside their bones.

"This bell tolls for me," Poseidon declared. His voice rode the sound, booming across the night. "Not for your temples. Not for your hollow prayers. Remember its tone, mortals, for it is the hymn of your age."

The bell cracked in half. The pieces fell—not into water, but into light, dissolving as if their metal had always belonged to him.

Poseidon closed his fist. The drowned bell was his now. A symbol of reclamation.

But even as the sound faded, he heard another. A thread of flame cutting through the horizon. Not mortal fire—divine fire.

A spear of burning light streaked down from the heavens, slamming into the far seawall with a thunderous crash. The impact sent water spraying high, hissing as it turned to steam. Mortals shrieked, covering their faces as heat rolled over the flooded streets.

Poseidon turned, eyes narrowing.

From the crater rose a figure wreathed in orange flame—armor like molten bronze, wings of living cinder. Seraphin, Goddess of Flame. One of Olympus’ first blades.

She did not wait for parley. She raised her burning glaive and thrust it toward him.

"Poseidon!" her voice thundered. "By decree of Olympus, your reign ends tonight!"

Poseidon only tilted his head. The water at his feet rippled outward, circling her like a predator.

"Ends?" he repeated, voice quiet but carrying across the entire drowned city. "No, flame. It begins."

The water surged.

From every street, every alley, tendrils rose, coiling like serpents, snapping toward her. She slashed with her glaive, cutting through three, four, five—but each one split into ten more, writhing around her, dousing flame with hiss and steam.

She cried out, wings flaring, and unleashed a burst of fire that boiled an entire square of water into vapor. Mortals screamed as the sudden heat scorched rooftops.

Poseidon did not flinch. The vapor recondensed midair, twisting into a rain of blades that stabbed downward, embedding around Seraphin in a deadly circle.

"You burn bright," Poseidon said, his voice echoing like a storm surge. "But fire flickers. The sea endures."

She glared at him, sweat and steam streaming down her cheeks. "You drowned an entire city. Innocents. Children!"

"Innocents?" Poseidon’s tone darkened. The tide surged higher behind him, forming a looming wall. "You call them innocent? They bartered slaves on these docks. They slaughtered leviathans for ivory. They poisoned rivers to fatten their fields. Do not drape them in purity when they wore blood like perfume."

For the first time, Seraphin hesitated.

Poseidon stepped forward, the flood following him like an obedient beast. His eyes glowed with tidal blue.

"You gods speak of balance. Yet you watched, silent, as mortals worshipped gold over life. You call me monster because I acted."

He thrust his hand down. The seawall cracked. The tide roared, rushing into the breach, threatening to sweep Seraphin away entirely. She slammed her glaive into the stone, anchoring herself, flames erupting around her to keep the water at bay.

She screamed against the torrent. "Then what are you, Poseidon, if not judgment?"

Poseidon paused. The water froze mid-surge, suspended in towering arcs around them, gleaming under the moonlight. He looked at her with something colder than fury.

"I am not judgment," he said softly. "I am inevitability."

The frozen arcs of water snapped forward all at once.

The city shook.

And Olympus, watching from afar, realized Poseidon had declared his first true war.