CHAPTER 163: A LAUGH THAT MADE THE GODS ABOVE FLINCH.

The sea was calm.

Too calm.

The drowned city lay behind Poseidon, its towers snapped like driftwood, its streets already claimed by the tide. What remained was silence, broken only by the hiss of water running back into the depths. Yet even in silence, the air trembled.

The god within him stirred.

Poseidon stood on the shattered seawall, barefoot, salt-soaked, his breath fogging the air despite the warm night. His chest rose and fell heavily. He was not just looking at the ruins of a city. He was staring at proof of what he had become.

The water whispered. Not in voices but in pulses, each wave carrying memory. It told him of ships sunk before their sails could unfurl. Of bones dragged into trenches where no sun reached. Of temples toppled in eras mortals had forgotten.

And through it all came the darker undertone—the hunger of Thalorin.

More, it whispered. This was a fragment. A test. Spread further. Take the shorelines. Break the harbors. Turn cities into reefs.

Poseidon clenched his fists, nails biting into his palms. "Enough."

His voice was a low growl, but the sea bent to it, quieting for a breath. He had learned to command it with will alone—but never entirely. For every time he spoke, Thalorin’s hunger echoed back louder.

"You drowned them," Poseidon muttered to himself. His chest ached, the mortal part of him—what fragments of Dominic still lingered—churning with guilt. Faces flashed in his memory. The merchant clutching his children. The dockhand shouting against the tide. The priest ringing the bell with trembling arms.

All of them had drowned.

His doing.

And yet—his hand did not shake.

Because deep down, beneath the guilt, there was clarity.

They had drowned because they stood in his way.

---

The Survivors

On the ruined cliffs above the harbor, a handful of mortals had survived. Ragged, bloodied, clinging to what roofs remained, they stared down at Poseidon with eyes wide not with hate—but with reverence.

One of them, a fisherwoman, knelt despite the water soaking her to the bone. She clasped her hands and bowed.

"Lord of the Deep," she whispered, her voice carried strangely clear across the flooded city. "You have returned."

Others joined her.

"Poseidon," one croaked.

"The sea has taken us, and we remain," said another.

"We are yours."

Poseidon’s eyes narrowed. Mortals, kneeling? Worshipping him—not as a relic of history but as the god alive before them.

Dominic’s soul flinched at it. He had been mortal once. He had walked among these people. He had bled and feared and dreamed like them.

But Poseidon—the god he now was—felt the shift. Felt power brush against him as prayers licked his skin like sparks.

And Thalorin, deep within, purred.

Do you see? They will kneel. Drown them, and the survivors will crawl. Take them, and their faith will fill you. Rule them not by temple but by tide.

Poseidon turned away. He could not look at their bent spines without feeling both disgust... and hunger.

---

The God Within

As the night deepened, he walked into the surf. The water welcomed him, curling against his skin like an embrace. It lifted him as though the sea itself had grown hands, carrying him deeper.

With every step, the mortal part of him—Dominic—sank further. The god within rose higher.

He could hear Thalorin more clearly now. Not words, not entirely, but impressions. Visions of whole coastlines sinking. Ships turning to coral. Mortals breathing water in worship instead of air.

"You are not me," Poseidon said aloud, his voice steady though his veins burned. "I will not be your puppet."

You already are, Thalorin’s whisper came, curling in the marrow of his bones. Every tide you call is mine. Every drowned scream you ignore is my hymn. You are not Poseidon without me.

Poseidon’s jaw tightened. He remembered the Rift. The prison of waterless pressure. He remembered clawing his way out, Dominic’s soul burning away piece by piece until godhood fused with mortal flesh.

And Thalorin had been there, always there. A shadow in the waves, waiting for the moment to claim him fully.

But Poseidon was not a shell. Not anymore.

He was both.

He was the tide and the trench. The storm and the silence.

And he would not be ruled.

---

Olympus Stirs

Far above the waves, in halls of cloud and flame, the Olympians gathered.

Zeus’s thunderbolts crackled along the chamber walls. Hera’s gaze burned with scorn. Athena’s eyes were sharp with cold calculation.

"Poseidon rises again," Zeus declared, his voice shaking the marble pillars. "Not the brother I cast into silence, but something darker. Something mixed with the abyss."

The gods muttered among themselves. Some spoke of vengeance. Others of fear.

Ares slammed his spear against the ground, sparks scattering. "Then we make war. We do not let another drowned empire rise. Strike him before he spreads."

Athena shook her head slowly. "You do not strike the sea, Ares. You do not war against tides. You plan. You choke the rivers. You starve the harbors. You strangle his reach before he drowns Olympus itself."

Hades, leaning from shadow, finally spoke. His voice was low, carrying the weight of the underworld. "You are all fools. This is not Poseidon as we knew him. This is not even Thalorin. This is something new. Something we cannot predict."

The council grew silent.

Zeus’s hand clenched around his bolt. "Then we strike faster. Before the mortal world forgets us entirely. If Poseidon gathers worshippers again—if his name is sung in prayers—our thrones weaken. The Pantheon will fracture."

And for the first time in an age, Olympus agreed on something.

Poseidon must die.

---

Beneath the Sea

But Poseidon already knew. He felt Olympus’s gaze pressing down like lightning searching for ground. He felt the crackle of Zeus’s fury in the clouds.

And he smiled.

"You fear me," he whispered to the waves. "As you should."

The sea surged higher, waves curling over one another until they shaped the faint outline of a crown upon his head. The ocean itself crowned him, not Olympus.

He raised his hand, and the drowned city groaned. From the depths, broken ships rose, their shattered timbers knitting together into warped vessels. Barnacles glowed with eerie blue fire. The sea filled their sails, moving them without wind.

An armada of the drowned.

"They come for me," Poseidon said, voice like thunder through water. "Let them. Olympus cannot kill what the sea has already claimed."

And for the first time since the city fell, Poseidon let himself laugh. A deep, rolling sound that the ocean carried for leagues.

A laugh that chilled mortals in their beds.

A laugh that made the gods above flinch.

Because it was not only Poseidon’s voice.

It was Thalorin’s.