CHAPTER 179: "YOU CANNOT KILL THE SEA,”

The world had not yet recovered from the drowned bell.

But the sea did not wait for the living to catch their breath.

By dawn, the ruins of the harbor city had already begun to shift. Not because of the tides, but because the water itself refused to release what it had taken. Stone blocks floated like driftwood, whole streets groaned beneath the weight of salt pressing against them, and corpses hung suspended in the water, their eyes wide and glassy, as though watching something moving far beneath.

And beneath, Poseidon breathed.

The mortal world had given him shape again. Not just a whisper in a boy’s blood, not just the ghost of a drowned god clinging to the Rift. He was himself. He was the tide. And every motion of the ocean bent to his will.

His eyes opened in the depths, glowing with the blue of trenches no sunlight had ever touched. A school of silver-scaled fish scattered from his presence, instinct screaming that this was no natural predator—this was inevitability given flesh.

So fragile, Poseidon thought, hearing the faint, muffled cries of survivors clinging to rooftops above. So certain of their walls, their bells, their prayers. And yet one breath, one tilt of the sea... and they shatter.

But his thoughts were not his alone.

From the marrow of his being, another voice stirred.

Do not stop at harbors. Take coasts. Take kingdoms. Take gods.

Thalorin. The abyssal hunger that had fused with him, whispering its endless call.

Poseidon’s jaw clenched. He was no longer Dominic the boy. But neither would he allow himself to be only Thalorin. He had been reborn into this age with a choice, and choice was a weapon the abyss had never known.

He rose from the depths.

The sea parted for him as he walked upward, each step sending concentric ripples that carried for leagues. When he broke the surface, the sky cracked with thunder though no storm brewed. Survivors saw him—tall, terrible, his dark hair wet and glistening, his eyes burning with abyssal blue. And they fell silent.

No prayers. No cries. Just silence, the silence of mortals recognizing a god.

"Poseidon," one whispered, voice trembling as if the name itself might drown him.

The drowned god lifted his hand. The water obeyed instantly, pulling the corpses of the dead into a spiral around him. Not to desecrate them—but to bury them. A whirlpool opened in the sea, swallowing the bodies whole, sealing them beneath with the weight of silt.

"You will rest," Poseidon murmured. "Not as offerings, but as the first remembered by the sea."

The survivors, watching from broken roofs, wept. Some in terror. Some in awe. None could look away.

---

Olympus

Far above, Olympus was no longer calm.

The throne room shook with arguments, gods raising their voices as though thunder itself had gathered indoors. Marble cracked, golden braziers flickered, and the great tapestry of the world that hung behind the thrones warped with shifting tides.

Zeus sat unmoving, but lightning coiled in his beard like serpents ready to strike. His storm-grey eyes watched the visions brought by the Fates—a drowned harbor, a mortal city undone by one god’s breath, and Poseidon walking free once more.

"He was chained!" Hera spat, her gown of starlight clinging to her frame as she rose. "Cast into the Rift where none return! How dare he tread again upon mortal soil?"

"He is not the same as before," Athena said coldly, though her fingers tightened around the edge of her seat. "Look closer. He has blended with something darker. His aura is laced with the Rift itself. This is not the Poseidon we once knew."

Apollo leaned forward, his golden lyre vibrating in sympathy with the tension in the air. "Then what is he? A shadow? A revenant? Or worse?"

"He is hunger," murmured Hades, his voice rolling like quiet earth. His eyes, black and endless, did not waver from the tapestry. "And hunger does not stop until it consumes."

The council erupted into shouts.

"Then we kill him now!" cried Ares, bloodlust rising in his aura. His war-spear gleamed, eager to be used.

"You cannot kill the sea," Hestia whispered, her hearth-flame flickering low. "Strike at him, and you will drown yourselves."

"Then what?" Hera snapped. "Do we kneel?"

Zeus finally stood. His presence silenced the chamber instantly.

"We do not kneel," the king of gods said, his voice shaking the very air. "But nor do we strike blindly. Poseidon is no longer merely my brother. He is something else. Something greater. We will watch. We will wait. And when he overreaches—" his gaze narrowed like a lightning strike "—we will strike."

The gods murmured uneasily, but none dared oppose him outright.

---

Back in the Mortal World

Poseidon walked through the flooded streets.

Where he stepped, the water parted, leaving slick stone visible for a heartbeat before closing again. Mortals followed in his wake, their faces pale, their bodies trembling, unsure whether to flee or worship.

A child slipped on a broken plank, tumbling toward the flood. Poseidon lifted a hand, and the water simply... stopped. The boy floated, suspended above the surface, as though held by invisible arms. Poseidon set him gently back on his mother’s hip.

She stammered, "Th-thank you, lord."

He did not answer.

Not because he had no words—but because gratitude felt hollow. He was no savior. He was inevitability.

From the temple ruins, the Watcher of Tides approached, robes torn, face pale but determined. He knelt before Poseidon, pressing his forehead to the soaked stones.

"My god," the Watcher whispered, "why have you returned?"

Poseidon studied him for a long, silent moment. Then he spoke, his voice deep as the abyss.

"Because the sea was chained. Because the gods above forgot what it means to fear. And because mortals—" his gaze swept over the ruined city "—must remember the cost of turning away."

The Watcher shivered. "Will you destroy us?"

"I will not destroy," Poseidon said. "But I will claim. Your walls are broken. Your bell is drowned. But if you kneel to the sea, you will not be abandoned."

A murmur rippled through the survivors. Some fell to their knees at once, weeping, desperate. Others hesitated, torn between faith in the old pantheon and the living god standing before them.

Poseidon turned away, indifferent to their decision. The tide would claim them all, whether willingly or not.

---

The Deep Stirring

That night, as the moon rode high, Poseidon sat alone upon the sea, cross-legged on the water’s surface as if it were solid stone. The waves bowed outward from him, perfectly circular, a throne of tide in the middle of endless calm.

And from the depths, Thalorin whispered again.

You tasted it, didn’t you? The surrender. The kneeling. The way their voices fed into you like rivers. More. Take more. Drown kingdoms. Drown Olympus itself.

Poseidon’s eyes narrowed. He looked across the horizon, where storm clouds gathered faintly—clouds not of his making. Olympus was watching. Testing. Waiting.

"They think they can watch," he murmured to himself. "They think they can wait. Let them."

He closed his eyes, sinking deeper into the abyss of his own power.

The sea was endless. But now, so was he.