CHAPTER 181: THE PULL OF THE ABYSS

The silence after a drowned city was unlike any other silence.

Poseidon stood upon the half-submerged ruins, bare feet pressing into the cracked stone of what had once been a harbor square. Around him, the tide whispered against toppled pillars, dragging corpses and wreckage back into its depths. Lanterns floated like pale stars on the water’s skin.

He inhaled deeply, and the sea inhaled with him.

This was no storm he had unleashed—storms were wild, chaotic, fleeting. This was deliberate, calculated, the press of inevitability. He had leaned the sea toward this place, and the world had tilted with it.

Yet... his chest felt heavy.

For all the divinity in his veins, the cries of mortals still clung to his ears. He had heard them—sailors begging their gods, children shrieking as the tide climbed their streets, priests ringing the drowned bell until their lungs filled with brine.

And for a heartbeat, Dominic stirred within him.

They are not your enemy.

Poseidon’s jaw tightened. "And yet they would have drowned me, had they known. They prayed for the sea’s bounty, but feared its god. What loyalty do they deserve?"

There was no answer. Only the groan of the seabed shifting under his will.

He turned his gaze outward. Across the horizon, storms were already forming—not his storms, but the panic of mortal sailors reporting the unnatural tilt of tides, the hum that haunted the waves. His name was returning to them. Not as a prayer. As a curse.

And still, he did not stop.

Because he could feel it: Olympus stirring.

From the pit beneath his ribs, where Thalorin’s abyssal essence lingered, a voice rolled like pressure in the deep.

They watch you now. The council debates, their spears sharpen. Let them come. Break their thrones as you broke this harbor.

Poseidon closed his eyes, gripping the edge of a shattered statue. The marble crumbled in his palm like sand.

"No," he murmured. "Not yet."

You doubt your power? The abyss sneered. I do not. You could drown Olympus itself. One breath, one tide, and their halls would crack like shells.

Poseidon’s teeth ground. The temptation was real—too real. The abyss in him thirsted for war, for god-flesh and divine marrow. And yet, Dominic’s remnant whispered otherwise.

Not all deserve death. Some... may deserve choice.

The clash within him was relentless. The god he was becoming pressed for dominance, while the fragments of the boy he had been clung to mercy.

He opened his eyes again, watching the moonlight scatter across endless waters. For now, he would wait. A tide that rushed too early only broke upon rocks. A tide that built slowly reshaped coasts.

---

Mortals in Ruin

From the corner of his vision, movement stirred. Survivors.

A group of fishermen clung to the rooftop of a sunken tavern, their faces pale with terror. When they saw him—tall, radiant, salt-wind whipping his hair like a banner—their mouths dropped open.

"It’s him," one whispered. "The Sea Lord."

The others fell to their knees, the tavern roof creaking beneath them. One pressed his forehead into the wet stone, voice breaking.

"Spare us, O Poseidon. Spare what’s left. We did not raise arms against you."

The plea cut deeper than any spear. For years, mortals had forgotten his name, reduced him to stories, stripped him from temples. Now they remembered—but only in fear.

His throat tightened. Was this all he was destined to be? A terror?

He raised his hand. The water stilled, withdrawing slightly from their perch, lowering to reveal a narrow path toward higher ground.

"Go," Poseidon commanded, his voice carrying the weight of waves. "Cling to life, if you can."

The men scrambled away, some sobbing, others murmuring thanks, none daring to look back.

When the last had vanished into the night, Poseidon exhaled.

Even in his wrath, he was still making choices. For now.

---

Olympus Watches

Far above, Olympus burned with voices.

Zeus himself stood at the edge of his marble balcony, watching through a rift in the firmament. Lightning crawled across his knuckles. "So it is true. Poseidon has returned."

Around him, gods whispered with fear, anger, and eagerness. Some clamored for immediate war, others for restraint.

Athena’s eyes narrowed, gray as storm clouds. "He is not as he was. The vessel has tempered him... or twisted him. The question is whether he can be controlled—or if he must be ended."

Ares laughed, teeth flashing. "Ended. Quickly. The longer we wait, the deeper his roots grow. Do you not see how he tests the world? One harbor today. Tomorrow? Cities. Nations. Empires."

Hera’s lips tightened. "And if we strike, we confirm what he believes—that Olympus fears him. That we would rather erase him than understand him."

"Understand him?" Ares spat. "He drowned mortals like ants. That is not a brother. That is a weapon gone rogue."

But Zeus said nothing. His eyes lingered on the drowned city below, then shifted to the storm spirals forming across seas. He felt the truth clawing at his bones: Poseidon was not merely back. He was becoming more.

---

The Weight of the Sea

Poseidon’s steps carried him away from the ruins, each footfall rippling the tide. The water followed him, parting or rising as if drawn to his pulse.

He moved until the seabed gave way, plunging into the abyss. Down, down, into the black depths where no mortal eyes could follow. Here, the water embraced him like a cloak.

He closed his eyes. For a long time, he simply breathed.

Each inhale tugged currents from distant shores. Each exhale smoothed storms into silence.

And with every breath, the abyss whispered.

Do you feel it? The sea itself bends. You are no longer a man pretending to be god. You are the ocean’s claim.

Poseidon did feel it. Every current, every tide, every fish that darted in the dark—he could sense them now as clearly as his own heartbeat. The boundaries between himself and the ocean were fading.

But so too were the boundaries between himself and Thalorin.

And that was what made his chest tighten with unease.

---

The Whisper of Mortals

Above the water, in scattered villages along the coast, the first rumors were already spreading.

"The harbor is gone."

"A god walks again."

"The drowned one has returned."

Some whispered his name as a curse. Others as a prayer.

Poseidon heard them all. Their voices carried through the waves to him, shaping the tide of belief that lapped at his power. Fear made him strong. Worship would make him unstoppable.

But what would become of the boy who had once been Dominic, the mortal spark that still flickered somewhere within him?

Would he drown too, beneath the weight of a god’s name?

Poseidon opened his eyes in the dark, the abyss stretching endless before him. For now, he did not know.

But he did know this: Olympus would not wait forever. And when they came, it would not be as cautious watchers. It would be as executioners.

And he would have to decide whether to meet them as the boy who remembered mercy—

—or the god who remembered wrath.