CHAPTER 213: BATTLE OF GODS

The tide had not receded since the fall of Veyrus’s city. The drowned streets still glistened like mirrors, and broken spires jutted from the black water like the bones of a long-dead beast. Mortals no longer lingered here; only corpses drifted, carried by the will of a god who had made this harbor his altar.

Poseidon stood at the shoreline, bare feet sunk into the saltwater. Every ripple bent toward him, every wave leaned at his command. He no longer felt the distinction between flesh and tide—his heartbeat was the ocean’s pulse, his breath the swell and fall of the sea.

And tonight, the sea would taste godblood.

A distant hum cut across the horizon. Not mortal prayers, not the drowned bell. This resonance carried weight, authority, divinity.

Three figures descended from the heavens, their forms wreathed in light and judgment.

Zephyros, God of Sky and Judgment, with wings of storm-cloud and eyes like suns.

Seraphin, Goddess of Flame, her hair a crown of burning embers.

Nymera, Goddess of Shadows, her form flickering between existence and void.

They did not come as diplomats. They came as executioners.

The sky cracked with thunder as Zephyros’s voice rolled across the shore.

"Poseidon, drowned god, you trespass where no abyss should rise again. By decree of Olympus and the Azure Seat, your existence is a crime. Surrender your vessel, or be annihilated."

Poseidon smiled, though his eyes were darker than midnight trenches.

"You come bearing judgment, yet you tremble." He spread his arms wide, and the tide behind him surged like an army rising from sleep. "Do you not feel it? The ocean no longer obeys Olympus. It obeys me."

Seraphin spat flame across the dark, her voice sharp as molten iron.

"Then burn in your arrogance!"

Her fireball was not mortal flame. It carried the weight of a sun fragment, searing heat enough to boil the sea. The water hissed, vapor rising into a choking storm—

But Poseidon raised a single hand.

The flames bent. Steam curled backward. The inferno coiled into a spear of boiling water that hurled itself at Seraphin. She was forced back, wings of fire beating furiously to scatter it, though the water clung like molten chains.

"His control is absolute," Nymera hissed from the shadows, appearing at Zephyros’s side. "We strike together, or we drown one by one."

Zephyros did not hesitate. He raised his blade of storm-forged lightning and dove.

The sky collapsed with him.

Bolts lanced downward, ripping through the drowned city, smashing towers into rubble. Poseidon countered with tidal walls rising like shields of liquid glass, but each lightning strike shattered them, scattering waves across ruins.

The drowned shore became a battlefield of fire, storm, and shadow.

Nymera’s presence slithered behind Poseidon, her knives cutting through his reflection before aiming for his throat. But the water betrayed her—the ripples showed her path, and his hand closed around her wrist before the strike could land.

"Shadow is nothing without depth," he murmured, twisting her arm. The sea itself rose to bind her limbs, dragging her back toward the dark.

She melted away into nothingness, reforming high above, panting.

"Do not underestimate him," she snarled.

---

The Battle Turns

The three gods encircled him now, weaving their power in tandem—flame, storm, and shadow. Together they forged a cage, closing on the drowned god from every side.

Poseidon closed his eyes.

And the sea answered.

From the depths rose colossal figures of water—leviathans formed from tide and memory. Serpents coiled, kraken tentacles erupted, each one shimmering with unnatural will. These were no mere illusions. They were the ocean’s hatred, given shape.

"Hold the line!" Zephyros roared, cleaving through a leviathan with his lightning blade.

Seraphin’s flames seared through tentacles, turning brine into pillars of scalding steam.

Nymera slipped through shadows, carving weak points in the watery giants.

But for each one they struck down, two more rose.

And behind them all, Poseidon strode forward, calm amidst the chaos, eyes glowing like twin abysses.

"You think numbers can overwhelm me?" he said. "You forget—the sea is endless."

With a snap of his fingers, the battlefield shifted.

The ground beneath the gods liquefied. Stone streets dissolved into bottomless water. Mortals once drowned now drifted past as pale specters, pulled into the tide. The gods were fighting not on land, but within Poseidon’s domain—an ocean given flesh.

Zephyros faltered for the first time, his wings straining to keep him aloft. "He is warping reality itself—!"

Poseidon’s trident materialized in his hand, carved from abyssal pressure and crowned with bioluminescent runes. He thrust it once—

—and the sea obeyed.

A geyser of black water exploded upward, striking Zephyros full-force, hurling him across the ruins. His golden armor cracked as he crashed through what remained of the bell tower.

Seraphin charged, her body becoming a burning comet. Poseidon caught her mid-flight, water spiraling around her flames like a vice. She screamed as steam devoured the air.

Nymera tried once more, striking from behind—

But Poseidon did not move. His shadow stretched into the water, ensnaring hers. Her own form betrayed her, chaining her in place.

"You three came to break me," Poseidon said, voice deeper than the trench. "But you are droplets against the tide."

---

A Desperate Gambit

Zephyros rose again, battered but unbroken, blood searing down his cheek. "We... cannot falter. If he rises, Olympus itself drowns."

"Then burn everything!" Seraphin shouted, straining against the water prison.

Zephyros lifted his blade to the sky. Lightning gathered, not as bolts, but as a storm without end. Clouds swirled, dark as judgment, thunder rolling like drums of war.

Nymera’s eyes glowed crimson as she poured her essence into the storm, shadows feeding the lightning, weaving silence into the thunder.

Together with Seraphin’s flame, the three gods forged their final gambit—a spear of fire, storm, and void, a divine strike forged to erase a god.

"POSEIDON!" they roared as one.

The spear fell.

It struck the sea.

The drowned shore vanished in an explosion that lit the horizon, fire boiling the waves, lightning splitting the sky, shadows swallowing the ruins. Mortals miles away fell to their knees, believing the end of the world had come.

Silence followed.

Only boiling mist remained, the battlefield unrecognizable.

The gods panted, broken but alive, floating above the devastation.

"Did... we succeed?" Seraphin gasped.

But then—

The mist parted.

And from it stepped Poseidon.

Unscathed.

Eyes burning with abyssal light, trident humming with pressure enough to crush mountains.

"You’ve wounded the sea," he said softly, "and for that, I will drown you thrice over."

The water rose higher than ever, forming a wall against the horizon, an ocean lifted from its bed, ready to fall and erase gods and mortals alike.

The true battle had only begun.