Chapter 323: You cannot outwit wisdom
The battlefield was no longer land, nor sea, nor sky—it was all three torn apart and melded into one ruinous expanse.
The storm overhead blotted out the heavens, lightning carving rifts through thunderclouds that bled rain into oceans already risen too high. Whole coastlines had vanished. Kingdoms swallowed. And in the heart of it, Poseidon stood barefoot upon shifting water that had hardened like glass under his command.
Across from him, the gods gathered. Not the weaklings who had first tested him, but those who still called themselves pillars of Olympus. Their armor gleamed with celestial fire, their eyes burning with judgment that had been sharpened since time immemorial.
Ares, the Blood-Wrought, already dripped scarlet flame from his spear. Athena, cloaked in silver and wisdom, her owl circling above like a fragment of eternity. And Zeus himself, radiant, furious, each breath cracking with the threat of annihilation.
Three gods. Three pillars. The so-called balance of Olympus.
And yet Poseidon felt no fear. Only the tide surging higher in his chest, the abyss whispering behind his ribs.
"Brother," Zeus thundered, his voice shaking continents. "You’ve drowned enough cities. Enough mortals. Enough blood has been claimed by your madness. Kneel now, before Olympus decides your punishment is annihilation."
Poseidon tilted his head, water dripping from strands of dark hair across his face. The ocean bent beneath his will, rising behind him like a wall of liquid obsidian, curving into the suggestion of colossal wings.
"You call it madness," Poseidon answered, voice low, yet carrying through storm and thunder alike. "But madness is believing you can chain the sea. That you can dictate where waves break. That you can name yourself ruler of gods and mortals both, while you feed on their prayers like leeches."
Ares spat fire into the water, his snarl feral. "Enough riddles! I will cut your heart from your chest and mount your bones upon the gates of Olympus!"
He charged, spear raised, each step igniting the storm. The battlefield shook as if whole worlds recoiled from his fury.
Poseidon exhaled once.
The sea answered.
The wall behind him collapsed forward, reshaping into serpents of water with fanged maws larger than warships. They lunged, jaws snapping, meeting Ares head on. His spear tore through the first, scattering it into a rain of blood-colored spray, but three more writhed from the waves to coil around his limbs.
The god of war bellowed, ripping through one, then another—but the third sank its watery fangs deep into his shoulder, salt brine burning like acid through divine flesh.
Poseidon lifted his hand, twisting his fingers. Ares was yanked off his feet, dragged toward the churning abyss yawning behind Poseidon.
But before the war god could be consumed, Athena’s voice split the chaos:
"ENOUGH."
Her owl shrieked, and suddenly the serpents froze. No, not frozen—bound, held fast by runes etched into air itself. Athena’s shield blazed like a mirror of the moon, reflecting Poseidon’s tidal power back upon him.
For the first time in eons, Poseidon staggered.
"You cannot outwit wisdom," Athena said, stepping forward. "Nor can you break through strategy with brute tide. You think yourself inevitable, but you are only force without shape."
Poseidon straightened, water hissing as he tore free from her bindings. His eyes burned like trenches that had never seen the sun.
"Wisdom is useless," he murmured, "when you cannot comprehend the abyss."
And then Zeus moved.
No warning. No speech.
Only lightning.
A bolt brighter than creation itself tore the storm in half, striking Poseidon directly. The world convulsed—oceans boiling, the hardened water beneath his feet shattering into shards of salt and steam.
Mortals far away saw it as a star falling, a column of light that blinded sailors on ships hundreds of leagues distant.
When the brilliance faded, the battlefield was scorched hollow.
But Poseidon still stood.
Smoke curled from his shoulders. His chest bled where the bolt had pierced. And yet, behind him, the abyss still whispered, unbroken.
"Brother..." Poseidon said, his voice shaking not from weakness, but from the weight of the tide pressing forward. "You mistake me still for what I was. I am not your equal. I am not even your kin any longer. I am the ocean that devours the gods who thought themselves eternal."
And with that, the sea rose.
Not a wave. Not a tide. But the ocean itself.
Every drop of water across the mortal world shivered, dragged into resonance with Poseidon’s call. Rivers curved unnaturally, deserts wept, blood within mortal veins pounded in unison.
The battlefield became a sphere of drowning pressure, crushing down upon Ares, Athena, and Zeus alike. Their combined light flared, spears clashing, shields straining, bolts splitting the storm in vain.
But Poseidon walked forward, step by step, through lightning, through flame, through wisdom’s chains.
Each footfall deepened the abyss yawning behind him.
Each breath drew the sea tighter around the gods.
Until even Olympus itself began to tremble.
The war between Poseidon and Olympus had finally begun.
And the drowned god was no longer content with cities. He had set his hand upon heaven itself.
The battlefield stretched across both sea and sky.
The ocean boiled, not from fire but from sheer pressure as the wills of gods clashed against the dominion of Poseidon. Above, clouds spun in furious spirals, heavy with lightning; below, the waves curled into vast walls, frozen mid-crash as if time itself trembled.
And in the center of it all stood Poseidon.
No longer Dominic the boy, no longer vessel—he was Poseidon in full stride, his trident raised, the sea singing with every beat of his heart. His aura pressed outward like a storm without horizon, every ripple of power drowning the weak, every breath summoning the voice of the abyss.
Three gods opposed him still, their battered forms barely holding.
Aegirion, God of the Tides, his silver armor dented and bleeding light, gripped his broken trident-staff with trembling hands.
Seraphin, Goddess of Flame, wings blackened and charred, forced herself upright though her fire sputtered under the choking waters.
Zephyros, Lord of Sky and Judgment, his golden wings ragged, bled into the storm with fury that refused to yield.
Together, they stood—but it was not victory. It was survival.