Chapter 331: The Shattered Trident
The battlefield no longer resembled a battlefield.
It was a wound in the fabric of the world. Oceans had bled into the sky, clouds churned like broken tides, and the ground had become little more than fragments of stone drifting on endless currents. The clash between gods had torn reality into shards, and in the heart of it stood Poseidon.
His chest heaved, water dripping down his bronzed skin in rivulets that refused to fall but instead coiled around him like serpents. The trident in his grip pulsed with power, not forged steel but pure ocean condensed into weapon-form. Its hum reverberated not just through the battlefield, but through the veins of every mortal praying to the sea across the realms.
And in front of him, three gods remained.
Zephyros, Lord of the Skies, his wings ragged but eyes blazing with storm-light.
Seraphin, Goddess of Flame, half her body charred but her aura still burning hotter than any sun.
Nymera, Lady of Shadows, her form shifting and flickering, a dozen silhouettes wrapping around Poseidon like blades waiting to pierce.
They had already lost much in their war against him. Their armies broken. Their temples drowned. Their willpower fractured. Yet here they stood, resolute against the god who should have remained buried in myth.
Poseidon’s voice carried like waves crashing against cliffs.
"You still stand. Admirable. But tell me—do you stand for defiance, or for fear of what comes after I am free?"
Zephyros spat blood, wings spreading wide though they trembled. "We stand because you are wrong. You are not the savior of mortals you claim. You are their doom."
Seraphin’s flames licked higher, scarring the waters that swirled around them. "You burned an entire city beneath your tide. Do you deny it? Do you call that justice?"
Poseidon did not flinch. His gaze bore into her like the abyss itself. "I do not deny. I choose. Mortals prayed for deliverance, but what is deliverance without cost? They wanted freedom from chains forged by gods like you, who demanded worship and blood. I gave them what they asked. I broke their chains in water."
Nymera’s voice whispered from a dozen shadows at once. "And drowned them with it."
For a heartbeat, silence stretched between them. The clash of will thicker than any storm.
Then Zephyros raised his spear, lightning crackling. "Then let the sea face judgment!"
And the world shattered again.
---
The Clash of Three
Zephyros lunged first, lightning forking across the broken battlefield. Poseidon’s trident rose, splitting the bolt into two harmless streams that bled into the ocean around him. But Seraphin was already there, a blazing comet streaking forward, her fist crashing into Poseidon’s chest. The impact rippled the tide itself, forcing the sea back for the first time since the battle began.
Poseidon grunted, but his form did not falter. Water surged forward in answer, coiling into a shield that burst outward, scattering Seraphin in a torrent of steam.
Nymera struck next—shadows cutting upward like black spears, aiming not at his body but at his reflection in the water. Poseidon’s brow furrowed. Clever. She sought to wound not the god, but his dominion.
His trident crashed down, water exploding in a tidal roar. Shadows scattered, broken apart. But Nymera was already re-forming behind him, blades aimed for his spine.
Poseidon twisted. For the first time, her blade drew blood. A line across his shoulder, glowing blue as seawater hissed out like molten steel.
The gods pressed forward, relentless.
Lightning. Fire. Shadow.
Every strike meant to pin him, not kill him—because even they feared what would happen if he fell here. His essence would not vanish. It would flood. It would drown all.
But Poseidon had no intention of falling.
He let the tide rise.
---
The Ocean Unbound
The air thickened, every droplet trembling with his will. Mortals far away screamed as their wells overflowed, as rivers reversed, as oceans pulled against their shores.
The battlefield became an ocean. Not water as mortals knew it—but the raw, primeval tide that existed before creation, the womb of all life. It rose in answer to his call, twisting into towering waves that blotted out the fractured sky.
The three gods staggered, their footing vanishing beneath them.
Poseidon’s voice rang like thunder within the tide.
"You call me a threat. But I am the sea. You drink me. You bleed me. You build upon me. You pray to me when the storm comes and curse me when I take. You cannot end me. You cannot cage me. You can only bow."
Zephyros roared in defiance, wings beating against the crushing waters. Seraphin burned brighter, steam and fire raging as she tried to hold her flames alight. Nymera’s shadows thickened, trying to drown the ocean in absence.
But the tide swallowed all.
The battlefield itself tilted, water pouring upward as though the heavens had become the ocean floor. Mortals watching from afar would later claim the sea itself had inverted.
The gods gasped for air.
Poseidon breathed it.
At the heart of the chaos, Poseidon raised his trident high, summoning every droplet, every current, every tide. The weapon blazed, brighter than any sun, a spear of oceans condensed into divine fury.
The gods realized too late what he intended.
He wasn’t going to strike them.
He was going to break the balance.
"Witness," Poseidon said, his voice shaking the world, "the ocean freed from your chains."
The trident cracked.
The sound was not of metal, but of reality itself splitting. Currents warped. Tides surged uncontrollably. Far across the mortal realm, seas rose against coastlines, rivers exploded from their banks, rain hammered deserts long untouched.
Zephyros screamed, lightning flaring in desperation. "Fool! You’ll drown all creation!"
Seraphin burned hotter, trying to cauterize the rising flood. "You’ll kill them all!"
Poseidon looked at them, eyes dark as the trench. "Not kill. Baptize."
The trident shattered.
The explosion was not fire, not light—it was water, everywhere, all at once. The battlefield dissolved. The gods were hurled back, ripped from their positions, their auras dimming as the tide swallowed even their divine flames.
And at the center of it all, Poseidon stood.
Unarmed. Bleeding. But more powerful than ever.
Because the sea itself no longer needed a weapon.
It was him.
Silence followed, broken only by the endless hiss of water cascading into new rivers and seas across the realm.
Zephyros dragged himself from the flood, wings broken, his eyes wide with horror. Seraphin burned weakly, her flame a flicker. Nymera’s shadows barely clung to her form.
None of them could rise against him again. Not now.
Poseidon lifted his gaze to the horizon, where mortals prayed in both awe and terror. His voice carried on the tide, not as a roar, but as a whisper in every heart.
"The sea has no master. Not god. Not man. Not fate."
His blood dripped into the tide, vanishing instantly. His strength faltered—but the ocean rose to carry him.
The battle was over.