Chapter 122: The Harbor
The horizon was gone.
Where there had been a line of silver between sea and sky, now there was only a wall of black clouds, boiling and twisting in unnatural patterns. The wind had yet to rise, but the air was heavy — a breath held by the world itself.
The fishermen had abandoned their boats. The piers stood empty. Doors were barred, windows shuttered. In the harbor, the great warships sat chained to their moorings, their crews staring uneasily at the darkening waters beyond the reef.
They had heard the rumors. They had seen the shadows in the waves. And now, every man and woman on those decks knew they were waiting for something that was no storm.
---
Beneath the surface, Poseidon cut through the water like a spear.
The deep current bore him forward, faster than any sail or oar could match. Behind him, his host followed in silence — serpents with hides like polished obsidian, whales the size of fortresses, shoals of razorfin that darted like living knives.
The capital’s wards shimmered ahead, faint golden threads woven into the water. They stretched from reef to reef, a net of magic humming with power.
Poseidon slowed, raising his hand. The currents around him stilled instantly, as though the sea itself waited for his word.
They are ready for me, he thought. But they are not ready for what sleeps beneath them.
Again, from the trench far behind, came the pulse — deeper now, steady as a drumbeat. The other will in the ocean was moving closer.
---
In the harbor, Admiral Kareth stood on the Bastion’s highest watchtower.
He had seen war before — the sieges, the pirate fleets, even the occasional storm so violent it tore stone from the seawalls. But this... this was different.
The sea did not move like this.
One moment it was glassy still, the next it rippled in slow, deliberate swells, as if some vast creature were shifting far below. The gulls were gone. The smaller fish had fled. Even the crabs that clung to the pilings had vanished.
"Status on the wards?" he barked to the magister at his side.
"They’re holding," the magister replied, though his voice was tight. "But the pressure—"
The sentence broke off as the wardlines flared, bright gold for a single heartbeat before dimming again.
Kareth’s jaw tightened. "He’s here."
---
The reef exploded.
A serpent’s head, black as the abyss and crowned with golden eyes, surged up from the depths. Its jaws closed on one of the ward anchors — a pillar of carved stone sunk deep into the reef — and shattered it with a single twist.
The golden threads shivered, weakened, and in that instant Poseidon struck.
He didn’t break the wards head-on. Instead, he sank into the current, his body becoming one with the surge. The water carried him beneath the remaining lines, weaving through their magic like a shadow.
By the time the ward-masters on the walls realized what had happened, he was already inside the harbor.
---
The water here was shallow compared to the open sea, but it yielded to him all the same.
Every ship rocked as a great swell rolled inward, pushing them against their moorings. Chains creaked, sails snapped in the sudden wind. Men shouted in panic.
And then the swell parted.
Poseidon rose from the depths, water cascading from his shoulders, the sea itself shaping a throne beneath his feet. His trident gleamed in the dim light, each prong tipped with a shard of the abyss.
He looked at the Bastion’s walls, at the rows of soldiers and magisters staring down at him in stunned silence, and his voice carried across the water like the roar of the tide:
"This harbor belongs to the sea."
---
On the wall, Kareth’s hand went to the signal horn — but before he could sound it, another vibration rolled through the bay.
This one did not come from Poseidon.
It came from below.
The water at the harbor’s mouth swelled, not in a wave but in a dome. Something vast pushed upward, displacing thousands of tons of water with effortless force. The dome broke — and a shell the size of the Bastion itself breached the surface.
It rose higher, ridges glowing faintly blue in the gloom, barnacles cracking and falling away in chunks the size of carriages. Tentacles uncoiled from beneath, each lined with serrated suckers.
The ancient one had arrived.
---
Poseidon’s eyes narrowed.
So the trench-beast had followed him. Or perhaps it had been following the Seal’s awakening. Either way, it was here now — and its gaze was on him.
The harbor was not large enough for both of them.
This was not part of my design, he thought. But the sea chooses its own wars.
---
In the vault beneath the city, Veyrus felt the moment like a spear through the chest.
The Trident Seal burned on his finger, its power responding not just to Poseidon, but to the other. Two forces older than the city itself now moved within reach of its influence — and the Seal was hungry to bind them both.
He slammed his palm down on the altar. "Activate the full array! Now!"
The magisters obeyed. Across the harbor, pylons of stone hidden beneath the water flared to life, sending columns of light stabbing upward through the waves.
---
Poseidon felt the pull immediately.
The water thickened around him, currents twisting, trying to wrap around his limbs. His leviathans roared in distress as the same force seized them, dragging them toward the glowing pylons.
The trench-beast bellowed — a deep, shuddering note that shook the air — and struck out with its tentacles, smashing two of the pylons to rubble. The Seal’s grip faltered for a moment, but it was enough for Poseidon to break free.
---
The harbor erupted into chaos.
Ships capsized under the clash of waves. Soldiers on the walls were thrown from their feet as the water surged against the stone. Lightning split the sky, striking the masts of the warships.
Poseidon leapt from the water onto the back of the black serpent, driving it straight at the trench-beast. The two collided in a storm of foam and spray, trident meeting tentacle in a clash that shook the bay.
The beast was strong — far stronger than anything Poseidon had faced since taking his name. Its tentacles lashed with the force of battering rams, each strike capable of splitting stone. But Poseidon was the ocean’s will made flesh, and every blow he parried sent a shockwave through the water.
---
From the Bastion walls, Kareth could only stare.
Two gods of the deep were fighting in his harbor. The wards were useless. The Seal was pulling at both of them and failing to hold either.
"This..." he whispered. "This isn’t a battle. It’s the sea reclaiming itself."
And in that moment, he realized something worse than Poseidon’s victory:
If either of these titans truly unleashed their full strength here, the capital would not survive the day.