Chapter 286: News of defeat
The battlefield was no longer a battlefield.
It was a graveyard of gods.
The plains that once stretched wide with rivers of grass now lay fractured and drowned beneath rolling black tides. Whole forests bent sideways, their trunks half-buried in walls of brine that rose where land once ruled. The ground itself could not decide whether it belonged to earth or sea, and so it broke apart in jagged, sobbing gulfs that inhaled mortals and immortals alike.
And at the center of it all stood Poseidon.
His trident, carved from the first spine of Leviathan, shimmered in the air. Water coursed not just around him but through him, as though his veins were open channels into the abyss below the abyss. Every breath he drew twisted the sea, and every step he took pulled the horizon an inch closer.
The corpses of minor gods floated at his feet, their ichor staining the water like phosphorescent fire. Spirits that once embodied mountains, rivers, and winds now lay hollow-eyed, their forms dissolved by the merciless brine.
But Poseidon was not satisfied.
He tilted his head, gaze shifting toward the heavens. Above, the constellations trembled, warped into spirals where the divine council once watched. They had sent champions, emissaries, three-god phalanxes to cut him down—and all of them bled in the water now.
And yet he could feel it.
The council had not given up. No. Olympus itself was stirring.
---
The Gathering of Gods
Far above, in the marble halls of Olympus, the council chamber shuddered. Lightning forked through the stained glass dome. Even Zeus himself, king of the heavens, gripped the arms of his throne with uncharacteristic tension.
Ares stood forward, blade dripping red as though thirsting for a war not yet begun. Athena’s eyes, sharp as forged bronze, glimmered with calculation. Hera’s lips were pressed thin, a line of fury and fear tangled into one.
"He grows stronger with every heartbeat," Ares spat, his voice shaking the chamber. "Every drop of blood spilled becomes his tide. If we delay again, the seas will swallow Olympus before a blade is drawn."
"Blind rage will not win this war," Athena answered coldly. "We have already seen how direct confrontation ends. Three gods at once could not subdue him. If we march in headlong, he will drown us all."
"Then what?" Hera’s voice cracked like iron on stone. "Do we sit idle while he pulls the world beneath his waters? The cities fall one by one. The mortals whisper his name with terror—and worship. He becomes not only power but faith. That faith will bind him beyond our reach."
Zeus rose. The storm in his eyes made the hall darken. "We do not sit idle." His voice rolled like thunder over the Aegean. "We strike as a pantheon. No more champions. No more emissaries. Olympus itself must march."
The chamber shook with the decree.
But even as they prepared, Athena’s thoughts lingered elsewhere. She had seen Poseidon before—not like this, not as the abyss—but she remembered the mortal boy whose soul had been consumed to forge this god anew. Dominic. The vessel who had borne impossible weight.
Was there a remnant left in him? Or had the abyss truly claimed all?
---
Poseidon’s Silence
Back on the drowned plains, Poseidon stood ankle-deep in ichor and seawater. His gaze pierced the distance where Olympus crowned the world. He did not move to attack. Not yet.
Because something heavier than rage filled him.
Silence.
The silence of the deep trenches where light had never touched. The silence that pressed on mortal lungs when they sank too far. The silence that came before a world-ending wave.
It was not the fury of a god seeking revenge.
It was the inevitability of the sea reclaiming what had always been its own.
The mortals clinging to broken fortresses at the edge of the battlefield felt it keenly. Soldiers who had once prayed for deliverance from Olympus now wept openly, whispering Poseidon’s name not in terror but reverence. His silence was not absence—it was authority.
The sea had no need to scream.
It simply was.
Among the ruins of what had once been a bastion city, a young girl clung to a roof beam above the waterline. Her father, a fisherman, had drowned hours earlier when the tides pulled the harbor into the sky.
Yet she did not cry.
Her eyes were locked on the figure across the floodplain—the god who turned the world to water.
"Mother said the sea was cruel," she whispered to herself. "But... it’s beautiful."
Around her, other mortals whispered the same. For all the horror, there was awe. Where Olympus inspired fear of thunder and flame, Poseidon inspired inevitability. He was not a conqueror forcing mortals to kneel. He was the sea itself rising.
And mortals always bowed to the tide.
Zeus’s decree was not idle. The heavens themselves began to shift. Stars bent, constellations spun into formation. A phalanx of Olympian legions prepared to descend, bolstered by gods who had not walked the mortal earth for centuries.
Hermes laced his sandals with sigils of wind and shadow, preparing to be the spearpoint. Artemis strung her bow with threads of moonlight. Hephaestus dragged weapons forged in the heart of collapsed stars, each one designed for war against the abyss.
And at the center—Zeus himself, thunder in both fists, ready to wage a war that would decide dominion of land, sky, and sea.
But still, Athena hesitated.
"Father," she said, stepping close. "Have you considered the truth? If Poseidon has truly become something more than himself—something greater than us—then brute force cannot win."
Zeus’s gaze burned. "Then tell me, daughter, what does win against the sea?"
Athena looked away. She had no answer.
Poseidon finally moved.
One step forward, and the tides shifted. Another, and the plains themselves cracked wider, water exploding upward like geysers. His trident hummed low, and with it came whispers—old voices, ancient as the first oceans.
They were not gods. They were deeper. Older. Forgotten.
"Release us..." the voices hissed, rippling through the currents. "The abyss remembers..."
Poseidon lowered his head, eyes closing for just a moment. When they opened, storms churned inside them.
"No," he murmured. His voice rolled across the water like a command. "Not yet. You will rise when I decide."
Even the abyss bent to him now.
The heavens brightened suddenly. Olympus had begun its descent. Pillars of light stabbed downward, carrying the army of gods toward the drowned earth. Thunder split the horizon.
Poseidon lifted his trident, the seas swirling in spirals that reached upward like arms. He did not need to roar, nor boast. He only whispered, and the world obeyed:
"Come."
The sea swelled.
The sky cracked.
And between them, mortals clung to shattered stone, knowing they were about to witness the war that would decide not only gods, but the fate of the world itself.
Poseidon tilted his trident once more, and the tide leaned eagerly, waiting to swallow Olympus whole.
The abyss was ready.
And Olympus was descending.