Chapter 287: Primordial Abyss
The world was breaking.
It wasn’t an illusion, not the muttering of priests or the dramatics of poets — the very bones of the earth strained as the gods tried to bind what could not be bound. Chains of celestial light hung across the horizon like burning threads, cast by the hands of three deities who had sworn on Olympus itself to cage Poseidon’s resurgence.
But the sea would not kneel.
The ocean surged higher, not in waves but in mass, climbing the invisible walls as if water had grown claws. Whole fleets were lifted and dashed against unseen barriers, their broken hulls sinking into whirlpools that yawned like mouths of giants.
From the center of that rising tide stood Poseidon.
No longer a boy. No longer a vessel. He was ocean-made-flesh, hair drifting as if he stood beneath the waves, eyes burning with abyssal blue light that saw not just the gods above, but the cracks in their decrees.
"Do you hear it?" Poseidon’s voice rolled across the waters, deeper than thunder. "Your chains groan, your heavens fracture, and still you cling to law. Law is nothing before tide."
The answer came not from mortals, but from above.
Zephyros, God of Sky and Judgment, hovered within his mantle of storm. His wings beat once, and lightning drew itself into a spear the length of a mountain. "Law is what spared this world from you once before, Drowned King. It will spare it again."
To his left, Seraphin of the Eternal Flame spiraled, her hair ablaze, her arms stretched into rivers of molten fire. She did not speak. She only burned.
And behind them both, Nymera, cloaked in shadow, whispered from the veil itself: "You should have stayed forgotten."
The chains fell.
Three spears of divine essence struck the sea in unison — lightning that split clouds, fire that boiled salt into steam, shadow that devoured even the reflection of the moon. The ocean screamed, lifted into sky-splitting geysers that turned night into fractured silver.
But when the spray cleared, Poseidon still stood.
Water clung to him like armor, each droplet sharpened to blade-edge. His trident pulsed, no longer a weapon, but a piece of the abyss itself.
"You call me forgotten," Poseidon said, his lips curling into something between grief and wrath. "Then remember now."
He struck the ocean once with his trident.
The world tilted.
The harbor cities shattered as the seabed itself shifted upward. Ships that had once floated now lay stranded on rising cliffs, their crews screaming as they slid into the depths. The gods faltered, their chains pulling tighter, straining against the surge of earth and sea bending to Poseidon’s will.
Zephyros dove, his lightning-spear stabbing toward Poseidon’s heart. The sea-god raised his hand — and the spear froze inches away, caught not by flesh but by the pressure of the entire ocean bearing down at a single point. Lightning fizzled, drowning within brine.
Seraphin descended next, her flame blazing so hot that the sea vaporized into storms of steam. She hurled entire suns at him, spheres of fire meant to cauterize the wound that was his existence. Poseidon only turned his trident, and the flames were drunk into water, devoured, quenched until nothing remained but hiss and ash.
Nymera did not strike directly. She wove herself into the sea’s shadows, slicing for weakness. A hundred blades struck, not from outside, but within his silhouette — aiming to cut him apart from inside his own reflection.
Poseidon staggered, the shadows biting, tearing pieces of tide from his form. For a heartbeat, his figure wavered.
And then the abyss answered.
His body split — into dozens, hundreds of mirrored selves, each formed from the ocean’s reflection. Every blade Nymera drove found only false Poseidons, each dissolving back into tide. Her eyes widened from within her hood.
"You cannot cut what has no edge," Poseidon’s voice echoed from all directions.
With a sweep of his trident, he gathered the shadows into a spiral and crushed them. Nymera screamed, recoiling, her cloak frayed by her own unraveling.
The battle split sky and sea alike.
Mortals far below saw only the consequences — waves the size of palaces crashing against their homes, lightning splitting rivers into glass, flame rain falling from heavens. For them, the gods had declared war upon the ocean itself.
And the ocean answered.
Poseidon’s roar tore through every current: "For every chain you cast, I will drown ten. For every decree, I will unmake twenty. For every prayer, I will answer with silence. I am tide. I am abyss. I am Poseidon."
The chains strained once more.
But in Olympus, the watching gods whispered in unease.
This was no vessel gone rogue.
This was reclamation.
The sea was no longer calm.
It writhed, twisted, and boiled as though a thousand storms had been chained beneath its surface, all struggling to break free at once. The mortal fleets that dared remain on the horizon scattered like frightened birds, their sails snapping under winds that carried no scent of the world above.
And at the center of it all stood Poseidon.
No longer the forgotten boy. No longer the vessel. He was the abyss incarnate, his trident glowing with a cold, cerulean light that pulsed like the heartbeat of the ocean itself. The sea bent to his every breath. The tide itself was his weapon.
But this day, the waves did not merely obey. They resisted.
For from the heavens, the barrier of Olympus cracked open.
Three figures descended upon the world like meteors of fire and light, their divinity distorting the sky, bending clouds and stars into unnatural arcs. Their presence was suffocating, enough to drive mortals to their knees without a single word.
The gods had come.
Not emissaries. Not avatars. The true gods themselves, wielding authority older than empires.
"Poseidon," came the voice of the first, a booming thunder that rattled the bones of ships, temples, and mountains alike. "You trespass upon the order of Olympus."
Zephyros, the Sky-Father of Judgment, spread his golden wings, each feather burning like sunlight condensed into steel. Lightning trailed his form, each spark heavy with law and punishment. His mere presence cleaved the clouds, creating a hollowed dome above the battlefield.
Beside him, Seraphin, Goddess of Flame, stepped forward. Her entire body burned with scarlet fire that refused to dim, even in Poseidon’s suffocating waters. Her eyes were twin embers, her hair a living inferno. Each breath she drew scorched the sea to steam.
And last was Nymera, Goddess of Shadows, who moved like smoke torn from the void. She did not stand on the waves, nor in the air—she simply existed, everywhere the light did not touch. The cold of her presence made even the tide hesitate.
Together, they were the executioners of Olympus.
Together, they had come to erase him.
The ocean stilled. Then, like a beast unleashed, it surged upward.
Poseidon lifted his trident. At once, walls of black water rose higher than mountains, curling inward as though ready to swallow the three gods whole. The sea screamed—a chorus of drowned voices echoing through every crashing wave.
Zephyros was the first to strike. He slammed his palm into the sky.
"Judgment!"
The heavens cracked. Bolts of divine lightning—thicker than ship masts—tore downward, splitting the waves in half. Entire swathes of ocean evaporated under the sheer force of his decree, exposing the bare seabed for an instant before the water rushed back in.
Poseidon growled, thrusting his trident forward. The waves bent sideways, redirecting the lightning, grounding it deep into the trenches below. The sea absorbed the punishment, boiling and roaring but refusing to yield.
Then Seraphin moved.
She was fire given form, her hands hurling rivers of flame that burned even under water. The fire did not die—it devoured, creating pockets of steam and boiling whirlpools that churned like cauldrons of hell. Entire swarms of Poseidon’s summoned leviathans screamed as their scales bubbled, their flesh sloughing away in molten clouds.
But Poseidon did not falter. He clenched his fist, and the water itself hardened. What should have been liquid became as dense as obsidian, crushing the fire into embers and hurling them back.
Seraphin smirked. "Good. It would insult me if you were weak."
And then came Nymera.
The sea darkened, though no cloud passed above. Shadows stretched unnaturally, slithering across the waves like serpents. One by one, they coiled around Poseidon’s arms, his throat, even his weapon. She whispered, her voice sliding into his ears like oil.
"You are not him. You are a boy, still pretending to be more."
For a moment, Poseidon’s body trembled.
The shadows dug into him—not flesh, not bone, but memory. They reached for the boy who once was. The one named Dominic. The mortal shell beneath the god.
But Poseidon roared, his voice echoing like a collapsing ocean trench.
"I am no shell."
With a violent surge, he unleashed a tidal explosion. The shadows shattered like brittle glass, Nymera’s form dispersing into a dozen shreds of smoke before reforming in the distance.
"You will not bind me," Poseidon growled. "Not now. Not ever."
Far away, on the shorelines of kingdoms that had once prayed to the gods, mortals watched the impossible clash.
The horizon itself burned with lightning, fire, and shadow. Waves taller than castles rose and fell like breathing lungs. Fishermen fled inland, abandoning their villages. Soldiers dropped weapons, for no blade mattered against what they witnessed.
Priests screamed themselves hoarse, crying out to their patron deities for salvation. But the truth was clear, even to them.
Their gods were not here to protect.
Their gods were here to kill.
And they were losing.
Zephyros descended like judgment incarnate, his golden blade cleaving through the ocean. Seraphin’s inferno turned whirlpools into searing maelstroms, while Nymera’s shadows cut like razors through the tide.
Yet for every strike, Poseidon answered.
Every lightning bolt was swallowed by the deep. Every flame quenched in fathoms. Every shadow dispersed by the endless tide.
He bled, yes—his shoulders cut, his arms seared, his chest torn by divine strikes. But the sea bled with him, and in its bleeding, it healed him. For every wound he suffered, the abyss surged, refilling him with its strength.
And then, something stirred beneath.
The trench groaned. The water deepened.
And from the cracks of the sea floor, an ancient hunger stirred.
Thalorin.
The drowned abyss. The god whose corpse Poseidon had once been tied to.
Its voice slithered into Poseidon’s mind, thick as brine.
"They cannot kill you, child. Let me rise. Let me drown them all."
Poseidon’s grip tightened on his trident. His eyes glowed darker, the ocean answering not as a servant, but as a beast recognizing its master.
"No," he whispered. "Not yet. I am not your vessel. I am your heir."
The abyss quaked. The waves screamed louder, enough to make even the three gods hesitate.
For Poseidon was no longer just a reborn god.
He was something more.
"Enough!" Zephyros roared, his wings stretching across the sky. "By Olympus’s decree, you are condemned!"
The three gods raised their powers together. Lightning, fire, and shadow converged into a single strike, their combined authority enough to shatter worlds.
The heavens cracked. The ocean caved.
And Poseidon answered.
He raised his trident, slamming it into the heart of the sea.
The abyss split open.
From below rose colossal hands of water, each finger the size of mountains, surging upward to catch the combined strike. The impact exploded into blinding white, the world itself trembling under the collision.
For a breathless instant, all was silence.
Then the sea roared back.
The gods were hurled backward, their forms scattered across the sky like falling stars. Olympus itself shuddered at the backlash.
And Poseidon stood, chest heaving, his wounds pouring saltwater instead of blood.
His voice shook both sea and sky.
"I am no longer your brother. I am no longer your pawn. I am the tide that drowns eternity."
The ocean howled, echoing his declaration across every coast, every ship, every frightened mortal.
The war of gods had begun.
And this time, the sea was not on Olympus’s side.