Chapter 289: The inevitable
The clash against Olympus had torn the sky into ribbons of fire and thunder. Mountains lay split like broken teeth, rivers boiled into steam, and the mortals who gazed from afar whispered prayers that went unanswered. They had no gods to save them anymore—not when the gods themselves bled.
And at the center of it all stood Poseidon.
He was drenched not in seawater, but in ichor—golden threads that glimmered against his scarred chest where lightning and fire had torn through him. His trident pulsed with the weight of entire oceans, its tips dripping blue radiance that fell like drops of eternity into the shattered ground.
Yet even battered, even scarred, he stood taller than any of them. His aura had swollen beyond a god’s, beyond the tide of Olympus itself. He was not merely Poseidon. He was the abyss given form.
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The Chains of Olympus
But Olympus was not yet broken.
From the ruins of the high cliffs, a dozen luminous chains erupted. They weren’t forged of metal, but of divine law itself—sigils wrapped in lightning, flame, and celestial decree. They lashed outward, binding air, space, and time, all converging upon Poseidon.
"Enough!" thundered Zephyros, the Sky-Judge, his voice a storm across worlds. His form towered within the heavens, wings of molten cloud unfurling. "The balance of creation will not bow to one drowned tyrant!"
Each chain lashed like a living serpent, wrapping around Poseidon’s arms, chest, and throat. The first burned with the fire of Seraphin. The second froze with Nymera’s shadow frost. The third crackled with thunder older than mortal tongues.
One by one, the chains pulled him to his knees.
The ground itself split beneath the pressure, unable to contain the force pressing against his being. Mortals watching from leagues away saw the titan sink, his shoulders bowing under Olympus’s decree.
It was not simply strength. These were the Chains of Olympus—the judgment meant to bind Titans, forged at the dawn of the Pantheon. No god had ever broken them. Not Hades. Not even Cronus.
And yet—Poseidon grinned.
Blood spilled from his mouth, but his teeth flashed like a wolf’s. His voice rumbled low, the sound of waves grinding stone.
"You think chains can hold the sea?"
The ocean answered.
Not the seas mortals knew, but the primordial depths that had never seen a sun, the trenches where gods drowned their mistakes and monsters slept in silence. From those gulfs came power—raw, crushing, merciless.
The waters of the world convulsed. Across continents, tides swelled without moon or wind. Fishermen saw their boats rise into the sky and vanish. Rivers reversed their course, flowing uphill. The ocean itself groaned, as if it had grown too large for the world that contained it.
And all of it answered to Poseidon.
The chains strained. Sigils blazed, desperate to hold.
Poseidon rose, one knee lifting, then the other. His muscles burned, his skin cracked, but the tide behind him surged higher. The trident in his hand pulsed once—then split into three arcs of radiance, each spearpoint humming with impossible pressure.
"Chains..." Poseidon spat, salt and blood staining the ground. "...are for men. Not for gods. And never for me."
The trident struck the earth.
And the world broke.
The chains screamed as cracks ran through them. Sigils sputtered. One after another, they snapped—not with the sound of iron, but like worlds collapsing. Thunder shattered into silence. Fire hissed into steam. Shadows dissolved beneath the surge of salt.
Poseidon stood unbound, the tide swirling about him in a cyclone of abyssal force.
The Pantheon Falters
On Olympus, the gods staggered. Zephyros fell to one knee, wings torn by backlash. Seraphin’s flames guttered, leaving only ash upon her skin. Nymera bled black ichor from her shadowed eyes.
They had poured law, judgment, and eternity into the chains. And still—Poseidon had shattered them.
"He..." Zephyros rasped, his voice broken with disbelief. "...he broke Olympus itself."
A silence followed, thick and poisonous. Even the stars above flickered, as if doubting their place in a world where Poseidon walked unbound.
But Poseidon was not done.
He raised his trident high. The sky darkened—not with clouds, but with water. Entire oceans rose, pulled upward by his will. A ceiling of waves formed above the battlefield, blotting out the heavens. Within it swam leviathans unseen since the first dawn—creatures of fin and fang, each the size of mountains.
Poseidon’s voice rolled, deeper than thunder.
"You sought to chain me. To bind the tide and call it balance. But balance is a lie. The sea does not balance—it consumes."
He thrust the trident downward.
The ocean fell.
Not rain. Not storm. The full weight of the abyss collapsed upon the land. Valleys drowned in an instant. Fire and lightning vanished beneath walls of water. The gods themselves were hurled back, dragged beneath waves older than Olympus.
Mortals who watched wept, not from fear, but from awe. They saw not a god. They saw inevitability.
When the waters calmed, the battlefield was gone. Mountains erased. Valleys smoothed into seabed. Only an endless expanse of water stretched where land had once stood.
And above it, standing upon the surface as though it were stone, Poseidon planted his trident into the sea. His eyes glowed with abyssal light, his breath slow and even.
The gods rose, scattered and broken. Their wounds bled ichor into the sea, staining it gold. Their voices were hushed, their pride fractured.
Poseidon looked upon them, and his grin was gone. His face was cold, carved in wrath.
"This world is mine now," he said. "Not Olympus. Not your decrees. The sea has no master but itself. Remember this."
The silence that followed was heavier than the flood itself.
For the first time in eternity, the gods feared not war, but extinction.
The world did not end with a roar.
It ended with silence.
For three nights, the oceans had risen without storm or wind, swallowing coastlines, kingdoms, and entire islands in a still, suffocating flood. The mortals who survived did not flee inland—they were dragged inland by water that refused to recede. What had been farmland was now seabed. What had been forests now swayed with drowned branches, their leaves drifting like kelp.
At the heart of this rebirth stood Poseidon.