Chapter 290: Perhaps that is already the truth.”
He did not sit upon a throne of gold, nor among the marble seats of Olympus. His throne was the deep, and his dominion had become reality.
From the shattered ruins of cities, he wove pillars of coral. From drowned cathedrals, he carved arches of saltstone. From mortal cries, he built silence. And from silence, sovereignty.
The drowned world was no longer a world stolen by water. It was his kingdom, sculpted by will.
Poseidon stood upon what had once been the peak of a mountain. Now, it was an island surrounded by miles of endless flood. With every breath, the sea obeyed.
He raised a hand. The drowned ships scattered across the waves shivered and cracked apart, their wood dissolving into splinters that swirled upward. From those splinters, he forged them into something greater—bridges of barnacled bone and driftwood that stretched across the waves, connecting new islands born of ruin.
Where a city had been, its towers jutting only half-above water, Poseidon clenched his fist. The waves surged, swallowing the ruins whole. When the tide parted, coral spires rose in their place, glowing with inner bioluminescence, teeming with fish that had no names in mortal tongues.
Mortals watched in awe and terror from the heights where they clung, their eyes reflecting the phosphorescent glow of a world no longer theirs.
"This is not the end," Poseidon’s voice thundered across the waters, carried on currents that pressed into bone and blood. "This is beginning. The drowned world is no grave. It is my realm."
The sea answered. Waves bowed outward like kneeling armies.
---
The Survivors
On the cliffs of what had once been the great coastal capital of Myrianth, survivors huddled together. Their homes were gone, their streets replaced by fathoms of endless blue. They had lived three days without fire, eating what scraps they could salvage from floating wreckage.
When they saw Poseidon sculpting the seas into towers of coral and living fortresses, half of them wept. The other half prostrated themselves.
"Is he salvation or doom?" a mother asked, clutching her child.
The Watcher of Tides, one of the few priests who had survived the Drowned Bell’s toll, answered hoarsely. "He is both. A god does not choose between salvation and doom. He is the sea itself. It is for us to choose how we drown—or how we bow."
And so the first prayers to Poseidon, not as a forgotten relic of myth but as a living sovereign, began to rise from mortal throats.
He heard them all.
---
The Coral Citadel
On the fourth night, Poseidon forged the heart of his empire.
From the drowned bed of the world, he pulled forth the Coral Citadel, a palace vast enough to swallow mortal cities. Its walls were alive, pulsing with veins of light, grown from coral thicker than castles and shells that gleamed with inner storms.
The citadel did not float—it anchored deep, tethered to the drowned roots of the earth itself. Its halls echoed with the sound of waves, its ceilings painted with schools of silver fish that swam in unison through the very air.
And in its heart, Poseidon placed his throne. Not of stone, nor iron, nor any mortal craft. His throne was sculpted from the skeleton of a leviathan, its ribs curving upward into an arch of bone, its skull enshrined as the seat itself.
Here, Poseidon sat—not merely as a god of the sea, but as the King of the Drowned World.
---
Olympus Reacts
But in Olympus, silence turned to fury.
Zephyros, god of sky and judgment, paced before the council, his voice sharp as thunder. "He dares remake the mortal realm in his image. He claims dominion beyond the sea—he claims dominion of all!"
Seraphin, the goddess of flame, struck the table with her hand, sparks erupting with every word. "We should have ended him when the vessel was weak. Now he breathes storms with a thought, and shapes cities into citadels!"
Nymera, the goddess of shadows, only smiled thinly, her voice soft as falling ash. "And yet... is it not beautiful? For once, the world is honest. It belongs not to men, nor to us—but to him."
"Blasphemy," Zephyros spat.
"No," Nymera replied. "Truth."
The council was fracturing. For every god who called for Poseidon’s death, another whispered awe at the sheer scale of his dominion. For centuries, they had been rulers in name only—petitioned by mortals, bound by their own decrees. But Poseidon was doing what none dared: claiming without apology.
From his throne of leviathan bone, Poseidon closed his eyes.
He could feel it all. Every drowned city. Every new current. Every mortal whisper that rose in prayer or curse. It all flowed through him like tide through reef.
"This world was never yours to begin with," he murmured, his voice low but carrying across leagues. "Mortals built walls against the tide, believing themselves safe. Gods perched in high halls, declaring balance over chaos. But the sea... the sea remembers."
He opened his eyes, twin abysses glowing with the light of drowned stars.
"And now, the sea rules."
In the days that followed, mortals began to adapt.
Those who prayed found themselves spared, pulled onto new islands raised by Poseidon’s will. Those who cursed him vanished beneath waves, their bodies never returning.
From their numbers, the first kingdom beneath was born—The Tidebound, mortals who swore loyalty not to crowns or empires, but to Poseidon himself. They wore barnacle-forged armor, carried spears tipped with coral, and marched not upon soil but upon bridges of kelp and stone.
Poseidon gave them gifts—lungs that could drink water as air, eyes that could see in the abyss, voices that could command lesser tides. They became his heralds, spreading across the drowned world to enforce his decree:
"The land is gone. The sea is eternal. Bow to the Drowned King, or vanish."
In Olympus, fear grew.
Reports came not just of drowned cities, but of mortals willingly kneeling. Not worshipping the Seven Currents. Not praying to Olympus. But bending the knee to Poseidon, and receiving answers in return.
For the first time in millennia, the gods felt their hold loosen. Their temples lay drowned, their altars swallowed by water. And in their place rose shrines of coral, glowing with Poseidon’s power.
"This cannot be allowed," Zephyros roared. "If we delay, there will be no pantheon left—only Poseidon."
But even as he spoke, Nymera whispered to the shadows:
"Perhaps that is already the truth."
Poseidon rose from his throne, his presence rippling across the citadel. His Tidebound knelt in silence, their heads bowed, their weapons lowered.
He looked upon them not as subjects, but as instruments of a new age.
"This world has drowned," he declared. "But it has not ended. It has only changed."
His voice thundered, shaking the coral walls, resounding across oceans.
"From this day forward, there is no land. There is no sky. There is no fire. There is no shadow. There is only the tide. And the tide is mine."
The sea roared back in answer, waves smashing against cliffs, storms forming in the distance, as if the very ocean had spoken the oath with him.
Poseidon’s dominion was no longer a dream. It was law.
The drowned world had a king.
And he was eternal.