Chapter 102: The Tide answers
The ocean did not merely stir—it shuddered.
Waves rolled like the breath of a great beast waking from a millennia-long slumber. The horizon seemed to bend, the sun dimming as clouds gathered unnaturally fast, coiling above the water like the crown of a god. And standing at the heart of it, trident in hand, was Poseidon—no longer the fractured soul Dominic once was, but a force that was neither mortal nor wholly divine.
His eyes burned with deep-sea blue light, the glow stretching tendrils into the air like lightning frozen in motion.
The enemies before him—scaled warriors of the Deep Maw, their obsidian armor glistening with seawater—hesitated for the first time.
They had seen gods before.
They had killed gods before.
But this… felt different.
"Leave," Poseidon's voice rolled like a distant earthquake under the sea. It was not a shout. It was not a plea. It was a statement so heavy it made the currents shift.
One of the Deep Maw captains bared needle-like teeth and stepped forward. "The ocean belongs to the Maw now, sea-lord. We—"
The captain never finished.
With a flick of Poseidon's wrist, a column of water erupted beneath the warrior, spearing upward with enough force to pierce bone and armor alike. The body burst into a mist of blood and salt before it even hit the water again.
The others recoiled. But retreat was not in their nature.
"Kill him!" another roared, and the tide exploded into chaos.
They surged toward him, dozens of them cutting through the water like blades. But Poseidon did not move to dodge—he beckoned.
The ocean answered.
It wasn't just water anymore; it was him. The sea twisted into living tendrils, serpentine and vast, catching warriors mid-charge and crushing them with the weight of a thousand tons. Others were hurled skyward, their screams lost in the storm before they vanished into the depths forever.
Lightning flashed above, thunder echoing like the applause of titans.
Yet amidst the slaughter, Poseidon's gaze never wavered. Every motion was deliberate. Every kill was as precise as a sculptor's chisel. His enemies were not merely dying—they were being erased from the ocean's memory.
And still, the real threat had not moved.
From the deeper shadows of the sea trench, a shape began to emerge. Massive. Ancient. Its body was a fortress of black coral and bone. A maw like a canyon, lined with teeth that could shear through ships, opened in a silent roar.
The Leviathan Warlord.
Poseidon's grip on his trident tightened, but his expression did not change.
"You shouldn't have come to my waters," he said.
The Leviathan lunged.
The water churned into whirlpools around them, ripping apart the battlefield. Even the Deep Maw soldiers scattered in terror, unwilling to be caught in the clash of titans. The beast's massive jaws closed where Poseidon had been an instant earlier, snapping through a mountain of coral as if it were paper.
Poseidon spun with unnatural grace, his trident slashing in a perfect arc. A line of glowing blue cut across the Leviathan's hide, the wound steaming in the cold depths. The creature roared, the sound vibrating through Poseidon's bones.
It struck again, faster than its size should allow, tail whipping the water into a crushing wall. Poseidon countered with a single downward thrust, his weapon touching the seabed.
The ocean answered.
The seafloor split.
A geyser of pressurized water exploded upward, catching the Leviathan square in the chest and hurling it backward through its own fortress. Chunks of bone coral and black stone scattered like meteors.
But Poseidon knew better than to assume it was over.
The shadows beneath stirred again, darker this time. The Leviathan's form shimmered unnaturally—and then there were two of them.
Illusions.
No… reflections.
A deep, ancient magic filled the trench, and Poseidon felt the taste of it—it was the same essence that had followed him since his rebirth. Thalorin's whisper stirred in his mind.
"Do not falter. This one was bred in my era."
The two Leviathans lunged from opposite sides.
Poseidon didn't retreat.
Instead, he rose higher into the water, lifting his trident above his head. Blue light spiraled around him, coiling upward until it pierced the storm above, connecting sea to sky in a column of living energy.
When the Leviathans struck, he brought the trident down.
The ocean collapsed inward.
The pressure crushed everything within a hundred meters, the force turning stone to powder and bone to splinters. One of the illusions shattered instantly, dissolving into mist. The real Leviathan roared in agony, half of its face caved in from the pressure.
Poseidon advanced.
One step.
Another.
The beast tried to retreat into the trench.
Too late.
With a final, brutal thrust, Poseidon drove the trident through its skull. The glow of its ancient eyes flickered, then went out. Slowly, the creature drifted downward, vanishing into the abyss it had once ruled.
Silence followed.
Only the rhythm of the waves remained, steady… obedient.
Poseidon turned his gaze back to the few surviving Deep Maw warriors. None dared move. None dared speak.
"Tell your masters," he said, voice cold as the deep, "that the ocean remembers its king."
And then, without another word, he was gone—fading into the water as if he had never been there at all.
Far above, the storm broke, sunlight returning to the surface.
But in the hearts of those who had witnessed it, a new name would spread like the tide.
Poseidon, Lord of the Endless Deep.
The sky above the Rift churned like a wounded beast, thick with swirling black clouds that crackled with lightning. Waves rose and collapsed in the chasm below, each crash echoing like a war drum. The Rift was no longer just a battleground—it was a living, breathing thing, its very heartbeat matching the rise and fall of the ocean's fury.
Poseidon stood on the jagged reef, trident in hand, his eyes burning like molten sapphire. His armor, forged from the depths of the Mariana Abyss, gleamed in the flashes of lightning. The sea spray clung to him, but it was no hindrance—it was his blood, his essence.