Reincarnated As Poseidon

The chains of prophecy lay cold on the marble floor, their power bled dry.

But the weight of what they symbolized remained—like the scent of storm after lightning, sharp and electric, coiling around the gods like a predator circling prey.

No one spoke. Not for a long moment.

Then Athena moved, her boots clicking against the marble as she stepped toward the chain. She crouched, eyes scanning the ancient runes etched into the links—runes that hadn't glowed in millennia. Runes meant to bind the Primordial Leviathan, Thalorin, beneath the Abyss of Aeons.

"These shouldn't be here," she muttered. "If they've broken… then what's keeping him dormant?"

Zeus's voice was slow and deliberate. "Nothing."

The word struck the council like thunder. The gods straightened, posture sharpening like swords drawn at dusk.

Apollo stepped forward, golden light pulsing from his fingertips. "If he awakens fully inside the boy… If Dominic is truly the vessel, then we must act now. End him. Seal the body. Before it's too late."

"No." The voice came from Hestia.

She rarely spoke in council. She rarely needed to. But when she did, silence followed.

"I've seen the boy's fire," she said. "It's not just Thalorin that burns in him. There's something else. Something that wasn't in Poseidon before."

Athena frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean the boy has love," Hestia said. "He has pain. He has loyalty. When I watched him through the Flames of Truth, he wasn't just a host. He was fighting the essence inside him. He still is."

Ares scoffed, arms folded. "Let him fight all he wants. When the leviathan awakens, that little spark of humanity will be devoured."

"Unless," Hades said softly, "it becomes his weapon."

That earned the attention of everyone.

Hades rarely showed optimism. So when he did, it wasn't hope—it was strategy.

"I've studied vessels," he continued, stepping out from the shadows. "Every soul capable of containing a primordial force is unstable by design. It's why they break. Their hearts fracture. But Dominic… he hasn't broken yet."

"He was dying of cancer," Hera whispered, eyes narrowing. "A vessel that fragile shouldn't even survive the first merge."

"But he did," Hades replied. "Which means something chose him. And that something… might not be Thalorin."

"He chose to rise in the boy," came another voice.

It wasn't one of the gods.

From the smoke near the edge of the council chamber stepped Nyx, the primordial goddess of night. Her presence dimmed the golden light of Apollo, cloaking everything in the subtle shade of moonless midnight.

"He was called," she said simply. "By blood. By fate. By a thread of pain so old, even I cannot name its origin. You try to stop this, and you'll only speed it up."

Zeus turned. "Then what do you suggest?"

"Let him choose," Nyx replied. "Let the boy decide which god he wishes to become. Or which one he chooses to kill."

A ripple of tension spread. Even Ares took a step back.

They were no longer discussing just Dominic. No longer arguing over a mortal or a threat. They were speaking of ascension. Of the creation of something new.

Something even the gods couldn't control.

Zeus moved to the center of the chamber. His gaze swept the room—the marble pillars, the shattered chain, the eyes of every divine being present.

"I will not let Olympus fall because of one boy."

"He's not just a boy," Artemis snapped. "He's a storm waiting to crash. And we can't dam that tide. Not this time."

He raised a hand, silencing her.

"I will go to him myself," Zeus declared. "No armies. No war council. Just me. If there's a chance… any chance… I can reach what's left of Poseidon, then I must try."

"No," Hades said again, but colder this time. "If you face him alone, you'll die."

"And if we face him together?" Zeus asked.

Hades didn't answer.

Because they all knew.

Together, they still might not be enough.

---

Meanwhile, in the mortal realm…

Dominic sat on the edge of a rusted dock, feet dangling above black water. The moon had turned crimson—bleeding into the sky like an open wound.

His hands trembled. Not from fear. But from something worse—clarity.

> You are remembering too much.

The voice inside him—Thalorin—was awake, barely caged. The voice did not whisper anymore. It echoed like churning tides in a dead sea.

"I'm not you," Dominic said aloud. "I never will be."

> You say that like you have a choice.

The water stirred beneath him, pulsing with a current that did not belong to this world. Dominic closed his eyes and saw a vision again—drowning cities, screaming gods, chains bursting through oceans, blood turning salt into storm.

He was becoming it. But he hadn't surrendered.

Not yet.

"I'll end you," Dominic whispered. "If that's what it takes. I'll die before I let you take control."

> Then die. The sea does not beg. It claims.

He fell forward, letting himself plunge into the freezing water.

For a moment, there was silence.

Then there was fire.

Underwater, a glow ignited from within him—first white, then blue, then violet like a dying star. His veins lit up. His eyes opened. Not mortal anymore. Not even divine.

He was elemental.

Unchained.

And then he saw her.

Amara.

Standing on the dock above, hands outstretched, tears running down her cheeks.

"Dominic!" she screamed. "Don't go—please!"

He looked up at her, suspended in the sea, glowing like a god—but his heart broke. Not from pain. From the memory of being human.

Amara. The one person who made him feel real again.

The sea roared.

The sky cracked open.

But in that moment, the god inside him faltered.

Because love… love was not part of the prophecy.

And neither was Amara.

---

Back in Olympus, the wind changed.

Zeus paused mid-step.

"What is it?" Hera asked.

He didn't answer.

Because somewhere—far beyond the heavens and across the barrier of realms—a ripple had struck the Weave of Fate.

Someone mortal had interfered.

Someone had reached him.

And for the first time since the boy's death, the storm changed direction.

The gods looked toward the east.

And waited.

Because they knew what was coming…

And it wouldn't come in silence.

It would come roaring.

The throne room of Elarion was unlike any other—a place built outside of time, carved from celestial stone and bathed in the glow of raw cosmic energy. The divine council had been summoned, not by formality, but by a surge—a primal cry from the deep, one every god had felt in their core. The awakening of Thalorin had begun shaking the pillars of the divine hierarchy, and those who ruled the heavens could no longer ignore it.

Sitting atop his obsidian throne was Zephyros, the God of Sky and Judgment. His golden eyes, like twin suns, watched the assembly with simmering intensity. Around him stood the gods—each one a force unto themselves.

Nymera, the Goddess of Shadows, her cloak ever shifting like a moonless night, stepped forward, her voice like wind through a crypt. "It has begun, hasn't it? The vessel stirs. The ancient one rises."

Aegirion, the newly-ascended god of tides, clenched his trident. "He's more than stirring. I saw it. I felt it. That… boy, Dominic—he is no longer himself. Thalorin has nested in his soul."

Zephyros leaned forward, his fingers steepled. "Not just nested. He is integrating. Melding with the human mind."

"But that's impossible," came the sharp voice of Seraphin, Goddess of Flame. "Thalorin was madness incarnate. A god-eater. No mortal mind should be able to withstand him."

"Unless," Nymera murmured, "he wasn't mortal to begin with."

A silence followed.

The air grew cold.

Zephyros rose from his throne.

"We know what must be done. We must eliminate him before he crosses the veil completely. Before he is no longer Dominic… but Thalorin reborn."

Aegirion's jaw tensed. "He was just a boy… He is just a boy. I walked with him in the Rift. I saw humanity still within him."

"That humanity," Zephyros said sharply, "is the weakness Thalorin will shed."

Before any argument could erupt, the room pulsed with sudden, blinding blue light. A portal opened—not summoned by divine hands, but by force.

Out stepped Poseidon.

Not Dominic.

Not a boy.

Not entirely Thalorin.

But something terrifying in between.

His presence made the chamber groan, celestial marble splintering underfoot. Water rippled along the floor where there was none. His eyes were voids filled with ancient oceans, and his aura was no longer human—it was old, sovereign, and laced with sorrow.

"You speak of me," Poseidon said, voice echoing like tidal waves crashing upon ancient cliffs. "And yet, you speak without understanding."

"Dominic?" Aegirion asked, his voice cracking.

"I am what he could never become," Poseidon replied, stepping further in. "Dominic was the shell. Thalorin, the fire. I… I am the tide forged from both."

"You are a threat," Zephyros said. "And threats must be ended."

Poseidon laughed. The room shuddered. "You cannot end the sea. Nor the coming storm."

Seraphin stepped forward, fire swirling at her fingertips. "We defeated Thalorin once. You are just a shadow of him. We'll snuff you out the same way."

Poseidon tilted his head. "Then come, flame goddess. Strike me, and test your belief."

Lightning laced with divine authority lashed from Zephyros's hands, fire tore through the air from Seraphin, and Nymera's shadow lashed outward in deadly silence. But the moment the attacks hit Poseidon—

—they froze.

Water coalesced around him, bending not from motion, but command.

Time bent.

And in the blink of an eye, their attacks were redirected—hurled back at their creators. The gods were blasted backward, crashing into the ethereal pillars of the council chamber.

Poseidon did not move.

He willed it.

Aegirion stepped forward again, desperation in his face. "Please… Dominic… there must be a way to separate you."

Poseidon looked at him, eyes momentarily softening. "You were kind to him. And because of that, I will give you a gift: I shall not destroy you."

Nymera reappeared from the shadows, blood trailing down her lip. "You intend to destroy the council?"

"I intend to rewrite the sea of fate. For too long, you've clung to balance built on the bones of forgotten gods. Thalorin was not your enemy—he was your reckoning."

Zephyros rose again, wings unfurling. "You will not leave this place."

"I will do more than leave." Poseidon turned toward the chamber doors, now glowing with divine lock-seals. "I will open what you fear most. The Forgotten Tides will rise."

He raised his hand.

The seal shattered like glass.

And behind it stood a void of waterless pressure—a prison that had held primordial beings cast out long ago.

"Dominic—Poseidon—don't do this!" Aegirion shouted. "This isn't the way!"

Poseidon paused.

And for a moment, just a breath, Dominic's voice broke through.

"Aegirion… Tell Kaeli I never forgot."

Then the tide returned.

And he stepped through the door.

The Forgotten Tides screamed into existence, unseen but felt, like drowning in a memory long suppressed.

Zephyros turned to the others, eyes blazing. "He's not a boy. Not a vessel. He is something new. Something beyond us."

Seraphin, scorched and panting, asked, "What now?"

Nymera wiped blood from her mouth. "Now? Now we prepare for war. One not just against Poseidon… but the past we buried."

Aegirion looked at the shattered seal and the yawning abyss behind it.

For the first time in centuries, the gods were no longer certain of victory.

And far below the divine skies, across the mortal realms, storms began to churn from nowhere, oceans shifted their tides, and the name Poseidon echoed through the dreams of mortals like a forgotten song returning to memory.

The sea was rising.

And with it… came reckoning.