Chapter 351: We Almost Got Him
The sky above Olympus was no longer serene.
Clouds, once white and radiant, churned black as ink. Thunder rolled without pause, echoing through the marble halls. The mountains trembled with every strike of trident against shield as gods assembled for war.
But in the very heart of the storm, Poseidon stood.
No longer the boy. No longer the vessel. No longer a whisper of Thalorin.
He was Poseidon entire. The god reborn.
And Olympus hated him for it.
The climb up Olympus had been deliberate, not hurried. Each step Poseidon took reshaped the land itself. Valleys below had filled with brine, mountain streams reversing their flow to join his tide. Mortals knelt at the foot of the mountain, not in prayer to Zeus, nor to Hera, nor to Athena—but to the sea that had risen against the sky.
Poseidon heard them all. Their voices were not pleas—they were surrender.
By the time he reached the white gates, a host of gods already barred his way. Their armor shone like hammered sunlight, their weapons pulsing with divine resonance.
Athena stood at the forefront, her eyes sharp, her spear glinting. Beside her, Ares’s crimson war-flame licked the blade of his sword. Hermes hovered just above, wings beating in agitation, while Hephaestus dragged chains of molten iron that hissed when they touched the marble.
"Poseidon," Athena’s voice was level, though her knuckles whitened on her spear. "You should not have come here."
He tilted his head, saltwater dripping from his fingers. "Should not? The sea does not ask permission to rise. It simply does."
Ares snarled. "Then we break your tide."
The first strike came from Athena, spear thrust in a blur of light. Poseidon lifted his hand—water surged from the air itself, coiling into a serpent that caught the blow mid-flight. The spear hissed as the serpent’s jaws snapped, bending celestial metal before hurling it back.
Ares roared, leaping in. His sword struck Poseidon’s trident in a clash that shook the gates. Sparks turned to seawater, splashing across divine marble. Waves surged outward, knocking aside the front ranks of lesser gods.
Hermes darted around, blades of light flicking toward Poseidon’s throat. But the sea-god moved without moving—currents twisted, dragging Hermes off course, his speed undone as though running through a dream of drowning.
"Too slow," Poseidon murmured.
Then Hephaestus’s chains struck. Wrought from the magma at the world’s heart, they wrapped around Poseidon’s arm, searing with divine heat. For a moment, Olympus cheered as smoke hissed from the bindings.
Poseidon only smiled.
The sea boiled, erupting in a geyser that cooled molten iron to brittle stone. With a twist, he shattered the chains. The fragments dissolved into salt before they hit the floor.
"You come at me as generals," Poseidon said, his voice resonating like waves against cliffs. "But remember—I am the sea. Generals drown with their soldiers the same."
The battle spilled into the courtyards. Columns toppled, fountains overflowed, and divine fire burned across the horizon. Mortal eyes watching from far below saw Olympus wreathed in unnatural stormlight, lightning and water dueling in the heavens.
Athena and Poseidon locked again, divine will clashing as much as weapon against weapon. "This path destroys everything!" she shouted.
Poseidon’s gaze was cold. "Everything built on your false order deserves to be destroyed."
Behind her, Ares rallied, leaping upon a wave only for it to twist and devour him whole. Hermes reappeared with blood on his lip, his speed slowed, his face pale from the drowning pressure that clung to him.
Hephaestus, limping but unbroken, hurled a forge’s worth of molten spears—Poseidon’s waters swallowed them, transforming the metal into rust before they landed.
Every strike only made Olympus wetter. Salt coated the marble, flooding the stairs. The mountain itself wept brine.
When the gods regrouped, Poseidon lifted his trident high.
"Olympus has stood above mortals long enough," he declared. His voice shook the very stars. "You called me banished. You called me chained. Now see the truth—your sky tilts toward the sea!"
With a thrust of his trident, the horizon itself bent. Mortals far below screamed as they saw the impossible—the Aegean rising like a wall, climbing the sky, pressing against Olympus. The mountain groaned, marble cracking under the weight of oceans dragged upward.
Athena gasped, forced to plant her spear into the ground just to remain standing. "He’s... shifting the balance of the world!"
Hermes’s eyes widened. "He’s tilting the axis—he’ll drown Olympus in the sky itself!"
The gods rallied desperately. Athena called upon wisdom older than empires, striking with precision. Ares unleashed fury that tore the air itself apart. Hephaestus summoned chains hot enough to melt stars. Hermes sped faster than sound, trying to disrupt the tidal pull.
But Poseidon stood against them, his body moving as though guided by the ocean itself. Their blows sank into water and re-emerged against themselves. Their strategies cracked against inevitability.
And when he struck back—it was not with anger. It was with inevitability.
Waves of memory and salt swept the battlefield, filling the gods’ lungs with the sensation of drowning, forcing them to remember the first time they were powerless.
Athena staggered, her spear trembling. Ares fell to one knee, cursing the brine that filled his chest. Hermes collapsed mid-flight, crashing against a flooded column.
Only Hephaestus still stood, forging weapon after weapon even as his body burned. But even his fire dimmed beneath the tide.
At last, Poseidon struck his trident into the marble floor of Olympus.
The mountain cracked.
A roar of water thundered upward, bursting through palaces and gardens, drowning temples, sweeping aside statues of Zeus and Hera like driftwood. Entire halls filled in seconds, golden thrones dragged into the abyss.
The gods were hurled back, battered, bloodied. Some vanished into the waves, their cries silenced.
And when the tide fell silent again, only Poseidon stood in the ruins of Olympus’s gates.
The once-proud mountain was wet, broken, and tilted toward him.
He looked up at the storm above, his voice calm.
"Let the sky remember—there is no throne above the sea."
Far below, mortals knelt.
They had felt it—the quake, the flood, the tilt of the very world. They whispered his name not in fear, nor in prayer, but in acknowledgment.
Poseidon.
Their god.
Above, the surviving gods staggered into retreat. Athena carried Hermes’s broken body. Ares snarled in defiance but limped, blood staining his armor. Hephaestus dragged himself away, his forge extinguished.
And all of Olympus knew—this was no longer a war of defense.
It was survival.
Poseidon had claimed the battlefield.
And the tide was still rising.