Reincarnated As Poseidon

The sea bled red at dawn.

It wasn't from mortal battlefields, but from the sky itself. The horizon, once a pale curve of gold, had split as if a seam in the heavens had been torn open. Through it poured a light that wasn't sunlight—dark, molten crimson, shot with streaks of abyssal blue. The air above the waves cracked with thunder, yet no clouds moved.

Poseidon stood upon the surface of the ocean, his trident resting lightly at his side. The waters beneath him stilled, reflecting the impossible horizon like a cracked mirror. He could feel it, deeper than marrow, deeper than the current in his veins: the gods had ripped open another gate.

They were coming.

Not mortals. Not demigods. Not even lesser divinities. No—this was a hunt sanctioned by Olympus itself. A decree sealed with fire and sky.

And still, Poseidon smiled.

The tide answered his smile with a rise. Waves bowed outward from him like subjects before a king, even as lightning clawed downward into the sea, boiling whole leagues of water.

From within the crimson seam stepped three figures.

The first was cloaked in flame, hair like molten rivers spilling down his shoulders, eyes burning with the fury of suns. Hephaestus, the forge-god, his hammer slung across his back, the weight of creation clanging with every step.

The second was pale as bone, clothed in black. His eyes were empty pits, his hands clasping chains that dripped with spectral frost. Thanatos, the god of death, who bound souls with silence. His gaze met Poseidon's with something colder than hatred: inevitability.

The third descended last, borne on wings of white fire, her crown shaped from celestial crystal. Hera, queen of Olympus, matron of dominion, fury incarnate. Her presence bent the air itself, and her voice cracked like thunder.

"Poseidon," she said, her tone a decree rather than a greeting. "You trespass against Olympus. You break the order of the heavens. By the will of Zeus and by my hand, your existence ends here."

The horizon sealed behind them, locking the battlefield between sea and sky.

Poseidon raised his trident, the sea responding with a roar. His voice cut across the waves, carrying to every mortal who trembled along the coastlines.

"You call me trespasser. Yet it is I who am the sea. Tell me, queen—since when does the tide trespass upon the shore?"

Hera's wings flared. "Since it dares claim dominion above its station!"

The battle began with fire.

Hephaestus swung his hammer, and the air screamed. Chains of molten iron erupted from the horizon, hundreds of them, lashing toward Poseidon like serpents of the forge. Each chain carried the weight of anchors meant to drag gods themselves into submission.

Poseidon swept his trident once.

The ocean erupted upward, a wall of water tall enough to swallow the chains whole. Steam hissed where fire met tide, and the sound was like a city crumbling to dust. Yet the hammer strikes did not stop—each impact sent shockwaves across the ocean, boiling the surface for miles.

Then came death.

Thanatos's chains slithered forward, not of iron but of spirit. They did not strike the water—they struck within it, pulling at the souls drowned across the ages. Every lost sailor, every weeping widow, every corpse that had sunk to the abyss—all answered Thanatos's call. They rose screaming in spectral forms, dragging at Poseidon's ankles.

"Your kingdom is built on the drowned," Thanatos whispered, his voice carrying through the roar of the sea. "And they are mine."

The tide quivered. For a heartbeat, the abyss pulled against its lord.

But Poseidon only laughed.

"You would use my own dead against me? Then you have forgotten who keeps their silence."

His voice boomed, not outward, but downward. The ocean floor shook. The drowned souls turned, not toward Poseidon, but against Thanatos. The god of death staggered as his own chains wrapped about him, dragged by the weight of countless drowned who had always belonged to the sea.

Then came the queen.

Hera's hand rose, and the sky tore. Bolts of white lightning, each as thick as a tower, plunged downward in endless torrents. They did not strike randomly—they struck with precision, cutting the sea around Poseidon into islands of boiling foam.

Poseidon raised his trident high.

The waters he commanded rose with him. They shaped into serpents, krakens, colossal titans of brine and scale. One by one, they caught the lightning, grounding it within their forms, until the sea itself glowed with veins of divine fire.

"Do you still not understand?" Poseidon's voice rolled like a tidal quake. "You do not fight a man. You fight the ocean. And the ocean does not yield."

Hephaestus bellowed, his forge-fire heating the air until clouds combusted. He hurled his hammer downward, shattering one of Poseidon's sea-serpents into steam. "You were banished! Cast down into the Rift! Even you cannot fight Olympus!"

Thanatos tore free of his chains, his cloak spreading into wings of shadow. He hurled blades of silence that cut through sound itself, making the sea mute where they struck.

Hera dove like a comet, her spear a lance of celestial light. She aimed not for Poseidon's body but his core—his divinity, the very concept of the sea.

The ocean lord moved.

He let the waves part beneath him, dragging himself into the abyss, then rising again in a column of water miles high. His trident split Hephaestus's chains, shattered Thanatos's blades, and met Hera's spear in a clash that lit the heavens.

The force of their collision split the sea. Mortals watching from the coasts saw the ocean pull away from their shores entirely, leaving the seabed bare for the first time in memory. Entire reefs cracked open under the weight of absence.

When the waters crashed back, the flood carried ships, cities, and entire forests with it.

Still, the gods did not yield.

At last, Hera raised her spear once more, voice echoing with Olympus's authority.

"Enough! By decree of the heavens, I bind you, Poseidon! Yield, or be unmade!"

The words laced themselves into chains—law itself, given shape. They wrapped the air, the sea, the world around Poseidon. This was not a weapon. It was a decree. The kind of law even gods feared.

Poseidon lowered his trident.

The sea fell silent.

And then he spoke.

"You decree that I should yield? Very well. But tell me this—when law meets tide, which erodes first?"

The ocean answered his words.

The crimson horizon cracked again, this time not by Olympus's hand, but by his. Water surged upward, higher than mountains, and slammed into the divine chains, breaking them like driftwood. Hera was hurled backward, her wings snapping with the force.

Hephaestus sank beneath a whirlpool of his own molten chains, struggling to rise. Thanatos vanished into the abyss, his own spirits turning against him in a maelstrom of endless drowned.

Poseidon stood alone upon the waves, trident raised, his voice shaking the sea and sky alike.

"Let Olympus hear me," he thundered. "The tide has risen. The horizon is broken. I am not your prisoner. I am not your exile. I am Poseidon."

The horizon shattered fully, spilling light and storm across the mortal world.