Reincarnated As Poseidon

Three gods had already fallen to his tide. Their essence still churned faintly within the waves, their divinity dissolved into saltwater. But others had come, furious and unwilling to allow one god—one reborn monster—to unmake the balance of Olympus.

Zephyros, the Sky-Judge, descended first. His cloak of stormclouds cracked with lightning, wings blazing with solar fire. His gaze was judgment incarnate, though beneath it a shadow of unease lingered. He had seen Poseidon shrug off decrees, bend councils, and drown cities with the ease of breathing.

Beside him landed Seraphin, Goddess of Flame, her hands wrapped in scarlet embers that hissed against the salt-laden air. The fire bent and spat as if recoiling from the sea's damp dominance. Yet she stepped forward, defiance burning hotter in her chest than on her hands.

Nymera followed last, sliding from shadow itself. Cloaked in night, she looked less like a goddess and more like a wound in reality—eyes like cold moons, voice softer than death. "He has grown," she murmured, not with awe, but recognition.

They stood before him—three pillars of Olympus, hardened and ready.

Poseidon looked at them not as enemies, but as inevitabilities. His lips curled faintly.

"You send storms. You send fire. You send shadows. And still, you believe the tide bows to the sky, to flame, to night?"

His voice rolled outward, not as sound but as surf—drenching the battlefield, rattling stone and mortal bone alike.

On the cliffs overlooking the drowned ruins, the surviving mortals clung to their perches. Fishermen, priests, and mothers watched in stunned silence.

Some whispered prayers to the old pantheon, begging the gods to strike Poseidon down. Others fell to their knees in reverence to him—no longer praying for rescue, but to be spared when the sea finished its claim.

"The sea chose a king," muttered the old Watcher of Tides, face streaked with salt. "And kings do not kneel."

---

The Clash Begins

Zephyros struck first. His spear of lightning plunged from sky to sea, thunder splitting heavens and earth alike. It would have obliterated a mountain.

But Poseidon merely raised his trident.

Water rose like a shield, swallowing the storm. Lightning fizzled within the depths, devoured and dispersed until only harmless sparks rained down like dying stars.

Zephyros faltered—just for a heartbeat—before summoning a second strike, harsher, heavier, driven by fury.

That was Seraphin's cue. She hurled a torrent of fire, a sun-born inferno meant to boil oceans to steam. The flames screeched as they struck the rising tide. Steam erupted, cloaking battlefield and sky alike in a choking fog.

Through the mist, Nymera moved like a knife, shadows stretching, splitting into a hundred blades of void. They darted for Poseidon's throat, his heart, his eyes.

But the sea did not fear the dark.

Poseidon stepped forward. His trident swept once—once—and every shadow blade bent sideways, absorbed into the swirling mist like smoke into wind.

"Pathetic," Poseidon whispered, though his voice thundered across sky and stone. "You fight as if you face a man. But I am the sea. And the sea does not fight—it consumes."

With one motion, Poseidon drove his trident into the ground.

The coast screamed. Cracks split through the ruins, gushing torrents of seawater upward like veins opening to the sky. The battlefield was drowned in seconds, knee-deep, waist-deep, chest-deep—until even gods stood with waves lapping at their waists.

Mortals screamed on the cliffs as the water surged higher, higher, as if the land itself would be erased.

Zephyros lifted his wings, dragging himself aloft with furious gusts. But Poseidon's eyes followed, and suddenly the air was heavy with moisture. Storm winds faltered. Wings dragged like anchors.

Seraphin's fire hissed and guttered as saltwater rose around her. Every flame she birthed was smothered, drowned before it could grow.

Nymera vanished into shadow, yet the water followed her, filling every crevice, every fold of dark, until even her refuge betrayed her.

The battlefield no longer belonged to Olympus. It belonged to Poseidon.

Yet the gods of Olympus were not so easily erased.

Zephyros roared, drawing storms from the higher sky. Thunder split the heavens, jagged bolts lashing into the water again and again. Not to kill Poseidon—but to churn the tide, to break his control.

Seraphin screamed, her body blazing until she became fire incarnate. Flames wrapped her entire form, searing the very air, evaporating the water that touched her. Boiling steam rose in towers around her, a defiance of heat against ocean's suffocating chill.

And Nymera whispered. Her voice, sharp as a knife, cut through the rising flood. Shadows gathered in the depths below, merging with drowned corpses, giving them form. Dozens of silhouettes, eyeless and black, clawed their way from the tide—shadow-drowned warriors, servants of Nymera's will.

The battlefield writhed with storm, fire, and shadow.

Even Poseidon paused.

The God of the Sea Unleashed

Then he laughed.

It was not human laughter, not mortal mockery. It was the breaking of waves against cliffs, the endless echo of oceans pounding the world's edge. It shook mortals from their perches, rattled the very bones of Olympus.

"You bring storms, fire, and night against the sea?" Poseidon's voice boomed. "Do you know what the sea does to storms? It swallows them. Do you know what the sea does to fire? It extinguishes it. Do you know what the sea does to night? It reflects the moon until shadows forget themselves."

He lifted his trident high.

The ocean rose.

Not as waves. Not as tide. But as a wall of endless water, curving overhead until it blotted out the moon and stars.

Mortals shrieked, some praying, some fainting, some worshipping outright. The gods themselves froze at the sheer immensity.

And then Poseidon brought the sea down

The impact was beyond sound. Beyond sight. Beyond anything mortals—or even gods—were meant to endure.

The shoreline vanished beneath the crushing collapse of water. Towers shattered, cliffs buckled, ruins dissolved into spray. Even the gods staggered.

Zephyros barely shielded himself with a cocoon of storm, lightning lashing outward to break the tide that pressed to drown him.

Seraphin screamed, her fire boiling the water immediately around her, creating a furious sphere of steam that hissed and spat like an open furnace.

Nymera's shadows dissolved entirely, her form scattering into fragments of night before reforming far, far away, coughing water and blood.

And Poseidon stood in the center of it all, unshaken, the sea roaring behind him as though the entire ocean had chosen its master.

---

The Mortal Realization

On the cliffs, the Watcher of Tides fell to his knees, salt spray soaking his robes. His voice cracked, trembling, but carried the weight of prophecy.

"It is no longer Dominic. No longer vessel. No longer man. He is Poseidon. And Olympus will break before the tide does."

When the waves at last pulled back, dragging debris and corpses with them, the battlefield was unrecognizable.

Zephyros floated in the sky, wings torn, his judgment trembling.

Seraphin collapsed to one knee, fire flickering weakly in her palms.

Nymera crouched in shadow, soaked and silent, her pale eyes glaring through dripping strands of hair.

They had not been destroyed. Not yet.

But neither had they won.

Poseidon lifted his trident from the shattered stone, water cascading from its prongs like blood from a blade. His gaze swept across them all—not hatred, not rage. Merely inevitability.

"The sea does not bow," Poseidon said. "Not to sky. Not to flame. Not to shadow. Not to Olympus itself."

And with those words, the ocean behind him surged again, awaiting only his command to strike once more.

The gods had gathered. They had resisted. But in the heart of every immortal watching, a truth burned bitter as salt:

Poseidon was not simply reborn.

He was ascendant.

And the ocean that walked as a man would not bow.