Reincarnated As Poseidon

The battlefield still steamed.

What once had been a sea turned battlefield was now neither ocean nor sky—just a fractured ruin where both bled into each other. Waves hung in midair, frozen fragments of tide held aloft by shattered divinity. Lightning forked without thunder. The earth beneath was drowned, its mountains flattened into ridges of broken coral and glass.

And at the center stood Poseidon.

His trident was buried into the ruin, waves whispering from its prongs like tired voices. His chest heaved, every breath dragging salt into the air. Blood—his own, thick with the weight of gods—ran down his arm, dripping into the hollow sea below. Each drop sent ripples that rang like bells through the silence.

The three gods who had stood against him were gone.

Two dissolved into foam and memory. The last had fled, broken and half-mad, their divine ichor trailing across the horizon like a bleeding comet.

Victory. But not without price.

---

The Silence That Followed

Mortals below had no words for what they saw. Sailors who once prayed to the sea now wept into their rigging, whispering prayers not of devotion, but of terror. Coastal villages dared not light their lamps, fearing their flickers might draw the eye of the god who had just shattered heavens.

The silence was heavier than war.

No gulls wheeled overhead.

No waves crashed on the shore.

The sea itself seemed to hesitate—waiting for Poseidon's command.

And he… did not give it.

He only stood, chest burning, vision flickering between clarity and haze. He had won. Yet the taste of victory was brine and ash. The three gods he had crushed were not meaningless. They were pillars of the old order. To remove them was to weaken the balance that had bound Olympus and the mortal realms alike.

The Aftermath was only beginning.

---

In the Depths of His Mind

A whisper coiled in his thoughts.

"More. Take more. Break them all. Only then will you be free."

Thalorin's voice.

The ancient abyss, his eternal shadow.

Poseidon clenched his teeth. His fingers trembled against the trident shaft. He had silenced Thalorin once before, buried the drowned god's hunger beneath his own will. But with every divine he struck down, the line between them blurred.

He could feel the abyss beneath his heartbeat.

The yawning hunger.

The temptation to let go.

But he did not.

Not yet.

---

Olympus Watches

Far above, in Olympus, the halls of marble and flame quaked with unease.

The gods who had not joined the battle whispered among themselves, voices dripping with fear.

"He defeated them?"

"Three at once?"

"Impossible… Poseidon was sealed, diminished…"

But the truth stood undeniable. The mortal sea had tilted. Stars themselves had dimmed when his trident struck.

Zeus sat silent upon his throne, lightning dim in his palm. His jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Hera's eyes narrowed, her voice like knives.

"He is no longer a god of the sea. He is the sea."

A silence followed. Even the proud Olympians, drunk on their immortality, could not speak against that truth. Poseidon was becoming something beyond them.

And something had to be done.

---

The Mortal Shoreline

On the ruined coast, survivors gathered. Fishermen clung to broken nets. Mothers wept over children carried away by waves they could not fight. Priests of the Seven Currents knelt in the brine, their chants hollow, their eyes empty.

Some cursed Poseidon's name.

Others whispered it as prayer.

And more—most—simply feared to speak at all.

For what was a god who drowned friend and foe alike?

Was he savior, or destroyer?

They did not know.

And Poseidon gave no answer.

He only walked through the tide, each step leaving whirlpools in his wake. Mortals shrank back from him, yet none dared run. His presence was gravity itself. He was no longer a god they prayed to. He was a god they prayed around.

Amidst the wreckage stood the Watcher, the priest who had long tended the drowned bell. His eyes, clouded with age, burned with a strange clarity now.

He saw Poseidon—not as mortals did, not as gods feared him—but as the shape of inevitability.

"You are no longer bound," the Watcher whispered as Poseidon passed. "Not by tide, nor by fate. You tilt the harbors of heaven itself."

Poseidon paused, trident still dripping ichor. His gaze flicked to the priest.

For a heartbeat, the sea itself listened.

Then he walked on, leaving the words to sink like stones into silence.

Far beneath the waves, in the places where no mortal eye could ever see, the abyss stirred. Chains that had once bound Thalorin rattled. The drowned king's laughter rippled through trenches older than the world.

Poseidon's victories tore at those chains. Every god's blood he spilled was another link loosened, another bar bent.

The abyss rejoiced.

The ocean's shadows deepened.

And Poseidon knew it.

Each victory made him stronger—but also made the abyss closer.

The question gnawed at him like salt at wounds:

Would he remain Poseidon?

Or would Thalorin rise in his place?

Storms gathered in unnatural silence across the horizon. Not winds. Not rain. Just walls of water rising where no shore lay. Tides bent in ways they never had before, pulled toward Poseidon's will.

Even the moon, silent guardian of the sea, seemed to waver in its orbit. The heavens tilted, ever so slightly, toward the drowned god.

The world was no longer balanced.

And Olympus knew it.

And mortals felt it.

And Poseidon stood at its center, victorious but bleeding, a figure both worshiped and feared, savior and destroyer, god and abyss.

The aftermath was not peace.

It was the beginning of something far greater.

Poseidon raised his gaze to the sky, salt wind whipping his hair across his face. His voice rolled like thunder dragged beneath the sea.

"Three are gone. How many more will fall before Olympus bends?"

The sea answered with silence—yet the silence itself felt like submission.

And somewhere, deep within the abyss, Thalorin laughed.

The battle was over.

The war had only begun.