Reincarnated As Poseidon-Chapter 38: Beneath the hollow

Run.

That was the first thing Dominic felt.

Not fear. Not rage.

Just instinct.

Run.

The Hollow Deep split open wider beneath him like a yawning grave. The eye below, the one that had blinked into existence, now glared with clarity. Not the haze of ancient sleep—but the recognition of something it once owned.

Lyrielle.

And maybe now, Dominic too.

---

The water vibrated as the Choir dispersed like startled birds, scattering upward in threads of song and mist. The ocean trembled. Bubbles spiraled to the surface in frantic currents.

Lyrielle’s voice cut through it, breathless. "We have to go. Now."

Dominic didn’t argue.

He turned and launched upward beside her, the trench beneath them cracking open like shattered glass.

Something massive uncoiled below.

They didn’t dare look back.

---

"Where are we going?" Dominic shouted through the rushing current.

"Anywhere that isn’t here!" she snapped.

A pulse of pressure slammed into them like a tidal slap. Dominic spun out of control for a second, crashing into a column of coral and scraping his arm.

He hissed.

Blood mingled with water.

The sea answered it.

---

Behind them, a tentacle—if it could even be called that—rose from the trench, long and jagged like the ribbed spine of a beast made of ancient ruin and silence. It brushed against a passing Choir member.

The siren shrieked—

Then dissolved.

Gone.

No death.

Just unmade.

Lyrielle gasped. "It’s feeding off names—identities. Anything with a soul."

Dominic’s heart thundered.

"We need to warn the others—Naerida, the palace—"

"We can’t lead it there!"

"Then where?"

Lyrielle paused, then pointed toward a dark corridor carved into the ocean wall.

"The Caverns of Stillwater. That thing won’t follow us into sacred ground."

Dominic didn’t hesitate.

---

Cut Scene: The Chase

The sea twisted behind them as the creature moved.

It didn’t chase like a predator. No fin or snarl.

It simply moved forward, erasing everything in its path. Water turned black. Pressure thickened. The reef structures collapsed behind them one by one.

Everything it touched cracked.

Old ruins. Old names.

Even memory seemed to fade where it passed.

Dominic gripped his trident harder, mouth dry.

It was hunting by resonance. Like it remembered the taste of him.

Not Poseidon.

Him.

Dominic Black.

---

They darted into the narrow canyon leading toward the Stillwater Caverns. The temperature dropped. Light faded.

But it was quiet.

For now.

Lyrielle hovered beside him, panting.

"I didn’t know it would awaken this soon," she muttered.

Dominic glared at her. "So you did want it to wake."

She met his eyes. "I wanted to remember who I was. I didn’t know I was a part of it."

A pause.

She swallowed.

"It doesn’t just erase. It collects. It was once a god of memory, before Olympus even named the sea."

Dominic shivered. "What’s it doing now?"

"Taking back what it thinks is its. Me... and you."

---

Elsewhere...

Back in the Hollow Deep, the creature rose further.

Not fully.

But enough.

Its voice vibrated across leagues of sea.

A chorus of silence.

Even in Maelora’s ruins, sea creatures scattered. Old statues cracked. And far off, a single harp on Naerida’s balcony snapped a string.

The Deep God wasn’t just awake.

It was curious.

And it wanted its name back.

---

Return: Stillwater Caverns

The water stilled the moment they entered.

A hush, unnatural.

No current. No sound.

Just a suspended blue-black quiet.

Lyrielle landed softly on an ancient platform, the ruins of a temple rising around them.

She whispered, "These stones remember when the sea was pure. It can’t enter here... not yet."

Dominic collapsed on the steps, panting. His hand was bleeding. He stared at it.

"Everything’s unraveling," he said quietly.

Lyrielle sat beside him. "You’ve only just begun to understand what you are."

He glanced at her. "You still think I’m just a vessel?"

She looked back.

"No. I think you’re the only thing standing between the Deep and the rest of us."

---

Cliffhanger Ending

The air grew cold.

A pulse from the trench below echoed even here.

Dominic closed his eyes, and for a moment, he saw flashes.

Not visions.

Memories.

Poseidon’s.

The moment he sealed the Deep God.

The moment he erased Lyrielle’s name.

And the moment he whispered: "If I fall, let the next bearer remember what we’ve done."

Dominic’s eyes snapped open.

And the sea... answered him with a whisper.

"You remember now. And so do I."

The Stillwater Caverns whispered.

Not in words, but in echoes—faint, disjointed notes of ancient voices long since dissolved into the sea. Dominic sat on the temple stone, blood still trickling from his palm where coral had torn him.

Every drop vanished into the saltwater.

But his blood was no longer just his.

It remembered.

And now... so did the Trident.

---

"Are you sure it can’t reach us here?" Dominic asked, his voice tight.

Lyrielle didn’t answer immediately. Her expression had changed since they entered. Sharper. Distant.

She stood near a mural carved into the stone wall—one depicting a serpent coiled around an inverted trident. Its eyes were missing. Its mouth sewn shut.

"The Stillwater grounds are protected by a vow older than Olympus," she said at last. "But it’s only temporary. Vows break. Seals fade."

Dominic looked up.

"You’ve been here before."

She didn’t deny it. "I was born here... before I was broken and sold to the Choir."

---

Dominic stood slowly, the water weightless around him.

"So what was that thing? You said it was a memory god. But that was no god—it was a monster."

"No," Lyrielle said quietly. "It was both."

She stepped forward, the currents rippling softly as if afraid to disturb the chamber.

"It was once the Keeper of the Deep—the one who recorded every oath sworn in the ocean. When Poseidon rose, he didn’t kill it. He bound it."

Dominic clenched his fists. "Why?"

"Because even gods are afraid of things that can remember the truth."

---

The Trident pulsed in his hand.

Dominic looked down.

Ever since the Hollow Deep opened, it had begun to hum—not with power, but with memory.

He saw flashes. Not dreams. Not visions.

Real moments.

The night Poseidon forged his trident not as a weapon, but as a key.

The echo of a girl singing to lull the Deep to sleep.

And Poseidon’s final words before the silence fell:

> "If I must forget what I’ve done... let my next self carry it."

Dominic shuddered. "It was never meant to be a weapon..."

"No," Lyrielle replied. "It was a seal."

---

Suddenly—

The Trident shivered.

Dominic’s eyes widened. "It’s reacting."

And then, without warning, the water above them stirred.

Something—no, someone—was approaching.

Lyrielle tensed. "It’s not the Deep."

A moment later, the water parted—and a familiar face entered the chamber.

Athena.

Draped in sea-iron robes and with golden hair braided in twin coils, she descended in solemn silence, her eyes locking onto Dominic.

"You’ve awakened it," she said coldly.

Dominic bristled. "I didn’t mean to—"

"No. But it was always going to happen. Poseidon’s seal was fraying the moment you were born."

Lyrielle took a step forward. "Why are you here?"

Athena’s gaze flicked to her. "Because Olympus is stirring. The sea is no longer its own kingdom. And the war you started has already reached the sky."

---

Flash Cut: Olympus, Moments Ago

High above the mortal realm, lightning cracked.

Zeus stood at the edge of a marble balcony, watching as the clouds churned unnaturally.

Hades appeared behind him, cloaked in shadow.

"It stirs," Hades said quietly. "Something older than the Styx has moved beneath the waves."

Zeus didn’t speak.

He just stared toward the sea—and frowned.

"Athena will contain it."

"Will she?" Hades whispered.

---

Back in Stillwater

Athena stepped closer to Dominic.

"You are no longer just you. You are what remains of Poseidon’s final oath. That trident is not yours to carry. Yet it chose you. So now you must understand what that means."

Dominic lifted it.

The Trident no longer gleamed. It pulsed like a beating heart.

"I don’t want Olympus’s war," he said quietly.

"I know," Athena replied. "But war doesn’t wait for want."

---

Suddenly, Lyrielle staggered.

Her eyes flashed white. She gasped.

Then—

A scream.

It wasn’t hers.

It was from the Deep.

A thunderous pulse vibrated through the water as the seal surrounding Stillwater cracked.

Athena’s eyes went wide.

"No—"

But it was too late.

---

A voice surged from beneath the ocean floor. Male. Ancient. Terrible.

"I REMEMBER MY NAME."

---

The murals shattered.

Water turned red.

Lyrielle collapsed. Dominic caught her as she fell.

Her lips trembled.

"It knows I’m here... it wants me back."

Athena summoned her spear, her expression hard.

"We have to seal the caverns. Now."

Dominic rose, heart pounding.

"Can we?"

Athena narrowed her eyes. "No."

Far below the ocean, where bones no longer remembered who they once belonged to...

The Deep stirred.

Tentacles wrapped around drowned temples.

And in the Hollow’s heart, the beast slowly lifted a crown made of rusted coral and lost oaths.

It placed it on what once was its head.

And the sea wept.

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