Reincarnated As Poseidon-Chapter 51: When gods come down

The sea had never been this still.

No waves. No whirlpools. No currents.

Just silence.

Not empty silence, but something heavier—like the ocean itself was holding its breath. The battlefield that once thundered with songs of war and screams of dying sirens now lay quiet. Coral shards drifted lazily through the water. Fragments of armor glinted beneath soft beams of fading light.

Dominic remained suspended in the center of it all, alone.

His chest rose and fell slowly. The trident hummed faintly in his hand, no longer pulsing with power, but resting—almost asleep. Around him, the last echoes of the First Voice’s presence faded like fog burning in the morning sun.

He turned his gaze toward where Lyrielle had been.

There was nothing left. No body. No trail.

Just thin strands of dark energy dissolving into the water.

She was gone.

Whether destroyed or banished, he couldn’t tell. But whatever she had awakened... had refused her.

Naerida approached carefully from a distance. Her armor was cracked, her face streaked with dried blood and exhaustion. But her eyes were sharp, locked on Dominic like she was seeing him for the first time.

He looked different.

Not just older—deeper. As if something in him had stopped pretending to be human.

She stopped a few feet away and didn’t speak at first.

He broke the silence.

"...It’s over."

Naerida shook her head slightly. "No. It’s quiet. That’s not the same."

Dominic lowered the trident, letting it drift beside him. "The Choir is gone. The Vault sealed itself. The First Voice... it saw what it needed to see."

"But the sea remembers," Naerida said. Her voice wasn’t harsh. Just tired. "Whatever it gave you... it’s not done."

Dominic nodded. He didn’t feel victorious. He felt... chosen. Not in a way he liked.

In the far distance, great whales began to sing again. Their songs were softer, slower, cautious. Nature always knew when the world had shifted.

Naerida tilted her head. "You felt it, didn’t you?"

He looked at her.

"The truth," she continued. "What the First Voice was. Why it was sealed."

He nodded. "It wasn’t a monster. It was a part of the ocean the gods were too afraid to keep alive. The part that remembers. The part that forgives nothing."

Her gaze hardened. "And now it’s in you."

Dominic didn’t respond.

He couldn’t deny it. His blood still buzzed. His vision still flickered with strange memories—cities that had never existed, creatures that hadn’t swum in eons, voices that didn’t use words.

"I didn’t ask for it," he said softly.

Naerida sighed. "None of us asked for what we carry. But we carry it anyway."

There was a long pause between them.

Then, from the edge of the broken sea, something stirred.

A faint ripple.

Not threatening. Not violent.

Just a reminder that the sea was watching.

Naerida looked toward it. "You should rest. The gods will come soon. They’ll want answers."

Dominic gave a tired smile. "Let them ask."

He turned and began to swim toward a distant ridge of coral that had remained untouched by the chaos. A place still breathing. He didn’t want a throne. He didn’t want power.

But he did want peace—if only for a moment.

And the sea, for now, let him have it.

The clouds over Olympus hadn’t moved in hours.

Thunder rumbled low, not from storms, but from tension. The gods were watching, and the sea wasn’t hiding anymore. Every drop of rain that fell to earth now carried the weight of what had been awakened below.

In the great hall of Olympus, Zeus stood at the edge of the Sky Pool, arms folded tightly across his chest. The rippling surface showed Dominic—floating alone near a reef, silent, wounded, but very much alive.

"It saw him," Zeus muttered.

Athena stepped forward, calm but cold. "No... it chose him."

Hephaestus sat on a stone bench, sharpening a blade he had no intention of using. "Poseidon never mentioned a First Voice."

"Because Poseidon feared it," Hera said, appearing beside them in a flow of golden mist. "He sealed it when the world was still new. Before you were gods. Before mortals even had names."

Apollo’s gaze flicked to the pool. "So what do we do now?"

Silence.

Even Hermes had nothing witty to offer. He just stared, restless, tapping his fingers.

Finally, Zeus sighed and raised his hand. A column of light surged downward, piercing the clouds, splitting the ocean.

Far below, in the mortal sea, Dominic turned his head as the waters above him boiled.

They had come.

Olympus was descending.

He floated upright as the first figure broke through the surface—Athena, poised and calm, her golden shield reflecting the flicker of bioluminescent coral.

She was followed by Apollo, his presence warm but sharp, eyes glowing like twin suns.

Then Hera. Then Hermes.

And finally... Zeus.

Lightning wrapped around his form like a second skin, his eyes deep as a storm’s heart. He landed softly on the seabed, but the weight of him cracked the coral beneath his feet.

Dominic said nothing.

Neither did they.

The gods circled slowly.

No weapons were drawn, but the air felt thick.

Zeus broke the silence. "You’ve changed."

Dominic nodded. "The sea changed me."

"And the thing you met beneath the vault?" Athena asked.

Dominic looked at her. "It never left. Not completely."

"You’re not Poseidon," Hera said softly, like a warning.

"I never claimed to be," Dominic replied.

"That power doesn’t belong to you," Apollo added.

Dominic tilted his head. "Then whose does it belong to? The gods who buried it? The sirens who tried to control it? Or the one who remembers what the sea actually is?"

Zeus stepped closer. "That’s not your decision to make."

"It already made the decision," Dominic answered. "You’re not here to take it back. You’re here to decide whether you accept it."

Lightning snapped quietly in Zeus’s hand. It wasn’t meant to threaten—it was instinct.

Athena studied Dominic’s face. She could see the changes now. The way his eyes shimmered—not with divine arrogance, but with ancient weight. Like someone who had seen too much to be young anymore.

"Then tell us," she said. "What does the sea remember?"

Dominic looked at them all. Slowly. One by one.

Then his voice came, steady, without anger. "It remembers you. All of you. The silence. The seals. The things you buried because you were afraid they didn’t belong in your perfect order."

He turned to Zeus. "The sea never needed Olympus. You needed it."

There was a stillness after that.

The kind that came before storms... or surrender.

Then, to everyone’s surprise, Zeus lowered his lightning.

Hera narrowed her eyes but said nothing.

Athena only nodded.

It was Apollo who asked what no one else dared.

"What are you going to do now?"

Dominic didn’t smile. But he didn’t look afraid either.

"I’m going to find the places still broken. The wounds you didn’t see—or didn’t bother to heal. I’m not a god. I’m not a king. But the ocean’s not looking for another throne."

He turned his back to them.

"The ocean’s looking for someone who listens."

Zeus didn’t stop him.

No one did.

As Dominic drifted into the fading light, the gods remained behind, silent, thoughtful.

And for the first time in a very long time...

...they had no answer.

This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶