Reincarnated As Poseidon
Chapter 33: Athena

Chapter 33: Athena

The tide had settled, but the sea was far from calm.

Dominic stood at the edge of what remained of the battlefield. The ocean around him carried the ghost of war—shattered shells, the scent of scorched coral, and the low hum of something ancient still whispering beneath the waves. His trident hung loosely at his side, its glow dulled by exhaustion. He wasn’t sure if it was from the battle... or from within him.

Then the water shifted.

Not from below. From above.

A golden shimmer spiraled through the sea, pushing the dark aside. Not a storm. Not a monster.

A presence.

And then... she arrived.

Athena.

No fanfare. No lightning bolts or trumpet blasts. Just a glow of quiet brilliance—cool and sharp like moonlight across a blade.

She didn’t swim. She moved like thought, her cloak flowing around her like liquid silk. Her silver eyes scanned the sea floor, pausing on Dominic.

"You look like you lost more than blood," she said.

Dominic exhaled. "You’re late."

Athena’s gaze narrowed. "You’re alive. That’s not nothing."

He turned away. "Barely."

She drifted closer, arms crossed, lips drawn in that familiar goddess-smirk. "You fought a war at the bottom of the world. Against something even Hades stirred for. You bought the oceans time."

"And lost too many doing it."

Athena didn’t argue. She floated beside him, both staring into the dark. "I came when I could," she said. "The currents were tangled. Something... else is waking."

Dominic’s jaw tightened. "Thalorin?"

"No," Athena said, voice sharper now. "Something beneath even him. Something the gods once forgot. Or maybe chose to forget."

Dominic glanced at her. "So why are you really here?"

Athena didn’t blink. "To warn you."

The sea suddenly turned cold.

"There’s a fracture forming between realms," she continued. "One that war—your war—has only widened. The Choir was just the beginning. Lyrielle’s hunger was only a note in a much larger song."

Dominic felt the pressure in his chest grow. "And what about the vault? The memories of Poseidon? They’re calling to me."

"They’re bleeding into you," Athena said. "And that’s dangerous."

Dominic frowned. "Dangerous how?"

Athena hesitated, which wasn’t like her.

Then she said quietly, "Because the last time Poseidon reached this deep into his past... the world drowned."

A long silence.

The currents twisted.

Athena finally turned to him, her voice soft but certain. "I didn’t come to tell you what to do. I came to tell you that your choices... they’ll echo beyond you. Beyond the sea. You’ve stirred powers that are listening again."

Dominic looked at her, his face unreadable. "And if I fail?"

Athena floated closer, her hand briefly brushing his shoulder. "Then the sea won’t rise again. It’ll fall apart."

And just like that—she vanished. A whisper of starlight swallowed by the tide.

Dominic stood alone again.

But the silence didn’t feel so quiet now.

Something was moving.

And it had heard everything.

Far below the remnants of war, beyond the coral caverns and black pearl fields of Thalorenn, the ocean cracked.

It did not roar. It did not scream.

It hummed.

A long, trembling note that only the dead could hear. Or the ancient.

The Deep knew.

And the Deep responded.

Thump...

A heartbeat.

But not the kind belonging to any mortal, not even a god. This beat belonged to something older than names. Older than tides. Older than Olympus itself.

Somewhere in the trench—far beneath where light gave up trying—an eye opened.

Not one.

Three.

Each burned like molten sapphire and obsidian, locked in an eternal stare toward the surface, toward Dominic.

> "He stirs..."

"The One Who Fell..."

"The Boy Who Bears the Crown..."

The voices came as one. Yet not one. A choir of the Deep, not Lyrielle’s twisted creation, but a much older harmony—cold, detached, uncaring.

This was not hate.

It was memory.

It remembered Poseidon.

Not as a god.

But as a thief.

---

Elsewhere – The Edge of Naerida’s Court

Dominic stood in the shallows of a broken archway, watching the currents. He had been silent for hours since Athena’s departure. Not brooding—listening.

The whispers beneath his thoughts had grown louder.

He could hear songs in the water now. Not lyrics. Not words.

Vibrations. Like someone plucking the strings of reality from below.

The Trident pulsed.

He gripped it harder.

Naerida approached from behind, her aura weary but sharp.

"We’ve begun rebuilding the shields," she said. "Varun has returned to the eastern tides. The Choir hasn’t struck again."

Dominic didn’t look at her. "Because they’re waiting."

She paused. "For what?"

He turned slowly, the shadows under his eyes deeper than usual.

"For what’s really coming."

Naerida frowned. "You’re speaking like a prophet."

"I’m speaking like someone who’s seen beyond the sea."

She stepped closer. "Then speak clearly, Dominic. We’ve buried thousands. We’re owed the truth."

He faced her fully. "There’s something beneath Thalorenn. Not just vaults. Not just memories. A being older than all this."

Naerida blinked. "You mean a Leviathan?"

"No," Dominic said. "I mean the thing Leviathans fear."

---

Cut To: The Abyssal Scar

The ocean trembled.

Across the deepest rift in Thalorenn, sea life fled in droves. Whales breached and never returned. Krakens curled into themselves like infants.

And then... the Scar bled.

A fissure split open, releasing black smoke that did not rise, but sank—pulling light, pulling heat, pulling hope.

A tail—longer than a city, covered in scars and ancient runes—shifted in the dark.

It had awakened.

And its voice filled the water like a curse:

> "POSEIDON RETURNS."

"HIS BLOOD FLOWS AGAIN."

"AND I... REMEMBER."

The sea floor cracked.

Massive plates of dead coral exploded upward.

The Rift... yawned wider.

And for the first time in millennia, the gods above Olympus turned their eyes to the ocean again.

Even Zeus, sitting on his throne of thunder, paused.

Even Hades, in his obsidian tomb, clutched his blade tighter.

---

Back at Thalorenn’s edge

Dominic dropped to one knee, clutching his chest.

The pulse.

The Trident screamed in his bones.

Naerida rushed forward. "What’s wrong?"

"I saw it," Dominic hissed, trembling. "It saw me. The thing beneath the Rift—it knows my name."

Naerida’s eyes widened.

And then they all heard it.

A sound that didn’t belong in water.

A deep, echoing tone—like a bell struck in the dark, followed by silence so vast it made the sea feel small.

A summon.

A declaration.

Athena’s voice whispered in his mind:

> "You need to run."

But Dominic stood.

And whispered back:

> "No. I think it’s time I remembered, too."