A storm churned in the heart of the sea.
Not from nature, but from the awakening of something ancient—older than Olympus, darker than Tartarus.
Dominic floated above the black scar of the Rift, his armor glowing faint blue with divine markings etched in coral and crystal. The Trident of Tides hummed in his hand, a pulse syncing with his heartbeat, steadying him as the abyss below snarled with shifting currents and corrupted magic.
Beside him, an army like the sea had never seen before awaited his command.
Merrow warriors armed with conch-blades. Leviathan-bound knights riding bioluminescent sea serpents. Siren archers, their melodies strung into razor-sharp arrows. Even the mighty seahorse legions from the Southern Dunes had answered his call.
Talyon grunted. "Still not too late to run, my lord."
Dominic offered a half-smile. "We either drown this evil, or we drown with it."
Suddenly, the sea stilled.
No currents. No waves.
Just silence.
Then—a crack.
From the Rift, a wave of black tendrils burst forth, each pulsing with veins of red lightning. Creatures followed—grotesque shadows of fish and men, all fused with bone and abyssal ooze. Their eyes glowed with hatred. Their screams echoed like the cries of the dead.
"Positions!" Dominic roared, raising the trident.
The ocean ignited.
Sirens unleashed volleys of sonic arrows. Merrow swords clashed with clawed abominations. Serpent riders dove and struck with spears tipped in stormglass.
Dominic moved like a current through chaos—dodging, striking, commanding.
One of the beasts—an eel-headed terror with six arms—lunged at him.
Dominic spun, thrusting his trident into its gaping maw. Lightning crackled. The creature exploded into ash and scale.
But they just kept coming.
"Elara!" he shouted. "Shield wall, now!"
The young healer weaved her hands. A shimmering dome of golden light burst forth, halting the tide of monsters momentarily.
But then the Rift pulsed again.
A massive shadow rose.
It wasn't a beast. It was a piece of Thal'Zir.
A limb.
A slithering, mountainous tendril crowned with a thousand blinking eyes.
Dominic's heart sank. "That's not the final form... It's just reaching."
"Then we cut it off!" bellowed Talyon.
Dominic gritted his teeth. "I need more power."
He raised the Trident of Tides and chanted in the Old Tongue.
The sea boiled. Currents reversed. Lightning ripped from trench to surface.
A divine surge rushed through Dominic's body—memories of Poseidon, power of storms, rage of oceans.
He became the sea.
With a cry, he dove into the tendril.
Slashing.
Burning.
Screaming.
Each strike severed abyssal flesh. Blood as dark as void poured from the wounds.
But it wasn't enough.
The limb coiled around him. Crushed him. Dragged him downward—into the Rift.
His allies screamed, but he was gone.
Swallowed.
Into the dark.
---
Darkness.
Pain.
Silence.
Then—a heartbeat.
Dominic opened his eyes.
He was inside the Rift.
Floating.
Breathing.
Alive.
Around him: swirling spirits. Old souls. Forgotten gods.
And in the center, pulsing like a cancer, was Thal'Zir's core.
Dominic hovered before it.
The Trident trembled in his grasp.
A voice whispered in his head.
> You are nothing but a boy. Sick. Dying. Forgotten.
He smiled faintly.
"I was. But now… I'm the storm."
He charged.
The silence was deafening.
Dominic floated weightless, his body suspended in a realm of shadow and pressure. The deeper into the Rift he sank, the more the laws of the ocean unraveled. There was no water here, no sense of direction or time. Only pressure. Only whispers.
The Trident of Tides hummed faintly in his grip, as though shivering in the presence of something ancient—something wrong.
He could feel it now.
Thal'Zir.
The abyssal god's essence pulsed just ahead, a colossal sphere of sickly black ichor surrounded by twisting bone spires. They reached like claws, pulsating with corrupted energy, anchoring the eldritch core to this pocket of the void.
And around it—thousands of trapped souls drifted like jellyfish, their faces twisted in silent agony. Warriors, kings, innocents… their spirits devoured and imprisoned over eons.
Dominic's breath caught.
Was this what awaited him if he failed?
"Come closer," a voice rasped, crawling into his mind. "You who think yourself a god…"
Dominic stepped forward, walking on nothing. His armor shimmered with faint light, warding off the creeping tendrils of madness. Each step burned into the emptiness, a defiance of the Rift's rule.
"I don't think I'm a god," Dominic said, his voice echoing strangely. "I am Poseidon now. And you're the rot that's poisoned the deep for too long."
The darkness stirred.
Then it laughed.
A fissure tore open beneath the core, and Thal'Zir rose—his true form revealed.
A titanic mass of tentacles and twisted faces, all screaming silently. Each movement bent the Rift around him. His eyes—hundreds of them—snapped open at once, focused on Dominic. A presence pressed down on him like a mountain.
"You are but a boy," Thal'Zir snarled, "a dying mortal who clings to power he does not understand. The gods above abandoned their thrones for a reason. Their time is over."
Dominic gripped his trident tighter. "Then I'll carve a new throne out of your corpse."
The air exploded.
Thal'Zir lunged, a massive limb crashing down like a falling moon. Dominic rolled aside mid-air, then slashed upward, lightning arcing from the Trident's tip. The limb recoiled with a howl, black ichor sizzling where the divine energy struck.
Dominic didn't wait—he surged forward, stabbing deep into the eldritch flesh. The Trident glowed brighter, drawing power from the Rift itself. He tore upward, ripping a line of divine fury through Thal'Zir's body.
But the god didn't fall.
With a screech, Thal'Zir flung Dominic into a spire. It shattered, and Dominic tumbled, dazed. Blood filled his mouth. Pain lanced through his ribs.
> Get up.
You're not just fighting for yourself.
You're fighting for them.
Visions flooded his mind—his mother's face. The laughter of friends he'd lost to his illness. The cries of the soldiers still battling above the Rift.
Dominic wiped blood from his lips.
He rose.
A low chant began to echo around him.
The spirits.
One by one, the trapped souls raised their voices—silent, wordless energy flowing toward him. Their hands lifted, their essence flowing into his body, their hopes binding to his heart.
And then—
He changed.
His armor melted into a living current of water and light. His skin glowed faintly, runes etching across his arms. His eyes turned sea-glass blue, and the Trident transformed—twisting into a weapon forged not just from godhood, but from mortal resolve.
Dominic wasn't just Poseidon now.
He was reborn.
With a roar, he launched himself back into the fight.
Each movement was fluid, precise. He ducked beneath tendrils, deflecting psychic blasts with a mere flick of his weapon. With a sweep of his hand, a vortex opened beneath Thal'Zir, pulling him downward.
But the abyss god fought back.
Thal'Zir's core crackled with red lightning, and beams of void energy shot out. Dominic was hit once, twice—each blast carving into his flesh.
He screamed.
But didn't stop.
He drove forward, step by agonizing step, until he stood before the core.
And he plunged the Trident deep.
Light exploded.
A scream—no, a million screams—rang out.
The Rift convulsed, shattering like cracked glass. Darkness fled. The trapped souls were set free, ascending like stars.
Dominic fell to his knees, gasping, bloodied, but victorious.
Thal'Zir was no more.
Only silence remained.
And then—a voice.
> "Dominic."
"You have done the impossible."
He turned.
A figure emerged from the light.
An old man, cloaked in seaweed and moonlight. Poseidon's true spirit.
"You have honored my legacy," the god said, kneeling before him. "But now, the seas are yours."
Dominic's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"
Poseidon smiled. "You're not my vessel anymore. You're my heir."
And with that, the old god faded, leaving only the deep—and a new god to rule it.