Reincarnated As Poseidon-Chapter 49: When the seas turn Black

She wore no crown, yet the sea bowed to her. For she had become the Voice of N’aleth.

Behind her, thousands of sirens with torn wings and maddened eyes sang no song of beauty—but a dirge.

Their chorus peeled across the seabed, cracking walls and warping currents.

> "Swim," Lyrielle commanded, voice layered with the choir of a dead god. "Let the tide wash away the age of thrones."

They surged forward—toward Naerida’s kingdom.

And behind them, something moved in the dark. A colossal silhouette, dragging chains carved from ancient tectonics.

Dominic’s Reckoning

Dominic staggered from the edge of his temple chamber, coughing saltwater from his lungs, trident barely clutched in hand.

Every time he blinked, he saw it again.

That face.

That forgotten throne.

The whispers of N’aleth scraped against his sanity.

He had known gods. Fought them. Bled against titans. Even stared into the pits of Tartarus.

But this?

This was origin. This was worse.

He crashed to his knees, waves pounding around his mental palace. Every memory of being Poseidon trembled—no longer secure. Was he merely the replacement? A temporary crown atop an ocean that had never truly been his?

His fingers trembled as he held the trident.

It was rusting again.

But he rose.

> "You want your sea back?" he whispered. "Then fight for it."

The war council roared with the chaos of clashing voices.

Naerida silenced them with a single bang of her gauntlet.

> "Hold the outer rings. Focus all defenses on the Eastern Shoals. The sirens are coming."

Alros stepped forward, eyes bloodshot. "They won’t stop, Your Highness. They sing like... like something rides behind them."

Naerida didn’t flinch. "Then we stop singing."

She raised her weapon—the Blade of Vareth, forged before the world learned to name the ocean.

Outside her palace, coral bastions unfolded. Sea beasts long kept in reserve were unleashed. Arkan-shell tortoises the size of ships. Swordfish riders. The Crimson Gills—mercenaries who fought for tide and treasure.

And above it all, Naerida floated.

> "This is no longer a battle. This is extinction. So let’s make our end loud."

---

Hephaestus’ forge went cold.

That had never happened.

He stood over his anvil, hammer frozen midair. Beneath Olympus, magma ceased bubbling.

Hera stood near the golden scrying pool, watching the surface of the sea split apart like peeled fruit.

> "We’ve let the ocean rot too long," she muttered. "Now its first wound rises."

Zeus said nothing. His hand gripped the armrest of his throne until cracks bled lightning.

Then he stood.

> "Call the old ones," he said.

Athena’s eyes narrowed. "You mean—"

> "Even the forgotten Titans. Even the sealed gods. If N’aleth walks, then this is no longer a war of gods. It is a war of origins."

---

In the deepest point of Thalorenn, something cracked.

Chains forged by pre-Olympian hands snapped one by one.

The creature once mistaken for an island shifted.

N’aleth.

He moved not like a creature, but like a continent, rising in segments. Tentacles of fog and reef cracked from the crust. His mouth opened—wide enough to swallow fleets.

And from that abyss, he spoke not with words...

...but sound.

It echoed across the ocean floor, through Naerida’s palace, into Olympus itself.

A low, guttural song that made even Dominic drop his trident and clutch his ears.

A song older than light. Older than time.

The first true voice of the Sea.

The palace of Naerida stood battered.

Walls of polished pearl now cracked with impact, and streams of wounded guards flowed in and out like slow rivers of blood and salt.

Above it all, Naerida remained aloft—floating within the eye of a battle-spun storm.

She had seen wars.

She had led revolts beneath tyrants and brokered peace between clans that hadn’t spoken in centuries.

But this was different.

This was the death of the sea’s order.

Across the darkened waters, the Deep Choir approached like a living wound. Hundreds of sirens, stripped of elegance, advanced in brutal synchronization, each scream layered with the sound of ancient devouring.

> "They don’t breathe," one of her commanders whispered. "They’re already dead."

Naerida didn’t respond.

She felt the pulse in the water shift—an undercurrent spiraling toward oblivion. It wasn’t just Lyrielle anymore.

Something far deeper had stirred.

And it wanted everything drowned.

> "Hold your line," she commanded. "If we fall now, the ocean becomes a grave. Not just for us—for memory."

Behind her, the war horns of the Blueguard sounded.

A battle hymn—defiant, proud, and trembling with the knowledge they were outmatched.

---

Scene II – Lyrielle Ascends

Lyrielle no longer swam—she glided through the current, led by unseen forces that curled around her like sentient tides.

N’aleth had kissed her soul.

And now her voice wasn’t just song.

It was law.

As her Choir approached Naerida’s palace, her eyes locked onto the shell-crowned monarch standing beneath a sky of crumbling reef.

> "This kingdom was built on a lie," she said, not shouting, but her voice carried through leagues of water. "You called it peace, but buried us in silence. Now we scream."

Naerida raised her weapon. "You don’t scream for justice. You scream because you’ve become him."

Lyrielle bared her teeth. "Good. Then let the world drown in truth."

She raised her arms.

And the Deep Choir sang.

The water turned viscous, pulling Naerida’s defenders into spirals of sonic distortion. Shields shattered. Helmets imploded. Warriors writhed in pain, their blood spiraling into glowing ink around them.

But Naerida stood, blade firm.

> "You’ll have to drown me yourself, Lyrielle."

---

Scene III – Olympus Watches

Athena stood before the scrying pool, stone-faced as lightning cracked above Mount Olympus.

"Poseidon is weakened," she said to no one in particular. "And the creature that now sings... it rivals Cronos."

Hephaestus had stopped working altogether. Apollo paced the throne hall.

Zeus was still, but his right hand trembled. Not in fear. In memory.

> "I’ve heard that song before," he said quietly.

Everyone froze.

> "When the seas were first born. When Gaia cried salt for the first time. That voice is not new. It’s returning."

Athena turned sharply. "Then what do we do?"

Zeus looked to the skies, and then downward.

> "We don’t command the sea. Not anymore."

---

Scene IV – The Beast Beneath

The chains were gone.

Thalorenn’s darkest trench had ruptured into a vertical canyon of pressure and void. What remained in its heart defied form.

A mass of limbs that were not limbs. Eyes that saw through time. Bones made of collapsed coral and ruined god-blood.

N’aleth rose.

Not like a king. Not like a god.

But like a curse the world tried to forget and failed.

He whispered once, and whales bled from their ears. He exhaled, and volcanoes deep beneath the sea floor ignited.

But it was not rage that drove him.

It was hunger.

He floated toward the battle—neither fast nor slow, just inevitable.

---

Scene V – Dominic Breaks

In a distant hollow of coral, Dominic lay crumpled.

The trident was still in his hand, but it weighed more than mountains. His arms were limp. His body bruised.

Visions pulsed inside his skull—of the first ocean, the rise of sirens, the forging of the choir, the betrayal of N’aleth.

He had seen what Poseidon saw.

He had felt what Poseidon was.

And still...

He was not him.

Dominic gasped.

> "Why did you choose me?" he asked aloud, voice cracking. "I’m just... no one."

The silence that followed wasn’t cold.

It was tender.

The sea stirred around him.

Not in violence—but in recognition.

> "Because you are no one," it whispered. "And only a man with nothing... can become everything."

His eyes snapped open.

They glowed not with Poseidon’s blue—

—but with something deeper.

Thalorin.

The sea was no longer blue.

It had turned the color of bruised flesh, murky with blood and debris, a void lit only by desperate flares from dying magic. Naerida’s palace—once radiant with shimmering coral and sacred relics—now groaned as cracks spidered along its spine.

The Deep Choir struck like a blade of noise. Each harmonic note tore the walls, shattered ancient sigils, and disoriented even the hardiest defenders. Shields no longer mattered. Song was the only weapon, and Lyrielle wielded it like a queen of ruin.

Lyrielle’s form hovered at the head of the Choir, glowing faintly with a sickly red shimmer. Her hair floated around her like blackened kelp, her eyes twin abysses.

Behind her, the currents warped—shadows of drowned sirens flickered in and out of the waves.

Naerida stood her ground.

Her armor was dented. Blood dripped from her temple. But her eyes held a monarch’s fury.

> "You’ve desecrated our ancestors, Lyrielle. You call it truth. But what you bring is madness."

Lyrielle’s lips curled into a smirk.

> "Madness is refusing to evolve. Let the old sea die. Let the gods drown. I have heard N’aleth’s truth... and I’ve seen what’s coming."

Without warning, the Deep Choir’s voices split into chaotic, discordant frequencies. Warriors screamed and clutched their ears. Some lost consciousness instantly, others tore at their own skin, trying to end the sound that wasn’t sound—it was memory, violence, birth, and decay all at once.

Naerida shouted back, summoning her High Tide Guard. With a fierce arc of her spear, she countered with an old war chant—one older than most mortals remembered. Her voice burned through the murk, giving her warriors a brief moment to push forward.

> "This throne will not fall!"

But even she could feel it: it was already cracking.

---

Scene II – Olympus Hesitates

Mount Olympus.

Even here, the sea’s dirge could be felt. The air was thinner. The birds had stopped singing. A coldness not native to the heavens crept along the marble halls.

Zeus stood at the edge of the Sky Pool, staring down into the roiling chaos far below.

Athena was beside him, her brows furrowed with unease. "N’aleth’s presence is spreading. It’s not just in the sea anymore. The ley lines are trembling."

Hermes, pacing, broke the silence. "Why don’t we intervene? Send down fire and fury—blast that damn Choir into oblivion!"

Apollo shook his head. "You’ll only feed it. N’aleth feeds on remnants. What you destroy, he devours."

Zeus grunted. "And Poseidon?"

Athena hesitated.

> "He’s not the same. And it may not be his war anymore."

Zeus clenched his fist. A rumble echoed in the sky above. "Then whose war is it?"

A voice, thin as silk, answered from the corridor.

> "It’s his... and hers."

Everyone turned.

Hera.

She stepped forward, calm and regal, her eyes hard as polished jade.

> "This war belongs to all of us who were silent when the sea cried. We watched as Poseidon sealed what should have never been buried. Now the song returns. And it demands judgment."

---

Scene III – Beneath the Palace

Deep below Naerida’s palace, beneath slabs of coral now breaking apart, the Vault of Silence began to hum.

A chained sigil pulsed with forgotten language.

A claw scraped against the obsidian barrier.

It is waking.

The creature below Thalorenn—the one Poseidon buried long before Olympus even formed—began to stretch.

Chains rattled.

And far above, Lyrielle tilted her head mid-song.

She heard it.

Something ancient, hungry, and betrayed.

She whispered to herself, voice trembling with awe:

> "Yes... awaken. Let them see the first tide."

---

Scene IV – Dominic Rises

Far from the battlefield, at the edge of a ruined coral trench, Dominic stood.

His wounds were healing slower now.

But his eyes no longer reflected only himself—they shimmered with the twin forces of Poseidon and Thalorin.

He looked toward the south, where Lyrielle’s war cry echoed faintly, and Naerida’s last defenses rang like funeral bells.

Aegirion’s death still weighed on his shoulders.

He could feel Athena’s gaze above.

He could feel the Vault below.

But he moved forward—not with godlike speed, but with purpose.

> "No more running," he muttered. "No more waiting."

The trident responded, pulsing with new resonance.

The sea began to part before him—not in full, but just enough for a path.

As if the ocean itself awaited his return.

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