Reincarnated As Poseidon
Chapter 69: I am poseidon 5

Chapter 69: I am poseidon 5

The sea forgot itself the deeper they went.

Poseidon, Maelora, and Varun moved through a part of the ocean where the currents no longer swirled, where coral no longer grew, where even the salt seemed unsure if it still belonged.

This was no trench.

No ruin.

No lair of beast.

It was a hole in reality—a place the sea didn’t remember creating.

A place it tried to bury with depth, silence, and time.

And yet it had opened again.

---

The Descent

Maelora shivered beside Poseidon, gripping her spear tightly. The glow from the Trident barely reached her face.

> "Everything feels... hollow."

Varun floated behind them, unusually quiet.

> "It’s like the ocean’s soul doesn’t work here."

Poseidon nodded.

> "We’re inside the Hollow Sea now."

They descended further. The pressure should have crushed them, but here there was no pressure—only stillness.

No gravity.

No time.

Just water that didn’t feel like water.

Poseidon whispered, almost to himself:

> "Even the Leviathan wouldn’t enter this place."

---

Echoes That Aren’t

As they swam, faint shapes passed them—remnants of old sea kings, shattered temples, and broken weapons.

But none of them were real.

Maelora reached toward one, her hand passing straight through.

> "Memories?"

> "Possibly," Poseidon murmured.

"Or just echoes of things the sea is trying not to forget."

Then came the voices.

Not loud.

Not screaming.

Soft.

Repeating their names.

> "Poseidon..."

> "Maelora..."

> "Varun..."

They froze mid-current.

> "It knows us," Varun said.

"I hate that it knows us."

---

The Mouth of the Void

At the center of the Hollow Sea, the water opened up into a vast, unnatural sphere—a space where nothing floated. Not rock, not creature, not even light.

Just a sphere of unmaking.

Poseidon gripped his Trident tighter.

> "This is it. The source."

> "Of what?" Maelora asked.

> "Of hunger. The thing beneath memory. The sea’s forgotten wound."

Suddenly, the darkness inside twisted—like something huge shifting its weight.

And from within, a shape began to form.

---

The Nameless One

It wasn’t a beast.

It wasn’t a god.

It had no face. No limbs. No voice.

Just a shifting shadow with one spiraling eye, a vortex of void and seawater spinning like a galaxy of despair.

The Trident shook violently.

Poseidon could feel something clawing at his mind.

Trying to erase his name.

> "Hold on to me," he said quickly.

Maelora and Varun each grabbed his arm.

The connection steadied their memories.

For now.

---

It Speaks

Not with words.

But with thought.

And the thought was not a greeting.

It was a threat—so old, even death forgot it.

> "I was here when the sea was afraid to exist."

> "I fed on what the world left behind."

> "You woke the ocean. You made it sing again."

> "Now I will silence it."

Poseidon stared directly into the void spiral.

> "You don’t belong."

The Nameless One pulsed.

> "Neither do you. The sea has moved on... without both of us."

---

Poseidon’s Choice

Poseidon lifted the Trident, its light flickering. It wasn’t shining anymore—it was bleeding.

The creature’s presence was unraveling even divine memory.

If he attacked now, they’d all be lost.

If he ran, the sea would fall into true silence.

So he did something else.

He began to sing.

Just a note.

A low, echoing tone that mirrored the sea’s first whisper. The Leviathan’s hum. The coral’s bloom. The waves of children laughing near shores.

Maelora joined in, hesitant but firm.

Varun followed, off-key but determined.

And for a moment—

The Hollow Sea hesitated.

The spiral eye blinked.

Not in anger.

But in recognition.

---

Final Scene – The Thin Line

The Nameless One pulled back slightly. The current shifted again, as if the Hollow Sea remembered its shape.

But just for a moment.

Then, with a hiss of thought, the voice returned:

> "You delay the end. But you cannot silence hunger."

It began to vanish, receding into the core.

> "It’s leaving?" Maelora asked.

Poseidon exhaled.

> "No. It’s waiting. And we need to find a way to bind it... or next time, it won’t speak. It’ll consume."

They turned to rise.

Behind them, the Hollow Sea pulsed once more... quietly watching.

The waters rippled with unease.

Not from storms.

Not from war.

But from memory.

Poseidon, Maelora, and Varun broke the surface under the twilight glow of Thalorenn’s reef. The moment they emerged, they felt the difference.

The sea had changed.

It was quieter.

Slower.

As if unsure of its own voice.

Poseidon sat on a rock, dripping with salt and silence, his Trident glowing dimly beside him.

> "It saw us," he said. "And it let us go."

Maelora dropped beside him, clutching her knees.

> "That’s what scares me."

---

Far Below, the Leviathan Stirs

The deep waters rumbled.

The Leviathan, coiled like an ancient monument of flesh and memory, twitched in its slumber.

Then, its pale eye opened—sharply, fully.

And it spoke, not in words but in vibrations that echoed across currents, across miles, across time:

> "You dove too deep."

---

The Arrival

Before Poseidon could stand, the sea trembled—not violently, but with intent. A figure began rising from the depths.

Massive.

Old.

Coated in salt and silence.

The Leviathan emerged from the trench, gliding upward like a drifting moon of flesh and shadow. It stopped just beneath the surface, and Poseidon knew instantly—

> "It came to speak."

Maelora stood beside him.

Varun didn’t move.

Even the hippocampi bowed in the distance.

The Leviathan’s voice arrived like thunder submerged in silk.

> "You touched the Hollow Sea."

Poseidon answered, calm but grim.

> "It touched us first."

> "You should not have gone," the Leviathan warned.

"The gods chained me to protect the ocean from what lies beneath me."

> "We needed to know," Poseidon replied.

The Leviathan’s eye narrowed.

> "And now you do. So hear me now—it does not forget. It waits for the sea to fall silent... and then it feeds."

---

A Warning from Before Memory

The Leviathan shifted its coils, the water warping around its immense body.

> "Even I do not remember its name. I only recall the silence after it was buried."

Poseidon gripped the Trident.

> "It spoke to me. It knew our names."

> "Then it has begun," the Leviathan replied.

"You must keep the sea awake. Make it sing. Make it rage. Make it move. Or it will be consumed from the inside."

> "And if it returns?"

> "Then not even Olympus will survive what follows."

---

A Plan of Song and Salt

Poseidon rose from the rock. The Trident now hummed with faint new energy—a rhythm pulled from the Hollow Sea itself.

> "We need more than warriors," he said.

> "What do you mean?" Maelora asked.

> "We need choirs. Soundcasters. Sea bards. Voices of memory. Every creature who remembers must come forward. The sea must never fall quiet again."

Varun grunted.

> "That’s the weirdest army speech I’ve ever heard."

Poseidon smiled faintly.

> "It’s not a war of swords this time. It’s a war of remembrance."

---

Final Scene – In Olympus

Far above, thunder cracked.

Zeus stood at the edge of the storm clouds, eyes narrowing.

> "He’s doing something. Something ancient."

Athena appeared beside him.

> "He’s building a wall of song."

> "Then he’s smarter than we thought."

A pause.

> "Do you think it will be enough?" she asked.

Zeus didn’t answer.

Because far below Olympus, in the sea’s deepest root, the Hollow Sea pulsed again.

And this time... it sang back.

But not with harmony.

With hunger.

The waves no longer crashed—they whispered.

Throughout the sea, creatures stirred. Dolphins paused mid-leap. Whales altered their ancient migration paths. Even the smallest shells on distant shores began to hum, faintly, as though the ocean were remembering its voice.

Poseidon stood at the reef altar of Thalorenn, the Trident resting across his shoulders.

Maelora and Varun watched him carefully, unsure what he was becoming—but knowing it wasn’t just a god of the sea anymore.

He was becoming its echo.

Its memory.

Its defender against silence.

---

Summoning the Choir

At Poseidon’s command, messages were sent across the currents.

To sirens in the south trenches.

To the coral harmonics of the Singing Isles.

To sea witches who whispered through shell-bound scrolls.

To the Leviathan, watching from afar with one ancient, unblinking eye.

> "The Hollow Sea wants silence," Poseidon said, voice resonating across the tide.

"So we will give it music."

From across the waters, they came.

Not warriors—but voices.

Sirens with silver throats.

Old salt priests who remembered before Poseidon rose.

Tidecallers and Waveweavers.

Even children with song-gifted breath.

A Choir of Tides—the first in millennia.

---

Aegirion’s Absence

As the choir formed, one voice remained missing.

Maelora looked around, troubled.

> "Aegirion should be here."

Poseidon’s gaze darkened.

> "He won’t come."

> "You don’t believe he’s dead, do you?"

> "No," Poseidon said. "That’s what worries me."

The name hadn’t left him since the Hollow Sea had spoken.

Aegirion—his companion, brother-in-blood, betrayer once, redeemer later—had disappeared during the Leviathan’s surfacing.

Vanished like foam in wind.

And the Hollow Sea had grown stronger since.

Poseidon stepped forward, raising his Trident.

> "This is not just song," he addressed the choir. "It is remembrance. Every note you sing, every hum you hold, must carry something ancient—something true. We’re building a shield of memory."

He tapped the Trident once against the stone.

A pulse shot through the water.

The reef responded with shimmering lights, resonating chords vibrating through coral, stone, and scale.

The Choir followed, their voices layered like weaving tides—some deep and whale-like, others sharp and ethereal.

Even Varun joined, off-key and awkward, but strangely comforting in his rhythm.

---

Olympus Watches

In the upper heavens, Athena and Hermes observed from a cloud-bound mirror.

> "It’s working," Hermes said, surprised.

"Even the winds over the sea have steadied."

Athena wasn’t smiling.

> "Yes. But the Hollow Sea is listening too."

> "Think it’ll be lulled to sleep?"

> "No," she said. "I think it’s choosing which voices to devour first."

---

The Hollow Sea Hears

Below, in that endless crack where the ocean forgot itself, something stirred.

Not violently.

Patiently.

The Nameless One unfurled one tendril of ink through the abyss, brushing the edge of memory, tasting the waves.

And it heard music.

Not gods.

Not war.

But music.

It did not understand.

But it remembered pain.

And in that memory, it began to change.

---

Final Scene – The First Fracture

On the third day of the Choir’s gathering, as the voices reached their highest harmony, the reef trembled.

Poseidon looked up, eyes glowing.

> "Hold the pitch!" he shouted.

But it was too late.

From the edge of the coral, a single crack split through a stone column—a memory structure. One of the oldest.

A warning.

The Hollow Sea had found a way in.