The throne room was still shaking when Poseidon's body dissolved into foam. His trident hit the ground with a thunderous clang before sinking into the coral floor, glowing faintly before vanishing into the abyss. For a long heartbeat, there was silence—just the sound of the sea groaning around them.
Then the palace walls split.
Cracks of glowing blue light spread like veins, and the coral shrieked as though alive. Water surged in from every direction. The ocean kingdom was collapsing.
"Move!" Kratos barked, his voice cutting through the chaos. He grabbed Luna's arm, hauling her onto his back as her body still trembled from Poseidon's strike.
"Everything's breaking apart!" Seraphina cried, firing an arrow at a falling slab of coral to shatter it before it crushed them.
Dorian slashed at the debris with his sword, clearing a path through collapsing arches. "We have to reach the outer gates before this whole place comes down on us!"
Achradina said nothing. She simply pressed forward, spear in hand, her expression unreadable. Her silver eyes, still glowing faintly, did not look back at Poseidon's throne.
---
The halls they had entered were no longer halls. The labyrinth itself was unraveling. Corridors twisted and collapsed into whirlpools, stairways broke into floating fragments of coral, and walls melted into rushing torrents.
Adrian's voice boomed over the roar of water. "Stay close! If anyone gets swept away, they'll be lost in the abyss!"
A sudden crash split the chamber. From the depths below, monstrous silhouettes swarmed upward—remnants of Poseidon's royal guards, sea-born abominations bound to his will even in death. Their forms were half-human, half-serpent, their eyes glowing with fury.
"They're still here?!" Seraphina gasped, loosing arrows of radiant light. Her shafts pierced through the guards, but more kept rising from the abyss.
"We cut our way through!" Dorian roared, cleaving one in half with his blade.
Kratos swung the Blades of Chaos, their fiery chains burning even underwater. The sea itself boiled around his strikes as he tore through three guards at once.
But the enemy was endless. For every one they slew, two more emerged. The group pushed forward desperately, the palace groaning louder and louder with each passing moment.
---
They reached a cavernous hall where the ceiling had already collapsed, revealing a swirling vortex above—the only exit left. But between them and freedom lay something worse than any guard.
From the shadows of the ruined chamber, a massive form stirred. Tentacles the size of ships uncoiled, wrapping around shattered pillars. Two glowing eyes opened, burning like abyssal lanterns. The beast's body dwarfed the hall itself, its form covered in scales darker than the trench.
"The Leviathan," Achradina said flatly, her tone colder than steel.
The creature roared, and the water itself trembled. The whirlpool above dimmed, sucked down by the monster's sheer presence.
Adrian cursed, raising his claymore. "He's guarding the only way out. We either fight or drown here!"
The Leviathan lunged, its jaws snapping like mountains grinding together. Kratos met it head-on, slamming his blades into its mouth, forcing it back by sheer strength. But even Kratos strained as the beast pushed against him, its roar deafening.
"Go!" Kratos shouted, blood leaking from his arms as he held the monster's maw. "I'll hold it—"
"No!" Luna's weak voice cried from his back. "We don't leave anyone behind!"
Seraphina fired arrows into the beast's eyes, forcing it to recoil. "She's right! We fight together or not at all!"
---
The battle erupted.
Adrian leapt onto one of the tentacles, hacking with his claymore until black ichor clouded the water. The beast roared and thrashed, hurling him against a coral wall, but he rose again, blood running down his face.
Dorian darted beneath the monster's bulk, slashing at its underbelly, his sword glowing faintly with each strike.
Seraphina unleashed a storm of arrows, each exploding into radiant bursts, striking the Leviathan's tendrils before they could crush her companions.
Kratos, still straining, unleashed a guttural roar and hurled the Leviathan backward, his chains tearing bloody streaks across its jaws.
And then Achradina moved.
Her silver hair drifted like a comet's trail as she darted forward, her spear glowing with otherworldly light. With a single strike, she pierced one of the Leviathan's eyes. The creature shrieked, the sound a quake of agony that rattled the collapsing palace.
"Now!" she shouted.
The others didn't hesitate. Adrian hacked through the last tentacle blocking the path. Seraphina fired an arrow that detonated against the Leviathan's wounded head, stunning it long enough for the group to surge toward the whirlpool above.
But the beast wasn't finished.
With a roar of fury, it surged upward after them, the entire hall breaking apart in its wake. Debris, coral, and shattered stone spiraled upward with the current as the Leviathan's jaws opened wide, ready to devour them all.
"Together!" Adrian cried.
Kratos hurled his blades. Seraphina's arrows streaked like meteors. Dorian's sword slashed across the creature's tongue. Adrian drove his claymore downward, cutting into its skull. And Achradina's spear flashed with silver brilliance, piercing the Leviathan's remaining eye.
The combined strike tore through the beast. Its body convulsed, black ichor clouding the water, before it sank back into the abyss with a final thunderous groan.
---
The whirlpool pulled them upward violently. One by one they were dragged into the rushing current, carried away from the collapsing ruins of Poseidon's palace.
As they broke through into open water, the sight behind them was staggering: the entire palace was imploding, towers of coral crumbling, walls shattering into rubble, the once-mighty kingdom of Poseidon vanishing into darkness.
They floated there in silence, battered, bleeding, and gasping for breath.
"We… we actually made it," Seraphina whispered.
"Not yet," Achradina said coldly, though her grip on her spear trembled faintly. "The gods will not ignore Poseidon's fall. This was only the beginning."
Luna coughed weakly, but managed a small smile as she looked at them all. "Then we'll face whatever comes. Together."
The sea around them was eerily quiet now, as if mourning its fallen master. But in the distance, thunder rolled above the waves. Olympus had heard.
And the storm was coming.