Poseidon vs Hyperion
The battlefield cracked under their presence.
Hyperion stood like a dying sun—flames swirling around him like a storm caught fire. His skin pulsed magma, heat bleeding off his shoulders in waves that turned air into distortion. He was the Titan of Light, of the Sun Before the Sun, and every step he took boiled the stone beneath him.
Poseidon strode through the mist like a storm made flesh. Seafoam curled around his feet, and thunderclouds formed above with every heartbeat. Triena rested across his back, humming like a deep-sea current ready to burst.
Hyperion tilted his head. "You still breathe?"
Poseidon rolled his neck, water dripping from his brows like sweat. "Barely. Let's fix that."
Hyperion grinned—and vanished.
A beam of white fire split the field where Poseidon had just stood. Mountains behind him turned to ash in a blink. The flame twisted back—homing in—but Poseidon reappeared above, riding a spiral of water like a serpent through the sky. He raised Triena overhead.
[Skill: Sea King's Wrath]
He hurled it downward—Triena spun like a whirlpool of divine pressure. It struck the ground—
And the earth split.
A geyser of ocean erupted beneath Hyperion, washing the fire off his body in a roaring cascade of boiling steam and pressurized force. Hyperion stumbled, heat flickering, coughing smoke—but he lifted his hand and snapped his fingers.
The steam ignited.
BOOM.
A sun bloomed between them.
Poseidon was thrown back, flipping through the air. He struck a ridge with a crash and pulled himself out, singed and grinning. His arms were steaming. Triena returned to his hand with a whip of water.
"You know," Poseidon muttered, spitting salt, "I hated you even before all this."
Hyperion landed like a meteor, feet melting rock. "I didn't even know you before all this."
"Exactly."
Then they charged.
Hyperion swung first—his fists weren't fists anymore. They were gauntlets of fused solar core, glowing like prisoned stars. Every strike turned the air into plasma.
Poseidon blocked with Triena, each clash of their weapons turning pressure into shockwaves. Fire and water collided with such force the battlefield around them warped into glass and mist.
Poseidon roared, striking the trident down—
The ground fell away.
A crater exploded beneath Hyperion's feet, and from it surged a whirlpool of water shaped like a serpent, its teeth made of coral and its body filled with screaming sea spirits.
Hyperion slammed his fists into it.
The water screamed.
So did the sky.
The serpent shattered into fragments—but Poseidon had already vanished into the air above. Triena was spinning in his palm like a cyclone.
[Skill: Leviathan Pulse]
He drove the weapon down into Hyperion's chest.
The trident punctured through flame and slammed Hyperion into the mountain with a thunderclap that shattered boulders for miles.
Hyperion's mouth opened—but instead of sound, a pulse of light exploded from within him, turning everything around white for a moment too long.
When it cleared—
Poseidon was staggering. His left side burned raw. His armor peeled off in steaming strips.
But Hyperion was worse.
The trident had pierced deep. His fire was dimmer now. His face—partially burned into molten stone—twitched with pain.
Poseidon limped forward. Triena returned to him again.
"I can keep going," he said. "Can you?"
Hyperion coughed, blood and flame spilling together. "Gods and Titans…" he growled, "We were never meant to coexist."
Poseidon stabbed the trident into the ground.
A wall of seawater rose behind him—hundreds of feet high. It hovered, humming.
"You're right."
[Skill: Abyssal Fall]
He gestured.
The ocean came down.
Not a wave. Not a surge.
A fall—as if the sea itself had decided to crash onto the world in one single, vertical act of vengeance.
Hyperion roared. His entire body exploded with light. He became a ball of molten hate, punching into the wave, trying to burn it.
But the sea didn't burn.
It drowned him.
The light vanished.
Only steam remained.
Poseidon collapsed to one knee, panting. Blood ran down his ribs. His hair stuck to his forehead.
Triena hummed in his grip. The battlefield had grown quiet around them. Just crashing waves and thunder from other gods and Titans fighting in the distance.
He stood slowly. Looked at the crater where Hyperion had been.
There was movement.
A hand rose.
Hyperion pulled himself up—barely. No more fire. No more arrogance. Just a Titan clinging to pride.
Poseidon walked over, eyes low. He raised the trident again.
"I don't hate you," he muttered.
Hyperion looked up.
"But I don't forgive you either."
He slammed the back of the trident into Hyperion's head.
The Titan dropped—unconscious, maybe dead. Poseidon didn't care. He turned and looked toward the next fight, toward his brother locked with Cronus, toward the end of this war.
Rain began to fall.
The sea answered its king.
And Poseidon walked forward, weapon in hand, godlight flashing behind his eyes.
Elsewhere — The Slopes Beneath the War
The sky above trembled with light and death. Roars, thunder, screams. The world cracked with every clash of god and Titan.
But far below the battlefield, beyond the reach of blades and storms, two figures stood on a quiet ridge—watching.
Gaia.
And her daughter, Rhea.
Gaia stood barefoot, toes in the soil, her cloak of roots and moss trailing behind her. Her hands were clasped together, shaking slightly. Her face, once timeless, now worn with grief. Eyes full of storms that never rained.
"So much bloodshed…" she whispered. Her voice was soft, like leaves falling. "This… wasn't how it was supposed to be."
Above them, one of her children—a Titan—screamed as they were cut down in the distance. The sound echoed across the valley like a bell tolling for an age long gone.
Gaia didn't flinch.
But her heart cracked again.
"This wasn't the future I saw," she said, staring at the smoke rising into the clouds. "This wasn't the balance I dreamed of."
Beside her, Rhea stood quiet for a long moment. Her cloak whipped in the wind, her silver hair tangled, eyes sharper than ever—but tired. Not from battle.
From loss.
She reached out, gently touched her mother's arm.
"You don't have to watch this," Rhea said softly. "You've seen enough pain."
Gaia didn't look away. "I birthed them. All of them. I watched them grow. I gave them the world."
"And Cronus tried to bury it in fear," Rhea replied, voice colder now. "He swallowed my children, mother. I remember their cries as he took them. I remember the silence that followed."
Her hands curled into fists.
"Zeus only survived because I lied. Because I hid him. That's what it took to protect a single child."
Gaia said nothing.
"I understand how you feel," Rhea continued. "I'm a mother too. I feel it—every scream, every blow, every loss."
She looked up at the battlefield.
"But Cronus made his choice. And so did the Titans who stood by him. They chained your other children in Tartarus. They ruled through silence. Through fear. Through power. You warned him."
Gaia finally closed her eyes.
"I did."
"Then let the world change," Rhea said. "Let it hurt. Let it bleed. But let it change."
A silence passed between them.
Then Gaia finally spoke, her voice lower than before.
"I only ever wanted peace."
Rhea nodded, her gaze turning distant.
"So did I."
And high above, the war raged on—fire and lightning painting the sky in the colors of a new age being born through pain.