85 Achievement

Atlantic Ocean

May, 2006

The beam of divine power cuts through the Atlantic Ocean as it makes its way towards Poseidon unimpeded while catching the god by surprise. He did not expect this type of offensive from me and should I wish to survive this will be the best method of combat to use, unpredictability. Caught by surprise, Poseidon is unable to mount a defence as the beam strikes him in the chest causing him to scream in pain while the resulting force pushes him to the depths of the seas. Not willing to give him a chance to recover I explode into movement as I swim towards him while activating every single enhancement rune on my body and breaking the sound barrier at least two fold.

Reaching the injured god, it does not take me long to realise that my attack has done a significant amount of damage to him. Unfortunately it was a one off attack with the chances of me being able to muster that much raw power a second time being almost impossible. As he recovers Poseidon attempts to strike me with his trident, but I simply swim under it while driving my own through his solar plexus and out of his back.

"You!" he exclaims in pain. "You are far more powerful than I thought. It would be too dangerous to allow you to live." he says as he wills the water around me to crush me to a pulp.

Unfortunately for him while he may have more raw control over the domains we share, when it comes to precision he will always lose to me. So while the entire ocean itself attempts to crush me, the immediate waters that are within arms reach of my person quickly surrounds my body like armor and protects me. Not bothering to answer the madman's tirade, I remove the trident from his body with a twist that increases the size of the hole and proceed to cut off his arm holding the trident. Before he knows what is happening I summon the trident to me and store it within my rune space while I use my own to send lightning hurtling towards him and blasting him further back into the depths of the sea.

Knowing that this will not be enough to kill him, I follow him into the abyss where no light can reach. As I draw near him however, a beast blitzes me from the side in an attempt to swallow me. As it looks to close its mouth with me in it I plunge my trident into the roof of its mouth before I swim out dragging the trident with me and splitting its upper jaw open, eliciting a furious and painful roar from it.

Now that I am outside of the creature I am able to easily make out its figure and know that I recognise this sea serpent from my time in PJO, the Carthaginian Serpent. Being around three hundred twenty feet long, its skin is a glistening flesh of green and brown ridged scales with serrated dorsal fins. Its triangular forehead is wide enough to provide parking for about two or three cars, and its baleful eyes possess an eerie orange glow to them that amplifies its hatred, almost as if it remembers previously dying by my hands. However a quick search of its mind reveals that it simply hates me because Poseidon hates me, and that no amount of negotiation will be able to abate its need to kill me.

Accepting the situation for what it is, I lunge towards the sea serpent only to be struck and sent flying into a boulder something slimy. Quickly recovering I stop my momentum by striking my trident into the ground and use it as a way to create more friction between me and the ground. That was two times that have been caught off guard when it should not have happened. With my physiology I should be able to easily see, hear, and feel anything despite the darkness. Especially since we are in the middle of the sea and all of my facilities are heightened. Yet I find myself unable to hear anything and my vision is slowly losing any form of clarity I have. Soon enough I will be both deaf and blind to my surroundings with my only way of knowing what is happening being when an object is within arms length of me.

"Merde." I mutter as I realise that this is all Poseidon's doing.

Looking in the direction of the beast responsible for striking me the second time, I come across a sea monster I did not expect, the Skolopendra. It measures at around six hundred feet long, looks like a cross between a giant shrimp and a cockroach, with a pink chitinous shell, a flat crayfish tail and millipede-type legs. Its face is a slimy pink like an enormous catfish with two glassy dead eyes and a gaping toothless maw. And it has a beard, which has numerous amount of tentacles sprouting from each nostril, no doubt the appendage responsible for striking me earlier.

Without bothering to read its mind I lunge at the beast while dodging every attempt it makes to hit me with its tentacles. Before I can reach it however I barely spot the lunging sea serpent on my left side before it strikes me with its head sending me back from the direction I originally came from. Not willing to lose my opportunity, I hurl my trident at the Skolopendra's skull and through its entire head, killing it, before summoning the trident back to my right hand while using the water in my immediate vicinity to stop my movement.

As I recover I notice the Carthaginian Serpent coming towards me once again. Not willing to waste time with it I inscribe a set of runes in the sea, summoning a set of chains that bind the monster. The serpent however easily breaks the chains and continues on towards me. However I am not surprised as the chains were not meant to bind the beast, rather act as a vehicle for the true runes to inscribe themselves on it without its knowledge. As the monster reaches within a hundred feet of me it stops and begins to whine as if it were suffering from a disease, this is the runic array's effects kicking in as another runic symbol appears between the beast and I.

The rune's purpose is simple, to bind the victim while turning them into a needy, fragile, and docile being completely at the caster's mercy. With a whine the Carthaginian Serpent reaches for the runic symbol in an attempt to find peace while its mind is seemingly falling apart. With a wave of my hand I send a telepathic pulse that knocks the creature out until I personally wake it while the ground rises up and swallows it just as I lose the last of my vision.

"Runic magic." comes Poseidon's voice from all around me. "Truly you are accomplished. It is a shame that I have to dispose of you before you truly become a threat. Even now you have accomplished more than any before you. Subjecting the Ketos Troi to a mere familiar, slaying both the Carthaginian Serpent and the Skolopendra, and severely injuring me. All without receiving a single injury yourself."

"So you finally show your true colors to me, coward." I say into the abyss while trying to set up my domain around me to no avail. Poseidon possesses complete control over our surroundings.

"Cease your futile attempts to rile me into stupidity boy." he answers me with venom dripping from his tone. "Like the sea I can be moody, bad-tempered and explosive, however what many, and even you, forget is that like the sea I too can be calm and collected. As such I will not face you head on. It is true that I am, and alway will be, more powerful than you. However I have seen your tricks and use of rune magic and I know that there are forms of magic capable of killing gods. As such I will be careful while making you sure that you die a slow and agonising death."

As soon as he finishes his speech a sword stabs into my back and out through my chest. Before whoever, or whatever, can remove the sword I create a dagger in my left hand and plunge it where I suspect their neck to be. Surprisingly my dagger easily cleaves through the beings neck and it explodes into a wave of water along with the sword, leaving a massive gash in my chest that easily heals. With an annoyed growl I create a bounded field around me only for the inscribed runes to be destroyed before they can even activate just as a spear is plunged through my throat. Following the spear's shaft, I stab the being with my trident making it explode like its earlier counterpart.

In seconds I am healed from the stab wound and begin to think of my options even as other wounds appear on my body. Any type of danger sense that I have is useless on account of them needing an outside stimuli to warn me, any divine powers not from Bellona are useless, and even then the only one that will work in this situation is my telumkinesis. Even my biotics, which I admittedly have sparsely used, is useless. As for my rune magic, as soon as I inscribe them he uses the environment to destroy them, and even my already inscribed runes are impossible to sense.

Before I can continue to think more on the matter a sword is plunged into my right bicep bringing me out of my thoughts. With minimal effort I retaliate with my trident, destroying the water being. Meanwhile a second creature appears within range and I quickly strike it down while becoming aware that I sensed it. The water within my reach, I can sense anything from that far out even though I cannot see, hear, or even feel anything. While there is a limited amount of time for me to react to whatever I sense and I do not know anything other than the general direction and size, it will have to do. Anything is better than nothing.

Just as I finish that thought a being appears on my left and I stab towards it, only for me to miss as it plunges its word in my chest, just shy of striking my heart. Killing it with a sweep of my spear, I remove the sword from my chest just as it explodes into a wave of water. Before I can ready myself however another one approaches and lunges towards my back. Rolling forward, I evade the strike while summoning a sword and plunging it in the beings center. A second one comes and I barely hit it on its left side, causing it to explode. Just as I manage to right myself something appears on my senses for half a second before stabbing me in the thigh, severing a tendon.

With a pained grunt I remove what feels like an arrow just as it dissolves into water.

"Impressive, son." comments Poseidon as I swim to the left making a sword slash graze me. "You somehow managed to take control of a small amount of water from me and use it to sense your surroundings. It is unfortunate that you do not possess an omnidirectional way of attacking." he says with a laugh.

He must take me for a fool. Should I showcase any such ability he will simply attack me from long range, just like with that arrow. No, it is better to allow them to come close so that I can at least defend. Any form of escalation by using an omnidirectional defense or offense will result in him escalating his method of attacking until I can no longer deal with them. It is better to let him have his fun while I come up with a way to counter him. Besides, if we escalate too far we risk bringing Zeus' attention upon us and that would be bad for the both of us.

Barely dodging a thrust to my neck, I stab the attacker while bringing my hand up to be stabbed by an arrow as opposed to my eye. With some effort I manage to make another slash graze my side while ducking under a stab before easily vanquishing the two beings. Poseidon must be getting frustrated, that is twice now that I have been able to react to his attacks with minimal effort. This is the downside of being one of the big three. They are so used to having raw power do all of the required work that as soon as any form of precision or caution is required they become useless.

I tilt my head to dodge a spear thrust, hop over a sword slash, and carefully angle my body leftward to avoid a stab while catching an arrow before using my momentum to decapitate the water beings and dodging another arrow. Landing on my feet I continue to move into a forward roll to dodge another set of arrows while thrusting my spear forward into the stomach of a water construct warrior. Then I swipe it leftward to bisect another one while summoning a sword in my other hand and cutting the legs of the third one. The fourth barely reaches my range before I kick it through the chest before jumping into a spinning kick and destroying the head of the fifth. The sixth attempts to retreat but I grasp it with my biotic enhanced telekinesis and crush. The seventh barely has time to react before I perform a flawless shadow strike to appear behind the construct and decapitate it. I duck under an arrow and jump over a water constructed chariot while stabbing its rider in the skull. The ninth falls to a lightning strike from my trident and the tenth falls to a dagger through the throat.

By this point I simply stop counting as I dodge and counter every strike, slash, stab, and arrow that comes my way. I make use of my powers in ways I have never done so before. Mixing shadow strike with my teleportation, enhancing my telekinesis with my biotics, and even telekinetically inscribing runes in my small domain within the vast ocean. Nothing is off limits.

And as the battle continues on, it becomes apparent to me that the distance from which I am able to sense from and have control over is slowly increasing. Almost as if Poseidon is losing is power over his domains. Whether or not it is purposeful? I do not know. It also becomes apparent to me that the longer the fight drags on the more powerful I am becoming. Even as I dodge two spear thrusts, a sword slash, and block five arrows, I feel my power rising to a never before felt height. So much so that I have enough to perform my previous beam attack twice over. If I can find Poseidon I can strike him twice with the same attack and the same amount of force without feeling tired. Unfortunately I would not be surprised if he scattered himself all over the sea. At the same time I begin to hear whispers in my mind that I cannot make out other than the name Gawain. Some of the whispers sound desperate, others sound hopeful, and some even sound as if they revere whoever this Gawain is. With a shake of my head I push the voices to the back of my mind while I focus on the battle at hand.

With a roar I slam the butt of my trident onto the floor and force every drop of water with my range of control to push outwards while sending a beam of divine power upwards. The result is a land free of water five hundred feet all around me. Between the beam of divine power vaporising any water over me and the water in my control pushing outward, I have created a space thousands of feet deep into the ocean waterless.

With my senses returned to me I am finally able to survey my surroundings. Inside the ocean, I can spot thousands of water constructs armed with bows, spears and swords surrounding me with some attempting to reach me only to be pushed back by my water. At some point during the battle the constructs began using ice weapons for the ground around me is littered with ice swords, spears and arrows.

"Well Poseidon, what now?" I question him. "We both know that the only way left to rid yourself of me is to use more power than you are willing to risk."

"Foolish boy!" roars his booming voice as a beam of divine energy cuts through my wall of water to strike me.

However, before it reaches within a hundred feet of me I, somehow, have already inscribed a runic shield fueled by my divinity into existence. Even as it blocks the attack I do not know how I was able to do this, especially since the runic array used has never been used before, nor have I ever seen or heard of it before.

Before I give further thought to the matter he sends a few more beams my way that I casually block even as he increases the amount of power in them. Unfortunately I cannot keep this up, I can feel my displays of power catching up with me. Keeping that divine beam going constantly drains me of my energy faster than the battle can replenish it. I must end this now, and preferably alive.

While this goes on I take control over the skies and summon a storm overhead. As lightning forms up in the skies, Poseidon ceases his attacks.

"What are you doing?!" he exclaims with no small amount of fear in his voice. "You will bring Zeus' attention straight towards us."

"Yes, that's the idea." I tell him as I increase in the intensity of the storm.

"You fool. He will smite us both." says a worried Poseidon.

"Of course not." I answer him with a scoff. "He will smite YOU. I will have teleported home by then. Meanwhile he will hunt you down for this little debacle and show of power. After all, there is no way a demigod of all people could be responsible for a storm." I tell him with a smirk while emphasising my status as a simple demigod to him.

"Very well. You may live a while longer." he tells me while his water constructs dematerialise and he relinquishes his power over the sea. "Mark my words boy. One you will be faced with a decision to make. Join me or perish. I hope you choose wisely." he informs me before disappearing to wherever he goes when enraged.

With him gone I let go of my facade and let the waters of the sea envelop me once again while the voices whispering to Gawain return. And as I slowly fall unconscious Bahamut appears in my vision and encircles me with his serpentine body as a form of protection.

"*Rest for a while kid. You earned it.*" he gently tells me in my mind. "*And don't worry about anything. I'll personally slaughter anything or anyone that comes to endanger you.*"

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AN: So that was him achieving mushin. I know that it was underwhelming, but I'm new so cut me a little bit of slack. When I'm a better writer I'll write a similar scene, but better. And if you guys found the battle underwhelming too, my apologies. I'm still learning.