Chapter 4369: Justice League: Assembly (Twenty-Four)

Diana slept again and only then finally woke up fully. She complained a bit: Bruce's drug potency was a bit too strong, able to knock even a demigod like her out; she really didn't know what situation would call for such painkillers.

After she woke up, she carefully recalled what Bruce had said to her, then couldn't help but slap her forehead — she had been really stupid; by the end she was practically dreaming whatever sentence came to mind, completely illogical, no wonder Bruce told her to sleep first.

Her outrageous performance in deduction made Diana a bit too embarrassed to look for Bruce again. So she went to find her mother. The Queen was looking at sea charts, and seeing her approach, looked at her shoulder with some worry. Diana said: "I'm fine, Mother. Just now I called a friend, and he said Orm attacking the Amazons so urgently isn't entirely because we have Cold Iron."

Mother and daughter sat down. Diana held a cup of juice, drinking as she spoke: "He suddenly changed strategy, probably because he learned of a rival's moves. But the strange part is, how exactly did he learn of the rival's plan?"

The Queen seemed to have a guess, but couldn't be certain; she only said: "This matter likely has hidden details. Most important is to first repel this madman, protect the Amazons."

Diana moved her shoulder, saw the wound on her shoulder was no longer bleeding, moving it didn't hurt much either; she said: "I'll go protect the shipping lanes first."

The Queen nodded, and so Diana set off. She quickly flew to the stricken freighter; the entire ocean-going freighter had sunk. Diana closed her eyes in pain.

But she still quickly locked onto the sea monsters' positions underwater. This time she didn't go into the water, instead flying directly in the sky, observing the sea monsters' movements. Soon a freighter came over, and the sea monsters below indeed moved. They wanted to attack the freighter from the bottom, and Diana flew directly to the freighter's side, took a deep breath, and slowly lifted the freighter up.

Although this would also make the sailors inside fall over, because the tilting speed was relatively slow, they had time to react, and even if injured, it was still better than being eaten by sea monsters.

She held a freighter like that, flying all the way to the port. But when she went back, two more freighters had been attacked.

And one of the freighters was full of Amazon warriors. They were quite capable fighters, but these sea monsters would sink the freighter first, leaving the warriors with no foothold, forcing them to fight in the water.

Though the Amazon warriors were valiant, they were ultimately not an ocean race; they couldn't fight long before needing to surface for air, and if they couldn't get air they would suffocate. Diana disregarded her own injuries, going in and out of the water seven times, but still watched helplessly as a sister was pierced through the abdomen by a sea monster's sharp tail spike.

She rushed over and fished her out. Then another sister was knocked down. She sent the injured one to the surface first to breathe, then went to fish out the one knocked down.

But during this time more were injured, and once injured, surfacing became very difficult. Some struggled sinking down, then were dragged further down. Diana was both shocked and angry, swimming desperately back and forth in the water, but still couldn't prevent sacrifices.

With a "whoosh," she flew out of the water. Looking at the seawater already tinged with blood, Diana clenched her fists hard: "Atlantis!!!"

She took several deep breaths, admonishing herself to stay calm: this matter wasn't that simple. But the war casualties still made her recall her experience saving people in the trenches back then.

Why? Why provoke war? Why create meaningless casualties? Why go all out to destroy others?

She once thought it was because humans were too belligerent, or too young. But now the struggle among ancient remnant races let her see the truth of war. Killing others requires no special reason; the nature of intelligent life is bloodthirsty, brutal; the nature of civilization is mutual harm, mutual killing.

Diana took a deep breath, plunged into the water again. She let out a silent roar underwater, divine power surging out, directly blasting all sea monsters away. She stirred up a violent vortex in the sea, sending all the wounded and corpses to the surface, then transported them to land.

Arthur and Mera soon found the Forgotten Place where the Golden Trident was. But a giant sea monster stood guard here. He and Mera expended great effort before finally pinning the sea monster down.

Arthur walked toward the throne before him. He had already seen the Golden Trident; a tremendously powerful force radiated from it, as if all the oceans were boiling for it.

When he reached out his hand, wanting to take the trident down, he thought of many things. He understood that once he took back this weapon, it wouldn't be as simple as just defeating Orm. He would become the new King of Atlantis, he would bear responsibility for all sea tribes, this would become his life's work.

He had thought Mera would urge him on, but soon he heard footsteps behind him. Mera stood behind him, then said: "This isn't just for the sea tribes, Arthur. For many years, human industrial development has let the ocean waste they produce threaten the sea tribes' living environment. The conflict has been intensified to near irreconcilability, otherwise Orm wouldn't have the idea of conquering the continent."

"And once the sea tribes use the most violent means to solve the problems between humans and sea tribes, this war will inevitably be protracted, with countless casualties. Humans are fragile before sea tribes, but sea tribes may not withstand human artillery either; in the end both will only suffer mutual destruction. Your father and your father's friends may all be harmed in this war. Even for their sake, you can only shoulder this responsibility, otherwise you will certainly regret it."

Arthur took a deep breath. The man who had lost half his body flashed through his mind. Fishermen's lives were already hard enough; they had to battle weather, battle the sea, risk their lives, and might still come up empty-handed. If sea tribe aggression was added on top, they simply couldn't survive.

He grew up in human society, full of attachment to Amnesty Bay which raised him. Even for those neighbors who once helped him and his father, he could only step forward.

Suddenly he felt a hand rest on his shoulder. Mera said: "You are not alone, Arthur. I will stand with you."

The moment Arthur's hand grasped the Golden Trident, all of Earth's oceans trembled. The same signal came from the waters of the Seven Seas; powerful might like the prestige of Atlantis at its peak announced the arrival of the Sea King.

Orm also sensed this power. He went from initial gloom to some panic. Then he waved the weapon in his hand and roared: "Attack!! Attack!!!"

However, accompanied by a golden light splitting into the sea like thunder, a robust Arthur appeared behind him, punching him flying, then retrieving the thrown trident, floating above Orm, looking at him and saying: "You are not worthy to be King of Atlantis."

Orm climbed up immediately. He shouted at Arthur: "You bastard, damn bastard!!!"

"I'm not here to discuss that with you." Arthur said, "Do you know your move to attack the continent could simultaneously destroy both humans and sea tribes?"

"We fundamentally cannot coexist!" Orm said stiff-necked, "Those humans dump waste into the ocean without restraint. Fish die, coral dies, even sea monsters are poisoned to death by them. If we don't eliminate them, how are we to survive?!"

"Then let me ask you: how many main types of waste do humans dump into the sea? From which countries and which enterprises respectively? What changes in discharge values over the years? Which organization in human society is responsible for supervising and improving marine discharge issues?"

Orm opened his mouth, then said with some embarrassment turning to anger: "That's not something you should ask me, you should go ask humans!"

"If asking them worked, they wouldn't be dumping!"

Orm was a bit stunned. He didn't know if Arthur was agreeing with him or scolding him, so could only say: "What do I care about those, they're all humans!"

"So that's how it is. Then today's invaders of the Amazons are only these sea tribes. Where are the rest? Why didn't you bring them together?"

"Those damn fools don't understand at all! They simply don't realize how critical the situation already is!"

"Then you expect every human to realize it?" Arthur swam to face Orm, then said, "You wouldn't really be stupid enough to think humans and Atlantis are different, united like an iron plate dumping waste into the sea, would you?"

"How many people does Atlantis have? There are 6 billion humans on Earth. The gaps between every country, every race, every region might be even larger than the gap between humans and Atlanteans. You don't even understand the basic situation of human society, yet want to solve problems with the simplest violent means. Is your cerebellum connected straight to your rectum?"

"How do I not understand!" Orm roared again, "America is the most powerful country; I just need to defeat America, and they'll all not dare fight me!"

Arthur snorted coldly again, then said: "I can tell you clearly, if you don't attack America, the two American parties might completely split within the next month, even erupt into hot war. But if you attack now, all Americans will unite at light speed, then become an even more powerful country than you imagine, and kick you back into the sea with one foot."

Orm was stunned again. He felt Arthur was talking nonsense. He felt he couldn't out-argue Arthur, so simply didn't want to communicate anymore, raised the weapon in his hand and charged straight over.

Arthur also didn't fear in the slightest, swung the trident and tangled with him. The Golden Trident's powerful force let him stir up the most terrifying ocean current storms. Countless bubbles surrounded Orm; he felt the entire ocean was against him.

"Impossible, impossible!!!!!" Orm roared unwillingly, "How can you possibly defeat me!!!"

Arthur charged fiercely again, swung the trident and stabbed down at him. Orm wanted to run, but the currents grabbed his feet. He closed his eyes in some despair. But the next second, the trident grazed his ear and stabbed into the seabed sand.

Orm shuddered in fright. Arthur half-kneeling pressed on him, staring coldly: "Tell me, why did you suddenly go attack the Amazons. Otherwise, next time this thing will be stuck in your head."

Orm swallowed, still wanting to act tough. But looking at Arthur's icy eyes, he could only say: "I went to find the Sea Turtle Elder, he told me the Golden Trident's raw materials are in the Amazons, I figured since I couldn't find it anyway, might as well forge one myself."

"Why would you think to go get the trident?"

"Because you were going to get it! If I didn't get it I couldn't beat you, right?"

"But how did you know I was going to get it?" Arthur asked him, this was what he found most puzzling. He had never met him, Mera would never betray him. So how would Orm know his movements?

"I, I naturally have my channels..." The trident beside him moved a bit, Orm squeezed his eyes shut and said, "... U. S. Coast Guard! I have bought people inside. They heard the content of your phone call with that Justice League..."

Arthur took a deep breath. He slammed a fist hard into Orm's chest: "How the fuck can you be this stupid!"

Orm was puzzled again. He had eavesdropped on his conversation, shouldn't that be smart?

"They let you hear it on purpose!" Arthur closed his eyes, said helplessly, "This is the National Security Bureau's usual trick, create a so-called intelligence leak case, actually using true and false intelligence to provoke war! You damn fool!"

Though saying this, he still stood up, face icy as he said to Mera beside him: "Though he's a bit stupid, the one who should bear responsibility for this war is someone else. Take him away and lock him up first, then go find the real culprit and settle accounts!"

?? As expected, Americans understand Americans