Chapter 4433

"Steve?!" Diana subconsciously called out his name, but then pursed her lips, feeling a bit disgusted.

However, she also felt relieved. Now it looked like this little guy, let alone having three points of his father's ability, was afraid he still owed three points.

"I don't understand why you want to do this?" Diana said.

"He loves you very much, he died for you." Damian looked at her and said, "Do you have no guilt at all?"

"You know he died, then who is the one standing in front of me alive?"

"Of course it's the resurrected Steve."

"The dead cannot return to life." Diana said, "Steve was just an ordinary person. His corpse had long since merged into the earth, returning to the embrace of the Earth. The one standing in front of me now is a corpse shell and a phantom controlling him, made of I don't know what."

"Is that so?" Damian asked her, "But he shouldn't have died in the first place. He lost his life to protect you."

"I naturally know," Diana said, "I not only know, I have also seen this scene with my own eyes. I know how much he loves me."

"But you are unwilling to believe the fact that he returned to life, and unwilling to give him a chance."

Diana sighed lightly and said: "It's not a question of whether I'm willing or not now. Even if I'm willing, what can I do?"

"Expose that so-called Martian conspiracy, only then can you be with him."

"Damian, compared to your father, you really are far behind." Diana looked at Damian, and then said, "You racked your brains, stealing the artifact, and framing me. But in the end, you are still playing this kidnapping and threatening set. If it's just like this, why bother taking such a big detour? Just send me an email directly, and I would still come to see you."

"The artifact wasn't stolen by me." Damian said, "The person who stole it is someone else, and the person who framed you is also someone else. I invited you over, indeed just wanting to help you solve the trouble."

Diana frowned. She felt Damian wasn't lying, because Damian had already brought Steve here. He was clearly wanting to use Steve to move or threaten her, so there was no need to use the artifact to set a trap.

Moreover, getting Steve out of Themyscira wasn't simple either. Although they might have been working together, the Amazon warriors weren't vegetarians either. Damian couldn't possibly have two teams of professionals at the same time, going to steal the artifact and go to Themyscira to kidnap people respectively.

It seems he was also following the trend, then the real mastermind behind the scenes was obvious. Diana sighed in her heart; she seemed to understand a little bit what Shiler was doing with this game.

Just in this moment, Diana seemed to suddenly know how to successfully solve the problem after avoiding stepping into the self-proving trap.

"I don't believe a single word you guys say," Diana looked at Damian and said, "A group of rabble, daring to provoke me. Look at the sword!!!"

Diana drew the God-Killer sword and slashed. This was a true zero-frame start. The security guard who was escorting Steve didn't even react before being slashed down. Diana used her other hand to block bullets with her shield, kicked down another security guard beside her, and threw the shield aside. Damian's head was almost shaved off by her.

Damian also didn't seem to expect Diana to suddenly rise and attack. He dodged the shield somewhat embarrassedly, rolled on the ground, and fired a grappling hook, sticking to Diana's shield, and then threw it back. Who knew Diana didn't dodge or evade, caught the shield, and the Lasso of Truth followed the trend and bound Steve.

"What is resurrection really about?" Diana asked while fighting.

"I don't know..." Steve looked blank.

Diana herself didn't expect to ask it out just like this. Maybe Steve really didn't know now. The mastermind behind the scenes would clearly only enable control at the critical moment. Wasting time on this had no meaning.

Diana instantly knocked down a group of security personnel, and then aimed her target at Damian. But at this time, Damian had already used the grappling hook to reach the second floor. Diana immediately flew up to chase.

Diana observed Damian's movements; it looked like he was indeed an ordinary person, without any superpowers, but he was a bit too well-trained. He didn't have Batman's brain, but his skills had a few points of style.

Only seeing him use the grappling hook, tossing and turning at the railing of the mansion. Diana could indeed fly, but was always interfered with by the flying darts he fired. It wasn't impossible to carry it hard, but Diana was also worried that it was Batman's product, and if she got hit, she wouldn't be skinned and flesh-torn. She wouldn't take this risk.

In the process of flying up all the way, Diana discovered that Damian looked down subconsciously several times. She thought about it and understood what was going on. Running up was fake, wanting to escape with the help of Steve downstairs was real.

For some reason, Damian was very sure that she still had feelings for Steve. So he was afraid he wanted to hold Steve hostage to force her to let him go.

Diana pretended not to know and followed him up all the way. At the corner of the top floor, she lost Damian's trail.

Logically speaking, she should continue to look for him upstairs, but Diana already knew Damian's strategy, and very simply flew downstairs. She reached out and waved, and the Lasso of Truth brought Steve flying toward her. She threw Steve directly to the second floor, and sure enough, saw Damian rushing out from the porch on the first floor.

Diana sneered, and raised her eyebrows at him. But suddenly she discovered Damian's expression was a bit wrong. He wasn't angry or panicked, but very calm.

Diana realized something was wrong. She immediately stopped continuing to fly down, but it was already too late. A black light—to be precise, a very thin black line—flashed past her eyes. The combat instinct practiced in thousands of battles made her twist her body violently in the air, falling to the ground in an extremely strange posture. But this also made that black line not touch her directly, only touching her left arm.

Diana fell heavily to the ground, but she immediately climbed up and turned to look at her left arm. What made her pupils shrink was that her entire arm started to turn gray.

It wasn't that the color turned gray, but it was a bit like necrosis. The muscle tissue gradually turned into a withered dark color. Looking closely, there was a black dot on the wrist, and the decay started from there.

Diana gritted her teeth secretly. She had been very careful to guard against it, and from beginning to end, she hadn't had any physical contact with Damian, and even when she chased the closest, she was at least a meter away, but she still got hit.

With a "bang," the door of the mansion was suddenly kicked open.

A large group of agents rushed in and surrounded the two people directly. The agents made way, and Shiler walked out, saying to the people behind him: "Search."

All the agents split into several groups and started searching in the mansion. Diana actually guessed some, but Damian frowned. He didn't know what Shiler was doing.

"Found it! Found it! The genuine article is here!!!"

A shout suddenly came from the back of the mansion. Diana looked in that direction, and several agents ran over and said: "The genuine article of the Serpent of Phryne was hidden by them in the room!"

Shiler waved his hand: "Take them down."

And then he walked to Diana, reached out to shake hands with her, and then said: "Sorry, Miss. Didn't expect this group of Martians lurking among humans to be so cunning. In order not to let their secrets be exposed to the public, they actually chose to steal and swap Egyptian treasures. Ms. Prince, not only did you help humanity recover this precious artifact, but you are also a hero who thwarted the Martian conspiracy!"

Although Diana had some guesses, hearing Shiler say this, she was still stunned for a moment. How did this broken snake have a new plot?!

Then Diana watched dumbfoundedly as the Serpent of Phryne was dragged out by the agents with a trailer. To be precise, it was a brand-new version of the Serpent of Phryne.

The size and style were actually about the same as before, but it had much more content than the original version. The composition of this mural was like this: the sky was above, with symbols like lightning and clouds, and of course, alien spaceships; the earth was below, with mountains and rivers; and in the middle was a giant snake.

Originally, the main content was on the giant snake. And after having alien spaceships, the sky wasn't very empty either. But there was nothing on the earth. And this version of the Serpent of Phryne had many typical Egyptian little people on the earth.

Actually, before, when knowing the Serpent of Phryne was fake, Diana had used her professional knowledge to analyze it. If one had to say where the flaws on the snake's appearance were, it was actually that the content on the painting didn't look like the expression technique of Egyptian murals.

A big feature of Egyptian murals was illustration. The so-called illustration was that it didn't express something through the images of the whole picture, but conveyed information through different elements in the painting, such as characters, decorative blocks, and text, etc.

There might not be a connection between these elements; they might be talking about their own things, or might express different aspects of the same theme. It looked very much like a collection illustration.

For example, next to a character's feet, a row of ancient Egyptian text was drawn, but this text had nothing to do with the character, just appearing in the same era. Next to it was a row of decorative patterns, and the patterns had nothing to do with the character and text, just to record this pattern.

Using all parts of a whole painting to work for the same core and atmosphere was something that happened much later. In earlier times, pictures were used to record things, not to set off the atmosphere or convey emotions, so they looked more rational. Compared to painting, they were more like symbols.

And this Serpent of Phryne forged by Shiler was more like it was from the same era as the Mona Lisa. There was a main body in the front, and a background of sky, mountains, rivers, and mountains drawn behind. This was actually not the style of ancient Egyptian painting.

Although she also thought about the possibility of Shiler being unprofessional, Diana believed that compared to being unprofessional, it was more likely that he did it on purpose. Because it had to be admitted that such a composition was more in line with modern people's aesthetics and easier for them to understand.

If it were really like those Egyptian murals, with the whole wall full of decorative patterns and no focus at all, they might not like to look at it. If the dissemination power among the crowd was insufficient, it wouldn't reach the goal Shiler wanted.

However, this brand-new version of the Serpent of Phryne made up for this shortcoming. Because now in the mountain and river part, a row of ancient Egyptian little people appeared, as well as text and decorations. The only small problem was that these ancient Egyptian little people were Martians.

Although they wore ancient Egyptian costumes and their postures were exactly the same as those on the ancient Egyptian murals, one could see that their faces and ears were more like the main body of J'onn who gave the speech that day.

This group of little people wasn't standing in rows, but had actions: the first three rows were holding weapons, the back three rows were also holding weapons, and only the middle ones were carrying the Pharaoh's coffin. The reason it could be seen that it was the Pharaoh was because the Pharaoh's coffin was very characteristic. Anyone who had watched two episodes of movies related to the Pharaoh could recognize it.

Shiler also pretended to look at the mural and sighed: "No wonder they lurked in the British royal family and deliberately stole and swapped this mural; it turns out they were worried that their existence would be exposed early. Ms. Prince, not only did you help humanity recover this precious artifact, but you are also a hero who thwarted the Martian conspiracy!"

Diana's expression almost cracked; if she could, she really didn't want to be this hero.