Chapter 4434: Prelude to Darkness (26)

While the agents went to search the back, the other agents had already pinned Damian down. Diana actually wanted to remind them that he might be dangerous, but these agents seemed extraordinarily fearless of death. At Schiller's command, they moved with zero-frame reaction time, pinning Damian down instantly.

Diana hadn't expected Damian to put up no resistance, nor did he use the same methods to harm these agents as he had used on her. He only struggled and shouted, "The Justice League and the President! You have been deceiving the public all along! You damn bastards!!!"

To be honest, even though the little guy had just hurt her, Diana couldn't help but think that his shouting was absolutely correct. He had become the righteous and kind resistance fighter, while her side was the mastermind weaving a conspiracy.

But there was no help for it; they were already on this pirate ship, and there was no getting off. Diana walked to Schiller's side and asked in a low voice, "So, is this your goal?"

"Which goal?" Schiller smiled at her. "I have many goals."

Diana was just about to count how many he had achieved when she saw the reporters rush in. Leading them was the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Planet, followed by Lois and a group of independent reporters.

They first rushed to the mural for a flurry of photos, then went to interview Schiller. The Editor-in-Chief, having a sharp eye, came to Diana's side, raised his microphone, and asked, "Hello, ma'am. Is it true that you cooperated with the government to take down these Martians?"

Diana adjusted her state and said, "To be honest, I didn't know this was a Martian conspiracy before. I thought my own sisters had committed the crime. Initially, I just wanted to clear my name and catch the culprit, but I didn't expect these Martians to have laid a trap here. If it weren't for Mr. Rodriguez's timely arrival, I probably wouldn't have been their match..."

Diana moved her arm, and the Editor-in-Chief immediately saw it. He immediately directed his crew to get a close-up of Diana's arm and said, "For a super-powered being as strong as you to be injured like this, the Martians must be truly powerful."

Diana didn't want to boost the enemy's morale or diminish her own at all. But the source of the curse beside her kept giving her looks, so she had to sigh and say, "Yes, super-powered beings have their own strengths and weaknesses; not everyone has strong defenses. Once they fall into a trap or are ambushed, they can also be in mortal danger..."

"In that case, isn't our President also in danger?"

"He has never been safe!" Diana's words came from the bottom of her heart, and she kept glancing at Schiller. With such a secretary hovering around him, it would be strange if he were safe.

"I must remind you all that super-powered beings are not shields. On the contrary, precisely because they don't want these super-powered beings to protect humanity, the Martians will try every possible way to frame and murder them. I am the best example. If I hadn't tracked them to their lair and uncovered their conspiracy, I probably would have been exiled from Earth."

"My fellow citizens, now is definitely not the time for infighting. Martians are hiding by your sides, plotting to alienate you from your friends and family. They want to turn every one of us into an isolated island so they can defeat us one by one. Whether you are an ordinary person or a super-powered being, as long as we want to protect the Earth, we should unite like sisters and never give any extraterrestrial force an opportunity!"

Diana said these words with sincerity. After all, although there were no Martians now, there were these resurrected puppets of the God of Death. To be honest, it was no different from a Martian invasion, and perhaps even more dangerous. After all, she heard from J'onn that Martians had a weakness for fire, but the weaknesses of these puppets were not yet known, making them trickier than Martians.

Moreover, they were clearly targeting the Justice League, obviously wanting to incite the public against them. And inciting emotions was actually very simple. Just like this time, how many people could firmly believe Diana was innocent?

Even after knowing that Martians had infiltrated humanity and were preparing to create chaos, not everyone reacted that quickly. Coupled with a group of people constantly stirring the pot, many would feel that what they said made sense—that besides Diana, a super-powered being, no one else could have swapped the artifact—and naturally, they pinned the blame on her, and the other side succeeded.

Fortunately, they ran into Schiller, the master of stirring the pot. After finishing the interviews, Diana clicked on a news website and saw that high-definition photos of the brand-new "Serpent of Frine" were already spreading across the globe.

By now, Diana could figure out several of Schiller's goals. Letting the online narrative ferment and leaving her deep in a whirlpool of public opinion, nearly being framed, was a necessary step. Because, compared to empty talk, facts placed before one's eyes were easier to believe.

If you just told people out of the blue that Martians would definitely target the Justice League and try every way to frame them, the public might not believe it, or might even think you were making a mountain out of a molehill or had persecution delusions.

But with this incident, it was different. Diana had truly been framed—this mural wasn't swapped by her at all; it had been swapped back when it was still in storage at the British Museum, before it was ever shown to the public.

The news about the Royal Family swapping the artifact wasn't groundless; it was true. It was just that Martians had infiltrated the Royal Family and used the excuse of a charity gala to swap the artifact, with the goal of covering up the fact of the Martians' existence.

For many years, Martians had been making preparations all over Earth, not only constantly eliminating various evidence of Martian existence but also brutally silencing relevant witnesses, all to deceive humanity so they could seize the Earth in one fell swoop one day.

To this end, they had long since infiltrated the upper echelons of various countries, secretly manipulating elections, controlling the public, and simultaneously erasing evidence of their crimes, which was why this matter had been hidden for so many years.

They had disguised themselves as members of the Royal Family, swapped the mural, and then framed Diana, all to smear Diana's reputation and, by extension, make people distrust the Justice League.

This news caused a huge uproar. The matter of swapping the artifact was already hot, but this reversal was completely unexpected. Major media outlets scrambled to report it, and the image of the new version of the "Serpent of Frine" spread rapidly across the world.

People could easily see that the image of the Egyptian figures was closer to J'onn's true form. But more importantly, what they were doing was carrying a Pharaoh's sarcophagus.

Although the mural was slightly overexposed, one could still see that the smashed "Serpent of Frine" had a layer of imitation stone skin on the outside, which looked like it was made of some composite material, or perhaps it was covered in natural stone skin, while the inside was entirely concrete—and it was clearly modern, high-strength concrete.

If it were only this photo, it wouldn't be much. Even if they released a video of the theft, it could be a set they built themselves. But the fatal part was that the content of the video they filmed matched the official announcement released by the police, and the video was released first.

As mentioned before, because this sculpture involved aliens, all countries attached great importance to it and exerted significant pressure. Unfortunately, the police investigated and found nothing, until Diana discovered a detail and deduced the modus operandi.

These robbers had a method; they had removed the glass from the floor-to-ceiling window and then carried the sculpture out. This could be considered a major investigative breakthrough. To relieve the pressure on themselves, the police hurriedly released the progress.

Logically speaking, the detailed modus operandi shouldn't have been disclosed to prevent imitation. But the museum director didn't want to take such a huge responsibility; he just wanted everyone to think the robbers were too cunning, rather than their security being inadequate. So he simply blurted out the part about the window.

But as it happened, the video released by the robbers was earlier than the investigation results released by the police. In other words, they had released their modus operandi first, and then the police had figured it out.

The reason this video hadn't been discovered before was that the dark web wasn't a public website and didn't have modern interactive systems; one needed a specific domain name to see a specific page. They hadn't expected the robbers to be so bold as to release the video right after the theft. No one had tracked this domain name, so naturally, it hadn't been discovered.

And the resourceful netizens deduced through the domain's creation time that the video's release time was earlier than the investigation results' release. In other words, this was highly likely to be real.

After all, unless one did the deed personally, who could be so clear about the process? They didn't use very common methods, so it was impossible to stage it so detailed and correctly; it had to be recorded by the parties involved.

This was a disaster. If the one shipped from the US to the UK was a fake due to a work error, then the one borrowed by the British Museum and acknowledged as genuine was also a fake.

So now there were only two outcomes: either the UK admitted they had deliberately lent a fake to the US, or they admitted they didn't know either and the artifact had truly been swapped.

The former was definitely out of the question. The UK was a NATO country and couldn't afford to provoke the US before, and even less so now that they had Superman as President. If they admitted it, they would be in for a rough time later.

The latter, however, left room for sophistry. The swap had indeed occurred, but where and in which country it happened was a matter of great significance. Anyway, what they shipped out was genuine, so it must have been swapped by the US museum.

The public also tended to believe this explanation, because if the UK had known it was a fake, they wouldn't have lent it out so brazenly. If it had been discovered, wouldn't they have been waiting to be humiliated?

It was more likely they had shipped a genuine one, but it had been swapped by people at the Metropolitan Museum, so the one stolen was a fake.

This explanation was obviously unacceptable to the Metropolitan Museum, and all the staff were crying out in grievance. Still, it wasn't a small object; if they had the ability to swap such a large mural, why would they be working here?

Taking a step back, if they were stealing, they would steal something small and valuable, which would be easier to sell. The Metropolitan Museum couldn't compare to the British Museum in terms of historical artifacts, but they did have precious jewelry, so why go to such lengths?

The staff began to defend themselves on the internet, saying they had neither the idea nor the ability. But just defending themselves wouldn't clear their suspicion; at least they had to point out who the suspect was to have a chance of completely clearing their names.

And so, Diana was unlucky again.

Ordinary people couldn't move such a heavy object, but it was easy for a super-powered being. Diana could fly and had immense strength; only she could swap the mural without a sound.

When Diana saw this news, she really wanted to say goodbye to this beautiful world. She would rather go back to Mount Olympus and face Hera's expression than stay on Earth!

Fortunately, she had already anticipated the Pharaoh's curse. Diana barely calmed down and began to think. She also admitted that she indeed had suspicion, and was the most suspicious one, after all, ability was more important than intent. She was the only one in the entire museum who could have pulled off the swap.

As for why it wasn't an outside super-powered being, on one hand, one needed to know the museum well, otherwise it would be impossible to do it so silently; on the other hand, making a fake was also quite difficult, requiring deep knowledge of the artifact itself and replicating various details, which was basically impossible for anyone but a professional.

Thinking of this, Diana suddenly had a flash of insight.