You could say this skeletal giant lizard reacted quickly, knowing to counterattack with its tail—but against Clark's assault, it was futile.
Faced with the creature's tail, over two hundred meters long, Clark didn't dodge. Instead, he swung his fist straight into a section more than twenty meters thick.
"Arghhh~~!!!"
With the skeletal lizard's pained roar, its massive tail—blocking Clark's way—was smashed in half with a single punch. With only two legs left to support it, the creature lost its balance and crashed heavily to the ground.
But the fall didn't mean Clark was done. After breaking its tail, he charged straight through the rain of blood, his body glowing with golden light, and arrived before its head.
Although the skull covering made it impossible to see its eyes, Clark imagined that the lizard's gaze must now hold either fear or ferocity. Either way, that gaze was about to meet his glowing fist.
In the skeletal lizard's terrified stare, Clark slammed his punch into its skull.
Boom!
The blow shook the entire Skull Island. Even the storm raging at its borders seemed to tremble and collapse with that strike.
Clark didn't know exactly what was happening outside, but he could feel the tremors across the island.
"Hm… looks like you hit a bit too hard," he muttered, glancing at the giant lizard's now half-destroyed body, and at another skeletal lizard nearby that had collapsed from the shockwave. The state of the island made him realize just how strong that punch had been.
"Uh!"
As Clark was thinking about how to deal with this, the trident embedded in the underground chamber suddenly lit up. Moments later, the seawater around it began to swirl and churn violently.
Once the trident activated, Clark saw the island's tremors gradually subside. The storm surrounding Skull Island also stabilized as the trident's influence spread. And although it wasn't yet time for the island to fully close, he could see faint, illusory images forming in the sky around it.
"May, what do we do? It looks like Skull Island is shutting down!" In the airborne bus, Simmons' heart skipped as the distant storm began to vanish.
"Let's go down and find Coulson and the others!" May decided after only a moment's hesitation, guiding the aircraft into descent without worrying about the monsters anymore.
When all had calmed, the trident before Clark dimmed slightly, its glow weakened by the earlier upheaval. The surrounding water currents had also lessened since the activation.
Seeing this, Clark frowned. He realized he might have been wrong—these skeletal lizards probably weren't guarding the trident.
If they were, the trident would be stored securely as a sacred relic, not planted here as a stabilizer for the island's spatial structure.
That meant the trident was likely the core of Skull Island itself, maintaining both its internal spatial seals and its external defenses.
To test his theory, Clark took a few steps forward and reached out toward the now-dim trident.
But the moment his hand touched the thin veil of water surrounding it, the water spun violently, flinging his hand back.
"What!"
Clark looked at his slightly numb hand. The feeling lasted only a moment before his powerful regeneration erased it—but it was unsettling. His defense was such that even a missile's direct hit wouldn't leave his hand tingling, yet this thin layer of water had knocked him back and made his arm go numb.
This explained why the skeletal lizards stayed near the trident without ever touching it. It wasn't that they didn't want to move it—they simply couldn't. Except for their skulls, which were covered in bone, their bodies were relatively fragile. This water veil, capable of repelling even Clark, could likely strip the flesh from their bones.
But being able to repel him didn't mean he was helpless. Clark still had more than half his stored energy from activating Solar Flare Mode during the earlier battle.
So, standing before the trident, he triggered the Solar Flare Mode again and pushed his hand into the swirling water.
As his hand entered, the water's spin intensified, and its force grew stronger—so strong that, Clark estimated, it could twist a solid titanium rod into a corkscrew.
But Clark's arm was no titanium rod—it was far tougher. And beyond his physical strength, the Solar Flare Mode wrapped him in an energy cloak.
The water's impact was neutralized upon touching the energy layer. Clark could still feel the force, but it couldn't penetrate to his arm. Enduring the pressure, he gripped the golden serpent trident.
With a single, decisive pull, he wrenched it free from the ground.
The instant the trident came loose, the water veil collapsed and vanished. And as Clark held it, he suddenly felt as though he and the sea were one—that with this weapon, he could command every ocean on Earth.
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