"War has already broken out."
Batman looked at the watch on his wrist.
Even though he was in the desert, he could use Wayne Enterprises' satellite signals to stay informed about the outside world.
"We need to speed up."
...
...
"Faster, faster!"
"General, the Black Hawk Air Wing is in position!"
"Armored units are on standby!"
On the East Coast of America.
The white-haired lieutenant general who had previously negotiated with Superman was now forcefully maintaining a calm expression as he directed the deployment of his troops.
This was because an extremely massive fleet was approaching them on the horizon, far off the coastline.
It was as if the ocean had suddenly split open, and swarms of warships and marine creatures emerged from within.
Gulp.
In the command center, a US military officer couldn't help but swallow.
No one noticed him.
Everyone was watching the real-time footage from the battlefield.
When those massive warships rose from the sea, they carried the impact of the seawater and immense power, a truly shocking sight.
These were behemoths even more terrifying than aircraft carriers, with sci-fi designs, like battleships traversing space.
Atlanteans, dressed in high-tech battle armor, wearing water-filled helmets, and wielding energy guns, rode giant seahorses, sharks, sea serpents, and other creatures, surging towards the mainland.
The Atlantean tech tree was vastly different from humanity's; their domain was the ocean, while humanity's was the land.
Although in the last one or two hundred years, the ocean had become a crucial battlefield determining the fate of human nations, the naval and underwater combat capabilities of aircraft carriers, submarines, and destroyers still paled in comparison to Atlantis.
"Immediately activate all anti-ship missiles!"
"Launch fighter jets! Target all enemy ships!"
"Abandon the sea defense line! We are no match for them at sea; we only stand a chance if we bring the fight back to land!"
The white-haired lieutenant general pressed his hands on the control panel, his knuckles white.
"General! Superman is here!"
The non-commissioned officer operating the communication console suddenly exclaimed with delight.
On the battlefield, the sea wind howled, and a red cape fluttered.
"I'd like to speak with your commander. This is a war that shouldn't be happening."
Superman, with a sincere expression, spoke to an Atlantean soldier wearing red armor that resembled a crab.
"The war has already begun, surface dweller!"
Orm appeared at the very front of the Atlantean fleet at some unknown moment, clad in silver scale armor and holding a trident, shouting at Superman below.
"No, no one has died yet. There's still time."
Superman turned and spoke to Orm.
"Your Majesty, this man is the culprit behind the underwater disturbances in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. His power is immense, and I don't recommend you put yourself at risk. It would be best to use the special hydro-particle cannon I prepared for you to deal with him."
Lex Luthor's voice, aided by an Atlantean hydro-mage, reached Orm's mind.
Their location was in a special room on the vessel, preventing Superman from hearing Luthor's voice.
Orm immediately recalled the images Luthor had shown him earlier, which had been used to persuade the Saltwater Kingdom and the Fishermen's Kingdom.
The one in those images, whose eyes glowed and who could punch a small vacuum zone into the ocean, was this guy, wasn't it?
"The war began the moment you started polluting the ocean, surface dweller. We didn't come all this way just to turn back."
Orm slammed his silver trident onto the deck.
In an instant, all Atlantean soldiers raised their weapons.
The massive cannons on the giant ships also began furiously absorbing seawater, their muzzles glowing.
"I really don't want to hurt any of you."
Superman felt a pang of guilt.
He genuinely believed that humanity's excessive ocean pollution was the cause of this war.
However, this was only part of the reason, merely a slogan Orm used internally and externally.
The truth was that Orm, seeking power, intended to use the war to bind the other three ocean kingdoms, leveraging the external situation to stabilize his throne and expand his authority.
And this young king, lacking sufficient cunning, had conveniently run into the conniving Lex Luthor.
The two sides immediately hit it off.
"You've already hurt us."
Orm silently retreated.
At the same time, Superman suddenly surged forward, attempting to grab Orm and force him to withdraw his troops.
But then, a blue beam of light, tinged with green, shot from the battleship's massive cannon, knocking Superman flying.
"Open fire!"
At that moment, both sides simultaneously gave the order.
Superman stopped himself mid-air, looking with alarm at his arm.
On the back of his hand was a raw, scraped wound, similar to an abrasion.
However, under the sunlight, the wound rapidly healed as if nothing had happened.
It wasn't a major injury, but it was rare for Superman to bleed.
"Artificial Kryptonite really can't compare to the real thing. If I want to use these Atlanteans to eliminate Superman, I'll need to create another opportunity."
Lex Luthor, wearing a heavy but not bulky exoskeleton suit, stood with his hands behind his back in front of a screen. He watched the footage of Superman being blasted by the warship's cannon, and the US military and Atlantean forces clashing.
...
At the same time.
Gotham City.
"Mr. Dura, where is Councilman Watt?"
Gotham's current mayor, Hamilton, looked flustered as he watched the satellite broadcast of Gotham Harbor, asking his accountant.
"The boss is in England right now, but Mayor, there's no need to worry. If the US military and National Guard deployed in Gotham Harbor can't stop these Atlanteans, you can hire Watt Group's security company to protect Gotham."
The accountant, dressed in a suit, smiled gently as he spoke to Hamilton.
Qingshui's current forces—Watt Group openly, and Hogg United in the underworld—had been dormant for so long that the accountant knew exactly how powerful they had become.
It was a force several times stronger than the combined might of the Two-Face Gang and the Falcone Family from before!
Qingshui had directly built his core forces to the standards of a regular army.
Perhaps they couldn't compare to regular armies in terms of heavy firepower like tanks and armored vehicles, but they had secondary Titan Formula, ice bombs made with cryogenic coolants, Fear Toxin, and Puppets created from Solomon Grundy.
These good things, made by incorporating many products from Gotham's villains, were truly no less effective than the originals.
One could say that in the past, Hogg United relied on Qingshui's strength to achieve its current power. But with enough time for Hogg United to develop, it had now become an unshakeable behemoth in Gotham.
However, this power had never been openly displayed before.
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