Chapter 66: Chloe almost goes berserk with jealousy, Diana is brutally abused
"Snap."
The black plastic tray overturned.
Two white porcelain coffee cups smashed onto the Persian carpet.
The cups did not break, but the brown hot coffee spilled all over the floor.
Heat mixed with a burnt, bitter smell rose into the air.
Chloe paid no mind to the back of her hand, which had been scalded red.
She stared fixedly outside the French window.
Hanging upside down on the lightning rod was a woman wearing armor.
Long legs.
Black hair.
That face, even stained with dust, was dazzlingly beautiful.
The point was that this woman had actually been tied there by Shen Che himself.
Chloe's breathing instantly became chaotic.
Her nostrils flared rapidly.
Her chest felt like a pot of boiling water.
She had thought that the female reporter named Louiseyesterday was already the baseline.
She hadn't expected that just after one night,
another one would pop up.
And this time, even her clothes were worn so revealingly, with such a long stretch of her legs exposed outside.
Chloe's sanity was burned through in this very second.
Her possessiveness bit into her nerves like a venomous snake.
In her blue eyes, bloodshot redness instantly surged.
Deep within her pupils, two blinding red lights exploded into brilliance without warning.
The temperature of the surrounding air suddenly rose.
The coffee liquid on the carpet sizzled and puffed white smoke.
"Bitch."
Chloe squeezed two words out between her teeth.
She didn't look at Shen Che.
She transformed into a blue afterimage, charging directly toward the broken French window opening.
Shattered glass was trampled into powder beneath her red boots.
Diana was still swaying in mid-air.
Just as she recovered her wits from despair, she saw a woman wearing a gray hoodie rushing over.
Those eyes glowing with red light looked like those of a lunatic.
Diana hadn't had time to speak yet.
Chloe had already leaned out half her body.
She grabbed a handful of Diana's black hair, which had been blown messy by the wind.
Her five fingers dug into the scalp like iron hooks, giving a fierce tug.
"Mff!"
Diana's scalp tingled, and her neck was forced to lean backward.
Chloe didn't give her a chance to breathe.
Her red leather boots lifted.
Carrying violent power, they kicked fiercely into Diana's abdomen.
"Bang!"
A muffled sound rang out.
This kick carried immense force.
Diana's body arched in mid-air like a shrimp.
The armor plates rubbed against each other, producing a harsh scraping sound.
Diana's hands were bound behind her with the lasso of truth, and her divine power was sealed.
Right now, although her physical strength was stronger than that of ordinary people, in front of a mutant of Chloe's level,
she didn't even have room to fight back.
Her stomach churned violently, and sour water surged straight upward.
Diana gritted her teeth and forcefully swallowed that mouthful of sour liquid.
She was a warrior; she wouldn't cry out in pain.
"You estrous bitch!"
Chloe roared, delivering another kick.
This time, it kicked directly onto Diana's chest.
"How dare you run into his office to act so slutty!"
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
A storm of fists and kicks slammed onto Diana without reservation.
Every single strike carried the dull sound of flesh and bone colliding.
Diana was kicked and beaten back and forth in mid-air like a sandbag.
A trace of fresh blood finally overflowed from the corner of her mouth.
Threads of blood dripped down her chin onto the red armor.
She did not beg for mercy.
Her black eyes revealed an unyielding ferocity as she stared fixedly at Chloe.
This kind of gaze only added fuel to the fire.
"You still dare to glare at me?"
Chloe's eye sockets burned hot.
The surrounding air was baked until it twisted and deformed.
She released her grip on Diana's hair.
She took half a step back.
Two scarlet Heat Visions shot out from the depths of her eyes.
They didn't sweep directly across Diana's face; she didn't want to burn this woman to death so painlessly.
The Heat Vision landed precisely on Diana's chest—
onto that golden battle-eagle emblem symbolizing the highest glory of the Amazon.
"Hiss—"
A harsh metallic melting sound rang out.
Temperatures reaching thousands of degrees heated directly against the armor.
The golden eagle emblem rapidly softened and reddened in the red light.
In just a few short seconds,
that ancient metal of several thousand years melted into a pool of scalding iron liquid.
The molten iron flowed down Diana's chest.
Although the armor lining had a heat-insulation layer, that high-temperature scorching sensation right against her skin
caused Diana's entire body's muscles to instantly spasm.
A suppressed groan finally escaped from her throat.
Sweat mixed with fresh blood dripped down her cheeks.
The proud Amazon princess was at this moment being brutally abused by a crazy woman hanging outside the window.
Shen Che sat in the leather chair behind the obsidian desk.
His long legs were stretched out casually.
He watched all of this with cold eyes.
He didn't speak up to stop it.
He didn't even make a move to change his sitting posture.
He didn't need to explain anything.
Chloe was a lunatic; he knew that.
But he kept this lunatic precisely because she was useful.
The kind of divine arrogance and sense of justice in Diana's bones could not be shattered by just a few words.
Someone had to come and use the most barbaric, crudest, and purest physical torture
to trample her pathetic pride into the mud and crush it.
Shen Che looked at Diana's painfully distorted face and at that pool of melted iron liquid.
His fingers tapped lightly on the leather armrest of the chair.
"Tap. Tap."
Very rhythmic, as if beating time.
Until Diana's breathing grew weaker and weaker,
the fresh blood at the corner of her mouth formed a continuous line, and her armor was covered with sunken footprints and scorched marks.
If he kept beating her down any further, this demigod would probably really be tortured to death.
Shen Che still needed to keep her around because she was useful.
"Enough."
Shen Che spoke.
His voice wasn't loud, but it was exceptionally clear amidst the wind.
Chloe's movements instantly froze.
The red boot that had just been about to kick toward Diana's rib was forcefully stopped mid-air.
Only an inch away from Diana's flesh.
Chloe panted heavily.
Her chest heaved violently.
Her hoodie was half-soaked with sweat.
The red light at the bottom of her eyes gradually dissipated.
She turned her head and looked at Shen Che.
There was still undissipated ferocity in her gaze, but more of it was a flattering submissiveness.
"She dirtied your window," Chloe muttered.
She pulled back her raised boot,
and incidentally rubbed the iron-liquid ash stuck to her sole against the broken window frame.
Shen Che didn't reply.
He looked at Diana hanging outside the window like a broken sack.
This once-unrivaled female warrior god now didn't even have the strength to raise her head.
Her temper was completely gone.
Right at this moment,
down the corridor outside the office, a rush of hurried high-heel sounds came over.
Running in great disorder, as if a headless fly was crashing around everywhere.
"President Shen! President Shen!"
PR Director Ashley tumbled and scrambled through the main doors.
Her feet tripped, and she directly tumbled onto the coffee stain Chloe had overturned earlier.
Her expensive professional attire was stained with a large patch of brown filth.
She couldn't care about that.
Scrambling and crawling, she approached the obsidian desk.
In her hands, she tightly gripped a tactical tablet with its screen lit up.
Ashley's hair was as messy as a chicken's nest, and her hairline seemed to have receded another half an inch.
Her face was as pale as death without a shred of color, and her lips trembled.
"The... The East Coast..."
She cried out stammeringly, her voice cracking.
She held the tablet computer high above her head with both hands, handing it toward Shen Che.
"Tsunami... Boston is gone!"
Shen Che raised his eyelids slightly.
He didn't take the tablet, merely glancing at the screen.
On the screen were real-time images transmitted back by the Military's satellites.
Within the image, there were no high-rises, no streets.
Only a pitch-black expanse of seawater that seemed to connect with the sky.
Giant waves dozens of meters high, resembling a moving black city wall,
carrying the momentum of devouring everything, fiercely shattered the breakwater of Boston's port.
Countless containers were swept up into the sky by the wave crest like plastic toys.
Seawater rushed backward into the city, instantly turning large areas of blocks into a vast ocean.
Shen Che looked at that image.
His fingers stopped tapping on the armrest.
Within those bottomless black eyes of his,
a trace of genuine impatience finally surfaced.
On this dilapidated Earth, there were always people who liked to snatch food from his plate.
Chapter 67: Aquaman wants to take the opportunity to flood the land? Atlantis is getting full of itself
Shen Che extended his right hand.
He took the coffee-stained tablet computer from Ashley, who was slumped on the ground.
His fingertips swiped across the screen, enlarging the image.
On the screen.
Giant black waves tens of meters high were like a collapsed city wall,
carrying overwhelming kinetic energy as they fiercely smashed against the breakwater of Boston harbor.
Tons of seawater slammed into the concrete dam, bursting open white splashes.
Several moored ten-thousand-ton cargo ships were like plastic ducks in a bathtub,
swept up by the giant waves. Their hulls collided with each other, producing a harsh sound of twisting steel,
and then they were thrown onto the streets along the shore, crushing rows of cars and streetlights.
This was not a natural disaster.
The drone camera zoomed in.
Atop the highest wave stood a tall and sturdy man.
His upper body was bare, with knotted muscles covered in bizarre green scaly tattoos.
The sea breeze blew away his messy wet hair.
In his hand, he held a gleaming golden trident.
Arthur Curry. The King of Atlantis. Aquaman.
The massive blackout a few days ago had paralyzed New York, followed by the doomsday panic of solar flares.
The terrestrial divine authorities on Earth appeared riddled with holes amidst these successive catastrophes.
Arthur watched all this from the seabed.
He felt that the opportunity had come. The monkeys on land were killing each other, controlled by fear.
That newly ascended Vought CEO must have suffered heavy damage after dealing with the flares.
The sea race could take advantage of this window period to reshape the rules of Earth.
Extending their hands to the land to harvest the wealth belonging to the ocean.
Inside the screen,
Arthur slammed the trident heavily onto the crest of the wave.
The water surface actually emitted a roar of metal and stone colliding.
He raised his head and roared at the drone camera hovering mid-air.
The roar, mixed with the howling of the waves, was transmitted through the loudspeaker.
"Land-dwellers!"
His voice was rough, exuding an unbridled overbearingness.
"The ocean's patience has its limits. Your pollution and greed must pay a price."
With a flick of his wrist, the trident pointed toward the half-submerged downtown Boston.
"This is just a warning!"
"Starting from today, hand over the administrative rights of all coastal cities globally."
"Pay tribute to Atlantis! Otherwise, the seawater will submerge every inch of land!"
The video signal abruptly cut off here.
The screen turned to static. The drone was destroyed by debris swept down by the wave crest.
Inside the CEO's office,
only the sound of the wind poured in through the broken window.
Ashley lay flat on the ground, not even daring to breathe loudly.
Chloe stood by the window, her face, having just finished venting, wearing a look of astonishment.
She looked at the tablet in Shen Che's hand, and then looked at Diana hanging upside down outside the window.
"Did these fish get water in their brains?"
Chloe sneered.
"Do you want me to go boil them into seafood soup?"
Shen Che ignored her.
He casually threw the tablet computer onto the obsidian desktop.
The computer slid a certain distance away, the static dots on the screen still flashing.
He reached out to unbutton his suit jacket,
took it off, and casually draped it over the back of the genuine leather swivel chair.
Inside was a pure white custom-made shirt with the top two buttons unbuttoned.
He hated that this jacket was stained with the salty, fishy smell of seawater. It was too hard to wash.
Shen Che turned around,
his gaze coldly sweeping over the pile of shattered glass.
Someone was seizing territory, and right on Earth where he had just set the rule of "pay money to live".
This was not a simple declaration of war.
This was blatantly collecting a toll right in front of his cash register.
That was his property. Quite a few wealthy people in Boston had just transferred money to his account.
Those seafood folks from Atlantis actually wanted to drown his clients.
Cutting off someone's financial path was even worse than killing their parents.
Shen Che tugged at his slightly tight shirt cuffs.
"Keep an eye on that signboard outside."
He ordered Chloe, pointing at Diana still dangling in the wind.
"Don't let her die, and don't let her fall down and smash the glass downstairs."
Chloe immediately straightened her posture,
like a guard receiving an imperial decree.
"Understood! I guarantee not even a single strand of her hair will fall off!"
Shen Che didn't say anything more.
Bending his legs slightly,
the solid wood floor beneath his feet let out a loud explosion sound.
He didn't use the door, but directly headed towards the shattered floor-to-ceiling window, smashing through the remaining glass frames.
His body turned into an afterimage.
The white airflow breaking the sound barrier exploded in the skies above Manhattan.
The continuous sonic booms sounded like rolling thunder.
Shen Che's white shirt fluttered loudly in the fierce wind.
He charged straight in the direction of the Atlantic Ocean.
The western coast of the Atlantic Ocean, the open sea off Boston.
The center of the storm eye.
The sky was as dark as an overturned iron pot, and lightning darted around in the clouds like silver snakes.
Arthur stood on the hundred-meter-high black water wall.
The trident in his hand emitted a dazzling golden light—that was the authority to control the ocean.
He was very satisfied with the masterpiece before him.
In the face of the tsunami, land-dwellers were as insignificant as rats in the sewer.
Atlantis's army was already fully equipped and ready to go, waiting only for his command to occupy this city.
Just at this moment,
the fierce wind suddenly stopped eerily for a split second.
The roaring of the waves seemed to be cut off by a knife.
It wasn't that the wind stopped; rather, a more violent force forcefully tore open the air pressure of this sea area.
Arthur abruptly raised his head.
The pitch-black clouds overhead were collided into, creating a huge circular hollow.
A white figure
hovered directly in front of the hundred-meter-high black wave.
Shen Che.
He wore a white shirt, with his hands casually stuck in his dress pants pockets.
The seawater and raindrops whipped up by the fierce wind, within a foot of his body,
were all bounced away by an invisible force field, failing to wet even a corner of his clothes.
Arthur narrowed his eyes.
He saw the person clearly and recognized this face he had seen countless times on television.
Vought CEO, that tyrant on land.
Arthur sneered.
On this vast ocean, he was a god. Even if the other party could summon wind and rain on land,
once in the sea, he would have to obediently become a floating corpse.
"You came just in time!"
Arthur raised the golden trident, pointing from afar at Shen Che.
"On behalf of the land-dwellers, sign the tribute contract!"
Shen Che looked down at him condescendingly.
There was no anger in his eyes, nor annoyance at his dignity being impaired.
There was only the indifference of looking at a dead object.
"You affected my financial report."
Shen Che's voice wasn't loud, but it clearly passed into Arthur's ears amidst the wind and waves.
"Money is dropping every single second."
Arthur was angered by this complete and utter arrogance of disregard.
"You're courting death!"
He roared. Aquaman's dignity could not be trampled upon.
He violently slammed the trident downward, striking the water wall.
The entire sea surface boiled.
Endless seawater was guided by divine power,
rapidly converging, spinning, and compressing beneath Arthur's feet.
A giant water dragon tens of meters long roared out of the sea surface.
The scales of the water dragon were made of high-pressure water currents, each piece harder than steel,
carrying a terrifying pressure that devoured everything,
it opened a bottomless maw large enough to swallow a cargo ship,
mixed with the silt and cold of the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean,
and fiercely bit directly toward Shen Che in mid-air.
Chapter 68: Arthur holds his Trident, and I punch right through him and the sea
A massive water dragon rose, carrying the deep sea's chill and fishy stench.
It roared as it surged toward the sky.
Tens of thousands of tons of black seawater were highly compressed, the surface tension of the current strong enough to strike sparks in the air.
This water monster, condensed from divine power, bit directly toward the white-shirted man suspended in midair.
Shen Che hung suspended in the midst of the howling storm.
He didn't make a single move to dodge, and he didn't even take his hands out of his trouser pockets.
"Boom—"
The water dragon's massive maw, large enough to swallow a ten-thousand-ton cargo ship, slammed squarely into Shen Che.
Water exploded in the high sky like a bomb.
The sky full of white foam and black water formed an inverted waterfall.
The immense kinetic energy was enough to reduce a skyscraper to ruins.
But as the torrent crashed against Shen Che,
it couldn't even wet a single speck of his pure white custom shirt.
About half an inch from the surface of his body,
there was an invisible, absolute force field imperceptible to the naked eye.
Tens of thousands of tons of high-pressure torrents slammed into this force field, like crashing into a solid iron tower cast at the center of the Universe.
The water automatically split outside the force field,
sliding down along his shoulders and the sides of his thighs like two docile waterfalls.
Shen Che didn't even blink.
Surrounded by the curtain of water, he looked casual and bored.
Standing on the crest of the wave, Arthur's pupils suddenly contracted.
The Aquaman's instincts screamed in wild alarm.
That water dragon had drained more than half of his divine power, yet it hadn't even managed to wash the other's face.
This was no mutated land monkey. This was a monster.
But Arthur was a king. The pride of the Sea Race would not allow him to take half a step back.
"Die!"
Arthur let out a violent roar that shattered the sea breeze.
He did not shrink back; instead, he charged forward against the odds.
His legs kicked off hard against the black wall of water beneath his feet.
The hundred-meter-tall wall of water collapsed instantly. Arthur shot forward like a cannonball fired from a barrel,
surging into the sky against the pouring waterfall.
He rose higher and higher, leaping directly to a position more than ten meters above Shen Che's head.
Arthur gripped the gleaming golden Trident tightly with both hands,
his knuckles turning an unnatural pale white from the sheer force of his grip, and the green scale-like tattoos on his arms standing on end.
Using the acceleration of gravity,
combined with the terrifying, superhuman strength of the Atlantis royal family,
Arthur channeled all his rage and power into the tip of this divine weapon.
The Trident tore through the curtain of rain with a piercing shriek,
thrusting straight and hard toward the top of Shen Che's head.
With this strike, Arthur was confident he could pierce the reactor hull of a nuclear submarine.
Shen Che finally pulled his right hand out of his trouser pocket.
He didn't look up at the golden blade gleaming above him,
nor did he summon any fancy energy shield.
He simply clenched his right hand into a fist.
With the knuckles facing upward,
he met the tip of the golden Trident descending from the sky.
From bottom to top, a simple straight punch
was thrown.
There were no light effects, no magic.
Only pure kinetic energy, refined to the absolute extreme, even defying the laws of physics.
"Clang—Crack!"
The moment the bare fist collided with the divine weapon,
a tooth-gritting metal screech exploded over the waters off Boston.
There was no stalemate, no spark-showering struggle.
The indestructible golden Trident, representing the supreme divine authority of the ocean,
within a tenth of a second of contacting Shen Che's fist,
had its tip smashed directly into a flat piece of scrap metal.
The terrifying backlash traveled back up the shaft of the Trident.
Arthur felt as if he were holding an iron rod with both hands, only for the other end to be rammed head-on by a high-speed train traveling at full velocity.
"Bang!Bang!Bang!"
The golden Trident broke on the spot into seven or eight pieces of scrap metal in midair.
The shattered metal fragments sprayed in all directions like shrapnel.
The webs of Arthur's thumbs instantly tore open, spraying blood into the rain.
His mind went blank for a split second.
The divine weapon... shattered?
But it wasn't over yet.
After shattering the Trident, the residual force of Shen Che's punch didn't weaken in the slightest.
That pure kinetic energy, condensed into substance, was like an invisible giant hammer.
It penetrated the scattering metal fragments
and slammed squarely into Arthur's bare chest.
"Crack."
The sound of bones fracturing was as clear as dry firewood snapping right next to the ear.
Arthur's incredibly tough Sea Race breastbone collapsed inward in a large dent.
His heart almost stopped beating at that moment.
A large mouthful of blood mixed with visceral fragments sprayed violently from his mouth.
His body suddenly froze in midair.
And then,
at ten times the speed he had surged up, like a meteor struck by an asteroid,
he was sent flying backward, crashing into the turbulent Atlantic Ocean below.
The force of Shen Che's punch had not only shattered Aquaman,
but its residual kinetic energy followed the trajectory of Arthur's descent, slamming violently onto the sea surface.
"Rumble—!"
The ocean let out a terrifying wail.
The calm surface was forcibly torn open by this indescribable violence.
A waterless trench, dozens of meters wide and bottomless,
like a scar kilometers long, stretched from the sea beneath Shen Che's feet all the way to Boston's coastline.
The seawater on both sides of the trench was held back firmly by a high-pressure air wall, creating a brief vacuum fault.
Not even a single drop of water could flow in.
This power had literally punched right through the Atlantic Ocean.
Arthur's body crashed through the sea surface and, following that waterless trench,
plummeted all the way to the deepest part of the seabed.
"Thud."
A dull impact sound.
Arthur slammed heavily into the seabed silt thousands of meters deep.
All around him were coral reefs shattered by the force of the punch and dead fish.
He lay in the cold mud and sand, every bone in his body feeling as if it had been shattered.
His lungs felt as though they were stuffed with a handful of burning broken glass, every breath carrying a tearing, bloody taste.
With great difficulty, he turned his head and spat out a large mouthful of dark, congested blood.
His head was buzzing.
He wanted to prop himself up, to get back up and continue fighting.
That was the pride of Aquaman.
His left hand had just been ruined, so he could only use his right hand to grip the seabed rocks tightly.
His fingernails broke, leaving his hand covered in blood from the effort.
He had barely propped his upper body up by less than half a foot
when his vision suddenly went dark.
An immaculately polished black leather shoe
had appeared in his line of sight without him even realizing it.
Shen Che stood on the seabed silt, his white shirt without a single crease even under the deep-sea water pressure.
Without even waiting for Arthur to get up,
he raised his leather shoe
and, precisely and brutally,
stepped on Arthur's fractured breastbone that had just been shattered.
"Argh—!"
Arthur let out a shrill scream, his body convulsing violently in the silt.
The heel pressed deep into his flesh, grinding against the broken bone fragments.
Shen Che looked down at this blood-soaked King of Atlantis.
In his dark eyes,
deep within his pupils,
two points of extremely piercing red light,
like two searchlights ignited in hell, flared up without warning.
The surrounding seabed water, which was originally freezing,
began to skyrocket in temperature.
Chapter 69: Boiling the Ocean with Heat Vision, AquamanKneels
Shen Che lowered his head.
His foot was planted on Arthur's shattered sternum, his leather shoe sinking half an inch into the silt.
Deep within his dark eyes, twin points of red light burned like stars ignited in their depths.
In an instant, they flared to physical limits.
The surrounding seawater, originally bone-chilling from the deep-sea pressure...
...in the thousandth of a second that this red light flared...
...shot up in temperature at a crazy speed, like a Rocket out of control.
This was no ordinary heating; it was an unreasonable, lower-dimensional interference.
"Chii—!"
Two crimson beams of light, thick as water barrels, erupted from Shen Che's eyes.
Silver-grade Heat Vision, carrying temperatures of millions of degrees...
...blasted directly onto the rock layer at the bottom of the waterless trench carved out by his fist wind.
There was no smell of scorched earth, because the rock touching the beams of light was instantly vaporized into nothingness.
The red light pierced through the seabed crust and struck directly into the deep-sea ocean currents.
The moment the seawater touched the beams of light, it exploded.
This was no boiling water bubbling; it was a chain reaction of detonations caused by tens of thousands of tons of seawater being instantly decomposed and vaporized.
"Rumble!"
A series of muffled, massive explosions echoed from the seabed.
It was as if hundreds of deep-sea nuclear bombs were detonating at the same time.
The Atlantic Ocean waters for dozens of nautical miles around turned into a boiling pot of hot water.
Massive plumes of white, high-temperature steam, mixed with seabed silt and cooked shells...
...shot like reverse white waterfalls through the surface of the sea off the coast of Boston...
...and surged straight into the clouds.
A kilometer-high white steam pillar blotted out the sky and the sun, completely blocking the sunlight that had just peeked out.
For several kilometers around, the surface of the sea was like a boiling iron pot, tumbling with massive white bubbles.
Gurgle. Gurgle.
Countless deep-sea fish—massive jellyfish that usually never saw light, anglerfish with fangs...
...and even several sperm whales...
...had their scales and skin peel off the moment they touched the boiling water.
Their muscles were instantly cooked, revealing dead-grey white meat.
Turning their white bellies up, they floated densely to the surface, like a white carpet giving off a foul, fishy stench.
Shen Che stepped on Arthur's chest.
The Heat Vision did not stop; the red light continued to output endlessly.
Following the currents of the Atlantic Ocean, this undercurrent carrying destructive, scorching heat...
...surged all the way down, directly approaching the City of Atlantis hidden deep in the seabed.
That magnificent underwater metropolis shining with magical radiance in the deep sea.
The translucent crystal dome surrounding the city, upon encountering this boiling hot stream...
...emitted an unbearable creaking groan.
Seawater temperatures that hadn't changed in tens of thousands of years breached the insulation limits of the crystal in just a few seconds.
The spire at the very top of the dome began to soften...
...like a candle under the blazing sun, slowly dripping glistening droplets downward.
Arthur lay face down in the boiling seabed silt.
The surrounding water temperature had already surpassed the boiling point.
The Sea Dweller physique he was so proud of—the tough skin capable of withstanding thousands of tons of water pressure in the deep sea...
...was now scalded bright red, covered in a dense layer of blisters.
The blisters burst, yellow tissue fluid flowing out and mixing into the muddy water.
An agonizing, searing pain spread throughout his entire body.
But he could no longer feel the pain now.
Because something far more terrifying than physical agony clutched his heart in a vice grip.
The horror of his kingdom's destruction and his race's extinction.
He could feel the pulse of the ocean; he heard the mournful wail of Atlantis's crystal dome melting.
He heard the desperate screams of countless civilians in the city amid the boiling seawater.
That man in the black suit wasn't bluffing.
He genuinely intended to use his two eyes to boil the entire Atlantic Ocean dry.
To turn thousands of years of Atlantis's civilization, along with millions of Sea Dwellers, into a pot of seafood broth.
"No... Don't..."
Arthur's voice was hoarse, his vocal cords scorched.
He couldn't care about the severe pain of the broken bones in his chest, nor the cracked webbing between his thumb and index finger on his right hand.
He turned over, squirming in the boiling mud like a maggot taken out of water.
Reaching out with both hands, he tightly clasped Shen Che's mud-stained black leather shoe.
The scalding silt made his face numb from the heat.
He lowered his head deeply, his forehead slamming into the mud beside the shoe.
"I beg you... stop..."
A king's dignity, the pride of the Sea Dwellers...
At this moment, were torn to shreds by his own hands and rubbed into the foul mud at the bottom of the sea.
He kowtowed while crying, his tears evaporating into steam as soon as they flowed out.
"I'll sign... I'll agree to anything you want..."
Intermittent wails came from Arthur's throat, like a trapped beast whose spine had been pulled out.
"Spare my people... I beg you..."
He slammed his head hard into the mud, making thudding sounds.
His forehead was cut open, blood mixing with the silt.
He didn't dare let go, holding onto that leather shoe tightly, terrified that this god of slaughter would pull his foot back and continue boiling the ocean dry.
Shen Che looked down.
Looking at this Aquaman under his foot who had abandoned all dignity and was begging for mercy like a dog.
He stopped the Heat Vision output.
The red light in his eyes instantly extinguished, like a light being switched off.
The temperature on the seabed stopped soaring, but the residual heat was still causing the seawater to boil.
"If you were this obedient earlier, this ocean would be a bit cooler."
Shen Che's voice was steady amid the sound of boiling water, utterly devoid of warmth.
He lightly kicked away Arthur's hands hugging his shoe.
And pulled his foot back.
The hem of his white shirt drifted slightly in the seawater, without even a trace of moisture on it.
"I only set the rules once."
Shen Che looked at Arthur.
"If there's a next time..."
He pointed up at the boiling white waters above their heads.
"I'll haul all of you fish onto the shore and turn you into fish meal feed."
Arthur lay in the mud, trembling all over.
He didn't dare utter a single word in reply, only nodding frantically.
Above the sea surface.
Massive plumes of white steam spread like thick fog, visibility under five meters.
The air was filled with the fishy stench of cooked seafood.
"Splash!"
A loud sound of bursting water echoed.
The red-haired Mera broke through the boiling sea surface.
She wore a green scaly bodysuit, her wet hair clinging to her cheeks.
She had originally been waiting in Atlantis for news of Arthur's triumphant return.
It wasn't until the crystal dome began to melt and scalding seawater flooded into the inner city...
...that she realized something terrible had happened.
She swam up frantically along the current.
Now, she hung suspended in mid-air.
Looking at the apocalyptic scene before her.
Densely packed dead fish turning up white bellies, high-temperature white steam blotting out the sky and sun.
What was once the azure Atlantic Ocean had turned into a soup pot in hell.
Mera's face turned instantly pale, without a trace of color.
Chapter 70: Mera is Terrified, This Land Deity is Not to Be Trifled With
Mera landed on the edge of the dried-up trench.
The black reefs beneath her feet were glowing red with heat. Steam hissed and white smoke rose as moisture touched the rocks.
The rubber soles of her combat boots were softening from the heat. A pungent smell of burnt rubber filled her nose.
She didn't dare to look down at her feet.
Her eyes were fixed squarely on the bottom of the trench.
That shirtless man covered in scale tattoos. Her husband. The King of Atlantis.
He was now lying face down in the scalding mud like a dead dog with its tendons ripped out.
A large section of his chest was caved in. Bloody froth bubbled from his mouth, and his hands desperately clutched a pair of black leather shoes.
This was the king who ruled the Seven Seas.
Mera's breath hitched.
Her heart hammered against her chest like a war drum.
She abruptly raised her head and looked at the owner of the leather shoes.
Shen Che.
He wore a clean white shirt, no tie, with his hands casually slipped into his suit pants pockets.
Standing at the bottom of the ocean, not even a corner of his clothes was stained with muddy water.
Those dark, bottomless eyes were looking at her.
There was no killing intent, no anger. It was as indifferent as looking at a dead fish on a market chopping board.
Mera bit her lower lip until it bled.
The metallic taste of blood spread in her mouth.
The pride of the Sea Race in her bones would not allow her to watch her husband be humiliated.
No matter who this man was, as long as he was a carbon-based organism, there was water in his body.
If there was water, she could control it.
Mera quickly formed hand seals in front of her chest.
Her fingers flew in a blur, and a faint blue glow of water magic lit up at her fingertips.
She wanted to directly extract the water from the blood inside Shen Che's body, bursting his blood vessels and making him wither to death from the inside out.
She had used this move countless times and had never failed.
"Let him go!"
Mera shouted angrily and thrust both hands forward.
The deep blue magical ripple, like an invisible sharp arrow, tore through the scalding steam.
It shot straight toward Shen Che's chest.
The magical ripple collided with Shen Che's white shirt.
There was no explosion, no splashing of blood.
That miraculous magic, powerful enough to instantly drain an elephant of its blood,
the very instant it touched Shen Che's clothes,
vanished completely like a clay oxen dissolving in the sea, without raising even a single ripple.
Shen Che's bodily vitals did not fluctuate by even one-ten-thousandth.
The absolute magic immunity of the Silver Age Superman.
In front of this unreasonable status panel, the Royal Secret Arts of Atlantis were as weak as soap bubbles blown by a three-year-old.
Shen Che tilted his head.
His gaze crossed the trench and landed on Mera.
The corner of his mouth twitched into a smirk.
"Can this water-playing trick of yours even beg for food on land?"
His voice penetrated the sound of boiling water and struck Mera's eardrums with absolute clarity.
Mera trembled violently.
The backlash of having her magic forcibly cut off surged back through her meridians.
"Pfft."
She coughed up a mouthful of blood.
Her legs gave out, and she collapsed directly onto the scalding reef.
The high temperature scorched the scale armor on her thighs, but she couldn't feel the pain.
Her mind was a buzzing blank space.
The magic she was so proud of had failed.
This was simply not something magic could contend with, nor was it an enemy that could be defeated by strength.
This was a monster that completely disregarded the laws of physics and magic.
She finally realized exactly what kind of existence Arthurhad provoked.
This was no land warlord. This was a high-dimensional deity.
Mera sat slumped on the reef, her hands trembling so much she could no longer form a single spell seal.
Shen Che withdrew his gaze.
He lifted his foot off Arthur's chest.
He rubbed the sole of his shoe against the mud and sand.
"The ocean is a part of Earth."
Shen Che, with his hands still in his pockets, looked down from above at the Sea Race couple.
"From today on, the lawless zone is abolished."
"There will be no blind spots on my ledger."
A roar of helicopter blades echoed from the sky above.
A black helicopter bearing the logo of the Vought Company...
...was wobbling its way over, braving the residual high-temperature steam on the sea surface.
The pilot in the cockpit wore a gas mask, drenched in sweat as the helicopter swayed from side to side in the turbulent air currents.
The helicopter hovered a hundred meters above the trench.
The cabin door opened.
A black waterproof briefcase was thrown down.
The briefcase tumbled through the air.
Shen Che reached out and caught the briefcase steadily.
The helicopter immediately climbed in altitude, fleeing the boiling waters as if running for its life.
Shen Che threw the briefcase onto the ground.
The pitch-black bag splashed into the scalding mud, kicking up a few drops of yellow mire.
With a flick of his toe,
the briefcase slid across the muddy ground toward Arthur, stopping right next to his head.
"Open it," Shen Che commanded.
Arthur lay face down in the mud, his breathing heavy and labored.
He struggled to lift his right hand. His left arm was fractured, dragging limply on the ground.
His fingers, smeared with blood and mud, fumbled for the zipper of the briefcase.
The zipper slid open.
Inside was a thick stack of documents printed on special waterproof paper.
On the very top sheet, the title was printed in bold: "Exclusive Management Agreement for Ocean Resources and Shipping Routes".
Arthur pulled the documents out with great effort.
His eyes were gummed up with muddy water. He blinked, barely managing to focus his vision on the paper.
He read the first clause clearly.
"Effective immediately, all shipwrecks and mineral resources on the seabed of Atlantis shall be transferred to Vought Company free of charge as security collateral."
Arthur's hand shook violently.
This piece of paper felt as heavy as a mountain.
This was no agreement. This was a deed of national betrayal.
Once signed, thousands of years of Atlantis's wealth would entirely become mere numbers on someone else's ledger.
He gritted his teeth, wanting to tear the paper to shreds.
"You are more than welcome to tear it."
Shen Che's voice rang out from above.
"Tear it, and I will finish the job I started."
Shen Che looked up at the wall of water overhead.
"And boil this sea completely dry."
Arthur's hand froze.
The paper trembled in his hand, rustling loudly.
He recalled those two red beams from earlier, and the melting Crystal Dome on the seabed.
He recalled his subjects who had been instantly boiled alive and were now floating on the sea surface.
He didn't dare to gamble. This madman would absolutely do what he said.
Mera scrambled down from the edge of the trench on all fours.
Her combat boots stepped into the scalding mud.
She threw herself by Arthur's side, pressing her hands firmly over his right hand that held the documents.
"Just sign it, Arthur."
Mera's tears fell, mixing with the mud, her voice hoarse.
"There are still millions of people in the city. They can't all die here."
She forced a special waterproof pen from the briefcase into Arthur's hand.
Arthur's hand was shaking violently.
The tip of the pen touched the waterproof paper, drawing a crooked black line.
He raised his head to look at Mera, his eyes bloodshot as if ready to bleed.
His days as king had come to an end.
Arthur bit his own index finger.
Droplets of blood welled up.
He gripped the pen with his blood-stained fingers.
At the signature line on the final page of the document, he signed his name.
Once the signature was complete, Arthur seemed to have been drained of his very last ounce of strength.
His head slumped heavily into the mud, and he closed his eyes.
Shen Che didn't bother to pick up the contract.
He turned around.
"Clean this up."
He left behind those words.
He bent his knees slightly.
A sonic boom cloud exploded at the bottom of the sea.
His white shirt turned into an afterimage, shooting straight into the sky.
Shen Che left this sea area and flew back to New York.
Only Arthur and Mera remained in the trench, along with the unequal treaty scattered in the mud.
The sound of the wind, the sound of boiling water...
This was the most humiliating day for the Atlantic Ocean.