"I will shatter that vessel where it sits!" King Namor growled, his knuckles whitening around his golden trident. "It must be their doing!"
"Wait, King Namor!" Minister Vashti urged, hastily positioning his mount between his sovereign and the target. "We possess zero definitive proof that surface humans are directly behind this catastrophe. A single rash strike will ignite a war between two entire worlds—the Surface and the Ocean!"
The tiny wings on Namor's ankles fluttered with aggressive speed, stirring small vortexes in the dark water. Yet Vashti did not yield. He laid out the grim tactical calculus with absolute gravity. Surface humanity had long developed deep-sea capabilities and weapons of mass destruction; they were no longer defenseless against an aquatic incursion.
Once a total war commenced, both surface civilization and Atlantis would inevitably bleed.
"Allow me to attempt a diplomatic parley first," Vashti pleaded, his ancient eyes solemn. "If this truly proves to be an unprovoked human assault... I will no longer stand in the way of your judgment."
Vashti was no coward; having witnessed historical wars, he understood the devastating toll paid by civilian populations.
Namor's jaw clenched, his sharp eyes narrowing as he evaluated his chief advisor.
"Very well," Namor conceded, his voice carrying an imperial edge. "I grant you your parley. But I am coming with you."
It was not a lack of trust in Vashti's counsel, but concern for his safety. In Atlantis, there were countless hot-blooded warriors eager for blood, but men of wisdom and measured thought were vanishingly rare. As the cornerstone of his administration, Namor refused to risk Vashti's life in the hands of treacherous surface-dwellers.
Ocean currents coiled tightly around the two leaders as their bioluminescent sea-beasts surged forward.
[Inside the S.H.I.E.L.D. Submarine]
PING. PING.
The sonar array flashed with sharp red indicators, instantly throwing the bridge crew into high alert.
"Sonar contact! Two hostiles approaching at high velocity!" an operator shouted. "Depth four thousand meters! What kind of biological entity moves like that down here?!"
The Avengers and the Execution Bureau unit gathered around the main optical periscope, staring at the incoming video feed in stunned silence.
"What in the hell am I looking at?" Tony Stark muttered, his smart-glasses magnifying the silhouettes. "Undersea knights riding armored seahorses? Is this a joke?"
Naval officers, seasoned superheroes, and hardened Dragon Slayers exchanged incredulous glances.
Before anyone could formulate a tactical assessment, an echoing voice vibrated through the hull via hydro-acoustic resonance:
"Surface-dwellers! Come forth and answer to the King of Atlantis!"
"Atlantis?" Tony blinked, adjusting his glasses. "The mythical sunken empire? I thought that was just a fairy tale."
Before the Avengers could debate whether to open the comms channel, the airlock pressurization sirens began to wail.
HISS—CLANK.
Chisei Gen, flanked by Yasha and Sakura, stepped directly through the outer airlock hatch into the freezing, high-pressure abyss.
The crushing hydrostatic weight of the Pacific instantly slammed into their bodies. For a mortal human, the pressure at this depth would have imploded bone and tissue in a microsecond. But through the dense, reinforced skeletal structure and elevated metabolic thresholds of pure Hybrid physiology, the three adapted within seconds.
Without sparing the Atlantean delegation a single glance, Chisei adjusted his breathing and marched directly along the seabed toward the coordinates where Dr. Herzog's submersible signal had vanished.
"Halt, surface-dwellers!" Vashti called out through the water, genuinely shocked.
He had prepared himself for hostile gunfire or political posturing, but he had never imagined these humans would treat the royal presence of Atlantis with complete, utter indifference.
Namor did not waste words.
Dismounting in an instant, the winged appendages on his ankles fluttered violently. Slashing through the dark water like a golden torpedo, he materialized directly in front of Chisei's path.
"Trying to flee?" Namor sneered, levelling his trident at Chisei's chest. "The ocean is the sovereign domain of Atlantis!"
"Move," Chisei replied through his throat-mic comms, his voice frigid and devoid of emotion. "Do not get in our way."
With Dr. Herzog actively executing the resurrection ritual nearby, Chisei held zero interest in diplomatic disputes. Every wasted second brought the Pacific closer to being ruled by two fully awakened Dragon Kings.
Hearing such blatant disrespect, a cold, predatory laugh tore from Namor's throat.
Words were useless. Force was the only currency the surface-dwellers understood.
SWOOSH!
Namor violently swung his golden trident. The surrounding ocean currents bent to his royal will, coiling around the prongs before erupting into a catastrophic underwater shockwave aimed dead center at the trio.
"I'll cut this fish-man down!" Yasha's raspy voice barked over the tactical channel.
SHINNG!
The master-forged blade Kumo-Kiri (Spider Cutter) was unsheathed, slicing through the crushing water to intercept the strike.
CLANG!
Steel and divine gold collided, sending a massive cavitation bubble blasting across the ocean floor. The sheer kinetic force of the ocean king violently drove Yasha backward through the water. Digging his boots into the seabed silt to halt his momentum, Yasha barely recovered before Namor surged forward for a fatal follow-up thrust.
Right then, Chisei Gen's cold, resonant voice cut through the abyss like an executioner's gavel.
"[Yanling: Royal Authority]."
BOOM!
The localized gravitational field around Namor multiplied by dozens of times in a fraction of a millisecond.
The ocean king's forward lunge froze instantly. His body was forcefully dragged downward, crashing into the ocean floor with enough force to shatter the bedrock into a deep, humanoid crater. The crushing gravitational pressure pinned every muscle in Namor's body flat to the earth, rendering even the Sub-Mariner unable to lift a single finger.
"Let's move," Chisei said calmly, glancing down at the trapped king with an unreadable expression before continuing forward without breaking his stride.
Yasha fell back into formation, his head lowered in shame. "High Patriarch... I failed to clear your path."
"Do not waste your breath on meaningless apologies," Chisei responded flatly, keeping his eyes locked ahead.
As the three swam past a jagged underwater trench, the physical space around them suddenly warped and rippled like liquid glass. In an instant, their silhouettes vanished entirely from the seabed, slipping cleanly into the Nibelungen of the King of Sky and Wind.
The moment Chisei's physical presence crossed the dimensional threshold, the crushing gravitational field collapsed.
CRASH!
Freed from the invisible vice grip, Namor erupted from the crater, his eyes blazing with incandescent fury.
He whipped his head around, but the three intruders had vanished without leaving a single trace of displaced water.
"Vashti! Where did they go?!" Namor roared.
Vashti urged his mount forward, his expression pale with profound unease. "King Namor... those were not ordinary humans. That invisible, crushing force... that is not a power surface-dwellers possess."
"I don't care what they are!" Namor snapped, cutting his minister off. "Mutants, sorcerers, or freaks—they dared to assault the King of Atlantis in our own waters! Return to the capital immediately and mobilize the imperial vanguard! The surface-dwellers have declared war!"
Seeing the sovereign's unyielding fury, Vashti bowed his head in resignation. The die was cast. An unprovoked incursion on their soil, capped by an assault on Namor himself, was a formal declaration of war.
Vashti pointed toward the spatial anomaly near the trench before turning his mount back toward Atlantis.
The wings on Namor's ankles flared with golden energy as he launched himself into the dark currents.
"Run all you want, surface vermin... you cannot hide from the ocean!"
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