After resolving their internal conflict, Wonder Woman was finally able to unify opinions and withdraw the Amazons from the British Isles.
With 10 Downing Street reduced to rubble, Queen Diana of Themyscira had no choice but to summon back the reporters she had previously expelled and issue the withdrawal announcement from Buckingham Palace. From beginning to end, it had taken less than three days, making everything seem like a farce.
And it really was a farce. Underground resistance forces across Britain had not even managed to form proper command structures to fight behind enemy lines before they were informed that their mission was already over.
But their mission was not truly over. After the Amazons occupied the British Isles, only the people at 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace had largely fled. Administrative personnel across the rest of the country had not yet been replaced on a large scale.
The power vacuum left behind after the Amazons' withdrawal would inevitably lead to armed conflict at the highest levels. If not properly controlled, the consequences would be extremely deadly.
Joey, who witnessed Diana's withdrawal announcement on site, simply hovered outside Buckingham Palace, waiting for her speech to finish. The current situation was already a relatively optimal outcome for both humanity and the Amazons.
Joey still planned to leave the aftermath to Kara. No matter how you looked at it, Kara was far more qualified than him when it came to being a hero. She was the kind of person who wouldn't lose her temper even if an armor-piercing round hit her in the face.
If it were him handling things now, for the sake of efficiency, he would probably use a solution consisting of only one word to stop the deadly armed conflicts happening on the island.
As for whether the British people, after sending away the Amazon queen, would allow the former rulers of Buckingham Palace and the nation to return—that was not something Joey needed to worry about.
To be honest, Joey was more concerned about when the Atlanteans would come to rescue the imprisoned Penthesilea and Artemis. Leaving those two in Amazon custody would be his problem.
Once the Atlanteans rescued them and he tracked them down afterward, then it would become their problem instead.
As Joey was thinking about this, he suddenly heard alarmed cries from the British people along the distant coastline. He nodded to Diana, who was looking toward him, and flew off.
---
For the Atlanteans, the existence of surface dwellers was not originally a problem. Their interactions with those of the deep had been almost nonexistent. But since the Industrial Revolution, it had become a major issue.
At first, the hunting of marine life and the dumping of waste into the ocean by surface dwellers could still be considered part of a natural cycle—something the ocean, like a nurturing mother, could tolerate.
But after the Industrial Revolution, hunting turned into one-sided slaughter, and pollution increased exponentially, far beyond what the ocean could bear.
Surface dwellers ignored Atlantis's warnings, plundered its resources without guilt, and polluted its territory. Yet when Atlantis responded with forceful deterrence, they were met with widespread condemnation.
Aquaman, Arthur Curry, was born of a union between a human and an Atlantean princess. Blessed by the sea god, he had, since taking the throne, devoted himself to solving this issue on behalf of his people.
He had once believed that his marriage alliance with Wonder Woman would bring a different future to the world. Now it seemed that the future had indeed changed—but not in the way he had hoped.
Mera's death had dragged everything into an irreversible spiral of destruction. Whether personal vendetta or national interest, the war between the two sides had spiraled out of control.
His scouts on land reported that the Amazons were preparing to withdraw from Britain. Though he did not know what Diana was planning, at such a critical moment, the Atlanteans would not allow them to leave unchallenged.
The encirclement hastily deployed in the North Atlantic was now being tightened. All creatures of the ocean submitted to his will—nothing would stop him from crushing the Amazons and everything beneath their feet.
As Aquaman advanced toward the British coastline, commanding hundred-meter-tall deep-sea beasts alongside Atlantean amphibious warships, the first thing he saw were fishing boats near the shore.
These surface dwellers—despite his decree that any intruder into Atlantean territory would be sunk—still dared to risk their lives to plunder the sea.
With a thought, Aquaman commanded the sea beast beneath him to surge upward. For a creature hundreds of meters in size, it was just a small motion—but for those fishing boats, it was a catastrophic tidal wave.
Whoosh—
Aquaman vaguely heard someone exhale.
Then he saw the entire sea before him rapidly freezing. The cold spread from the shore, freezing not only the surface but extending deeper beneath the water.
The submerged warships were forced to dive deeper to avoid being frozen, losing their ability to attack Britain.
The lower half of the massive sea beast beneath him was completely frozen in ice, unable to move. As Arthur prepared to use his trident to restore the sea's flow and continue his advance, a red-caped figure appeared:
"Arthur Curry, we need to talk."
In his past life, Joey hated it when stories suddenly paused for dialogue midway through action. But now he had to admit—compared to going to war with all of Atlantis and tearing the planet apart—talking was far more efficient.
"This war has to stop, Arthur. Your father was human—you should understand that the human world cannot withstand this kind of destruction."
"Humans?! As the King of Atlantis, I have my own stance!"
Arthur leapt into the air, his trident glowing with light.
"I don't give a damn about you surface dwellers!"
When Arthur Curry had still lived as a human, his father had always taught him to be kind and to yield to the weak.
But after being brought to Atlantis by the High Chancellor and thrown into brutal royal power struggles, he quickly learned a fundamental truth:
In Atlantis, kindness and humility only bring suffering. Fate favors only the strong.
Boom!
A massive impact echoed across the frozen sea—the sound of Aquaman's body slamming into the ice.
Joey's demeanor shifted completely from the calm he had shown moments ago. His eyes glowed red, and wherever his gaze passed, the frozen sea beasts were burned into charred skeletons.
Then he locked onto Aquaman, who had just been smashed beneath the ice, and shot forward at high speed:
"I've been holding back on you for a while now!"