"Didn't you guys also forget to ask the basic mission parameters?" Crow retorted with an amused smirk, blowing a lazy ring of smoke into the white mist. "Besides, didn't the mighty Avengers volunteer for this deep-sea dive entirely of their own accord?"
Crow's blunt retort left Tony Stark momentarily speechless.
It was indeed as the Execution Bureau operative said. The Avengers had aggressively inserted themselves into this deployment to recover stolen tech and monitor a suspected Japanese threat. But who could have predicted that tracking a black-market thief would lead them straight into an unmapped dimensional death trap?
"You knew the lethality of this operation before we breached the trench," Tony pressed, his voice dropping into a serious register. "Why the hell did you still dive in?"
No one from the Execution Bureau offered a verbal reply. Neither Chisei Gen nor the two executioners flanking him turned their heads.
Their silhouettes darkened in the pale mist, their expressions sinking into an icy, unyielding silence. For the descendants of the Shadow Eight Families, hunting dragons was not an optional assignment or a heroic pursuit—it was a curse carved into their very genetic code. They had no retreat.
Because the confrontation wasn't muffled, every word carried clearly across the quiet cloud bridges, reaching King Namor's ears.
'A living dragon?' Namor thought, his dark eyes widening as a cold chill ran down his spine. 'These surface lunatics... they entered this realm to execute a Dragon King?!'
Irritation, shock, and profound regret surged violently through the Sub-Mariner's chest.
Unlike the short-lived surface-dwellers, the Kingdom of Atlantis had existed for countless millennia. Within their deepest imperial archives lay ancient, water-sealed scrolls detailing the primordial eras of Earth—and the Dragon Clan, the former absolute overlords of the terrestrial world, was a species the Atlantean nobility was intimately familiar with.
That was an ancient, terrifying empire capable of waging sustained, apocalyptic wars against the Aesir of Asgard at the absolute height of Odin's prime. The sheer, world-ending horror of the Black King, Nidhogg, was a nightmare that still haunted the historical records of the undersea kingdom.
'Damn it all!' Namor cursed internally, his fists clenching around his golden trident. 'I am trapped inside an inescapable domain with a squad of suicidal lunatics... I only pray the kingdom remains stable while I am gone.'
Namor's royal ascension had not been without internal strife. Even though he held the sacred trident as the rightful King of Atlantis, there were dangerous warlords lurking in the shadows who openly coveted his throne. Among them, the treacherous ambitions of the barbarian general, Attuma, were the most lethal.
Having just sustained a massive tectonic shockwave that leveled city spires, the citizens of Atlantis were already on the verge of mass hysteria. And now, their sovereign was completely missing from the capital, sealed away in another dimension.
If this absence dragged on... would the warlords truly let such a golden coup pass?
The answer was an absolute, terrifying no.
[The Seabed — Outside the Nibelungen Rift]
The political betrayal did not even take as long as Namor feared.
The imperial vanguard had never been a monolithic, loyal army. Near the entrance of the spatial rift, resting quietly among the jagged black coral, lay a glowing blue Atlantean communications datapad.
A massive, armored hand reached down, picking the tablet up.
After scanning the encrypted distress logs and reading the coordinates where Namor had vanished into thin air, the hulking barbarian warlord, Attuma, let out a low, predatory laugh.
"My time has finally come," Attuma whispered, his yellowed fangs glinting in the dark water.
Looking up from the abyss toward the distant, shimmering surface, Attuma whipped his mount around. Flanked by a cadre of elite, loyalist shock-troopers, he sped through the ocean currents straight back to the capital.
Upon arriving in the shattered city, the first thing Attuma did was publicly assume the duties of a benevolent sovereign.
He moved through the flooded residential sectors, comforting the wounded and distributing rations. Simultaneously, he deployed his private legions to clear the crushed marble columns, actively assisting the commoners in rebuilding their homes.
Through this series of calculated, populist maneuvers, the hearts of the traumatized Atlantean citizens were rapidly swayed. Attuma had materialized at their side when their rightful king was nowhere to be found, elevating his personal prestige to an unprecedented height.
And at that exact, calculated moment... Attuma announced that he had an urgent imperial decree to deliver.
[Atlantis — Central Imperial Plaza]
Attuma stood tall in the center of the Golden Circular Platform—a sacred dais where, by ancient law, only the crowned King of Atlantis was permitted to set foot.
Yet today, as the hulking general stood atop the gold, not a single citizen raised an objection. The vast crowd slowly gathered, the murmur of thousands of voices gradually falling into an anxious, suffocating silence.
In the heavy quiet, Attuma adopted a look of profound, agonizing grief before raising his voice.
"My beloved citizens... I bring news of the darkest tragedy to strike our kingdom."
Attuma swept his sorrowful gaze across the packed plaza, his voice booming through the hydro-acoustic channels.
"Our sovereign... King Namor... has been brutally murdered by the surface-dwellers!"
A collective gasp rippled through the ocean.
"In his noble quest to investigate the unnatural cataclysm that shook our spires," Attuma shouted, his fists trembling with theatrical rage, "our King led the royal vanguard to the waters bordering the human nations. There, they were ambushed in a cowardly, calculated human trap! The entire royal guard was slaughtered without mercy!"
Attuma raised his battle-axe, pointing it toward the surface. "We must have our vengeance!"
The vast plaza fell into stunned, paralyzed shock. How could the citizens easily accept that their invincible Sub-Mariner had fallen to fragile air-breathers?
HUMMMM.
Right then, a colossal holographic projection flared to life above the platform.
On the screen was heavily doctored surveillance footage Attuma's tech-officers had modified. The video showed Namor pinned helplessly to the seabed by an invisible, crushing force—followed by a surface-dweller in a tactical diving suit violently driving a long blade straight through the King's chest, dark crimson blood billowing into the seawater.
Seeing their sovereign's apparent execution in graphic detail, the simmering anger of the Atlantean population could no longer be contained.
"Death to the surface-dwellers!" a voice screamed from the front ranks.
"Revenge! Vengeance for King Namor!!"
The cries spread like an infectious plague, thousands of voices violently coalescing into a singular, thunderous war chant:
"REVENGE! REVENGE! REVENGE!"
Standing on the dais, Attuma fought with everything he had to suppress the victorious grin threatening to split his face. With only a few planted loyalists leading the chants, the mob had erupted exactly as he scripted.
Right on cue, Attuma's chief adjutant marched onto the platform, raising his coral spear.
"King Namor has fallen in battle!" the officer bellowed. "We require an iron leader to guide us to victory! A true warrior who will drown the human nations in blood!"
The planted shock-troopers in the crowd instantly roared at the top of their lungs:
"KING ATTUMA! KING ATTUMA!"
Swayed by the frenzy of grief and vengeance, the masses joined the chorus without hesitation. Just like that, the bloody coup concluded with absolute perfection. Attuma had officially claimed the crown of Atlantis.
[The Throne Room — Atlantis]
Sitting atop the golden throne, Attuma gripped the armrests, his eyes cold and calculating.
He knew better than anyone that Namor was not actually dead—merely sealed away in an unknown spatial pocket. He had used the lie of martyrdom to weaponize the citizens' rage.
Therefore, he had to launch an immediate, decisive war.
If he delayed and Namor somehow escaped the spatial trap, the truth would tear his new reign apart. But if he led Atlantis to a swift, catastrophic victory against the human surface world, the prestige of being a conqueror would make his throne permanently unshakeable. Even if Namor returned, the former king would hold zero political leverage against the savior of the oceans.
"Arno," Attuma commanded, looking down at his chief military strategist standing before the dais. "Is the vanguard prepped? We cannot afford a single failure in this campaign. We must crush the human world with absolute, unyielding power."
"Invincible power, Sire?" General Arno replied, his cold eyes gleaming with merciless cruelty. "Then let us deploy our forbidden oceanic converters... and submerge the human continents directly beneath the sea."
"Hmm?!"
Arno's casual suggestion made Attuma startle, his massive frame instantly sitting bolt upright on the throne.
"That extreme?" Attuma muttered, his brow furrowing. "Vaporizing their coastal landmasses entirely?"
"Dry land holds zero intrinsic value to our species," Arno stated with sharp, chilling precision. "Since the war has formally commenced, there is zero logic in leaving room for mercy. We do not conquer them, Sire... we drown their civilization."
Attuma stared at his general in silence. Throughout his entire military career, Attuma had always considered himself the most radical, ruthless warmonger in the seven seas.
It wasn't until hearing his commander's plan today that he realized—by the standards of true oceanic extermination, he had practically been a conservative.
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