OBS Chapter 4396 Project Farstar (4)
Chapter 4396 Project Farstar (4)
Chapter 4396 Project Far Star (XIV)
Mera couldn't stop him either, and could only watch helplessly as Arthur charged forward, so she had no choice but to follow as well. Orm, as expected of the Atlantean prince who grew up underwater, was much more skilled in water manipulation than Arthur, wielding his golden trident and surrounding Steppenwolf completely.
However, compared to a warrior like Arthur, he was closer to a mage. After Steppenwolf seized an opening and got close, he slapped him into the ground. Red blood gushed from his mouth, and he moved his only functional right arm, throwing the trident back to Arthur.
Arthur was also surrounded by bright red blood. Steppenwolf's claws were unique; the wounds he inflicted were difficult to heal, and even water magic could only partially stop the bleeding. Arthur was already pale from blood loss.
At this moment, the seven clan leaders arrived late. Seeing the wretched state of their former leaders, they roared in fury and charged towards the Steppenwolf. But Arthur cried out, "No!!!"
Steppenwolf stomped his foot with tremendous force, sending ripples across the entire sea. The seven clan leaders were directly thrown off their feet by the shockwave. Arthur gritted his teeth and charged at him again, even though he was already teetering on the brink of collapse under Steppenwolf's onslaught, he fought to the death without retreating.
The seven sea leaders exchanged a glance, then got to their feet, continuing to raise their weapons and shout, "Long live Atlantis!!!"
Then they continued their charge towards Steppenwolf, and the other Atlantean warriors, inspired by this, relentlessly attacked the wolf. Gradually, the entire sea was stained blood red.
Even without the attacks of the Parademons, Steppenwolf was simply too powerful. Its claws were indestructible, its metal armor was impenetrable, not to mention its immense strength. Even with the resistance of the water, it was simply beyond the ability of ordinary Atlanteans to withstand.
Arthur fought with all his might, compounding his injuries, but only managed to leave a wound on his neck; he himself was already at his limit.
He was thrown back by Steppenwolf again. Mera, who was attacking nearby, rushed over and helped him up. Arthur's face had turned somewhat pale, but he still smiled at Mera.
Mera pursed her lips, seemingly wanting to say something more, but Steppenwolf's attack was imminent, forcing her to pick up Arthur's trident to defend herself. However, she couldn't seem to unleash the trident's true power; with a single blow, it was sent flying. Steppenwolf's sharp claws were about to slash across Mera's neck.
Suddenly, he froze—Arthur grabbed him from behind around the waist. Arthur mustered his last strength and slammed Steppenwolf to the ground, but he couldn't get up either.
Steppenwolf rose from the ground, grabbed Arthur by the neck, and lifted him up. Mera screamed, "No!!!"
The claws tightened. Arthur felt himself suffocating, and flashbacks began to appear before his eyes. At six years old, he stood before an aquarium in a big city for the first time, hearing sharks speak to him. He jumped into the water from the beach of Amnesty Harbor, the whispers of fish ringing in his ears. He rescued sailors from a submarine, listening to the townspeople's praise. His father, having finished a long day's work, stood by the lighthouse waiting for him to come home…
Throughout his childhood, almost every night he would see his father sitting on the open ground in front of the lighthouse, gazing at the sea, as if waiting for something. He didn't know what he was waiting for before, but when he learned about his own origins, he realized that his father had always been hoping for his mother to come home.
Arthur had floated on the sea countless times, gazing silently at the point of light at the horizon. He knew that as long as he hadn't returned, the lighthouse of Amity Harbor would never be extinguished.
If he dies here, his father will never see him return home.
Years ago, his father had already lost his beloved wife and could only wait in vain on the shore. Years later, if he were to lose his son as well, he would be left to guard the lighthouse through countless dark nights for the rest of his life, only to be disappointed time and time again, never to see his family again.
Then, in his gradually fading consciousness, a strong and sharp will to survive surged up—he absolutely could not die here!
Arthur began to struggle desperately. But the large hand gripping his neck seemed to possess infinite strength, and his struggles were completely futile and had no effect whatsoever. Yet he still refused to give up.
He had seen too many times the wistful look in his father's eyes as he turned back at dawn. He had to be back at sea before the sun rose. He had to… absolutely…
Mera and Om, lying on the ground, both noticed that the seawater began to tremble slightly. It wasn't the current they usually felt; rather, it seemed as if every drop of water was releasing a powerful force.
Countless bewildered tourists felt the tremors emanating from the depths of the ocean and screamed as they ran ashore. The monitoring equipment at the weather and ocean monitoring stations emitted piercing alarms. On the aircraft carrier, soldiers fled in terror into their cabins.
At the same moment, all the oceans on Earth began to boil.
Lost in a daze, Arthur seemed to travel through time and space back to ancient times, witnessing firsthand how the ocean shaped this blue planet into what it is today.
Oceans began to form when this turbulent planet possessed its first drop of water. It froze beneath the ice and rose into the atmosphere. Fire was the beginning of human civilization, while water is the origin of all life, shaping mountains and nourishing all things.
Arthur heard the ocean telling him—the power of water lies not in its outbursts and surges, but in every convergence, every scouring, repeated billions of times, causing the earth to crumble and mountains to crumble, the sea to turn into fields, flowing silently, powerful in its silence, just like time.
The world fell silent. Arthur floated in the sea, just as he had once floated in his mother's amniotic fluid. The process of birth from his mother's womb was like retracing the path that all living things had walked over billions of years. Humans and Atlanteans were never any different; all life on Earth originated from the ocean.
Arthur awoke with a start. The next second, the golden trident flew towards him and was firmly grasped in his hand. At that moment, the surrounding seawater froze, and the scales on Steppenwolf's armor began to peel away piece by piece.
Everyone was stunned. Steppenwolf quickly withdrew his hand. He swiftly stepped back to check his armor, only to see a shocking sight—the edges of the seemingly indestructible alloy armor were showing signs of rust.
This is unbelievable! That's the only thought Steppenwolf had right now. This thing wouldn't even burn up if it jumped into a star, how could it be rusting?!
Only Arthur knew that he had mastered the ocean's most powerful force—evolution.
The power of the ocean is never confined to a single moment. Those fleeting, violent currents, the so-called wrath of the ocean, are merely its most superficial forces. If we extend the timeframe to trillions of years, nothing is beyond the ocean's ability to be born, and nothing is beyond its capacity to be swallowed.
What lies silently on the seabed at this very moment may be fragments of the earth's crust that were indestructible hundreds of millions of years ago, now just a pile of sand; while what has now left the ocean and created a magnificent civilization on land is nothing more than tiny cells that appeared by chance in the ocean hundreds of millions of years ago.
Arthur closed his eyes. At this moment, what he could sense through the golden trident was no longer just the flow of seawater, but how everything that had evolved through the ocean over the past billions of years had changed its form in the vast sea: whether it aged, broke, mutated, or was reborn.
Suddenly, cries of alarm erupted from the battlefield. The Atlanteans retreated in terror, not because they were under attack, but because the heavily armored Parademons had begun to degenerate: their weapon-wielding fingers retracted into their palms, their limbs began to disappear, their spines gradually curled up, and a layer of grayish-black eggshell enveloped them. Then, even the eggshell vanished, leaving behind a purulent substance, with only cells invisible to the naked eye remaining. Then even the cellular structure disappeared—the barely perceptible prokaryotes vanished into the seawater.
This process of reverse evolution was so terrifying that the Atlantean warriors abandoned their weapons and fled, fearing they would be next. Mera, however, seemed to understand something; she looked at Arthur.
Steppenwolf also sensed something was wrong. He swam towards the surface of the sea at top speed. He was incredibly fast, but in that short moment, most of his armor had peeled off, leaving only the central waist section intact, which was already badly rusted.
Most terrifyingly, when he broke the surface of the water, the giant horn on his head had shrunk by half, and the sharp, solid claw of one of his right feet had turned into some kind of horrible and ugly cyst. Yet he felt no abnormality, as if he had always been born this way.
"Ah ...
But suddenly, his nose twitched, as if he had caught a strange scent. He turned his head to look in one direction, and in his field of vision, a white light rose from the direction of the east coast—it was the scent of the Mother Box.
Knowing he could never return to the ocean, Steppenwolf abandoned his attack on Atlantis and headed straight for Metropolis.
Arthur glanced up at him, but first helped Mera up, then pulled Orm up from the ground, and patted him on the shoulder. Orm didn't say anything, only rolled his eyes at Arthur as he turned away.
"Great, they've retreated." Mera breathed a sigh of relief.
Arthur shook his head and said, "It's not necessarily a retreat. It's just that they realized they couldn't get what we have here, so they went to find someone else. We have to keep up with them and not let them succeed."
Mera looked at his chest with some concern and said, "Your injury..."
“It’s alright.” Arthur glanced down and said, “It shouldn’t take long to recover. It’s more important to stop Steppenwolf first. Orm, you should consolidate Atlantis’s forces to prevent him from coming again. Mera and I are going to the mainland.”
Orm nodded and went to speak with the King of the Seven Seas. Arthur, meanwhile, led Mera back to Metropolis. Upon seeing Victor, Arthur knew their suspicions were correct—something Steppenwolf desired might be contained within Victor.
Arthur raised his trident, intending to repeat his previous trick, but then slowly lowered it. He couldn't flood Metropolis with seawater; countless people would die. So he summoned a wave, washing over the streets first, hoping to scare Steppenwolf, who had just suffered a loss at his hands.