After midnight, the coffee shop gradually began to fill with more customers.
Yet as many customers, men and women alike, sampled their coffee or milk tea, they repeatedly cast glances toward the perfect woman seated at a corner table. Still, intimidated by her powerful presence, none dared sit too close.
Diana, like a breathtaking sight herself, rose from her chair first and bid Barbara across the table farewell. "That's all I wanted to say. If there's nothing else, I'll head back first. It's late. My child will worry at home."
"What... you have a child?!"
Cups immediately crashed to the floor all across the coffee shop.
At several nearby tables, the men and women who had originally wanted to approach and strike up a conversation instantly lost their carefully composed expressions after vaguely hearing Diana's words. Some even revealed dejection and despair.
Barbara was equally shocked by that special title, confirming Xi Nian's place in Diana's heart.
Still, no one could have imagined it, could they?
A god could truly become family with a human.
Barbara watched Diana for a long while before finally saying in a low voice, "You can't hide it from him forever."
"Of course." A faint smile graced Diana's flawless face as she softly said, "When he fully comes of age at eighteen, I'll tell him everything he wants to know. What kind of life he wants to live will be his own choice. I respect his wishes. But for now, I won't allow anyone to disturb that child's life."
As she spoke the last words, a cold glint flashed through Diana's eyes. Then she turned and strode out of the coffee shop in her boots.
"He's obviously just an ordinary human boy." Barbara shook her head in disbelief. Recalling Diana's earlier words, she suddenly smiled and murmured, "Prince Xi Nian. How exactly did you do it? If I get the chance, I really want to meet you properly."
Why had the child adopted by a god tamed the god herself?
Diana stepped out of the coffee shop and looked up at the light snow drifting down from the night sky. For no reason at all, she thought:
Was that child bent over his homework at the table right now, sitting on the sofa watching television, or already asleep in his bed?
No matter which it was.
Diana suddenly wanted to see Xi Nian, to kiss his face and carefully hold him in her arms, just as she had during their ordinary days over the past sixteen years.
"So, I'm afraid too."
Catching snowflakes in her palm and feeling their faint chill, Diana whispered to herself.
This morning, when she learned that Barbara had shown Xi Nian photographs of her from the World War I era, Diana had been just as frightened as Xi Nian had been uneasy and terrified.
Diana feared that once Xi Nian learned she was descended from gods, that she had lived for over a century without aging or dying, he would see her as a monster and become estranged from her. Their life together might be overturned because of it.
That was why Diana had concealed her true identity as Wonder Woman.
After buying a hamburger beside the coffee shop, Diana carried the takeout bag and started back home. When she saw police cars parked on the road below her building, along with numerous officers patrolling and standing guard, Diana suddenly felt a sense of foreboding.
She quickly entered the elevator and returned to the door of her residence.
Diana took a deep breath, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. At once, a cold wind howled in through the shattered floor-to-ceiling windows on the balcony, scattering the black hair of Diana standing in the doorway.
The dark living room was filled with severely damaged furniture, and the floor bore obvious cracks and trampling marks.
And from Diana's perspective, the armor and weapons she had always hidden in the living room ceiling—the Star-Spangled Tiara, Guardian Silver Bracelets, Sword of Hephaestus, Aegis of Divine Power, and Lasso of Truth—had all vanished without a trace.
"Something happened." Diana clenched her hands, yet her beautiful eyes revealed a calm completely devoid of emotion.
That was her divinity expanding without limit.
Meanwhile, elsewhere.
As pedestrians evacuated the smoke-filled urban war zone, Xi Nian lay prone atop a church, his face filled with disbelief.
"How could it be her?"
Xi Nian stared intently at the battlefield not far below, at the lower half of the young face revealed after Spider-Woman removed her mask.
She looked far too much like Gwen Stacy, his childhood sweetheart who had grown up alongside him!
If she had not been binding the overwhelmingly powerful Abomination with spider silk at that very moment, and sitting on the outer wall of a building ten meters above the ground in defiance of common sense, Xi Nian would have nearly concluded Spider-Woman's true identity.
But Spider-Woman's voice was clearly wrong.
"Could she simply look like her?" Before Xi Nian could think further, another change occurred in the battle below.
Several strands of resilient spider silk snapped tight with sharp cracks. Under Spider-Woman's astonished gaze nearby, several strands suddenly gave way beneath the strain. Although even more strands remained fastened to the building's exterior wall, total collapse followed in the next instant—the exterior wall anchoring the spider silk was torn down along with it!
Rumble!
For a moment, the earth shook and mountains seemed to tremble, while dust rose in place of snow.
The building Spider-Woman sat on collapsed and fell with it. Caught off guard, Spider-Woman tumbled downward. While in midair, she was about to fire fresh webs and swing away when a massive green hand violently burst through the webbing and the outer wall. Its fingers clamped around Spider-Woman's waist like iron pincers, restraining both her and her hands!
Within the dust, a pair of cold, terrifying green beast eyes opened.
"Let me go!" Spider-Woman cried out as she struggled. No matter how hard she tried, that hand did not budge in the slightest.
That terrifying, inhuman strength reminded her of the crossdressing pervert she had encountered on the rooftop earlier.
Abomination grinned viciously. Beneath its enormous three-meter-tall monstrous body, the petite Spider-Woman in its hand looked as tiny as an infant.
Naturally, it did not release Spider-Woman with its left hand. Instead, it raised its other hand and wrapped its right hand over the tightly clenched left.
As Abomination exerted force with both hands, the hand gripping her slowly contracted inch by inch. Spider-Woman's struggles weakened, and blood began to seep from between her tightly pressed lips.
Clearly, Abomination intended to crush her to death alive!
Gwen's feet gradually drooped, and she completely lost the strength to resist. Her consciousness began to fade into darkness.
Am I going to die here? Wait, I haven't even worn a white wedding dress yet...
Gwen thought unwillingly, then blacked out.
However.
In the final instant before she lost consciousness, as if in a dying flashback, she heard the most familiar voice of a young man.
"Let her go!"
A streak of silver arrived first, splitting the ink-black night sky and crimson flames overhead in two.
Abomination had been completely unprepared for someone to launch a surprise attack now. Even if it had known, it would not have cared. After all, even heavy weapons like rocket launchers could not break through its defenses, much less a mere cold weapon. Thus, it only watched the sword tip grow larger and larger in the reflection of its pupil.
This time, it was wrong!
Splat!
The Retro Longsword instantly pierced its closed, hardened eyelid. Its right eyeball burst apart next, and part of the blade sank completely into Abomination's eye socket!
How was this possible?
Abomination froze. Its only remaining eye abruptly widened as it stared fixedly at the silver-haired boy descending from above onto its arms.
"I'm curious. Monster, do you know pain?"
Perhaps because of the divinity he had inherited along with his abilities, Xi Nian's face was utterly calm, without the slightest trace of emotion.
Yet precisely because of that, it showed just how strangely furious he was at that moment!
Before you continue