I Am Your Father

A beam of light pierced the darkness, sweeping back and forth through the deep sea like a hot knife through butter, easily churning the dead seabed into a mess.

Close behind it, a wooden sailing ship with oars slowly emerged from the depths of the ocean. Although the ship had oars, the blades were not moving. Its true propulsion came from the man standing at the bow.

The man had short hair and a short beard, slightly pointed ears, emerald-green earrings, a nose stud, green shorts, golden battle boots, golden bracers, and golden armlets. A huge, plate-like gold-and-jade ornament covered his neck and half his chest. Other than that, he wore nothing at all, leaving him nearly naked.

Most bizarrely, a pair of small wings grew from the backs of his ankles.

He stood at the bow with one hand resting on the sail. Without seeming to do anything, he propelled the ship forward at great speed, as if the seawater behind it were automatically pushing it along.

This was highly unscientific. After all, this was ten thousand meters beneath the sea, a depth even the most powerful sea beasts could not reach. Even humanity's most advanced submarines could not roam so freely in this place.

But this was very Marvel, because the man standing at the bow was Namor, Sea King Namor.

The huge disturbance Zhan Liu had caused beneath the sea had finally attracted his attention.

As the king of the ocean depths, he had a duty to monitor the four seas and keep watch for all kinds of disasters that might arise, preventing harm from coming to his kingdom.

For such a turbulent current to be brewing in the deepest part of the ocean, where there should have been nothing but silence, was deeply alarming to him.

No one understood better than he did how terrifying an amount of energy this required. Even as Sea King, with the ability to control the ocean, achieving such an effect was no easy feat.

The ship headed toward the center of the current. As it passed through, the originally raging waves actually became extremely docile, once again returning to their former calm.

The ship's speed had nothing to do with the current. It depended entirely on Namor's will.

A moment later, Namor finally reached the target location, where a supermassive pit appeared before his eyes.

Had a meteor fallen from the sky?

Namor was somewhat uncertain.

Even a meteorite should not have been able to break through ten thousand meters of ocean and inflict such damage on the seabed.

At the very center of the pit, a round hole roughly three meters wide appeared in the seabed. Its inner walls were exceptionally smooth and even, as though they had been scorched at high temperatures. It was clearly not a natural formation, but something man-made.

"So, we have a guest..." Namor muttered to himself.

He moved above the round hole and aimed the ship's unscientific spotlight down into it. The inside was pitch-black, and its bottom could not be seen at a glance. All he could hear was a tremendous rumbling rising from below, with large quantities of bubbles surging upward from time to time.

He did not know who was below, nor did he care to find out.

As the ruler of the ocean depths, this was his territory. Someone had come digging a hole recklessly in his home without even greeting him, making him feel that his dignity had been violated.

This was a provocation, a blatant provocation!

He casually beckoned with one hand, and the seawater inside the round hole shot upward at high speed, defying gravity. In an instant, the hole had become a waterless zone.

Namor flicked his wrist and pointed downward with one finger. The massive volume of seawater gathered together once more and surged into the round hole at high speed.

Zhan Liu had been digging below, and he had long since broken through the Mohorovičić discontinuity. After crossing that boundary, the density of the Earth's core grew much greater, adding considerable difficulty to his work.

The light Namor shone down from above could not reach him at all, because the shaft he had dug was already far too deep. Moreover, there was no light on the seabed to begin with, so he had closed his eyes long ago, focusing completely on controlling the strength beneath his feet.

However, he could still sense the sudden disappearance of the surrounding seawater. He simply paid it no mind and continued digging downward.

He had no intention of causing trouble, but trouble had come looking for him.

When the compressed current came crashing down and slammed heavily into his head, he knew that someone above was causing trouble.

He stomped hard on the ground, then shot straight into the sky, rapidly ascending through the vertical shaft he had carved. The continuous high-pressure current battered his body, yet it could not impede him in the slightest.

Hearing the thunderous rumbling rising from below, Namor knew that the unwelcome guest underground was coming out.

He controlled the ship and began to rise, intending to speak with the visitor on the surface.

To him, so-called conversation meant first giving the other party a verbal lesson, then giving them a physical one.

But things did not go as he wished.

He had only risen a short distance when he heard a tremendous rumble. Water splashed wildly at the mouth of the hole, and vast quantities of bubbles and steam surged upward. A figure had already appeared on the seabed.

The figure stretched out a hand toward him. Namor felt his body bound by some kind of force, then he was yanked off the ship and slammed downward with tremendous force.

With a boom, he was planted headfirst into the seabed like a radish.

Although the force was immense, it still could not hurt Namor.

Namor flew into a rage. Bracing one hand against the ground, he pulled himself free.

He shook his head like a poodle shaking off its fur, flinging away all the mud clinging to him. Then he beckoned toward the ship, and a Golden Spear shot through the water from the deck, flying straight into his hand.

With his weapon in hand, Namor pointed it at Zhan Liu. The seawater immediately answered his summons, pressing in from all directions against Zhan Liu's body.

The force of that seawater was vast and surging. It could compress even steel into a sheet of iron.

But that level of force was meaningless to Zhan Liu. It did not even qualify as a massage.

He shook his body, shattering all the surrounding currents and creating a vast amount of steam and bubbles.

Zhan Liu flew forward, leaving a long white trail behind him as he charged straight at Namor.

Namor thrust with his spear, but he was far too slow. Zhan Liu caught the spearhead with his left hand and sent him flying with a punch from his right.

Zhan Liu casually tossed the Golden Spear aside, caught up with Namor, and kicked him once, then twice, then three times... Like a soccer ball, Namor was kicked all the way to the surface.

Throughout the entire process, Namor had tried to resist, but in Zhan Liu's eyes, his resistance was feeble and powerless, posing no threat whatsoever.

The notion that the ocean was Sea King's home turf might have been useful against ordinary people, but to Zhan Liu, it was completely meaningless.

Above the calm surface of the sea, a boom suddenly rang out as a wave dozens of meters high rose into the air from nowhere. A figure was hurled high out of the wave.

In midair, the small wings behind Namor's feet flapped rapidly, finally bringing his backward-flying body to a stop.

Furious and shocked, he hovered in midair and watched as his opponent strolled out of the waves as casually as though he were taking a walk in a courtyard, then seemed to ascend invisible steps and walk through the sky.

"What are you, anyway?"

"I am your father!" Zhan Liu said coldly.