"The greatest treasures are guarded not by beasts but by despair."
---
The ocean floor trembled beneath an army on the march.
Thousands of armored soldiers advanced through glowing canyons of volcanic stone. Gigantic sea serpents slithered beside colossal war-machines shaped like sharks and crustaceans. Their banners glimmered. The sigil of Orm, King of Atlantis, streaking through the water like blood through veins.
Orm stood at the vanguard, eyes cold, expression carved from pride and fury.
"The Brine will not refuse me," He said to his general. "Their armies are strong but their will is weak. Once they kneel, all the kingdoms will follow."
The general hesitated. "And if they don't, my lord?"
Orm's smirk was thin as a blade.
"Then I'll remind them who commands the tide."
Above them, the current shifted. Unnatural. It was as though something vast was moving through the distant black, unseen but felt.
The soldiers slowed. Even the leviathans twitched uneasily.
Orm looked up into the darkness and whispered, "He's watching again, isn't he?"
The Hidden World
Far below, in the glowing stillness of the Hidden Sea, King, Arthur, and Mera stepped through coral arches that shimmered with bioluminescent life. The currents here were slow, deliberate, ancient — untouched by time.
Arthur's voice was soft.
"You ever get the feeling this place shouldn't exist?" Arthur asked.
Mera smiled. "Most legends weren't meant to."
King didn't answer. His eyes were fixed ahead. At the silhouette walking toward them.
Out from the coral forest stepped Queen Atlanna. Her white armor was weathered, coral crown fractured, but her presence radiated quiet power. The heart of Atlantis long lost to the myth of death.
Arthur froze. "Mom…?"
Her eyes glistened. "My son."
He rushed forward, the air trembling with his heartbeat as he embraced her. Years of grief collapsed into a single moment. Atlanna held him, tears drifting like pearls through the water.
Mera's voice trembled with awe. "You're alive…"
Atlanna smiled at her gently. "I survived where time forgot. I was trapped here, I tried to take Atlan's trident as it's the only way out. But I couldn't defeat the Karathen."
Her gaze turned to King.
"Though… I was not expecting you to bring a god in human flesh."
King inclined his head slightly, voice calm as the deep.
"Fate rarely moves in straight lines."
Atlanna studied him. The scar, the stillness, the quiet weight that pressed upon the sea itself. "You are no Atlantean, yet the ocean listens to you."
King's reply was quiet. "It listens to what it cannot defy."
The Trial of the Trident
The cavern opened into a massive abyss. The resting place of King Atlan's Trident, planted deep within an ancient altar guarded by skeletal remains of King Atlan and the ancient leviathan Karathen herself.
Karathen stirred. A creature so vast her movement changed the currents. Her voice was an earthquake whispered through water.
"Who dares approach the relic of Atlan?"
Arthur raised the holographic message of the fallen king, its voice echoing faintly through the abyss. "I'm Arthur Curry… and I come to unite our worlds."
Karathen's laughter was a storm.
"Another who claims worth. Another who seeks power."
Then her many eyes turned to King and for the first time in centuries, Karathen shuddered.
"You… I know not what you are. Yet even the deep fears your tread."
King said nothing. He merely stared and the leviathan lowered her head.
King turned towards Arthur and said, "Go and claim your destiny son of the land and the sea."
Arthur stepped forward. The water around him swirled, dense with pressure and memory. Mera and Atlanna watched, hands clasped, as the glow of Atlan's trident shimmered with ancient resonance.
Karathen's voice deepened.
"Prove your worth, child. Let the Trident judge your heart."
Arthur reached out and for a moment, everything went still. The trident pulsed, the water shivering with power.
And then it happened. The glow consumed him, surging through the ocean like a sunrise. The golden armor of Atlan reformed around his body, and in his hand, the Trident of the True King blazed to life.
Atlanna smiled through tears. "My son… the ocean has chosen."
King watched quietly, arms folded. "Balance restored."
Arthur turned to him. "Guess that means war just got a new ending."
"Only if you make it one." King said.
The War March of Orm
Meanwhile, in the deep valleys of the Brine Kingdom, Orm's forces gathered like a storm. The Brine King. A titanic crab-like monarch stood defiantly upon his throne, flanked by countless soldiers.
"I will not kneel !!!" The Brine King thundered. "Your war is not ours, Atlantean mud fish!!!"
Orm raised his trident, eyes burning.
"Then it's your funeral."
As his army advanced, the very ocean shook — not from his command, but from something else.
A sound echoed through the deep. Faint, rhythmic, unstoppable.
DOOM… DOOM… DOOM…
The King Engine.
Every soldier froze. Even Orm's leviathans cowered. The Brine King stared downward, eyes widening in primal fear and awe.
Orm snarled, raising his trident defiantly toward the distant light above. "Stay out of my war, surface god!"
But there was no answer. Only the steady, terrible rhythm of a power that no kingdom could match, the sound of inevitability made manifest.
Read 34 chapters ahead on P.A.T.R.E.O.N
patreon.com/Danzoslayer517
New tier available. For 14 dollars you get access to all my stories in Patreon.