Mera surveyed the battlefield. Only enemies that couldn't fly remained, and her ice arrows' lethality against these thick-skinned monsters was limited.
She nodded. "Be careful."
With that, she leaped up with a graceful diving motion and plunged into the deep sea to help Aquaman.
Even through the heavy seawater, Thea could see how intense the battle below was. Aquaman, nearly invincible in water, engaged Heracles while Diana could only provide support. With Mera joining the underwater fight, Diana found herself with nothing to do.
Diana wasn't worried about the Aquaman couple killing Heracles. She swam to the surface and came to help Thea eliminate the monsters on the island.
Without Heracles causing chaos and the snake-woman's control, these primordial beings that only knew destruction were no match for the well-coordinated pair. When Diana used the lasso, Thea used her holy sword. When Diana used sword and shield, Thea used her bow. The two switched between close combat and ranged attacks seamlessly.
Every few dozen seconds, another monster fell. As their numbers dwindled, the pressure on the two women eased. Thea invoked wish power once more, restoring some of their stamina and healing their wounds. Finally, they slaughtered all these ancient remnants.
Giant waves still churned in the distant seawater, showing that subduing the Lion of Olympus wasn't simple even for the Aquaman couple underwater. But Thea wasn't worried about them. As long as there was seawater, their recovery ability was nearly infinite. Unless facing someone who could one-shot them, few could defeat Aquaman underwater.
Besides, setting aside Thea's support funding for Dr. Evans's research, the root cause of this incident was Aquaman carelessly discarding his trident, allowing someone to exploit it. This trouble was fated for the couple; Thea had merely advanced the timeline slightly.
The scene was a mess. Thea had initially purified the monsters, but then discovered purification consumed some of her stamina. She quickly shut off the purification function. Now the island's central area was littered with monsters they'd cut down.
These monsters were bizarre and diverse, no two alike. Some bled, some oozed purple sludge, and some turned to stone upon death.
"You're the one from Queen Consolidated?" Jimmy Olsen, who'd been hiding not far from the battlefield with Dr. Evans, heard the commotion die down. The two gathered their courage to investigate. His eyesight was good—he immediately recognized Thea, who'd removed her hood.
"You've got the wrong person." Thea was finishing off the monsters and answered without thinking. Her hair had turned golden now and her features had matured somewhat. Jimmy Olsen, still shaken, wasn't entirely certain.
At the same time, he thought it exceeded his imagination that a billionaire would run to this godforsaken island to maintain world peace. Still, he planned to chat with his good friend Clark Kent about his brush with death today when he got back.
The two women checked everything over. Thea simultaneously used her super vision to scan the island's vicinity, confirming no oversights remained before going underwater together to help the Aquaman couple.
"We can handle him!" Aquaman was unaware of Thea's behind-the-scenes maneuvering. He thought this trouble was entirely his fault. He was already grateful the two women had helped clear the island's monsters. If he didn't do something now, he'd be ashamed. The big guy in front of him—he'd take him down with his own strength.
His strength naturally surged underwater. Now with some pressure, he gave it everything he had. Heracles wasn't incapable of water combat, but once off the ground, he was somewhat uncomfortable. With one's strength increasing and the other's decreasing, neither willing to concede, the two pummeled each other.
Massive ocean currents were churned into vortices by their tremendous power. Fish and shrimp had long since fled. Mera's eyes glowed azure blue as her ability reached its peak, aquatic beasts formed from condensed seawater continuously pouncing at Heracles.
Looking at the wildly raging Heracles, Diana asked Thea hesitantly, "Can his sanity be restored?"
Thea had considered this before and prepared several contingency plans. Seeing him in person, she found it several times more complex than expected. Heracles himself was someone with iron willpower. Such people were hard to corrupt, but once their core beliefs crumbled, recovery was even harder.
The snake-woman she'd shot dead must have spent ten thousand years of erosion to gradually break down Heracles' mind. Even so, she could only drive him mad, not turn him into a puppet under her control. This showed just how tenacious his will was.
"If we can subdue him, we can find the Martian Manhunter. He's one of the universe's strongest telepaths—see if he has a solution. If that doesn't work, we can try using my wish power to alter reality."
Grodd's mental abilities were more about control—normal while controlled, still mad when released. The Martian Manhunter was the best choice now.
Diana nodded silently, both refocusing on the battle.
After half an hour of fighting, the Aquaman couple managed to defeat Heracles with difficulty. His body was harder than steel with top-tier recovery. Aquaman's trident left wound after wound on him, but he healed quickly. Killing him was impossible. Relying on infinite stamina, they exhausted Heracles' last bit of strength. Aquaman's elbow smashed into his face.
The eyes full of madness and killing intent closed. This warrior who ruled the gods through strength finally passed out from exhaustion.
Aquaman had heard the two women's earlier conversation and readily handed Heracles over to them.
"Arthur, this is all my fault!" Back on the island with the four carrying the multi-ton Heracles, Dr. Daniel Evans still wore an apologetic expression as he apologized to Aquaman.
None of the four blamed him excessively. He wasn't a bad person, just too focused on his research and had his mind bewitched by the primordial beings.
Returning to where the seal had been broken, originally placing the trident back would reseal it. But when Heracles emerged, he'd completely destroyed the barrier between worlds. The trident was now useless.
The three could fight and kill, but sealing required Thea's expertise. They all looked at her.
Thea didn't shirk responsibility and began studying it. The opposite side was an alternate dimension about the size of a town. Now that she'd cut down all the prisoners, the other side was empty. Sealing or not didn't really matter.
But Thea still used her knowledge to redraw a sealing barrier on site. After the primordial beings' ten-thousand-year occupation, even the air on that side was filled with madness and evil. If left unsealed, those energies entering this world would create more villains.
With abundant theoretical knowledge, the task was straightforward—even simpler than sealing the Nanda Parbat portal. Borrowing Atlantis's original framework, Thea quickly resealed the passage.