Diana sat quietly beside him in a flowing white dress styled after ancient Roman robes. Resting across her lap was a golden harp whose design seemed straight out of Olympus itself, and the gentle light of the palace hall made her look like a nymph attending the gods.
Her slender fingers moved across the strings, drawing out soft, crystalline notes. The sound floated through the hall like water running over smooth stones in a mountain stream.
On the throne, Victor Kent leaned back with his eyes closed. His fingers tapped lightly against the armrest, following the rhythm of the music.
"You seem very happy today."
Diana's voice carried a hint of hesitation, though her hands never stopped playing. During this period, Victor's life as the King of the Amazons hardly looked enjoyable at all.
In her eyes, his daily routine was painfully dull. Every day he watched the Amazons stumble through dance practice, and just a few days ago he had suddenly ordered her to start learning the harp. No matter how she thought about it, she could not understand where the fun in all of this came from.
Especially today.
Nothing special had happened, yet Victor seemed to be in an unusually good mood.
[Template integration: 95%…]
Victor heard her question but did not open his eyes.
"Am I not allowed to be happy?"
Of course he had a reason, but there was no way he would share it with Diana.
The fusion level of the Black Emperor template had now surpassed ninety percent. If he were to face Ares again, the battle would be completely different.
Previously, he had needed to fight for a long time to accumulate enough divine power for a decisive strike. Now that was no longer necessary. With the power he possessed at this stage, killing the eldest son of the Heavenly Father would require far less effort.
He could cut him down quickly—swiftly enough that the so-called God of War would not even have time to understand what had happened.
"What will the next template be?"
Victor smiled faintly to himself as the thought crossed his mind.
"This trip to Paradise Island really wasn't a waste."
More importantly, conquering the Amazons had proven to be an excellent decision. With their constant resentment and emotional reactions feeding the System, the progress of his template fusion had accelerated dramatically.
The improvement felt like upgrading from a bicycle to a roaring motorcycle.
Victor slowly opened his eyes and narrowed them slightly.
"Now that I think about it, there's another extraordinary race on this planet," he murmured to himself. "One with a long history and an even larger population."
Diana, as a descendant of Zeus, possessed physical and mental abilities far beyond those of ordinary people. In less than a month, she had already mastered the dance routines well enough that even the most critical instructor would struggle to find fault.
Because of that, Victor had simply assigned her another task—learning the harp.
After all, watching Amazons with absolutely no talent for dance stumble through Swan Lake every single day had become its own kind of torture.
Diana continued playing while glancing occasionally at the man seated on the throne. Her expression was complicated.
After returning to Paradise Island, she had asked her mother something she had wondered about for years. Why had Ares recognized her immediately during their battle? Why had he called her a weapon left behind by Zeus?
Why had Hippolyta never told her that she was Zeus's daughter?
In the end, Hippolyta had no choice but to reveal the truth she had hidden for so long.
During the ancient war, the Olympian gods had been slaughtered by Ares one after another. Before leaving the world, Zeus had made arrangements for Diana, who was still in Hippolyta's womb at the time.
He intended her to become the one who would eventually kill Ares.
To prepare for that destiny, Zeus had left behind a series of divine artifacts specifically for her use—relics that none of his other descendants possessed.
But Hippolyta had never believed her daughter could truly defeat Ares.
"So what if she's my daughter… the daughter of the Heavenly Father?" Hippolyta had said bitterly. "Ares is the son of the King of the Gods and the Queen of Heaven. He's one of the most powerful deities that ever existed."
For that reason, Hippolyta had always avoided telling Diana the truth. If Victor had never appeared, she might have continued hiding it until the day Ares himself arrived at Paradise Island.
Only then, when there was no other choice, would she have revealed everything.
"Thank you."
The harp music continued, but Diana's lips moved slightly as she spoke in a low voice.
Victor opened his eyes and turned his head toward her, clearly puzzled.
"Thank me for what?"
"It should have been my responsibility to kill Ares," Diana said quietly. "To stop him from spreading war across the world and harming innocent people."
Her gaze drifted toward the distant horizon as memories of that battle resurfaced.
Since childhood, Diana had believed she was fearless, just like the heroes in Greek mythology. But being fearless did not mean she was incapable of feeling fear.
When she thought back to that battle, she could not help wondering what would have happened if Victor had not been there.
Even without the interference of the demonic creature that had appeared during the fight, she likely would not have been able to defeat Ares.
"Without you," Diana continued slowly, "I was tricked into putting down the Godslayer sword. I might have lost the only weapon capable of threatening him. If that had happened… the outcome might have been very different."
If she had been deceived into abandoning the Godslayer, she probably would have fallen to Ares—the half-brother she now knew she had.
"Don't underestimate your potential," Victor said casually. "Maybe you could have killed Ares even without me."
Diana still possessed untapped power within her bloodline.
As a descendant of Zeus, her abilities should extend far beyond physical strength alone.
In the original timeline Victor remembered, Diana's divine power had awakened in a moment of emotional devastation—when a pilot died in front of her during the war.
But in this version of events, that pilot had never appeared.
"The Atlanteans…"
Diana shook her head faintly, clearly unconvinced by Victor's words.
Victor, however, was already thinking about something else.
He was not in a hurry. Atlantis lay deep beneath the ocean, and it was not going anywhere.
Still, he had been away from home for nearly a month.
It was probably time to return.
"I wonder how my parents are doing," he murmured.
Then another thought crossed his mind.
"And how Clark is adjusting to his job as a reporter's assistant."
There was one detail he was particularly curious about.
Had Clark already met Lois Wayne? Had there been any sparks between them?
After all, in almost every version of the story, the Son of Krypton inevitably ended up paired with Lois Lane.
…
"That settles it. To celebrate our successful deal, why don't you join me for a drink at the Blue River Restaurant?"
An elderly man with gray hair loosened his tie and smiled with satisfaction at the businessman sitting across from him. The large contract they had just finalized had clearly put him in an excellent mood.
The shorter man with thinning hair was sweating heavily.
His pale face twitched nervously as he glanced at the men standing around the room. They looked far less like professional bodyguards and far more like gangsters.
There was absolutely no joy on his face.
He swallowed hard.
"No, my dear Mr. Glen Morgan," he said quickly, "I… I've never been much of a drinker."
In truth, he wanted nothing more than to escape from this suffocating room.
The way those men stared at him made him feel like a rabbit surrounded by hungry predators.
"This is my invitation."
Glen Morgan's expression darkened slightly.
Just moments ago he had been smiling warmly, but now his tone carried a trace of cold irritation. Even though this man had just brought him tens of millions of dollars in business, refusing his invitation still felt like an insult.
Several bodyguards stepped forward silently.
The short businessman began trembling violently, like a leaf caught in a storm.
He had no idea what to do.
Suddenly—
A tall figure crashed through the window from above.
Glass exploded inward as the figure burst into the room with unstoppable momentum.
"Who are you?!"
"Damn it, this is the twenty-ninth floor!"
Shards of glass scattered everywhere. The bodyguards panicked, their minds immediately jumping to the rumors reported by the Daily Planet.
"Superman… is it Superman?"
"Is what the Daily Planet said actually true?"
The red cape. The blue suit. The unmistakable S emblem on his chest.
Fear flashed across several faces.
A mysterious vigilante who could run faster than a train, leap higher than a bird, and whose body could shrug off bullets as if they were nothing.
"Superman?"
Hearing the terrified shouts around him, Clark Kent's expression turned slightly strange.
He knew the name came from Lois Lane, the reporter who had written about him. In truth, he had never even met that determined journalist in person.
But another identity connected them in a strange way, and thinking about it left him with a rather complicated feeling.
....
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