"Hey," Hal cut in, sounding thoroughly irritated, "while you three are busy arguing about timeline deviations, could you maybe look at the situation we're actually in? We're trying to stop a war!"
Off to the side, Hal listened to the sudden detour into time-travel theory and felt like he'd been dropped into a lecture halfway through. None of it made sense to him—clouds and fog, top to bottom.
What did make sense was the problem right in front of them.
Mera, relieved that Hal had dragged the conversation back onto the rails, continued in a steady voice.
"Orm seized Atlantis's throne years ago," she said. "But he is not the true ruler of the Seven Seas. If he wants to invade the surface, he has to bring all the city-states under his banner."
As she spoke, Cyborg pulled up the recorded confession they'd extracted earlier and projected it for everyone to see.
"According to Black Manta's intel," Cyborg said, "Orm has already won over the Kingdom of Xebel."
Mera's hands clenched into fists as the video played. Hearing the truth laid out so plainly, she looked like she could barely keep herself from shaking.
She hadn't expected Orm to go that far—using surface operatives to engineer an attack vicious enough to force Xebel's hand.
Her father had nearly died in that assault. And it was precisely because of that attack that Xebel agreed to ally with Orm—to turn their weapons toward the humans on land.
"This evidence proves that the attack was Orm's doing," Mera said, jaw tight. "If my father learns the truth, he'll stand with us."
She spoke with conviction. With the facts in front of him, her father wouldn't continue down the path of complicity—not when he'd been manipulated into it.
Hal blinked, finally connecting a few dots.
"Wait—so you're actually a princess?!"
He stared at Mera like he'd just discovered a secret panel in a spaceship.
She was gorgeous, sure, but she didn't match the fairytale "mermaid princess" Hal had imagined as a kid. No tail, no seashell bra—just a terrifying level of competence and the kind of presence that made you stand up straighter by reflex.
Mera noticed his look and shot him a disgusted glare so sharp it could've cut steel. She had exactly zero interest in whatever nonsense surface men tried to project onto her.
The others clearly agreed. Arthur stepped forward and—without saying a word—placed himself slightly in front of her, protective in a way that felt natural, instinctive.
Hal wanted to protest that he was just surprised, not being creepy, but with everyone's expressions turning on him in unison, he wisely shut his mouth and looked away.
With proof in hand that Orm had orchestrated the attempt on her father, Mera finally seemed to breathe.
It meant she'd dodged a political marriage arrangement—and, more importantly, it meant they'd bought time. Time to help Arthur find what he needed.
"In short," Mera said, regaining her composure, "I need to take Arthur to find the legendary lost trident. Once he has it, he will be the rightful King of the Seven Seas. He can replace his brother immediately—ending the war between Atlantis and the surface at its root."
Ben, now that he'd roughly confirmed how far the timeline had drifted, decided to stop dancing around it and went straight for the spoiler.
"The lost trident is in the Hidden Sea at the Earth's core," he said. "It's in the Trench Kingdom. And if I remember right… Arthur's mother is there too."
Arthur went rigid.
"My mother…?" His voice trembled on the word.
When he was young, he trained his abilities under his mentor's guidance, longing for recognition—longing for the day he could finally go to Atlantis and meet her.
Until the day he was told she was dead.
"Wasn't she killed by the Atlanteans?" Arthur demanded, the question sounding more like disbelief than anger.
Mera's face went pale.
"The Trench…?" she said, as if the word itself tasted wrong. "The people there have degenerated into beasts."
Ben's "spoiler" landed like a grenade. Arthur was stunned, but Mera looked even more shaken.
This surface teenager—barely old enough to vote—was talking like he knew classified Atlantean history.
How could he possibly know where the lost trident was?
She tried to speak—tried to explain what the Trench creatures were like, what it meant to go near them—but another detail hit her like an icy wave:
Arthur's mother hadn't simply "died."
She had been offered up—sacrificed—to the Trench by Atlanteans who hated the surface.
And that was information no surface outsider should have. Not in a million years.
Mera's eyes narrowed, sharp and demanding.
"How do you know Arthur's mother was sacrificed to the Trench by those bastards?"
Ben smiled faintly, like someone who'd already watched the ending.
"Because I know how this story goes."
Shazam, of all people, nodded solemnly as if that explained everything.
"It's true," he said. "He's seen a lot of endings. We can totally trust him."
No one else said anything, but the way the League members nodded made their stance clear.
Ben continued, matter-of-fact—clinical, even.
"She fought her way through the Trench and forced an entrance into the Hidden Sea. But she failed the trial and couldn't take up the trident. That's why she couldn't leave."
Even if the League was willing to accept Ben's "I know the story" explanation, Mera still couldn't bring herself to bet everything on it.
Not without a backup plan.
"Even so," she insisted, "if we return to Atlantis and stop my father from fully committing to Orm, we'll have time. We can follow the route Arthur's mentor discovered—something reliable, something that leads us to the trident's location with far more certainty."
Ben wasn't surprised by her caution. He didn't expect everyone to swallow a spoiler whole just because he said it confidently.
And either way, the next move didn't change.
They still had to go to Atlantis first.
"Then let's move," Ben said. "Atlantis—here we come."
The moment the destination became real, everyone's energy lifted. Shazam—who'd been dying to see the underwater world since the first mention of it—actually cheered.
"Yes! We're going to Atlantis!"
Mera hesitated, then grimaced with practical frustration.
"There's one problem," she said. "Even if my boat is overloaded, it can't carry this many people."
Hal Jordan stepped forward immediately, confidence returning to his voice like it had never left.
"That's not a problem."
He wagged a finger lightly, smug as only Hal Jordan could be.
His ring flared—brilliant green—and a ship made entirely of Green Lantern energy formed in front of them: large enough to carry everyone with room to spare.
A vessel capable of faster-than-light travel in deep space.
Meaning that crushing ocean pressure was, to it, basically a joke.
Hal's grin widened.
"The Green Lantern ring is the most powerful weapon in the universe," he declared. "It can take a Green Lantern anywhere he wants to go!"
…And with that, the path to Atlantis was no longer a question of how—only how fast.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 80)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 80)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 80)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter50)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter50)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter50)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter50)
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