Then, inevitably, curiosity won. The King of the Deep adjusted his posture, his fingers tracing the ancient grain of the table. "So," he said, his voice regaining its edge, "someone is going to explain this."
Tony Stark raised a finger, pointing to the ceiling that wasn't there. "Just to be clear, I already stopped questioning impossible things somewhere between classified energy projects and realizing the universe has a sense of humor."
Namor's gaze flicked to him. "You accept this far too easily."
Tony's smirk widened, his eyes reflecting a newfound depth of experience. "I stopped panicking the moment I realized this place operates on a logic higher than anything we have in Malibu.
Besides," he added, glancing at the shimmering interface before him, "I've already traded with this place. I've experienced the metaphysical power of the system—how it refined my biology and granted me control over magnetism without ever needing to touch my DNA. It's a clean, absolute transition. Once you've felt the system's authority restructure your capabilities while leaving your soul intact, you stop worrying about whether reality is bending—you just start wondering what the next upgrade costs."
That earned a reluctant snort from Namor—the wary respect of a king realizing the stakes had changed. He looked at Tony, his eyes narrowing with a hungry curiosity. "You speak of miracles as if they are commodities," Namor said, his voice dropping an octave. "What kind of power is this truly? To refine a man without the knife or the needle... what does it feel like to have the universe rewrite your potential?"
Tony leaned forward, his eyes sparking. "It's not like a drug or a surge. It's... clarity. When I bought the Metaphysical Magnetism and the Serum Refinement, I didn't feel a change in my DNA. I felt a change in my authority over the world around me. One minute I was a man in a room; the next, the very metal in the walls felt like an extension of my own nervous system. It's seamless. No scars, no recovery time—just a new 'you' that's objectively better."
T'Challa nodded in confirmation, his hands resting flat on the stone table. "I felt it as well. I traded for a Precognition— that allowed me to see future fragments. My biology remains same, but my consciousness has been elevated by the system's logic."
Aryan watched the exchange, playing his part by leaning in with an expression of scholarly interest. "It seems we are all collectors of the impossible," he mused. "The system doesn't care about your lineage; it only cares if you have the vision—and the wealth—to demand more from your existence."
Namor looked back at his own hands, his mind reeling. He had spent centuries guarding the purity of his people, but here were the most powerful individuals on the surface admitting they had willingly allowed a "system" to touch their very essence. The fear of the unknown was rapidly being replaced by a predatory intrigue. If Stark could control the fundamental forces of the earth, and T'Challa could see the future, what could a King of the Deep become if he offered up the treasures of the Atlantic?
Wanda spoke next, her voice calm but curious as she studied the Sub-Mariner. "You're taking this better than I expected."
Namor folded his arms across his chest. "Atlantis has its own legends. When something defies explanation, we observe it."
Tony's eyebrows shot up so high they nearly vanished into his hairline. "Atlantis?" he repeated, the word sounding alien in his mouth. "As in the 'little mermaid, city under the sea' Atlantis? You're telling me that while I've been mapping the stars, there's been a whole civilization living in the one place my sonar couldn't penetrate?"
T'Challa's eyes narrowed with sudden intensity. The legends of his own people spoke of spirits in the waters, but to hear a man claim a kingdom beneath the waves—one that had apparently remained as hidden as Wakanda—was a revelation that shifted the geopolitical scales in his mind instantly.
Wanda looked at Namor with genuine curiosity. She had spent her life in the shadowed corners of Europe, thinking the world was just a collection of fractured nations, but now the map was expanding in ways she couldn't grasp. "A city in the deep," she whispered. "I thought the surface was all there was."
Even Aryan, who usually maintained a mask of calm foresight, allowed a flicker of "surprise" to cross his features, playing the part of the shocked surface-dweller perfectly.
Namor's gaze flicked across their faces, his expression hardening into a smirk that mirrored Tony's. "You seem surprised, King of Wakanda. And you, Stark—the man who claims to see everything. It seems the ocean has kept its secrets better than your satellites."
T'Challa nodded slowly, "I am surprised. I simply chose not to show it until now. It seems we share more than just this fog, Namor. We share the burden of being the world's best-kept secrets."
That drew a genuine laugh from Wanda, a sound that seemed to ripple through the gray fog like a stone dropped in a still pond. "It's a crowded table," she said. "A billionaire, a hidden king of the earth, a king of the sea, and a CEO. We're all just legends to someone else, aren't we?"
Conversation drifted like the mist itself, thick with the weight of things left unsaid. No one rushed to dominate the space; the stories came in fragments, incomplete by design, like shards of a grand puzzle being pieced together in the dark. They spoke of the first summons—as a sensation. It was the feeling of space folding wrong, as if the geometry of the world had suddenly decided to overlap. Tony described a crystalline whistle that seemed to vibrate in his teeth, while T'Challa recalled the terrifying clarity of his awareness slipping forward, leaving the physical world behind like a discarded cloak.
Wanda spoke of the silence within the castle walls. She didn't describe it as an absence of noise, but as something… observant. It was a living silence that seemed to hold its breath, watching their every move with a neutral curiosity. "It doesn't judge," she said softly, her eyes tracing the swirling gray currents. "It simply waits to see what we choose to become when no one is looking."
T'Challa recounted his arrival with the clinical precision of a strategist who had been forced to surrender his weapons. He spoke of how his instincts—honed by the Panther God and years of combat training—had screamed of a invisible trap. His muscles had been coiled to strike, his mind mapping every exit that didn't exist. Yet, as the seconds bled into minutes, he realized that no blow was coming. There was no predator in the fog, only a presence so vast it made the concept of hostility feel petty and small.
Tony, however, framed the experience through a lens that was uniquely his own, his wit acting as a polished shield for the awe he couldn't quite hide.
"It's the ultimate corporate power move," he said, "Imagine stepping into a high-stakes boardroom where the chair at the head of the table is occupied, but the CEO hasn't said a word. They don't introduce themselves, they don't hand out an agenda—but the atmosphere tells you they've already read your metrics, seen your five-year plan, and they're just waiting to see if you're smart enough to realize you're the one who needs to justify being there."
That earned a appreciative nod from Aryan. It was the perfect description of Thr Fool's aura—a power that didn't need to speak to be heard, and didn't need to move to exert a pressure that could crush an empire.
The topic of honorifics came up next. They explained to Namor that it was not an act of submission. It was more like a protocol—something between a key and a handshake. The weight of speaking those specific words was psychological, a way to anchor their minds to a reality that defied all logic. Each of them admitted the same thing: the first time they used it, they had hesitated. It was a natural resistance, born of respect for a power they didn't fully understand.
"It listens," Wanda said slowly, choosing her words with careful reverence.
"Exactly," Aryan agreed.
Namor listened to all of it without interruption. His eyes moved from speaker to speaker, absorbing their tones, their pauses, and their subtle shifts in posture. Every so often, his fingers tapped lightly against the armrest of his stone chair, his brow furrowed in rhythmic thought.
P.S. If you're enjoying the journey through the mist and can't wait to see what happens next, consider supporting my work on Patreon! You can unlock 10 Advance Chapters right now and stay ahead of the curve. Your support helps me keep the updates coming daily!
Read ahead here: www.patreon.com/Drrajnovel