Marvel Magic Event Book

Chapter 1755 Raid and Infiltration

Asgard was plunged into darkness. No one lit a lamp in the city, and the distant mountains lay prostrate in the night. The entire floating island was as silent as death. The soldiers entered the areas where the Emperor's radiance could not reach and immediately felt the cold, as well as a psychological fear.

Officers at all levels have informed every soldier of the current situation in Asgard: those on Hela's side are not only the dead, but also old nobles who once served her. Therefore, they will face not only supernatural undead summoned by necromancy, but also well-equipped private armies of Aesir and Vanir nobles. Since most civilians are currently seeking refuge in the mountains with Heimdall, the soldiers are not bound by the rules of engagement, which is a good thing, meaning the army can bombard urban areas.

But Thor didn't bring all good news.

Although most of the ships at the spaceport carried fleeing Asgardian civilians, Asgard left behind a large amount of war equipment: from small airships suitable for carrying entire squads in assault operations to airships used for ground fire support. While the noble private armies were few in number, they were highly skilled warriors, and their possession of such war equipment would certainly cause significant trouble for human soldiers.

Having learned about Asgardian weaponry from Thor, the senior officers immediately decided to deploy terminal air defense weapons to the front lines to counter Asgardian air support. Simultaneously, they dispatched soldiers to lay numerous mines throughout the city to block the advance of noble private armies, and finally, to bombard the Asgardian anti-aircraft gun emplacements marked on the map by Thor, thus crippling Asgard's defense network.

That was the basic battle plan, but once it was distributed to each soldier, the detailed work they had to complete was extensive. The impatient Thor was finally able to join 200 genetically modified warriors and 3000 ordinary soldiers in an attempt to break through the territory occupied by Hela and the nobles' private armies.

The area included the key highway leading from the mountains to the spaceport, a food depot, and an energy depot. The operation plan included destroying the energy depot and the food depot, and this part of the operation was assigned by the Emperor to the Wild Legion led by Silver Sable.

This combat group has been incorporated into the regular army, and some members have been selected and retired, receiving pensions. Since becoming a regular army unit, their weaponry and military manuals have undergone several upgrades. Now, they also have drones for reconnaissance during marches, a privilege they never enjoyed as mercenaries. This team did not carry any armored vehicles because, according to the military manuals, the Knights led by Aparisha are a purely light armored unit.

Accompanying the knights was a company of the First Secret Regiment. This mortal army from the Immortal City had followed the Emperor since his rise to power and was the Emperor's most trusted armed force, their weaponry being nothing short of luxurious. As a veteran who had fought on the European battlefields, Steve Rogers was unfamiliar with the details of these armies' weaponry and their tactical doctrines, but he could discern their excellent combat quality from their marching pace.

This was undoubtedly a highly trained army; even their marching steps were perfectly synchronized, something almost impossible for European soldiers. As for the genetically modified soldiers, forgive Steve Rogers' distrust of them—it was a legacy of history. However, the reconnaissance drones overhead eased his worries somewhat; with this equipment, he didn't need to worry about the unit being ambushed during their march.

He has also studied modern military tactics theory, so don't treat him like a complete old fogey.

Anxious Thor had already flown across enemy territory to inform Heimdall, who was leading civilians to escape the war. The Asgardians had never imagined that reinforcements would enter Asgard, especially not from Midgard, but the news still gave the desperate civilians a glimmer of hope.

Though small, it is still hope.

Thor also saw a weary Loki dozing against a rock, and as he approached, the god of mischief opened his eyes alertly. Since returning to Asgard, they had hardly had any real rest, and many times it was only through Loki's illusion magic that the commoners were able to evade the surveillance magic of the nobles' private armies and escape safely.

He was pleased to see Loki shoulder the responsibilities of the Asgardian prince; in his heart, Loki was more suited to the throne of Asgard than he was. But now all of that was meaningless; Asgard was destined to be destroyed in Ragnarok, an inescapable fate.

"You don't really believe those mortals are capable of rescuing us, do you?" Loki rubbed his eyes, a wicked smile still on his face. "Are we so weak that we need the charity of mortals?"

Thor was too exhausted to argue. "How much food do we have left?"

“We don’t have enough food to start a party, not even a drop of beer,” Loki said, looking at Thor.

When they returned to Asgard, Hogan and Fandral had already been executed by Hela. Only Sif escaped, but she was severely wounded and unable to continue fighting. Enraged, Thor grabbed his hammer and went to seek revenge on Hela, but Hela, now back in Asgard, possessed power far exceeding Thor's; she even crushed Mjolnir with one hand.

They faced two choices: Hela could kill all the soldiers who refused to obey, or they could recruit berserkers—letting the stonemasons, carpenters, and other lowly men take up berserker staffs, filling their minds and bodies with rage, and letting them trade their lives for victory—but Thor refused this offer; he didn't want to waste any civilian lives. So they could only take the civilians who refused to obey Hela and a small number of soldiers who had managed to escape, and head into the mountains to join the refugees led by Heimdall.

“That’s not enough. The Midgardian ships won’t provide us with food, and we can’t ask the Midgardian army to give up their rations.” Thor pointed to the spread-out map. “If we could have set off earlier, we could have met up here—at the food depots stored from the spaceport. We could have taken enough bread. Loki—”

“I know, I know,” Loki waved his hand. “In the end, we still have to rely on me, don’t we?”

"Thank you, Loki."

“Don’t say things like that, it’s disgusting,” Loki said. “I can sense that person’s coming. The waves he’s creating in the outer dimensions are terrifying. I don’t think Hela can fight both him and you at the same time.”

“It’s no use,” Thor shook his head. “My goal was never to kill Hela. If she wants to rule a graveyard, let her wear the crown. That’s what my father told me… and my mother too…”

Loki was speechless. He couldn't bear to go against his mother's dying wish, especially since Frigga had repeatedly emphasized that they shouldn't argue.

While Thor was still waiting for reinforcements to cross into enemy-occupied territory, the war in the direction of the spaceport had already begun.

The Emperor made his arrival public, but Hela did not send anyone to attempt negotiations, or even give the Emperor's army time to deploy its firepower. Shortly after the attack on the Asgardian anti-aircraft fortifications began, frontline soldiers reported spotting the enemy. While the mortal soldiers had never seen walking corpses before, this did not frighten them.

They calmly opened fire while calling for artillery support.

Laser weapons can easily burn through Kevlar body armor with bulletproof plates, and even the weakest points of light armored personnel carriers. However, the Asgardian undead, enhanced by dark magic, will not stop even with severe head wounds. This is where 155mm howitzers, frontline heavy-explosive machine guns, and twin laser cannons become incredibly important. These weapons can destroy large numbers of undead with extremely high efficiency; with sufficient ammunition, they can prevent the dark magic undead from crossing the defensive line.

After several bombings and strafing attacks, the number of undead that frontline soldiers could see decreased sharply.

However, the Emperor knew that this loss was insignificant to Hela. After each bombardment and strafe, killing large numbers of undead, the frontline soldiers would report seeing even more armored undead surging forward. If Thor's information was correct, then Hela could easily estimate her available forces by subtracting the number of refugees from Asgard's population statistics.

The density of the black magic undead that the General Staff saw was terrifyingly high, like an anthill that had been disturbed. The shattered remains of the undead alone were enough to form new bunkers. The war had only just begun. Even if the previous artillery barrage had wiped out ten thousand undead, it would only be a superficial wound for Hela. The most elite noble private armies had not yet made a move, and both sides were still in a probing phase.

They attempted to attack the Golden Palace directly with rockets, but all of them were blocked by the Golden Palace's shields.

It was a wall constructed using a unique Asgardian energy shield technology, a powerful technique the Aesir had stolen from the giants long ago. As long as the attack didn't exceed its withstand threshold, the energy shield would never break. From here, one could faintly see a pale golden glow emanating from the direction of the Golden Palace—that was the light emanating from the shield.

Reconnaissance drones can provide a clearer view.

Plasma warheads slammed into the shield, exploding into blue sparks and molten metal fragments, but the shield remained completely still, without the slightest flicker or pause. Despite this, every few minutes a rocket carrying a plasma-piercing warhead would strike the shield. The Emperor ordered the attack to continue, intending to provoke Hela and force her to leave the Golden Palace. Breaking the shield with rockets and artillery shells delivered by the air carriers alone wouldn't suffice, not even with three air carriers. If he used the Holy Sword, the Emperor was certain he would destroy the shield along with the Golden Palace, making this expedition a complete and utter failure.

Dozens of large screens were erected in the field command center, using flares, thermal imaging low-light reconnaissance drones, electro-optical reconnaissance equipment from the carrier battle group, and ground-based detection radar to create an incredibly detailed and timely picture of the war for the staff. The information gathered here was collected, evaluated, and compiled by the staff before being distributed to commanders at all levels to help them make deployments.

The staff included Constantine, the commander of the Royal Guard, and Tita, the chief commander of the Sisters of Asgard. They joined the staff as extensions of the Emperor's will. After the expedition, all footage and documents were stored in the military archives, classified as "Crimson." The war was extremely long; six hours of continuous bombardment and deafening explosions left all the soldiers exhausted, even their meals were rushed. In those six hours, tens of thousands of dark magic zombies were killed by artillery fire and automatic weapons. Asgard was gradually destroyed and leveled; bricks and stones turned to rubble, and sculptures melted and then solidified.

The bombardment destroyed city roads, creating countless small bunkers and ruins, hindering the advance of the dark magic undead. All roads leading to the spaceport were filled with rubble and debris, making it difficult for Hela's undead to cross. Even so, the Emperor's soldiers dared not relax, as they still did not know from where the nobles' private armies would emerge.

The most likely scenario now is that Hela or a noble's private army will suddenly appear above the command center in assault gunboats and launch a boarding operation against the emperor's command center. This is a common tactic used by the Asgardians, and because of the element of surprise and the Aesir's superior physical abilities, this decapitation tactic has been consistently successful.

The Emperor's army repeatedly used artillery to sweep the landing pads within the royal city limits, attempting to pin down all the Asgardian assault boats on the airstrips. This tactic initially yielded good results, as Asgard itself had never been attacked before, and the Aesir private army was unaware of the risks of exposing the assault boats. Based on feedback from reconnaissance drones and statistics from the General Staff, the first wave of bombing of the airstrips destroyed at least 50 Asgardian assault boats, but this number differed from the figure revealed by Thor.

The General Staff deduced that many more assault boats were hidden in places even Thor didn't know, and the number of light aircraft within the royal city was certainly greater than that. The General Staff attempted to bombard the noble mansions that had fallen towards Hela, believing there should still be survivors there. However, after the bombardment, the reconnaissance drones received no feedback, as if all Asgardians had died overnight.

This eerie silence was not only unsettling, but also increased the uncertainty of tactics.

The Emperor's choice of landing location was quite ingenious. If he had scattered 20,000 mortal soldiers and several thousand genetically modified warriors onto a giant floating island the size of a continent, even with their formidable fighting prowess, they would have been unable to achieve final victory. The current landing site was a spaceport only tens of kilometers from the Golden Palace. The Emperor's soldiers blocked all exits from the royal city, effectively encircling Hela's army and cutting off reinforcements from other regions loyal to Hela.

Nevertheless, the General Staff was still not happy.

“Hela has exploited our weakness; she knows we don’t have enough ammunition. But I didn’t expect her to overcome her arrogance,” the Emperor said to Constantine. “Now we should change tactics, otherwise we won’t have much ammunition when the Dark Order attacks.”

“The arcane mage has sent word that Stephanie Malik believes Mars still needs time to prepare,” Constantine said calmly. “I’m not sure if any ships will be operational on Mars after the expedition.”

The Emperor certainly wouldn't take all the armed forces with him, leaving Earth defenseless against an alien invasion, or giving NATO an opportunity to retaliate. Before he set sail, the British aircraft carrier HMS Victoria attempted to cross the Strait of Gibraltar but had to return to the shipyard for major repairs after "touching a mine left over from World War II." So he left Viktor von Dum a force sufficient to counter NATO military operations, including warships still under repair on Mars.

For eight thousand years, Wakanda, as a trusted force of the Emperor (who once safeguarded magical artifacts for him), built warships for him. In addition, artisans plundered during his pirate adventures across the galaxy also worked for the Emperor. Later, those warships were hidden in an outer dimension. The Emperor, before his time travel, observed these warships from that outer dimension. Stephanie Malik, who also witnessed those warships, is currently overseeing their restoration on Mars.

While those warships are not yet capable of hyperspace jumps, they are perfectly adequate for intra-stellar warfare. In addition, the Martian Foundry is responsible for manufacturing large war machines—the war machines the Emperor personally used during the Battle of Fimbulwinter, commissioned by the Immortals, which later played a crucial role in the conquest of the Balkans. The Martian Foundry manufactures upgraded versions of those war machines, even more powerful, but without extra-dimensional power; they are purely mechanical.

New orders were relayed down the chain of command. The knights' commander, Malcolm, ordered Aparishia of the First Knights to lead the army to withdraw from all defensive lines and drive the super-heavy vehicles, designed for genetically modified warriors, to the designated lines. "This is a rapid assault," the Emperor said on the internal communications channel. "We will attack the landing pad closest to the Golden Palace. If the Asgardians still have assault boats, they must be there."

Aside from a few armored vehicles left in place to maintain firepower over the evacuation route, all other armored personnel carriers and anti-gravity motorboats were towed up. Even the Emperor himself rode Pegasus, carrying a golden spear—although its appearance had changed considerably, the Emperor believed Hela would recognize it as a spear forged from Gungnir. As the self-proclaimed Queen of Asgard, Hela would certainly not tolerate Gungnir, a divine artifact representing royal power, being in the hands of others.

The Guardians' anti-gravity motorboats, used as reconnaissance vehicles, along with reconnaissance drones and terrain radar, patrolled outside the marching column. At the center of the assault team were the genetically modified warriors' super-heavy armored personnel carriers, equipped with powerful shields and firepower, so there was no need to worry about them being damaged by the man-portable anti-tank weapons in the city.

The assault transport ships heading towards the spaceport were also ready for takeoff. If the Asgardian assault ships took off, this rapid action team would receive immediate fire support. The small team, numbering no more than a thousand, plunged into the dense horde of dark magic undead. Thanks to the powerful close-range firepower of their super-heavy vehicles, and the formidable mobility of the genetically modified warriors accompanying them, the knights quickly cleared a path for their advance.

Even the Asgardian soldiers enhanced by dark magic could not stop their advance. The knights were faster and stronger; even the bones of an Asgardian could not withstand the crushing weight of the super-heavy vehicles' tracks. Guided by unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, they chose a route unobstructed by any ruins. They slaughtered the undead and destroyed houses along the way, reaching the vicinity of the Golden Palace in just thirty minutes, leaving a trail of rocks and wreckage behind them.

Here, they could see up close the colossal shield enveloping the Golden Palace, its light gleaming on the hundred-meter-high walls in front of it in the darkness. The only path to the Golden Palace was blocked by the shield, but this technology was not perfect. The Kamar-Taj Library detailed the advantages and disadvantages of this shield technology: the shield technology from the giants was composed of multiple shields. If only one fixed point was attacked, the other shields would automatically coordinate their energy distribution to ensure that the whole structure was not broken. However, multiple concentrated attacks could overload some shields, causing them to flicker and creating a short-term shield vacuum.

The Emperor believed that there might not be many Vanir gods left in the Golden Palace who possessed the technology to maintain it, so this shield vacuum would widen. The First Knights immediately dispatched three strike teams, while the artillery in the rear issued a concentrated attack order, targeting the spherical surface of the shield near the Emperor. When the shield flickered for less than a second, the three strike teams of the First Knights swiftly crashed into it.

They moved quickly, but two genetically modified warriors were still sliced ​​to pieces by the shield.

The three strike teams showed no hesitation; they quickly seized usable weapons, equipment, and ammunition from their fallen comrades, set up booby traps with molten metal bombs, and left concealed warning markers to prevent later troops from touching them. If the Asgardians attempted to move the bodies, the molten metal bombs would melt the genetically modified warriors' corpses along with the Asgardians—a gesture of mercy from the knights, who did not want the enemy to desecrate their comrades' bodies.

Next, they will infiltrate the Golden Palace and target the shield generator.

The emperor had already prepared a contingency plan in case Hela refused to leave the Golden Palace. He didn't expect provocation to make Hela lose her temper, especially since she was a commander with rich combat experience. She might issue a decree in a fit of anger, but she certainly wouldn't recklessly waste the troops she possessed.

The former is the administrative power she has never possessed and has no idea how to use, while the latter is the military power she once possessed and was adept at using. Perhaps Hela would be smarter when dealing with the latter, continuing to rely on her numerical advantage to deplete the emperor's ammunition and equipment with the undead, or perhaps attempting to use strategic depth to spread out the density of the emperor's army.

The strike on the landing pad went smoothly; the General Staff's assessment was correct. There was indeed a hidden landing pad beneath the nobleman's mansion, where people might be active. A super-heavy armored personnel carrier, its tracks still covered in fragments of undead bone and muscle debris from black magic, crashed into the mansion, protected by low walls. The flamethrower mounted on the vehicle unleashed a torrent of intense heat into the house.

Several armed Asgardians leaped from the rooftops, attempting to attack the super-heavy armored personnel carrier from the air, but they were obliterated by knights before they even landed. More and more noble private soldiers rushed out of the buildings, clashing with the genetically modified warriors. The sound of steel cutting through bone and metal grew louder, chainsaws roared, and scorching monomolecular blades flashed red in the air.

This group of Aesir noble private soldiers was formidable in combat, possessing strength and reflexes comparable to the knights. However, the knights were far more ferocious; they were fearless war machines, seemingly straight out of a laboratory. Compared to the original Aesir king's modifications to his people, the emperor's technology was far more advanced.

After the brief conflict ended, the area in front of the noble mansion was piled high with the remains of Asgardians.

“This is the first time we’ve seen living people,” Aparishia said. “It seems the Asgardians aren’t as tough as they thought.”

"Stay alert." The commander of the Royal Guard calmly surveyed the surroundings. Armored personnel carriers were using their onboard weapons to destroy Asgardian assault boats in the underground warehouse. "As an important supply depot, this place is a bit too quiet. Twenty Asgardian soldiers—I don't think the Aesir believe that many men are enough to guarantee the safety of this place."

"For other races, twenty Asgardians would be enough."

"What's the situation inside?" Constantine was referring to the strike team that had infiltrated the Golden Palace.

“Radio silence, data silence, standard covert procedures, all I know is that they’re in good shape,” Aparisha said. “I have confidence in them.”

Once the armored personnel carriers had blasted the assault boats into pieces one by one, the mission was considered complete. The emperor gazed towards the Golden Palace, his eyes filled with solemnity.

“Fifty assault boats, my lord,” Constantine said. “I’m pretty sure this is a trap.”

“Then let’s slow down and invite our guests to follow.” The Emperor nodded. “Order Aparisha to prepare for battle. I will personally face Hela.”