Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1048 (Second Update)

"I've seen Peggy Carter many times. She should have died a year ago. The spell I cast on her barely kept her alive until now, giving her time to deal with her own affairs. But death is inevitable; this day will come eventually, and I have no need to get involved in what is destined to happen. Besides, I hate churches, and you know why." Salomon maintained his smile, speaking vaguely about his itinerary. "Compared to churches, I'm more concerned with the progress of this world. This is Austria, after all. I've found many excellent restaurants here, from food trucks to Michelin-starred establishments, and I plan to try them all." The sorcerer's tone was light, as if nothing bothered him, as if he were simply a tourist on a culinary tour of Vienna.

"You seem quite indifferent to the Sokovia Accords," Natasha Romanov said, intrigued by this. "This also affects you; you're an Enhancer, and the UN Security Council will have a pretext to wage war against Latvia after the agreement is signed. Aren't you worried?"

"Why should a lion care about a lamb? The lambs' bleating may be annoying, but do they dare to butt me with their horns? Reaching a consensus always involves bloodshed; this process cannot be stopped. One side must have its spine broken, be forced to kneel, and be pressed into the mud before both sides can sit properly at the negotiating table." Salomon pulled a small bottle of liquor from the minibar and made a simple cocktail with Eri. Natasha didn't see the smugness that should have been on his face, but rather regret and sadness. However, this was only for a moment. He quickly regained his composure as the King of the Immortal City, his abundant confidence radiating like light, touching even those standing beside him.

Natasha Romanoff narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing him closely. This was unusual; she had initially thought it was a magical illusion, but now it seemed to be something far more mysterious. "You could call it foolishness, or you could call it courage, and it's also the quality I admire most about the human race," Salomon's tone was ambiguous, a mix of regret and mockery. "However, I can only try to make them, not my own, bleed, nothing more. After all, my goal is to reduce internal strife among humanity, and I happen to have the ability to do just that."

For the foreseeable future, Europe and North America will be a cauldron of fury and flames. If the White House seizes this opportunity to rally the Republican Party's main voter base—veterans and police officers—to the war, Salomon is prepared to gamble everything and utterly destroy them.

The various research projects conducted in the Immortal City were established precisely for this purpose. Almost all industrial equipment and technologies can be separated from the industrial system dominated by Europe and the United States, making them extremely resilient to risks. For example, the central generator complex, which recently moved the deuterium-tritium fusion core generator into the power plant, can completely break away from the nuclear fuel supply of other countries after taking over Transylvania, ensuring that the current industrial and residential electricity supply in Latvia remains unaffected.

Furthermore, the production equipment for all types of military factories was manufactured by the Immortal City and the Martian Foundry, eliminating any technological barriers. Latvinia is now capable of independently producing laser weapons and tracked armored vehicles. Drivers of those seemingly low-tech light armored vehicles can even continue driving without flinching when facing conventional anti-tank weapons like the RPG-7, because the armor material can completely withstand frontal bombardment from anti-tank weapons. Combined with the heavy-explosive coaxial machine gun on the turret and the forward-facing laser cluster cannon, the Immortal City has essentially turned tracked armored vehicles into main battle tanks.

In addition, the food problem he was most concerned about was also being addressed. The Martian foundry involved not only machinery but also genetic technology. The bio-farm was currently providing short-term training and safety education to the recruited Latvians, and the first batch of bio-farm output would be ready to be loaded onto trucks and transported to various villages within Latvian territory in three months. Because the Latvian civil war ended very quickly, rural food production did not suffer significant losses. With the first batch of food that Victor von Doom had brought, surviving these three months would not be a problem for Latvian, and the material conditions of the civilians would soon be improved. Work such as bio-chemical protection, vaccination, and census was also progressing steadily. Although Wakanda had not been able to fully provide the corresponding supplies as stipulated in the contract, Princess Shuri still approved a large batch of vaccines outside the contract for Latvian. Maya Hansen had mentioned that she had seen a freezer filled with samples of all known filoviruses on Earth in the Level 4 Virus Laboratory at Fort Detrick in Massachusetts, and that batch of Wakanda's vaccines had been proven to enable Latvians to develop antibodies against several of these viruses.

This is preparation for the possible deployment of biological and chemical weapons.

Crossbones Rumlow's final mission was to access the virus lab to obtain the latest samples. The Immortal City wanted to compare them with the virus samples in Fort Detrick to observe whether the mutations showed any artificial selection or modification targeting the genetic characteristics of Slavs and Africans. Victor von Doom and Salomon didn't want to see themselves defeat the White House only to find various diseases ravaging their homeland—the Immortal City had previously discovered a village in the African jungle ravaged by Ebola. Despite their best efforts, they couldn't save it; the infected died within days, each corpse soaked in internal bleeding.

Then the virus continued to spread, and eventually the Immortal City could only demarcate a zone, using white phosphorus bombs, napalm bombs, and radiation bombs to completely exterminate all plants and animals within that zone as a final act of mercy. A nun sent by the Catholic Church to provide medical assistance voluntarily walked into the flames after contracting the disease, and no one could find her body in the ashes. Her rosary remains one of Salomon's collections to this day, commemorating her great sacrifice and the brilliance of her humanity; even Francis, upon hearing of this, could not obtain the rosary from him.

Salomon could never forget that scene; the ash-filled air above that blood-soaked, terrifying forest was far more shocking to his soul than anything he had ever experienced. Wiping out half of humanity didn't require the Infinity Stones; a single drop of blood from that forest would suffice. The feeling sent chills down his spine—not fear for his own safety, but the fear of humanity's extinction. Before that, he had never realized that the power of destruction wasn't confined to the mental realm or outer dimensions, but had always lurked among everyone. After that, he gained a much deeper understanding of the Kamar-Taj ironclad rule: "Let the majority survive."

He knew the Sorcerer Supreme was right; they had no right to let those people continue to live.

With the Rumlow mission failing, the Immortal City had no choice but to personally dispatch assassins to steal samples from the US military biological laboratory in Albania. The Immortal City's biological laboratory and the Martian Foundry's genetic laboratory then produced a vaccine as quickly as possible based on the sample's test results. Salomon had prepared far more cards than anyone else could imagine; it was as if he had contingency plans for every situation, prepared optimal solutions, and even found the most capable professionals to handle them.

Thanks to her exceptional domestic management skills and Stephanie Malik's relentless discipline of her subordinates, Latvia, having survived the war, is far better off than during previous monarchies. This is the fundamental reason why most Latvian civilians study the "United Truth," why young people eagerly enlist and dream of becoming fighter pilots (unfortunately, this position belongs to future academy students, as the specialized knowledge is too extensive, and pilots must receive excellent education to fly aerospace fighters), members of super-heavy tank crews (this is somewhat possible; in fact, some Latvians have already become members of super-heavy tank crews, but their habit of finding places to hang teapots is something they can't shake), or even reconnaissance bipedal mech pilots (this only requires training in industrial equipment, as the equipment is an improvement on the light transport machinery from the Martian foundry), and why they support the current King of Latvia. They know who truly cares about them and who wants them to live.

Please vote for me!

(End of this chapter)