Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1057 (First Update)

I looked and saw that the heavens had opened.

There is a white horse, and the rider of it is called Honesty and Truth. He judges and wages in righteousness.

His eyes were like flames, and he wore many crowns on his head, with names written on them, which no one knew except himself.

He wore clothes splattered with blood, and his name was the Way of God.

The heavenly army, riding white horses and dressed in fine linen, which was white and clean, followed him.

A sharp sword will come from his mouth to slay nations. He will shepherd them with an iron scepter and will tread the winepress of the wrath of God Almighty.

On his clothes and thighs was written the words: "King of Kings, Lord of Lords".

—The Book of Revelation

On the afternoon of the third day after the Vienna bombing, Salomon, who was inspecting his power armor with his tools, received a message. The CIA task force had failed, but the target had been apprehended, and Tony Stark had officially become involved. Romania was currently transferring the suspects to German police, who would then transfer them to a special operations agency within the country—essentially a CIA office and prison, but disguised as a non-governmental organization—namely, "Falcon" Sam, "Captain America" ​​Steve Rogers, and Wakanda's Prince T'Challa. These individuals were involved in the capture of the Winter Soldier and were arrested in Romania by "War Machine" Colonel Rhodes. Another suspect, the Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, would be placed in special custody and under close surveillance until a decision was made.

"We can begin," he said to Victoria Hand, who was on standby over the communications channel. "Mobilize the troops in the north and south; we are going to war with NATO."

"Aren't we waiting for the regency's diplomatic outcome?"

"The alliance is forged; all that remains are enemies," Salomon said with a sneer. "Though this alliance isn't very strong."

Just as television was broadcasting news of Bucky Barnes' escape from prison and the disappearance of Avengers members Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson, the Latvian military was secretly assembling. That same day, Viktor von Dum, who had worked tirelessly for days, returned to Latvia to take over air defenses and domestic defenses. The diplomats cut their journey short and were transported back to Vienna from the space station by assault transport ships, where Latvian authorities had notified ambassadors from various countries to receive them. After completing their mission, the assault transport ships rapidly returned to the space station to refuel and overhaul their engines, preparing for the operation forty-eight hours later.

The UN Security Council had already passed a resolution. Viktor von Dum's diplomatic efforts secured some abstentions for Latvia in the Security Council, but the US, UK, and France still passed a resolution with a majority vote, intending to draw parallels between the wars that led to Latvia's annexation of Sirkaria and Transylvania and the Srebrenica massacre, claiming that Latvia had committed "genocide" to damage its international reputation. But this was just the prelude. The next proposal was for the UN Security Council to request NATO intervention in Latvia unless Latvia renounced its operations in outer space, signed the "UN Treaty and Principles on Outer Space," ceased threatening the Global Positioning System, and voluntarily relinquished its military equipment in space.

This proposal was absolutely unacceptable to Latvinia. With extraterrestrial threats looming, how could anyone, for political purposes, want to destroy humanity with space weapons? Even the "allies" lobbied by Viktor von Doom agreed to the proposal, claiming they could support Latvinia's entry into the United Nations, and that the agreement could be amended as needed, as long as both sides jointly developed outer space and maintained peace. This was a legitimate concern, and a backlash against Latvinia's style of behavior; even its allies began to worry about an attack on its satellite systems. However, this concern was quite untimely for Latvinia, because the future enemy was not humanity, but an enemy in outer space.

Faced with this almost coercive proposal, Viktor von Dum turned and left.

He and Salomon both knew that Latvia could never be a winner within the existing framework, especially given that most of Latvia's military forces were now located in space. In private meetings before the vote, many delegates agreed to the proposal, and even before the resolution was finalized, NATO forces in Europe had already begun mobilizing.

Diplomats from countries that had already formed private alliances informed Viktor von Dum, with a hint of regret, of the impending resolution, offering support and promising to delay the meeting as much as possible. Of course, this support would come at the cost of real money and classified technology, and it wouldn't be cheap.

So, on the fifth day after the Vienna bombings, at midnight Latvian time (6 PM New York time), as the UN Security Council swiftly passed a resolution formally requesting NATO intervention in Latvia, the interstellar missile capsule in space launched its first missile. The interstellar missiles targeted NATO member states in the Balkans, including Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Croatia. The air defenses, airfields, and command facilities in these countries suffered immediate and devastating attacks; the Immortal City destroyed their air military potential in the most straightforward and brutal way.

For urban targets and naval fleets that the Immortal City lacked the resources to attack or occupy, it opted to deploy air-burst electromagnetic bombs or dispatch sky battleships, sky carriers, and sky destroyers to cripple them by overloading their electronic equipment or completely sinking them. Targets included the Bezmer Air Base and Plovdiv Military Base and airports in Yambor, Bulgaria, and the Aytos Logistics Center Air Base near the Black Sea; the Mikhail Kogarnicanu Air Base and the 86th Air Base in Romania, among others. After these countries' air defenses were paralyzed, the Immortal City only dispatched fewer than two hundred genetically modified warriors to airdrop into their government and military departments for decapitation strikes. Simultaneously, the SkySword Space Station's hangars deployed a maximum number of Void Warriors at once, launching attacks on all geostationary and high-orbit military observation satellites and communication satellites across Europe.

This time, it wasn't deterrence, but destruction. An hour into the operation, with the full support of the information warfare department at the Mars Foundry, the entire European communications system was paralyzed. Before the war, Malbus had submitted a report on electronic warfare to the operations department, and things were unfolding exactly as he predicted—all international long-distance calls and data transmissions had to be rerouted, submarine cables and land-based communication systems were overwhelmed, hundreds of millions of internet connections disappeared, and from a social media perspective, it was as if all internet users in Western and Southern Europe were offline, with only a small number of users struggling to transmit data through intermittent networks. Most mobile phones in Europe became unusable, television, the internet, and even radios fell silent, GPS became completely unreachable, red-eye flights taking off from civilian airports and cars in motion found their navigation suddenly disappear, causing considerable chaos, and countries with nuclear power plants even found their reactors shutting down uncontrollably.

Two thousand genetically modified soldiers in southern Latvia, under the cover of jamming and obfuscated viruses, slipped past a few mobile air defense radars aboard assault transport boats and directly into Albania and Kosovo, launching a massacre against US military bases and biological laboratories. Meanwhile, three thousand genetically modified soldiers in the north, led by Constantine, flew to NATO forces in Poland via shuttles and assault transport boats. Through the combined effects of genetically modified soldier raids, electronic viruses, and assassination strikes, the Latvian army swept through Eastern Europe with ease.

The collapse spread at a visible pace, gradually silencing sectors such as transportation, power grids, and finance. Traffic came to a standstill, online transactions were disrupted, and power supply was unstable. Both public services and government departments were paralyzed in a short period of time. Cities hit by the information attack were in chaos, and the once bright cities were plunged into darkness, with only scattered lights indicating that they were not wilderness. All devices capable of receiving signals were hacked by the Immortal City's electronic warfare department, which repeatedly broadcast notices instructing citizens to stay at home and not to linger near military facilities to avoid friendly fire, or face the consequences. However, these notices only fueled greater chaos. Some idiots even organized protests in the streets, especially those near the targets and deeply influenced by neoliberal ideology, attempting to use their bodies to stop the advance of genetically modified warriors, armored vehicles, and air-dropped war machines. The outcome for these people was self-evident: those who were not fast enough became mincemeat under the tracks of heavy armored tracked personnel carriers or became targets for forward-firing twin-barreled explosive machine guns, twin-barreled laser cannons, side-firing flamethrowers, or coaxial heavy explosive machine guns.

These soldiers, whose weekends and leisure activities are often spent drinking and using drugs, are best suited for counterinsurgency warfare. They are utterly incapable of countering the saturation air and massive artillery barrages from the Immortal City. Furthermore, armored vehicles like infantry fighting vehicles and tanks are as fragile as paper against fusion weapons, explosive guns, anti-tank grenades, and laser cannons. Missile systems are largely disabled, and air defense systems are destroyed by electronic warfare and interstellar missile systems. Even with prior preparations, these NATO soldiers are completely powerless in individual firefights.

The new era of warfare overwhelms modern armies from multiple dimensions. The objectives of the Immortal City's operational plan are achieved one by one, and the genetically modified soldiers don't even have time to manage prisoners.

Please vote for me!

(End of this chapter)