Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1423 The Attraction of Ignorance (First Update)

"They are quiet, my lord," Hammurabi constantly relayed to the emperor about the situation in the meditation room. He, who had been standing outside the room, turned and sniffed. Now he was alone. The monk Hamil, sensing his impending task, had already gone to various temples to consult with numerous occultists. As one of the most prestigious rooms in Kamar-Taj, it was naturally situated on the highest slope, and no apprentice or ordinary occultist could easily approach it. Normally, absolute silence was maintained here to avoid disturbing the sleeping old men.

The Royal Guard raised his head, gazing at the sky untouched by industrial pollution. From here, he could easily see the glittering Milky Way stretching across the night sky. Since his transformation, the Emperor had told him of his goals and the Royal Guard's mission: the truly magnificent mission was to reach those places that radiated light. "I smell something burning, like human flesh," Hammurabi said. He was familiar with this smell; he often smelled it when burning the corpses of certain dark sorcerers. "Should we put out the fire?"

"No need. I'm about to enter a Level 4 security zone, and radio communication will be interrupted soon," the Emperor replied calmly. "Get ready to hand over temporary top-level security clearance and take my keys."

"Received, the Dhaulagiri missile defense system is ready," Hammurabi said. "They are operating around the clock."

Previously, in order to gather the prisoners for the Yugoslav Federal Court, Latvia carried out a special operation to directly attack The Hague prison. Given his tendency to project his own experience onto others, even with tens of thousands of spells protecting the land, the Emperor never truly believed that Kamar-Taj in the Himalayas was absolutely safe.

Judging by appearance alone, no one would believe that these old men from the mystical families were still alive. Their skin was ashen and dry, their muscles severely atrophied, their eyes sunken, and even up close, it was difficult to hear their slow heartbeats, which only broke every few seconds. The mage Hamil was nearly a hundred years old, while these old men were over three hundred; time had shown them no mercy. As mystics who, while not particularly talented, possessed extremely high seniority, their talents were not powerful enough to transform themselves into true immortals, nor did they have the ability to undergo a true elixir of immortality to undergo modification. They could only rely on their status to obtain drugs like the "Six-Winged Angel Serum" to eke out a living.

The emperor communicated with them entirely through the release of his thoughts, as the bodies of those occultists could no longer bear the burden of speaking and arguing—tasks that were purely instinctive for ordinary people. However, this was not a quick way to communicate, given the vast difference in power between those old men and the emperor. The emperor unreservedly released his essence, and some of the more audacious occultists who directly contacted him with their consciousness even saw their parched eyeballs ignite, scalding liquid gold flowing from their charred black eye sockets, burning their already shrunken brains into a pile of charcoal, and causing their limbs to dehydrate and atrophy.

The emperor did indeed keep his promise to the monk Hamil, and no bloodshed occurred.

"Damn it." Laura Crawford carefully shielded the lit windproof match with her palm, then quickly lit the candlesticks embedded in the bookshelf one by one. The frozen, cold candle wax was full of ash, and even she wasn't sure if the candles would light. When the once-dark corridor was filled with warm light, Laura Crawford put down the glow stick and breathed a sigh of relief. Over millions of years, the human race had developed a love for light, and her subconscious believed that these lights could dispel the evil spirits in the cold air, just as campfires could scare away wild beasts, burning signal flares could frighten monsters in the fog, and the flamethrowers of giant robots could even kill the monster that bullets couldn't handle.

Fire is the source of all human security and civilization, even for battle-hardened archaeologists.

Now she was able to relax and slowly search for the documents she wanted.

More than just the 10th-century file on the hunt for wizards, she wanted to obtain more, more things that could reveal the mysteries of history. That document and her adventures had proven that the history known to the public was often crude, fabricated, and concealed; much of the dust hidden in the corners of the rise and fall of dynasties and families remained unknown. Kamar-Taj, as an organization that had lasted for millennia and whose footprints extended across the world, possessed a continuous archive of faithful records that served as the best witnesses to history, making it highly credible as historical research material. This library was the treasure trove she had dreamed of; she felt as if she had come here like a child following the dotted lines on parchment to the places marked with an X, digging and actually unearthing treasure.

She wanted to find information about Kinkit City.

The archives here were all arranged chronologically, and she figured the 9th-century bookshelf shouldn't be too far away. There were still many unsolved mysteries surrounding Kit, the immortal prophet Jacob, and the Divine Source. Laura Crawford believed that if Kamar-Taj possessed a record of a 10th-century hunt for sorcerers, then such a significant event as the dynastic change in the Eastern Roman Empire should also have been meticulously documented. Furthermore, the crosses used by Jacob and his followers at that time appeared in many places, and there were also occult artifacts like the "Divine Source." Such an intriguing organization couldn't possibly go unnoticed by Kamar-Taj—and her guess was correct. She walked past a few bookshelves and found *Studies on the Orthodox Sects of the Late Byzantine Period* and *The Evolution and Exploration of European and Arabic Alchemy in the Ninth Century* on one of them. These two books were heavier than the dumbbells she used for her workout. She intuitively felt that these two books must contain some clues, but not the direct clues she was looking for—the story of Jacob leading his followers from Byzantium to Siberia, being killed, resurrected, and performing miracles.

She couldn't even figure out what the golden angel in the murals of the Prophet's tomb in Syria was. The murals depicted all of the Prophet's disciples, even the Knights of the Holy Trinity; it was impossible for them to depict an "angel" so different from Orthodox art and without a crown. Therefore, she could only guess that the golden "angel" was a depiction of reality, not an imagination. The only person who could answer this question was already weary of time, and the records of that event had been exaggerated by an overly superstitious religious aura. Now, she had to find the answer herself.

Laura Crawford stayed here for more than three minutes.

"Would you like some hot tea?" A somewhat deranged woman sat in her sleeping bag, holding a stainless steel cup high in her hand. The muzzle of a gun, still emitting smoke, lowered. She reached for the cup with her other hand and drank the scalding hot tea in one gulp. "I'm worried about her," she said. "She's been there for half an hour, and I'm afraid she's been bewitched by something."

"I will bring her back," the emperor said. "Thank you for the tea."

"You're welcome, it's just brewed from Lipton tea bags." The woman yawned and curled back into her sleeping bag. "I'm going to take a nap. Don't worry, I'm fine. You're the only good person here, and I'm very grateful to you."

"Sweet words won't bribe me. You still can't eat more snacks than the limit, and you have to brush your teeth every day," the emperor said with a smile. "When you wake up, you'll find yourself watching TV in your room."

Please vote for me!

(End of this chapter)