Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1524, Chapter 1520: The Lunar War (Thirty-Six)

In the battlefield of the invisible world, multiple wills cautiously probe each other.

Some unseen intelligence casts an interested glance at this place, but they cannot directly interfere. This is the oldest oath in the ancient universe, even predating the Big Bang, established before the birth of time. Time has no meaning for these unseen intelligences; they are older than the universe, greater than time itself. What they are concerned with is a proxy war, a choice made by a soul they are interested in, yearn for, and pray for. They are waiting for their pawns in the real universe to make their moves, to bring them an eternal game, to allow them to devour this chaotic, disordered universe that will eventually fall into heat death—their most coveted and greatest spoils.

A sliver of semi-liquid crystal, woven with psionic affinity, was held between his fingertips. Colorful smoke, like watercolor washes, moved slowly within the crystal. The Emperor watched as the colors gradually formed a beautiful, symbolic miniature painting. His perpetually furrowed brow deepened with worry, and the spiritual power he projected rippled on the surface of the outer dimension. This was a sorcery technique that could be called divination, but also a projection of his power onto the outer dimension—a prophecy crafted through sympathetic magic, a deliberately guided ending. He had left his mark on destiny; the ending had occurred, it was predetermined, unchangeable, and an ancient oath ensured that the gods could not interfere with this mark.

This is a tarot card; other tarot cards made of the same material are scattered on the holographic projection table.

In the distance, continuous explosions shook the former Starfortress deck. The thick alloy plates beneath the armored vehicle tracks trembled slightly, as if a Titan was walking within the Starfortress. Now, the Emperor's military power was reborn in an ancient myth. Two bipedal war engines marched steadily toward the war entrance, which was originally the airlock for aircraft and cargo. The weapon arms hanging on both sides released deadly firepower, mechanically tearing through the internal walls of the Starfortress and blasting large numbers of mutant soldiers in tight-fitting combat suits into pieces.

A barrage of artillery fires precisely from the white sands of the moon, projecting chemical fury accurately behind the enemy's advance route. From distant orbit, one can see flashes of light rising and flickering from the massive steel behemoths buried beneath the lunar surface. The Emperor's attention is focused on multiple battlefields simultaneously, and his fingertips will determine the outcome of another war elsewhere, and even the course of the entire conflict. The upright Assassin card covers the upright Queen and the upright Magician cards; the reversed Slave card stands above the other cards, then vanishes completely, becoming a blank space transformed into another completely chaotic upright card.

Turning over the third-to-last card, he softly uttered a term etched in human mythology.

"The Devil in its upright position."

He turned over the second-to-last card, looked at the person wearing a crown on the picture, and pondered for a moment.

"Reversed King"

He turned over the last card and let out a long sigh of relief.

He had temporarily won this game, but the future was long. His plans for humanity were not yet perfect, and the enemies behind the veil would not let any opportunity slip by. He knew that those behind the veil would not suffer heavy losses for such a small gain; they might even deliberately lay bait to give him the illusion of victory. They would use every means to deceive, mislead, intimidate, and tempt him, trying to make him offer up the greatest and most promising race in the universe. But he swore with his soul to be loyal to the cause of the continuation of humanity, never to yield, and not even the gods could shake his vow.

"Contingency Plan - Kappa-9. DV-1, DV-2, and DV-3 self-propelled howitzer groups begin moving to the next target location." He sent an order to Commander Malcolm. Less than a minute had passed since the previous message, and Malcolm had to relay these orders to all the genetically modified soldiers and even the mortal officers. "I want the self-propelled howitzer groups to enter within 600 kilometers of Attilan Fortress, bringing the other side of the fortress under artillery fire. I want to use the self-propelled artillery groups to drive those Inhumans out of their caves, Commander Malcolm. I want to force the mutants to fight us. Continue to squeeze their living space, shatter their illusions, plunge them into panic, force their command structures to exert greater effort to maintain order, and reduce the number of potential conscripts."

Malcolm proposed a very interesting tactic at the Joint Chiefs of Staff meeting.

He speculated that in extreme circumstances, the Attilan Inhumans might organize civilians into mobilization corps, since these mutants were once war slaves of the Xenomorph race. Regardless of any lapses in discipline, their leadership would certainly retain the old system of universal conscription. Therefore, how to force the Attilan Inhumans to adopt the mobilization system while reducing the number of mobilization troops became the core of "Plan-Kappa." Many genetically modified warrior commanders also joined the decision-making process and put forward their own ideas.

The crimson canine monster was pinned to the wall by a halberd, its blade piercing through the bones, muscles, and gray stone bricks gradually sprouting organic matter, all composed of extradimensional energy. Derrick fired first, blasting open the monster's relatively slender body. The shattered vertebrae, broken by the blast, were clearly visible through the gaping hole in its waist, and much muscle was reduced to pieces, with only thin skin connecting the upper and lower sections of the body. A spray of blood and fragments of internal organs splattered towards the guard, adding a bloody cloak to his golden armor, transforming what was once a magnificent, almost divine, suit of armor into a wrecked ruin ravaged by war.

Derrick immediately turned and swung his halberd to deflect the tentacle that lashed out like a whip. The immense force nearly tore his arm off, sending him flying. Another burn mark, resembling acid corrosion, appeared on the gleaming golden armor of his hand. The canine monster, previously pinned to the wall, immediately sprang to life, defying all laws of biology, kinesiology, and physics. The Royal Guard staggered a few steps before quickly regaining his balance, raising his halberd once more. From the deformed skull of the blood-red canine monster, half a skullcap containing what appeared to be a white organ—the brain—and several long teeth covered in foul-smelling saliva were severed. From the depths of the shadows came the sound of sludge-laden flesh colliding. A fleshy tentacle, as thick as the Royal Guard's waist, slammed to the ground with a "thud," its dozens of suckers with tiny teeth contracting and biting into the cold earth, futilely drawing in the cold energy from the air.

Even with such severe injuries, the canine extradimensional spiritual entity recovered in the blink of an eye. Derrick, panting heavily, lunged at the canine monster, pinning it firmly to the ground. He then leaped onto it, pressing his knee firmly against the monster's neck. With one hand gripping the halberd tightly, he drew the dagger given to him by the emperor from his waist and forcefully slashed it into the canine monster's spine. He had never felt so exhausted, not even during the hundred hours of non-stop hand-to-hand combat with those exceptional boys in the training camp. Blood filled his lungs, each breath tearing at his dry trachea and respiratory tract, his ribs cracked, and every breath brought a shivering pain to his entire body.

A dagger, its atomic arrangement etched with vows of loyalty, smoothly cuts into matter composed of pure energy.

Derrick gritted his teeth and plunged the dagger deeper. His forearm was covered in foul-smelling blood as the dagger, engraved with an oath, sank into the monster's body. He released the dagger, gripped a slippery, writhing chunk of flesh, and crushed it into a pulp. In a few breaths, the canine monster's massive body began to transform into inorganic matter, eventually turning into a rock and then to ashes. Derrick tumbled off the monster's back, barely catching his breath, before the attack from the shadows surged towards him with even greater ferocity and speed.

Aparishia held aloft the Killer Axe, its power armor riddled with scorch marks and bullet holes.

Battlefield reconnaissance drones hovering near the outer walls of Starfortress cast beams of light, piercing through the steel and concrete walls torn apart by artillery fire and projecting a ghastly white light onto the leader. A blue-skinned mutant lay beside his boots, a horrific wound splitting his shoulder down to his chest, the wound and internal organs frozen solid in the vacuum of temperature. Even his limbs were frozen into hard blocks. Looking ahead, the entire passage was exposed to the vacuum, with hordes of mutants bearing the same genetic mutation lying dead, their skin, blood, internal organs, and limbs all frozen into solid blocks of ice, covering the ground, walls, and ceiling. Armored vehicles rumbled through the cleared passage, their tracks crushing the mutant remains that hadn't been completely pulverized by the First Combat Group into flying fragments, finally stopping beside Aparisha.

A twenty-minute battle once raged here, as this location was once a transport corridor for the Starfortress, connecting to a large helipad. When this site was under the control of the Centaur Clan, the Lunar Campaign Fleet could not deploy large engineering vehicles and war engines here. They could only use boarding maneuvers to seize the cargo elevators and transport a small number of armored vehicles, main battle tanks, assault tanks, and other equipment. The war engines also had to land on the lunar white sands and then be gradually transferred to the Starfortress. Now that the tactical objective has been achieved, armored vehicles under the First Combat Group are assembling here. An armored squad will be responsible for protecting this location, constructing fortifications on-site, and installing integrated automated fire fortresses to safeguard this transport corridor.

Workers from the Immortal City and technicians from Mars, clad in spacesuits, began clearing the battlefield. These engineers, aided by industrial machinery and genetically modified soldiers, needed to clear the artillery-ravaged passages and create an attack route deeper into the Starfortress. Simultaneously, they needed to blow up, cut, melt down, and dismantle several layers of ceilings that were later installed to allow passage for several ten-meter-high war engines. What needed to be demolished and what needed reinforcement was easily discernible to the naked eye. Without the industrial capacity and technology of the Kree Empire, Attiland's industrial level and its dwindling technology and knowledge made it utterly impossible to manufacture the same materials used to build the Starfortress.

Attilan Inhumans was their official name, but Aparishia preferred to call them mutants, the Emperor's term for mutated humans. He was shocked by the inexperience of these Attilan mutants in warfare; throughout the entire offensive, he and his warriors only encountered attacks with small arms, and the mutants used a wide variety of weapons, including some seemingly decent individual weapons such as rapid-fire plasma weapons, electromagnetic rifles, and laser weapons, but most of these weapons appeared to be incompatible with each other's ammunition.

While the genetically modified warriors unleashed a relentless barrage of fire supported by armored logistics vehicles, the mutants' ammunition couldn't sustain a large-scale offensive. What intrigued him even more was that he saw these mutants, once possessing advanced technology, neither deploying anti-armor fire nor setting up obstacles or laying mines near their defensive positions; only a few shelters were available. After a millennium of peace, their people were unfamiliar with warfare. Aparisha even suspected these so-called soldiers hadn't received any marksmanship training, because when the genetically modified warriors approached, these mutants attempted hand-to-hand combat, only to be sliced ​​in two by chainswords. The genetically modified warriors took twenty minutes entirely because the star fortress contained numerous rooms and passageways, and killing the fleeing mutants one by one took considerable time.

"Contingency Plan - Kappa-9"

Lieutenant Nelson stepped down from the armored vehicle and relayed the orders to Aparisha. The latter nodded; he didn't need to review the plan again to understand what to do, as this tactic was proposed and devised by him and Lieutenant Nelson, later supplemented by mortal officers and the Guardian Order. "Order the Second Combat Group to withdraw from Assembly Point C in three hours. Simultaneously, order War Engines Modal I and II to enter the transport corridor." Aparisha displayed unusual calmness, which didn't surprise Lieutenant Nelson. It was worth noting that Aparisha's ferocity had instilled fear in the enemy more than once, especially when he wielded the "Slayer" battle axe. This time, with the genetically modified warriors gradually forming a force, and the Emperor entrusting full command to them, Aparisha finally demonstrated the ability worthy of the Emperor's expectations; he was not merely a reckless brute who knew only how to kill.

"I need the technicians, armored forces, and war engines at their best. We can't rely on every bomb or chainsword to kill the enemy," Aparisha said. "Or an axe."

"Haha, how funny." Lieutenant Nelson sneered. "You'd better think about how to explain refusing to answer Commander Malcolm's call ten minutes ago."

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(End of this chapter)