Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1555 The Lunar War (Sixty-Seven)

Starfortress is not a city on a planet, but a transit station and dock floating in the void. All space is extremely precious. The urban street sewage system that ordinary cities should have does not exist in Starfortress. There are only temporary urban streets and a sewage circulation system made of steel and concrete.

The road Maximus was walking on had been abandoned for years, and sewage from many of the core district's residents was discharged here, making it filthy enough to make anyone's scalp tingle, including the criminals who followed him, many of whom came from such slums. Maximus ignored the criminals' demands and continued walking toward the battlefield. Seeing that Maximus was unwilling to respond, the last few criminals who followed him exchanged glances, then took the riot control baton from the prison armory and turned to leave.

Maximus did not try to stop him.

Others thought he knew where he was going, but in reality, he was simply following the guidance of his dream. He had no idea what he was looking for, but his intuition told him that what he found could save Attiland. This alone was enough to drive him forward. In any case, he believed himself to be the king of Attiland, and that his kind but foolish brother had led Attiland to its current state.

"I must save them." Where no one could see, Maximus turned and spoke to the wall beside him. Surprisingly, the wall, used as a makeshift urban sewage system, was covered with rows of angry-looking statues, and Maximus was speaking to one of them. "Even if those foolish commoners consider me a traitor, I am still the King of Attilan. Their lives belong to me, not to those human invaders. I am the King of Attilan, do you hear me? Those gunshots are for me; only I can toll the death knell for the royal family, for Attilan! Yes, I am angry, but I am also calm. I am not my foolish brother; I know what I must do…"

Maximus walked out of the sewage system.

The hurried footsteps grew louder as they approached, and the heavy, frantic breathing sounded like a blower turned on in the alley.

"Besides me, no one in the royal family would willingly set foot in such a filthy place. My hypocritical brother only knows how to sit on the throne and rule with splendid glory, completely unaware of the filth and sin that festers in Attiland." Maximus stepped out from around the corner at just the right moment, watching with interest the group of civilians dressed in simple combat uniforms and carrying weapons. He intuitively judged them to be a group of deserters; after all, this route was not the shortest path to the battlefield, and only the residents of the slums would know the intricate maze of narrow passages.

"Hey!" he yelled at the deserters, "Where are you going, brothers?"

Several weapons were aimed at him, then lowered, the hostility vanishing in an instant. The men holding the weapons laughed. Maximus had changed into civilian clothes, and his long-term malnutrition had made him extremely thin. He looked like a poor man who had lived in this area for a long time, unworthy of receiving the Terrigen mutation (or only receiving a small amount of the Terrigen mutation, still resembling an ordinary human in appearance), rather than a member of the royal family who enjoyed plenty of fresh food every day.

"Come with us, brothers. The king wants us to die on the front lines; we can't stay here." The tallest man in the group spat on the ground; he seemed to be the leader. Maximus understood this phenomenon; in wartime, only those with violence could attain higher social status. "My cousin works as an assistant in a field hospital. He told me that those with obvious mutant characteristics all died; only those who looked like humans survived. We'll find somewhere to hide from the fighting, and once the war is over and the royals are all dead, we'll be fine."

"Is there anything to eat?"

"Ha!" Several men in the group laughed. Clearly, this wasn't the first time they'd heard this question. "Yes, of course! The security forces are all surrounding the royal quarter now, the vegetable farms and livestock ranches are unguarded. We're planning to pull off a heist and feed our wives and kids back home. Even though I don't like the woman the royal family assigned me, and I don't like my little brat, we still have to feed them. Come with us, brothers, we don't have much time. If the battle line pushes this far, those human soldiers won't hold back when they see us with weapons."

The team leader pulled a nutrient block wrapped in a sealed plastic bag from his pocket. The beige block had several teeth marks on it. "We won't be like those cold-blooded royal dogs, abandoning any of our brothers." He deliberately slowed his speech. "Eat, brothers. Only when you're well-fed will you have the strength to protect our lives."

"Thank you," Maximus said sincerely. He extended his muddy hand and grasped the arm of the team leader. The latter gladly accepted, even patting him on the shoulder. "Thank you so much," he said to everyone in the team, "your help has been invaluable to me."

"I had no idea you knew such advanced vocabulary..."

The last sentence was left unfinished, and Maximus had no interest in listening any further.

Something shattered; in the invisible world, a certain will was forcibly modified and solidified, a dark power, gleaming with a black sheen, flashed in his eyes. Maximus barely suppressed the mad urge to tear apart everything before him, released the arm of the overly burly leader of the group, and turned to walk back the way the group had come. The armed civilians followed silently behind him, their eyes devoid of any longing or fervor for the future, or worry about their current situation.

"Their limbs are under my control, their minds are subservient to my will; this is their duty." Maximus muttered to himself, looking at the air beside him. He took out a small knife and made shallow cuts on the manipulated person, then used the wounds to form words he couldn't understand, words forming symbolic symbols, and they were oblivious to the pain. He didn't know why he was doing this; he was simply following his instincts. "Don't rush, I can hold more minds. I'm stronger now. I can forge these weaklings into weapons of war, making them invincible." He responded to the whisper in his ear, "Yes... I need to go to the front lines, the Villain Clan and the Ghost Clan... Though they are repulsive, in this situation, they are the only ones who can be of use in the war."

Aparishia stared at the billowing black smoke rising in the distance, the flashes from the exploding thermobaric warheads clearly visible through the oily black smoke. External fortifications were complete, with mines, barbed wire, prefabricated trenches, and laser turrets all facing the Inhuman settlements. With the aid of heavy engineering machinery, the fortifications in front of different Inhuman settlements were all connected, facilitating rapid movement between different attacking forces.

"Let's have a few more rounds of shelling." Aparisha looked at the collapsed buildings with dissatisfaction.

The Inhuman settlement at Attilan was far more sturdy than he had anticipated, likely because it was constructed using salvaged Starfortress armor. His mission was to reduce the outermost layer of the Inhuman settlement to ruins, leaving any potential guerrillas with nowhere to retreat and forcing the mutants to engage the genetically modified warriors in direct combat.

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(End of this chapter)