Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1565 The Lunar War (Seventy-Seven)

Jia Ying's face was hidden behind the transparent helmet of her oval-shaped spacesuit until she learned to turn on the hidden searchlight inside her full-coverage visor. She remained calm when Constantine mentioned interstellar missiles and Terrigen compound warheads, because she didn't know what interstellar missiles were or what Terrigen compound warheads were. Her level of education wasn't sufficient for her to understand the properties of Terrigen compound and its bioaccumulation effects in the food chain.

This means that all plants and animals around the world will be contaminated, causing incalculable effects. As the top of the food chain, the human race, even without the alien gene code that can bind to the Terrigen compound, will inevitably suffer severe genetic mutations from the Terrigen compound contamination. The global cancer incidence rate will increase significantly, and many diseases that have never appeared before will also emerge. The Emperor calmly and briefly explained the Attilan Inhuman Genetic Council's plans to Jia Ying, including the effects that the few Terrigen warheads would cause, but the latter did not care at all and even showed a satisfied smile.

"Let me communicate with you using morphemes. This language carries more information and can effectively shorten our communication time. You often complain about the persecution of Inhumans by humans, but you never realize that many of the tragedies and enemies in your life were created by your own hands. The same is true for Inhumans; no one wants the meat they eat today to come from an eight-legged chicken."

"So what?" Jia Ying stared at the ground, wide-eyed. She dared not look the emperor in the eye, for those gleaming eyes could pierce her soul and unearth the deepest memories hidden in her mind. Every day and night she spent in the prison of the Immortal City was subjected to this torment by the interrogators, and the pain she suffered in that single moment of eye contact with the emperor far exceeded all the torture she had endured since entering prison.

Are you trying to persuade me to change my mind?

"You have every reason to choose to remember hatred, every reason to abandon faith in the human race and choose revenge, because you have experienced the most tragic fate in the world. As an immortal myself, I know that pain. Whatever choice you make, there is a reason. I will not expect everyone to forget the harm they have suffered." That noble voice rang in her ears. Jia Ying saw the deep red cloak inlaid with gold thread covering the emperor's calf armor on the ground, as if the jewels and exquisite sculptures on the armor had attracted all her attention.

Accompanied by the rumble of tracks rolling over the deck in the distance, a group of soldiers clad in black void combat armor, wearing bulletproof breathing masks, and wielding laser weapons, plasma weapons, and man-portable missiles followed the armored vehicle. The appearance of these soldiers diverted Jia Ying's attention somewhat, preventing her mind from being completely overwhelmed by the Emperor's psychic radiance. The Emperor himself, however, showed no intention of concealing his psychic power, as if he were ostentatiously announcing his presence.

That profound, warm, and magnificent presence constantly influences everyone in this star fortress.

"This is humanity's first war on its journey to the galaxy. Out of respect for the immortals, I am willing to relinquish a portion of my payload capacity so that you may witness this war firsthand. I want you to see the Inhumans meet their demise. Perhaps future human history books will not record this battle, or perhaps they will conceal some of the truth, but it is undeniable that the steps formed by the Inhumans' corpses will pave the way for humanity's journey to the galaxy."

Even though Jia Ying kept telling herself it was just visual fatigue and an illusion caused by space travel, she had to admit that the lighting inside Attilan Fortress was getting dimmer and dimmer. Even with the extra lighting in the command camp, she still felt that these lights seemed to be restricted by some unseen force in the air, then sinking into darkness. In contrast, the Emperor's light grew ever brighter, his golden radiance like scorching metal, dispelling the invisible miasma in the air.

"Another thing concerns your daughter, Daisy Jason."

Upon hearing her daughter's name, Jia Ying's eyes flickered, seemingly unsure of what to do.

"I assure you, she will live a peaceful and quiet life. But she will have no children."

"Why did you bring her up with me? Do you think I value her more than the Inhumans?" This diminutive woman couldn't even reach the emperor's chest, yet at this moment she was as fierce as a mother bear. "You think you can use her to threaten me?"

"Perhaps, I don't know. Perhaps some people think I'm very powerful, but I'm not omniscient or omnipotent. What I do is merely a series of plans based on existing schemes. Threat? No, I don't understand your feelings for Daisy Jensen, and I don't want to use her to change your stance, much less use her to threaten you. You have no remaining value to me, Jia Ying. I've already obtained enough information from your mind and the library of the Afterlife. You stand here only because of my promise to you, and also to let you witness the impact of the Afterlife's destruction. You already know the purpose of the Afterlife's creation, but you've never known what secrets are hidden in those old papers, and I don't think anyone would be so bored as to flip through those worm-eaten papers written in Kree script to find any secrets recorded there. For the Inhumans who originally created the Afterlife, Attilan was their second home."

"You're so hypocritical, actually calling yourself a human king?" Jia Ying wrinkled her nose, trying to change the subject.

Thanks to long-term nutrient injections, her physical condition was excellent, and her immortal constitution had been revitalized by the abundant nutrients, making Jia Ying look even younger than before she went to prison. She had always been a beautiful woman, but the abuse she had suffered had completely destroyed her body. When her husband, Kevin Zebow, pulled her out of a trash can and painstakingly stitched her internal organs back together, this woman completely lost her former soul and appearance.

To this day, Jia Ying's body still lacks internal organs, and even she cannot explain how she came back to life. It seems that something nonexistent in the material universe fills her lower abdomen, replacing her missing organs. Her knowledge is insufficient to explain this, but the psychic interrogators trained at Kamar-Taj clearly understand its significance. It signifies that during Jia Ying's vivisection, the extreme pain awakened her psychic powers, instinctively filling her body with non-material dimensional energy. If her husband, Kevin Zeb, hadn't stitched her back together, perhaps after some time, Jia Ying would have been reborn from her discarded remains.

It could be said that Daniel Whitehall's vivisection and Kevin Zeb's act of stitching together remains were, in some ways, similar to mummification. From a sorcery perspective, this ritualistic act bound Jia Ying's soul to her original body. Even without having studied arcane arts, her psychic power, combined with Kevin Zeb's wishes, caused her psychic power to unconsciously maintain the functioning of her body. Even if it was just a conjecture about a sympathetic magic ritual, research papers on Jia Ying's current condition circulated widely among the high-ranking officials of Kamar-Taj, especially since that paper was written by the Emperor.

"You and I are the same kind, so why should you help humans? Can't you see that humans will never improve? Even if you help them, they won't be grateful to you; they'll only want you dead, nothing more."

The emperor simply smiled and did not respond.

Constantine stepped forward, his enormous hand gripping Jia Ying's breathing helmet. Just as Jia Ying thought her life was about to end, and these golden giants were about to crush her head, she discovered that the Imperial Guard was merely checking the neck seal of her onesie spacesuit. The same check was performed on almost all armed soldiers, even those fighting on the front lines, especially those clad in black void combat suits. These soldiers from the Immortal City possessed formidable military skills; they had been personally trained by the Imperial Guard and appointed by the Emperor, and served as the vanguard of the mortal army in this war.

"There is a third party involved in this war," the Emperor patiently explained. "Besides humans and Inhumans, there is another force trying to instigate an even greater massacre."

"You've already started a massacre," Jia Ying said sarcastically. "Look at your genetically modified monsters. You call us mutants, but you've created another kind of mutant. Your creations have no compassion, no feelings." She glanced at the gleaming gold-plated Royal Guard. The remaining Royal Guard members had already re-equipped and were slowly driving their armored tracked vehicles towards the Emperor's command post. Amon, Derrick, Hammurabi, and Hannibal quickly took over their original posts without any communication.

"Who do you want to kill with them?"

"The Inhumans are an enemy even harder to kill," Constantine responded. Jia Ying turned to look at his expressionless face, momentarily at a loss for words. She could sense that Constantine was telling the truth, and all the words she had prepared were for insults and rebuttals.

"My lord, the phosphorescent weapons are ready." Amon held up the data panel to the emperor. "The engineering team is ready to inject phosphorescent fire into the deck fissures. According to the technicians, whatever is hidden in those deck fissures, with enough phosphorescent fire, we can burn them to death."

The technicians' suggestion was very interesting.

Phosphorus fire weapons, weapons of mass destruction, could indeed be effective, achieving the Emperor's objective of containing the third-party forces hiding in the deck fissures, illuminating their hiding places, burning their flesh, and melting their bones. Technicians also discovered that the Attilan Inhumans' industrial production lines could manufacture rudimentary Fenian phosphorescent fire. It was proposed that Fenian fire be injected into the deck fissures with high-pressure gas, creating a massive inferno that would engulf the lower decks and simultaneously deprive the upper decks of their oxygen reserves. The same weapon could also be used on the upper decks, the Inhuman settlements, to kill all the Inhumans more quickly.

The Guardian Order issued a tactical feasibility study report.

For battles taking place inside these void-based aircraft, no humankind has any military experience to date. All tactics require validation, and the Battle of Attilan became the best testing ground for these tactics. The results of this experiment will be used by combat analysis departments on Earth for research. Within minutes, Jia Ying saw dazzling fireworks bloom beneath the steel dome of the Attilan residential area, like millions of burning stars slowly falling. The genetically modified warriors in power armor completely ignored the damage from this weapon, but for the Inhuman army, who lacked heat protection, the red-hot phosphorescent flames were like flames from hell—these flames floated in the air, clinging tightly to the human body with the flow of air, impossible to shake off, until they burned through the skin and bones. Sometimes, even breathing attracted these living phosphorescent flames. Anyone attacked by this weapon would face extremely terrible pain, but when those elusive phosphorescent flames landed on the power armor of the genetically modified warriors, they only burned a black carbon mark that could be easily wiped away.

The genetically modified warriors walked the streets bathed in the white glow of phosphorescent flames. They watched as tiny white flames, like snakes, slithered into the ruins of buildings, followed by violent struggles and screams before vanishing, leaving only billowing white smoke and flames piercing the darkness. The genetically modified warriors calmly raised their guns, killing any Inhumans attempting to break through the encirclement. They waited silently for the next wave of phosphorescent incendiary bombs to unleash their hellish fire.

It wasn't that no one organized a resistance.

When the phosphorescent sparks drifted near certain buildings, they remained suspended in the air until they burned out. Some sparks, as if blown away by a strong wind, concentrated on open ground, unable to ignite anything. Even more bizarrely, phosphorescent sparks that landed on the ground froze the sewage into ice—a sight no one had ever witnessed before. Whenever such events occurred, genetically modified soldiers would move out in squads to find and kill the mutants causing these phenomena—followed closely by cyborg soldiers led by Martian technicians—due to the Emperor's permission, the Martian biological research institute was allowed to obtain portions of Inhuman corpses for research. Compared to Martian research methods, the pain Daniel Whitehall inflicted on Jia Ying was like sunbathing on Miami Beach. Some Inhumans who were still alive, captured by Martian cyborg soldiers, believed they were free from suffering because these cyborgs would spray some kind of gel on the burning areas to extinguish the flames and soothe the pain, but they never imagined they would face an even more terrifying future.

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(End of this chapter)