Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1568 The Lunar War (80)

The millennia-long transformation had resulted in a highly complex structure for the lower production and storage decks, with much of the public infrastructure damaged. The Attilan royal family and the Gene Council also tended to adopt a laissez-faire approach, refusing to waste their wealth on only Alpha primitives and outcasts who had lost their genetic glory. Compared to the wars on the upper decks, the human army's attitude towards the lower production decks was more inclined towards cleanup, again due to the complexity of the lower decks' structure. Areas other than occupied territories, production facilities, and heavy anti-gravity freight elevators were left untouched because they lacked strategic significance.

Unbeknownst to Black Bolt, the Inhumans long accustomed to the Upper Deck were now surrounding his blood relatives and the statues of gods obscured by rusted steel and industrial waste, loudly chanting praises to forgotten gods and the blood shed in war. The ceremony grew even more chaotic after Priestess Peryl's return. The temple priests quickened their movements, slitting the throats of the devotees and sprinkling their entrails and blood onto the crowd; the intense, feverish heat distorted the air, and those touched by the blood were immediately infected by the emotion, the air, which should have become foul, instead smelling of aphrodisiac musk.

The increasingly shrill harmonies ripped through the remaining sanity of the believers. The nearly frenzied crowd brandished daggers made from scrap metal, celebrating by harming themselves and others. The believers sliced ​​open their own or others' skin, muscles, and even damaged organs; eventually, they even began dismembering their victims to satisfy their ever-growing, perverse desires. Simultaneously, the fanatical believers engaged in wanton sexual intercourse with those around them, chanting the names of Maximus and Peryl, as if controlled by some collective consciousness.

The priestess took the dagger from the temple priest and handed it to Maximus.

Maximus felt that every glance from Peryl's beautiful, deep purple eyes after her resurrection was irresistible, and she exuded a supernatural sexual allure. When she begged Maximus to hurt herself with a dagger, Maximus found himself utterly unable to refuse any of Peryl's requests.

"You and I will complete the sacred marriage ceremony," said Peryl. "Only in this way can you dedicate yourself to the gods."

Sacred marriage, known in ancient Greek as εργμο, where hieros (ερ) means "sacred" and gamos (γìμο) means "marriage," symbolized a sacred marriage between male and female deities in its earliest form. The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology houses an artifact from Mesopotamia called the Barton Column, named after its discoverer and translator. While the artifact dates back to 2500 BC or even the ancient Babylonian period, the cuneiform script on it predates Ur III of the Akkadian dynasty, leading to its description as a "copy of a story older than the Neo-Sumerian era." Through translation by numerous scholars, it has been discovered that the myth depicted on the artifact includes a story of the union of a male and female deity giving birth to seven gods.

Twentieth-century scholars generally believed that a sacred marriage ceremony took place between the kings of the ancient Near East Sumerian region and the high priestesses of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of love, fertility, and war. The union of the king and the priestess represented the union of Dumuzd and Inanna, symbolizing that the king's rule was recognized by the gods.

In the ancient Near East, rituals stemming from sacred marriages often occurred between commoners and lower-ranking priestesses, including the Temple of Ishtar in Sumerian civilization, the Temple of Aphrodite in ancient Babylon, and similar practices existed in the Hittite and Phoenician civilizations. Although some 21st-century scholars (mostly New Englanders) consider the term "temple prostitute" merely an academic error, it is certain that women who became temple prostitutes as slaves existed in the Temple of Aphrodite in ancient Greece. The Hellenistic world includes the Temple of Aphrodite in Cyprus, the Temple of Venus in ancient Rome, and even pre-Hellenistic Indian temples and shrine maidens in Japan before the Kamakura period.

Whether such sacred marriage ceremonies truly existed in ancient times or not, they gradually lost their original meaning over time. The ultimate purpose of these sacred union rituals shifted from praying for a bountiful harvest, seeking prophecies, and requesting blessings to the clinking of coins. By the nineteenth century, mystical scholars, including the infamous Pascal Beverly Randolph and Aleister Crowley, advocated sexual magic. Regardless of the mythological theories followed by the sects established by these mystics, they all claimed that the moment of orgasm was the most intense and powerful experience in a person's life, a moment when the soul suddenly opens into the sacred realm and is infused with divine breath.

This was the sacred wedding ceremony that Pei Lier had requested.

She asked Maximus to offer his soul to the gods through her.

She told Maximus that this was a divine message she had heard from the gods before returning from the spirit world, and that only through her could Maximus receive the power of the gods. A frenzied crowd surrounded Maximus and the priestess, Peryl. The ground was covered in nearly congealed blood, and the blood and bodily fluids of the believers continued to flow, yet no one stepped into the ritual circle, as if some invisible force was preventing them from approaching. Maximus found himself unable to refuse any of the priestess's requests. His limited self-control and mind manipulation abilities constantly probed his own heart, examining every fleeting, even unformed, thought, ultimately confirming that his thoughts were entirely his own and not manipulated. He watched as Peryl tore open her deep red, blood-congealed dress from her shoulder, revealing her tall, slender, and alluring female body before him. Maximus took a deep breath of the air, which smelled of musk and sweat, and gently placed Peryl into the ritual blood pool, following her guidance to begin the final ritual.

The Centaurus Clan psyker's expression shifted rapidly, as if some hard object was scraping his brain with sharp edges. A short but intense pain caused his eyes to twitch and blink uncontrollably. "Do you need to rest?" Black Bolt asked with concern. Ignoring the Centaurus Clan psyker's objections, he beckoned to the accompanying medic. "I'm sorry to have troubled you. But we need intelligence on the enemy, and currently only you can provide that information."

"That's not the case, Your Majesty," said the Centaurus clan psionicist. "I suspect the other party also possesses similar abilities."

I know. Our enemy, the human king, is a psionicist.

“No, you don’t understand me, Your Majesty.” The Centaurus Clan psionicist pointed to the distant battlefront engulfed in collapsed buildings and flames. From the Gene Council building, the flashes of explosions and the azure ionized trails of plasma were clearly visible. “The Human King is there. Just one glance at him makes my brain burn. I can feel the solemn order and unparalleled glory. But just now I felt a different emotion, a chaotic, mad, fanatical emotion, as if something was being painfully born from the womb. I could hear that cry… that sound almost tore me apart!”

"Your Majesty, let us lock this wizard up. Letting him continue to go mad will do no good for anyone," the captain of the royal guard said without hesitation. "We have achieved our strategic objectives. The enemy's artillery support has been greatly reduced, and those genetically modified warriors have been kept out. We are on the road to victory, and the enemy's supplies will definitely not be able to sustain a prolonged war."

Black Bolt gave him a cold look.

The captain of the royal guard sighed and said nothing more.

Frontline reports don't lie; many Royal Guard personnel dispatched encountered various predicaments. Initially, the refugees affected by the war warmly welcomed the Royal Guard's leaders, and some brave residents even took up arms to fight alongside the Royal Guard against the invaders. However, as news spread, the Royal Guard's weapons transport vehicles were sometimes robbed. To expand their organization, the Royal Guard often acted alone, confident that unarmed civilians wouldn't take any drastic actions. They never expected that someone would use the pretext of fighting the invaders to gain their trust, kill Royal Guard soldiers at close range, steal weapons and food, and then disappear into the lower decks.

Even the defensive fortifications organized by the royal guard could not completely stop the invaders.

Untrained civilians were virtually defenseless against professionally trained invaders. Even when the royal guards compiled ancient urban warfare experience and distributed it to every soldier, the soldiers couldn't teach the residents how to use these tactics correctly in such a short time. Even if they could use these tactics, the enemies in power armor wouldn't foolishly walk headlong into an ambush. Their massive bodies moved nimbly through the ruins, dismantling the hard-won encirclement one by one.

The battle reports that finally reached the royal court revealed a shocking level of casualties. Wounded soldiers continued to be brought to the Gene Council Hall, which was being used as a makeshift hospital. None of these wounded had ever seen the enemy; burns and bruises were the most common injuries. Those who resisted the genetically modified warriors were almost entirely wiped out. The Royal Guard was worried that prisoners might reveal information such as Black Bolt's location to the enemy, but so far, he hadn't heard of any Royal Guard soldiers being captured from the wounded. He felt both grief and pride for their sacrifice.

"[Continue.]" Black Bolt gestured to the Centaurus Clan psionicist. "[What exactly happened?]"

"Is this the end?" Jia Ying looked down at Earth, its atmosphere shimmering in the sunlight. "That steel giant, is this everything you wanted to show me?" she asked urgently. "Is it simply because the human race possesses psionic potential that the Kree Empire chose humans as test subjects?"

"That was the first arrival. This planet has experienced three arrivals in total, and you only witnessed the first," the dark-haired man responded calmly. The star slowly moved behind them, casting a shadow over Earth. The feeling was strange, as if one had become part of the cosmic system. "The ancestors of the Kree, like the ancestors of humans, underwent genetic engineering, but that doesn't mean we should worship some so-called creator. Human civilization was born from within; the amino acids in the Hot Sea combined to form the most primitive genes. All of this is a miracle of life, not some deliberate act."

"What about the second and third comings?"

"That's quite a long story. If you're willing to help me, you'll have the opportunity to learn about those ancient secrets."

"Is this what you really want?" Jia Ying rolled her eyes. "You want to recruit me and make me work for you?"

"Humanity's perspective on the present is determined by history. The way immortals view history differs from that of short-lived ordinary people, and naturally, their perspective on the present will also differ." The emperor didn't answer directly. "A mere few decades of cultural and economic infiltration can completely alter the values ​​of a society built by ordinary people. Faced with immortals who possess a much longer concept of time, ordinary people would only see them as madmen. You have experienced the most painful war-torn societies, and then were fortunate enough to live in an era led by a great leader. Tell me, before you discovered your unusually long lifespan, were you influenced by external factors?"

"So you need a helper who also has a long lifespan?"

"I created the Royal Guard. They possess immortal lifespans but are not immortal. They cannot return from the dead because they must abide by the laws of physics. You can, Jia Ying. You returned that rainy night, defying all the laws of physics. I believe you must have doubts about your resurrection," the Emperor said softly. He didn't notice Jia Ying's childish gesture of fidgeting with her fingers, trying to adjust the shadows cast on the earth. Even though her mind was filled with hatred, after experiencing that horrific scene, cracks were appearing in her once-frozen mind. "I can tell you, you could have survived even without being stitched up, just not so quickly. The miracles of Kree genetic engineering and heredity coincidentally created you, a born immortal. If your psychic power hadn't been used to maintain your body, you would already be learning to use psychic abilities by now."

"Don't you have any other help?"

"Yes, but I hope to unite all forces that can be united. My ideals require a considerable amount of time to complete, but without people with unwavering will and long lifespans to uphold my beliefs, even the greatest ideals will decay and degenerate. This is the drawback of human lifespan; a lifespan of just over a hundred years can easily make humans too short-sighted. This statement is somewhat limited, but you have also experienced the collapse of the Soviet Union, so you can understand what I mean."

Please vote for me!

(End of this chapter)