Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1596 The Lunar War (108)

You will see the secret, Constantine. I will explain it in a way you can understand.

Aristotle's humoral theory is a synthesis of ancient Greek medical ideas. This theory fully demonstrates the views of humanity at that time regarding all humors, including blood. In an era where matter was imbued with spirituality, humors held immense significance; for example, blood could be represented by wine in rituals. When someone was injured and bled, it meant that that person was not only lacking on a material level but also harmed on a spiritual and spiritual level. In some belief systems, the soul is the medium that carries memories; therefore, when you inflict injury and cause bleeding, you will gain access to the soul carrying those memories, gaining a glimpse into its secrets.

This is a simplified explanation, not entirely accurate, but it's a way that ordinary people can understand.

Constantine saw the memory, Maximus's memory.

He saw a red-haired girl running through the palace's long corridors, her laughter echoing in the empty rooms and hallways. He watched the red-haired girl grow up, her youthful energy intensifying with each passing year. He could even feel her burning heat and allure emanating from her skin, transmitting to his fingers, making his heart pound—Constantine watched indifferently as Maximus carefully touched Medusa's skin. The ambiguous, sweet atmosphere between the two didn't affect him; he remained as calm as if watching a movie—then he saw a middle-aged man and a woman with a loving expression. The man, wearing a tuning fork crown, frowned and announced to Maximus a secret that wasn't exactly a secret: he had an older brother.

After that, his memories became hazy. He saw Medusa lying naked on the bed, her waist and hips possessing an astonishingly beautiful curve, covered by a clean, pure white blanket. Medusa's long red hair was spread across the bed, curving and sticking up as if alive. Maximus looked worriedly at her sweat-drenched, sleeping profile, unsure whether he should tell Medusa about the throne. Then he saw an ancient king standing on the parched land, thousands upon thousands of slaves draped in tattered linen kneeling before him, calling out his name.

Then jealousy began to gnaw at his soul, especially after the king announced that he was no longer the sole candidate for the throne. Medusa, the woman who had become the future queen through political maneuvering, quietly took a step back, and her thirst for power ignited like wildfire. Then came a series of chaotic, insane memories: magnificent churches built of bones on vast lands floating in the etheric waves, the insane ringing of bells and the shrill, arrhythmic playing of wind instruments piercing through the blasphemous chanting.

The vast amount of memories did not trouble Constantine; to him, it was merely a fleeting moment. Even Maximus's inner turmoil and the terrifying visions deep within the ether did not affect his cold heart. Constantine continued to thrust his spear forward, piercing Maximus's mutated, massive body, exposing his heart to the air. A torrent of foul blood splattered down. Constantine pulled the trigger, and even through the thick skin, he could see the blinding flames erupting within the beast's chest—he saw the Kree scout ship crashing towards Attiland, its shields burning part of the hull, but large amounts of wreckage still crashing into the Attiland palace; he saw Maximus laughing maniacally in the fire, the king and queen, wearing tuning fork crowns, lying at his feet—his parents; he saw the terrified gazes of the surrounding crowd fixed on the dagger in his hand, and the angry eyes of his unfamiliar brother.

"If you're going to kill me, do it now." He heard himself look at Medusa beside him, then at his brother, who almost never spoke and could only communicate through a data tablet. "You've taken everything from me. Now Attilan is yours, and Medusa is yours too. All my efforts for the throne have been meaningless. I have nothing left to cherish... I can read your mind, brother. Your weakness surprises me. If you don't kill me, then one day I will drink your blood and chew your heart!"

"Execute him!" a white-bearded royal member shouted, pointing at Maximus, but when he turned his dry eyes to look at him, the distant royal relative's voice suddenly softened. "It is your decision, King of Attilan. I apologize for being so emotional after seeing the murder of the former king and queen."

Constantine pulled the trigger again, and the gunshot shattered all memories.

The giant beast's shoulder blade shattered instantly, and the unnaturally grown shoulder muscles bulged out in a large bulge.

Another Royal Guard raised his garrison spear again, severing Maximus's knee with his blade. The collapsing behemoth caved in, and molten iron below shimmered red from the cracks. At the same time, the other behemoth, still locked in combat with Catherine, charged forward. It exhaled sonic waves, spread its bat wings, and, aided by psychic power, soared into the air, throwing Catherine off. Then it charged towards Constantine and the other Royal Guard.

Facing the nearly six-meter-tall behemoth, Constantine and another guard did not retreat. They simply stepped back a few paces to the side, continuously firing thermonuclear warheads at the oncoming beast with their halberds. Blackcard Burt, still in excruciating pain, was unable to steady himself and fell heavily in front of the guard, his body riddled with huge craters burned by miniature thermonuclear warheads.

At that moment, Catherine arrived, adorned with steel wings and flames.

"Die, you demon!"

She raised her longsword and slashed downwards, but only severed a few claws from Blackcard Burtgon's hastily raised giant claw. Just as she was about to strike again, a burst of psionic sonic energy from Blackcard Burtgon's mouth blasted her away, and the plasma ball fired by another combat sister from her plasma pistol was instantly dispersed. That combat sister activated her chainsaw and lunged forward; the buzzing chainsaw scraped against Blackcard Burtgon's claws and bones, leaving a long trail of sparks, followed by spurts of black blood and bits of flesh. The next moment, the beast's claws pierced the combat sister's abdomen.

"Death is a concept of the material universe. I have never been born, nor have I ever died," a voice uttered from Maximus's mutilated mouth. "The history of human civilization is but a fleeting moment in the grand scheme of things. I have witnessed the Big Bang, I have witnessed the universe's descent into heat death, and now I will witness the human race until the last human dies. I will then stand before him and laugh at your futile efforts to resist chaos. I have countless chances, while you have only one. We will ultimately triumph."

"Remember my name, you demon!"

The combat sister screamed frantically, while simultaneously pressing the power button on her chainsaw sword to push it deeper. The laws of the material universe inflicted intense pain on Blackcard Burt, but the combat sister seemed oblivious to the claws piercing her body and armor. Constantine and another Royal Guard were still on their way to the rescue, but by now, the combat sister had overloaded her plasma pistol, the pressure relief valve emitting a blinding red warning light. She screamed frantically amidst the escaping heat, even her armor unable to prevent her hands from being scalded by the intense heat.

"I am Vera, the fighting sister! When you reappear in this universe, I will come before you. Each time, I will kill you, until the very end of the universe!"

With a blinding flash of light and a surge of intense heat, the colossal beast once known as Blackcard Bertgang collapsed with a deafening roar, its head and arms completely vaporized by the intense heat. Constantine stared at the deep teeth marks on his shoulder armor, his crimson battle armor stained with blood, dried along with the blood splattered when he followed the Emperor into battle. The spear he had used in his dream was now in the Emperor's hand, while he himself still held the garrison spear that had always been with him, though he didn't have the habit of naming his weapons, so he simply referred to it by its number.

Did this really happen?

[This was just a dream, remember? We were using our subjective feelings to influence objective reality, like magic.]

"The battle marks on my body are real; I can still smell the propellant." Constantine blinked and began retrieving the combat logs from the power armor. If Catherine was telling the truth, the armored convoy had just entered the deck crevice when the battle occurred, and like the bloodstains on his cloak, the power armor's systems should have recorded it. Constantine retrieved the combat footage from that period, but discovered that he hadn't been wearing a helmet during that time, because the Emperor had ordered him to remove it. "Is this a coincidence?" he looked at the Emperor questioningly. "The reason that battle happened at that time is because I wasn't wearing a helmet?"

Perhaps.

"So, are Blackcard Burt and Maximus really dead?"

Nothing truly dies; matter is eternal.

The Imperial Guard glanced at the Emperor. "You know there's no point in avoiding the issue."

[The current state of Blackcard Bertgang and Maximus is difficult to define, because the ethereal entities possessing them originate from the same concept, meaning that after their death, that entity lost its anchor in the material universe. Furthermore, due to our previous actions, the energy transmitted here from behind the veil is far less powerful than before. As for Blackcard Bertgang and Maximus, there are no observers besides us. We opened the box and confirmed their state.]

"Does this mean we'll be fighting a powerless spirit through a portal?"

Just think of it as a ghost. It originally thought it could obtain two containers, but now it has nothing. Its power here is at most enough to blow up a piece of parchment.

Constantine was used to the Emperor's humor, but he wouldn't actually use it as a work standard. After all, many terrifying threats in the world were less important to the Emperor than a stumbling block on the roadside, but were utterly deadly threats to others. Take Blackcard Burtgan and Maximus, for example. Constantine believed that the Emperor could erase them from the material universe at any time if he wanted to, yet the Emperor, due to a deep game he couldn't comprehend, sent him to complete the task in a dream.

"I will instruct the sorcerer to raise the defense level." Constantine turned and began contacting the mage Hamil. Only after receiving Hamil's puzzled promise did he have time to ask other questions. For example, why did he use that gun in the dream, and what exactly was that gun? Why did Catherine and Vera appear in the dream? Why did he encounter the Royal Guard from the future?

No further questions, Constantine.

Constantine blinked. The flamethrowers of the armored convoy continued to spew flames, and the stench of burning humus and the black ash swirling in the breeze created by the convoy made the environment unbearable. The external temperature detected by the powered armored vehicles was approaching 50 degrees Celsius, completely unsuitable for human survival without any protective gear. He took the spear from the emperor's hand—the spear felt familiar the moment he held it; the feeling of using this weapon in his dream seemed to have become muscle memory—he knew the spear's weight and range of attack, every detail of its patterns, and even the trigger pull.

"You intend for me to use this gun?"

【Yes. 】

"But I encountered many incredible things in my dreams."

That's all in the past. Whatever Blackcard Burt and Maximus were, whatever their experiences, they are history. The Guardian Order's archives may hold Inhuman documents, but only the most bored archaeologists would dig up their meaningless history from the ashes and compile it. Now, you need to determine objective facts through constant observation and subjective will.

"What does this mean... Catherine? How many times has this happened?"

"The 9nd time."

"Then why don't I remember the first seven times?"

"Because we failed to complete the observations in the first seven attempts," Catherine said, pointing to two grotesque, enormous corpses on the deck. "Everything we've experienced here is a dream. This world is subjective, remember? If you believe this world is real, then everything you encounter here will become reality. To achieve final victory, my lord adjusted the variables time and time again. First it was me, then Vera, then that Royal Guard, and finally you. At first there were only explosive guns, then there were sniper explosive guns, plasma pistols, chainsaw swords, and so on. All variables are factors that change the observation results, just like changing the half-life of the radioactive element in the box."

Please vote for me!

(End of this chapter)