Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1600 The Lunar War (112)

Chapter 1596 The Lunar War (112)

"Don't let the Countess interrupt our conversation, dear Victor."

Her ambition should not be underestimated.

[She's trying to reclaim her luxurious life, which is only natural. She's more than just a beautiful canary.] The Emperor shifted his posture on the throne, but the holy sword in its sheath still served as his staff. The phantom of Regent Victor von Doom stood beside the throne, but Countess Katarina Karkov, who had been below the steps just minutes before, had been oblivious. The Regent was still entertaining guests in the banquet hall, the diplomats completely unaware that he was communicating with the Emperor—secrets they would never hear in their lifetime. [I would like to invite you to monitor the sealing progress of the portal to Attilan. Constantine, Malcolm, and Aparishia are on their way to it. I have weakened the power behind the veil, but the potential dangers remain.]

I believe your Royal Guard and genetically modified soldiers are capable of completing the mission. Besides Constantine, do the other soldiers believe this is the result of some kind of alien psionic magic?

【Yes. 】

[We cannot let them know the truth behind the veil. The mere arrival of aliens has already instilled despair in many humans, even sparking a kind of alien worship. We cannot let them see where the real danger comes from, otherwise everything we fight for will be utterly destroyed. I hope you have already arranged the brainwashing process for the genetically modified soldiers who have penetrated deep into the Attilan Star Fortress portal. Your Majesty, I know the loyalty of the genetically modified soldiers is impeccable, and they have indeed carried out your will, but the cruelty of stripping them of their memories is a mercy to them.]

The Emperor remained silent, neither speaking nor looking at the phantom of Regent Victor von Doom. His silence prompted the Regent to bring up another matter. [NASA has installed the Dark Elves' warship jump engines on a spacecraft. It's a massive technological black box; NASA has no idea how it works, and this will inevitably lead to danger.] The Regent then brought up another matter: [For those people, killing is a form of mercy. Don't let danger spread to Earth; we already face enough trouble.]

"Dirty, alien witchcraft!"

Aparisha impatiently grabbed the bits of flesh clinging to his armor and wriggling upwards, then tossed them aside.

Thanks to the engineering roads designed during the construction of Starfortress for transporting heavy, precision equipment, the armored convoy was able to proceed unimpeded after clearing away the fragile structures added by the local inhabitants over thousands of years. However, the deeper they ventured into the heart of Starfortress, the stranger the creatures they encountered became, some not even fully lifelike—armored vehicles equipped with flamethrowers and molten metal launchers attacked grotesque creatures with half their bodies extending from walls covered in flesh, which were hindering the convoy's progress—but these seemingly unresponsive creatures reacted with extreme ferocity, some even detaching themselves from their wall attachments and crawling towards the armored convoy, ignoring the pain of their flame-scorched flesh, attempting to attack the convoy and the genetically modified soldiers with their filthy, deformed claws.

The armored vehicles' radio equipment was constantly receiving signals from unknown sources, even affecting the onboard broadcast systems of the armored vehicles and main battle tanks. It seemed an unseen ghost was hovering over the radio channels, and no amount of encryption could eliminate the piercing noise. After emergency intervention, Martian technicians managed to extract a terrifying scream from the interference—the frantic breathing of some intelligent being in a dark, gloomy valley. An indescribable, unknown threat was growling from the nearby dark forest.

But this had no effect on the soldiers' mentality.

Right at the very front of the convoy, they could still see the emperor's radiance dispelling the darkness.

Many mortal soldiers firmly believed they were waging a righteous and glorious war, a belief in human supremacy instilled in them by the Emperor. They reasoned that only by eliminating the alien races that threatened humanity could humanity secure a precious opportunity for peaceful development. Aparisha placed the mortal soldiers at the rear of the convoy, assigning them relatively easy tasks. This wasn't because he was arrogant and believed only genetically modified warriors could complete the Emperor's mission, but because, as the First Chapter Commander, he knew the alien sorcery of Attilan Fortress was extremely dangerous.

The lives of ordinary soldiers were insignificant to him, but the leak that drove them mad and disrupted the deployment was something he could not allow. Moreover, the logistical supplies of fuel and ammunition did need to be guarded; without them, the armored convoy might have to stop along the way due to fuel shortages. For the sake of order and stability in the military operation, the genetically modified soldiers had to take on more work, clearing away the huge, moving chunks of flesh and the completely mutated alien creatures ahead of the long convoy—breaking free from the walls of flesh were not only those humanoid creatures with only half their bodies remaining, but also some kind of obese humanoid creature with a repulsive, swollen, sagging abdomen. Its skin, as thin as a cicada's wing, was incredibly tough, stretching open to reveal large blood vessels and bloated internal organs. Its head, completely devoid of human appearance, was sunken deep into the fat accumulated in its shoulders and neck, and its vicious little eyes, now useless, were covered with a layer of white mist.

These monsters often emerged from maintenance tunnels or ventilation ducts already filled with flesh and blood when armored convoys sprayed flames onto walls of flesh. They were often still wrapped in amniotic sacs, the viscous, scalding fuel of the flames sliding effortlessly down their oily skin; even the rapidly spinning, single-molecule, high-temperature blade of a chainsaw sometimes slipped on their skin. Compared to the emaciated, half-bodied humanoid monsters, these obese creatures seemed to possess many different characteristics. Aparisha wasn't referring to the feel of hacking with an execution axe, but rather to the fact that the anomalies produced by these obese monsters seemed to involve more witchcraft—the relatively smaller monsters had been temporarily named ghouls by the Royal Guard. Aparisha even asked Constantine what to call the large ones if the smaller ones were called ghouls, a question that drew eye-rolls from the other Royal Guards—Aparisha had seen Constantine skillfully thrust his spear, the massive blade as agile as a needle, ripping open the obese monster. The enormous entrails, teeming with maggots, crashed to the ground, the maggots rapidly evolving into flies. Aparishia, showing no sign of weakness, swung her shield, slamming a much larger, obese humanoid creature against the burning wall of flesh and blood.

A tongue with bony fangs at the end pierced from beneath the monster's head, which was deeply embedded in its neck fat, circled over the shield, and slammed into Aparisha's shield-wielding arm. That supersonic lash had been enough to sever an ordinary person in half, and even Aparisha felt a throbbing pain in his arm and shoulder; his arm felt almost torn off, and several more teeth marks were left on his battle-hardened armor. Enraged by his carelessness, he swung his battle axe diagonally upwards, severing the knee encased in muscle and gray fat, then swung it again at the creature's body, which had lost its balance and fallen heavily to the ground. This time, he cleaved the massive, protruding tongue and the head embedded in the body, from which a fist-sized, pinkish-white mass of fat, possibly the brain, mixed with pale yellow oil, flowed out.

The once massive, greasy humanoid body turned to dust in mere seconds. Although it was a variant of that obese monster, it met the same fate after death. Judging by the naked eye, the proportion of ash left behind by this humanoid creature after its death seemed to be much greater than that of the "Alien Sorcerer's Minions and Mutants" encountered on the upper deck. However, even after the humanoid creature died, the extreme stench remaining in the air still penetrated the helmets and assaulted the nerves of the genetically modified warriors.

"Burn these things."

Aparisha stared in disgust at the fleshy wall that had just emerged from a gigantic, obese monster. The passage from which the monster had been expelled was still open, its two curved, teardrop-shaped petals of flesh resembling the external genitalia of a woman who had just given birth, still flowing with amniotic fluid, awaiting the birth of the next monster. It was as if this fleshy mass formed a true biological womb, and they were walking within it. Aparisha threw a plasma grenade into the passage. After the explosion and flash, the withered fleshy wall was slammed to the ground by rapidly expanding gas. The other genetically modified soldiers were fulfilling their duties, whether their opponents were so-called ghouls or those obese monsters. Aparisha even saw one of the genetically modified soldiers insert a molten metal launcher into the birth canal of the fleshy wall and pull the trigger. The intense heat caused the flesh to contract violently as if it were alive, the bio-oils sizzling, and the charred ventilation ducts were spewing out thick, gray smoke.

"Constantine!" he yelled into the comms, "I don't want you to fall in front of the convoy."

Faster than flamethrowers and even faster than the Imperial Guards, the one being protected in the center of the Imperial Guard squad's formation.

That was not the Emperor, but a woman even smaller than the Royal Guard or the genetically modified warriors, her long white hair cascading over her jet-black power armor, her eyes blazing with golden flames. Every path she traversed instantly turned even charred, lifeless flesh to dust, revealing decks and equipment covered in filth and bodily fluids from millennia ago. Catherine walked the four-dimensional material universe in the Emperor's name, using the Emperor's power to drive away the terrifying forces spreading from behind the veil—weapons left behind by the Emperor before returning to Earth for a more important mission.

A steady but indistinct melody hummed cheerfully from Catherine's throat. No one knew the name of the song, for it originated from a human praise of the emperor ten thousand years in the future. At this moment, the song was merely a byproduct of the Sisterhood Monastery's spare time, and even the melody was yet to be determined.

Every step she took was steady and perfect.

The Royal Guard sliced ​​the monsters born from the walls of flesh and blood to pieces before her very eyes, not even letting the splattering, foul blood reach her feet. Even though Catherine herself wielded a longsword and a bomb gun, the Royal Guard's seamless coordination prevented her from getting a chance to retaliate; they protected her as if she were the emperor. But there were things the Royal Guard, with their swift blades and thermonuclear warheads, could not completely overcome. Like the Royal Guard, she radiated the Emperor's power, but she was purer, for she was entirely composed of energy. She reached out and gently touched the touchscreen of the deck gate at the core of Attilan Star Fortress, where flesh and blood had been stripped away. The gate, which should have been operated by technicians, slowly opened with a grotesque creak, revealing an even more gruesome and terrifying scene of flesh and filth behind it, as if the fortress's machinery had submitted to her. Thick, foul-smelling fog almost blocked the passage, only slightly dissipated by the heat of flames. But when Catherine touched it, the fog instantly transformed into heavy water droplets that slammed onto the deck. The water flowed down the steel channels, the air gradually becoming fresher, and large swaths of flesh dissolved, as if the world were experiencing an endless downpour, attempting to wash away the filth accumulated over millennia.

Aparisha is very talented; you knew his worth from the moment you met him.

"He will be my champion. He has potential and will not be bound by moral constraints." The Emperor, seated on his throne, spoke with the phantom of Regent Victor von Doom. Under Amon's gaze, He raised a goblet and explained his theory to the Regent. "If two worlds are about to collide, the only solution is to destroy the other. Aparishia will not hesitate to pull the trigger, to fight for the survival of the human race. This is something ordinary people cannot do, dear Victor. They will help us build the bomb that can destroy the other world, but they will not pull the trigger to avoid moral debt and infamy—neither Steve Rogers nor Tony Stark have a heart as strong as Aparishia's. Perhaps Natasha Romanoff possesses such a strong heart, but I am not sure if she is still the same as before—able to sacrifice the lives of other innocents for their own peace of mind, but unaware that survival is the greatest justice for living beings. They want to be heroes with clean hands, and therefore avoid the final moment at all costs."

Are you sure this isn't because Aparisha is essentially a thug?

He's an obedient thug, and that's enough for me. If Steve Rogers or Tony Stark knew the threat we face, they wouldn't allow anyone else to solve it if they couldn't, because it's too cruel, too heavy a burden for ordinary people. We've chosen this path, dear Victor, and we're going to bear a future far heavier than anyone else's.

Please vote for me!

(End of this chapter)