Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1613, Chapter 1609: The Lunar War (125)

"We are almost there, my lord," Amun whispered in the emperor's ear. "We are ready."

He saw the Emperor amused the two witches with a series of jokes, seemingly forgetting their original purpose for heading to the Himalayas in the overly cheerful atmosphere. Amon believed the Emperor wouldn't forget, but he still wanted to remind him to prepare for the witches—more precisely, to prepare militarily. He had already arranged for armed forces to be assembled near the landing site, and if the witches intended to intervene militarily, armored units would unleash lethal weapons towards the landing site—an action that would inevitably provoke an international dispute, provided that the weak Nepal and India possessed the satellite surveillance and radar capabilities to detect the origin of any attack in the Himalayas.

Joan of Arc raised an eyebrow, the silver knife scraping against the ceramic plate with a harsh sound. "You were prepared?"

"I always have spirits and wine on hand. Remember the hot springs we dug in the snow-capped peaks of the Alps? I've built a secret observation deck on a ridge near the observatory, where there's a hot spring sheltered from the wind and snow by arcane magic. Nobody knows the location except me, and I'm sure you'll have a wonderful holiday there."

“We’ve been on vacation the whole time, and Earth’s planetary defense system has kept us from feeding the little pets in Hell,” Bayonetta said. “I accept your offer, but only if I see you complete that mission and emerge from the courtyard of Kamar-Taj headquarters. I recognize your eyes… What did your prophetic abilities tell you?”

"In Kamar-Taj there is a witch named the Lady of Calamity, whose prophetic abilities are incredibly powerful, yet her mind remains human. Past, present, and future are indistinguishable to her; therefore, she often speaks to a stone, because an atom within that stone may have existed in some intelligent life form in the past or future. I do not regard prophecy as an inescapable fate, nor do I allow my reason to be consumed by it. The threads of fate are unpredictable, and I dare not claim to see them all."

"How bad is it?" Bayonetta's smile vanished, a shadow creeping into her eyes. She glanced at the cabin wall, as if she could see Phoenix flying alongside the assault transport. This fiery, golden-red raptor was appearing less and less in public, even in the Emperor's private quarters, seemingly on some secret mission. The only consolation was that Phoenix's poetry collection had finally been published and was gaining considerable renown thanks to the vigorous promotion from various publishers. "I can see you're hiding something, my dear. This is the problem you've been avoiding. You can use psychic magic to disguise your appearance and create illusions for others, but you can't fool a witch. I know that serious expression you wear every time you foresee a bad situation. Don't forget, I know the real you, not the one you're pretending to be."

She flicked her fingers; her perfectly manicured nails, the result of a lot of time spent working on them, looked like diamonds.

"You're not associated with words like greed, depravity, selfishness, indifference, meanness, or cynicism. I'm referring to the inner self you hide behind your glamorous exterior," Bayonetta said.

After a slight hesitation, she swallowed back what she was about to say.

Loneliness is a lesson of life. Few can truly understand the vastness of your heart and the ceaseless workings of your mind. I'm trying to understand you, dear. You are not alone; there's no need to feel overwhelmed. No matter how bad the future may be, we will meet sooner or later. I won't say these words aloud, nor will I cry about it; nothing is more repulsive than a weeping witch. I know you can hear me, I know you want to hear me.

The cabin was shrouded in silence, and the emperor's gaze remained unwavering.

Amon hoped the witch wouldn't fire her gun here.

The bullets fired from that gun couldn't penetrate the thick, sturdy walls of the cabin, but damaging some important electronic equipment would cause considerable trouble. Fortunately, Bayonetta only looked into the Emperor's eyes, and after a few seconds, she refocused her attention on her plate, continuing to savor her dessert with elegant movements. The Royal Guard had seen many people dine; the two witches' movements were as graceful as those exemplified by court etiquette instructors, even on a manor in Oxfordshire or a deserted island in the South Pacific. But when the witches drew their weapons, that queenly elegance vanished completely, replaced by extreme violence, speed that the Royal Guard could barely keep up with, and the witches' overwhelming allure.

This seems to be related to a witch's magical pact.

From the very beginning, the emperor designated the Witch School as "Crimson" as its danger level.

This wasn't because the witch possessed powerful arcane knowledge; many schools of thought on Earth possessed such knowledge. However, the arcane arts of the Witch School and the Sage School both crossed the line for Kamar-Taj. Summoning, binding, imprisoning, and controlling ethereal beings were all arcane systems collected and integrated by King Solomon. The witch school and the Sage School were also most adept at these arts, which were precisely the arcane systems Kamar-Taj was most wary of, as they could easily break the veil of the material universe and attract predators from the Aether Sea. His relationship with the witch was less about cohabitation and more about surveillance. Amon believed the Emperor had never let his guard down around the witch and was always ready to deliver a fatal blow.

Upon hearing the Imperial Guards' thoughts, a bitter look appeared in the Emperor's eyes.

Loneliness is a lesson of life, and he must ultimately explore this path alone, stumbling and stumbling. There is no time to find a relatively safe and least costly way; this species has neither time nor direction. No one can shoulder this burden or bear the cost of exploration for him. If he waits until he is awake enough to make the right decisions, the opportunity to move towards the future will have already vanished. The Sorcerer Supreme has bought some time, but it is far from enough.

"The Venerable One has two daggers, which he always carries with him. The dagger that killed Morgan le Fay, at least once. It is a curse against witches, and also a curse on himself."

They started to act without needing to be given a loud command.

As some of the Emperor's finest special forces, the various alchemical techniques he created flowed within the knights and guards, imbuing them with unwavering fighting spirit. As the behemoth spread its wings in the air, all the bombardiers and plasma weapons immediately unleashed deadly projectiles, precisely tracking the behemoth's descent. The light emanating from the behemoth, now restored to its power, engulfed the projectiles; the abominable magic always proved ineffective against weapons of the material universe—when pure white flashes erupted from the behemoth's surface, the malevolent magic lost its power—the bombs slid off the behemoth's thicker, smoother hide, tiny scales peeling away bloodily. The demon's regained aura was stripped away, and the firearms were once again effective. Although the desired result hadn't been achieved, Constantine knew that Regent Victor von Doom had done everything in his power.

It turned and thrust its greatsword, pinning a knight to the ground. The ceramic armor warped violently, its edge digging deep into the knight's abdomen. In retaliation, the blood-soaked knight, filled with hatred, hurled a fragmentation grenade, simultaneously striking its calves and ankles with several explosive rounds. Pain fueled its rage, and to satisfy its savage desires, it lowered its greatsword and gripped a battle sister tightly with both hands. The battle sister struggled and resisted, her ceramic alloy armor crackling under the pressure. The power granted to her by alchemy nearly allowed her to break free of the beast's grasp, but this only enraged it further.

The behemoth, enduring the constant barrage of explosives hitting its face, the android's curses, and Tita's leaping sword slashing at its fingers, twisted its hands with all its might—the android, now severed in two, lay carelessly discarded on the deck, its golden, glowing alchemical blood, bionic organs, and twisted ceramic armor scattered everywhere. The ethereal alien turned to pull its greatsword from the deck—only to be met with an even denser hail of bullets. Tita picked up the chainsaw sword dropped by her battle sister and swung it again with ferocious force. The high-temperature monomolecular blade and the Emperor-forged longsword smoothly sliced ​​into the giant claw. Sparks flew from the rapidly spinning monomolecular chainsaw against the bone-like claw, bone fragments splattering, and blood even spraying onto the exhaust nozzles of Tita's flight pack.

Enraged by the pain, the behemoth swung its arm, sending Tita flying, then reached for its greatsword with a bloodied hand. Aparishia leaped up, her execution axe cleaving the behemoth's knee in two. The captain of the royal guard hurled his spear, and with a thunderous clang, the behemoth's hand, reaching for the greatsword, was struck hard and slid limply off the hilt. The enraged behemoth swung its broken claws, slamming Aparishia and the knights who had come to its aid to the ground. Then, its next strike was deflected in another direction by Hannibal's shield. As a price, the shield's deflection field engine had stopped working, leaving its surface riddled with deep claw marks, rendering it unusable.

With each step it took toward Viktor von Doom, a hail of bullets rained down on it from all directions.

A visible torrent of energy surged from the portal, attempting to connect with the behemoth, like an umbilical cord.

"You've already pulled this trick once."

Regent Victor von Doom disdainfully tossed the eyeball into the air. The previously wildly flailing optic nerves suddenly snapped upright in one direction, like tentacles. The eyeball flew into the path of the corrupting energy, completely absorbing it. Then, Victor von Doom flicked his finger, sending the eyeball flying towards the portal—negligible in comparison—but as the incantation was recited, bundles of nerve fibers began to extend far beyond their original length to both sides of the portal. These optic nerve fiber bundles pierced the flickering glow at the portal's edge like sewing needles. Simultaneously, a blood-red optic nerve fiber bundle emerged from behind the portal; clearly, it was another eyeball that Catherine had taken behind the portal.

With each repetition of the incantation by Victor von Doom, the optic nerve fiber bundles contracted, pulling the edges of the portal toward the center. This was a complete contraction, stitching, and healing; the soul fragments from the priestess Furiel could fill the gaps in the material universe to the greatest extent possible, because these souls had been soaked in the sea of ​​souls, filled with the uncertainties of the ethereal dimension.

The number of Aetheric entities entering the material universe from behind the portal was rapidly decreasing, with limbs and fragments of Aetheric entities constantly flying out of the portal and quickly turning to ash. The radiance emanating from Catherine occasionally flickered from behind the portal's veil, revealing slivers of burning white flame into the material universe. As the portal shrank, the behemoth's power also weakened imperceptibly. When Constantine retrieved his spear and pierced the behemoth's hand a second time, he noticed that its grip had lessened, but this did not stop the behemoth from charging towards the Regent's will—its claws were sliced ​​lengthwise by the spear's blade, and flesh sprouted from the charred cuts, reconnecting the separated muscles—it was attempting to kill Victor von Doom, who was casting a spell, and the others' task was to stop it. All the warriors, including Constantine, tried to distract it. Two deep wounds were cut into the Royal Guard Commander's breastplate and abdominal armor, and his joint servo and flexible sealing metal armor plates were also pierced.

"The portal to the moon. You mentioned that the portal to the moon is related to the Sorcerer Supreme."

"That's just a rift that can be eliminated, a temporary injury to the material universe, completely repairable. Victor is working on it." The Emperor saw a service robot in the distance of the crew cabin aisle slowly approaching Diana, extending its auxiliary short legs and wheels. It then opened its cargo hold, displaying the desserts prepared in the kitchen to the android maid. Diana would then transfer the desserts to a tray, serve them with cutlery, and present them to the Emperor and the witch. With less than thirty minutes until they reached their destination, he didn't know how he would survive the witch's interrogation without some dessert.

"What about the aftermath? I've seen the Kamar-Taj files. In the last hundred years or so, the veil of the material universe has been torn open more and more frequently, and the number of people in the human race with psionic talents has increased," Bayonetta said. "I don't believe Kamar-Taj hasn't discovered the connection between the two."

(End of this chapter)