Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1618 Kamar-Taj Assault

Wanda Maximov smelled a faint metallic odor emanating from the electrostatic oxygen supply device in the air.

She also caught a whiff of wine. When her teacher bought her the penthouse, he had arranged for a temperature-controlled wine cellar to be built, since wine tasting was an elective—whether she planned to stay with him after leaving prison or join the Avengers to gain fame and fortune, these courses would help her shed the limited perspective of a country girl from Eastern Europe. However, Wanda Maximov was making slow progress in this course, leading her to believe she was unfit for high society, but she was very familiar with the aroma of this wine, because it was one that the emperor had drunk. She was struck by how it wasn't as good as the Romanée-Conti or other wines the emperor frequently drank, and how its style clashed with the entire cellar.

That's a pine-scented wine from Greece.

She combined the details of the woman's clothing, accessories, and armor with the clues to reach her conclusion. In fact, the smell of this wine did not exist. She had only extracted a concept from the halo emanating from the woman by probing her consciousness into the Ethereal Sea from another dimension. It was like receiving a specific photon from the sun while standing on Earth, a completely random method of prophecy that appeared to rely on intuition at the material universe level.

"You are Athena. He mentioned you to me." Wanda Maximov looked around. Everything in the cabin was frozen; only she and Athena could move. However, she showed no intention of standing up, and the crackling crimson lightning between her fingers showed no sign of abating. "You stopped time here? What do you intend to do?"

“I haven’t stopped time here. Everything here is a scene constructed from your memories, including him. From the outside, it just looks like you blinked once in your seat, nothing more.” Athena gently stroked the shield ornament on the Emperor’s armor. Wanda Maximov blinked hard, making sure the scene wouldn’t disappear on its own. She now only hoped that the Emperor or someone else would notice her abnormality and rescue her—even though she knew the chances were slim, she still hoped for it—she didn’t think Athena’s presence here was anything good. If this could be said openly, why not just tell the Emperor instead of communicating with her?

"He always carried my blessings with him. He is my champion, girl, and also the champion of this planet."

"What do you want to do?"

Wanda Maximov repeated herself, but Athena's gaze easily pierced her weakness. The ability to silently penetrate her mental defenses and project complex thoughts far beyond telepathy into a specific person's mind demonstrated that Athena's power far surpassed hers. Even so, she hadn't given up on unleashing her pent-up ethereal energy, for the Emperor had told her never to give up the fight. Seeing her like this, Athena smiled—just as she was about to say something, the Emperor, seated in the command seat, suddenly opened his eyes, then grabbed Athena's arm, his armored fingers digging deep into her arm muscles—the whole world seemed to come alive, all microscopic particles propelled by an invisible force, time beginning to advance along the path of macroscopic physics. This scene surprised even the goddess of wisdom, Athena, and Wanda Maximov's expression indicated that it was entirely unrelated to her.

"You shouldn't try to manipulate her," he said calmly. "You can only do so with my permission."

"I will not apologize," Athena took a deep breath. "You heard her prayer and responded. You should accept your identity and acknowledge that you are the same kind of person as me."

"I'm not finished." He released his grip on Athena's hand. "Don't try anything I won't allow. This is the last warning. Whatever our relationship may be, standing against me means becoming my enemy."

Wanda Maximov jerked up from her seat, trying to catch her breath, but the seatbelt pulled her back down, constricting her shoulders and chest. She burped first, then coughed violently until she felt like she was going to cough up her lungs. "Hiss...cough cough." The coughing subsided, and she made some less-than-ladylike sounds, trying to ease the pain in her throat and ribs. "I'm so sorry, teacher. I don't know..."

The emperor opened his eyes and glanced at her, then closed them again to recuperate.

Wanda Maximoff ultimately didn't ask the question, believing she might never know whether the dream was real or not. This wasn't a good time to disturb the Emperor. To complete this mission, she had been assigned many magical items. These magical items could provide her with considerable assistance, each priceless—including, but not limited to, a glass bottle filled with countless stars, capable of containing and releasing a creature at will; a pair of white gloves that could heal her wounds with the blood of enemies; a snake-bone staff with an added psychic magic module (appearing as a gemstone), capable of releasing phosphorescent magical fire for a set time; and an amulet carved into a golden eagle, capable of protecting her from direct psychic attacks.

She knew she should seize the time to learn how to use these things instead of dozing off in her seat.

"I didn't expect you to be here."

"We didn't expect to see you here, Victor von Doom. You should be on the moon right now. Are you here to steal the wine cellar's collection?" Bayonetta sat in the emperor's chair in the office, her long legs propped up on the desk, the trigger guard of her pistol hanging on her finger, the muzzle pointing downwards, wobbling slightly. "Where is Constantine and his army of genetically modified soldiers? He only brought ordinary soldiers; this is not how he should approach war."

"He has a strong self-destructive tendency in this matter, I'm sure you've felt it." Regent Victor von Doom poured himself a glass of wine. "Hmm, Romanée-Conti? In short, his reason will keep him from destruction, but his emotions... to be precise, the emotions he attaches to himself, the emotions he believes he should have, give him a slight self-destructive tendency. He can control himself, but a sense of atonement might lead him to do something irrational. He is very important to us, and any risk should be eliminated."

"The royal guards are with him," Joan of Arc said. "They are his bodyguards."

"Yes, but the Imperial Guard cannot disobey any of his orders. This is the logic of action written into the genetic code."

"Did you participate in the design of the Royal Guard?" Bayonetta asked, only to receive a negative answer. "Well, only he would do something so unreasonable." She shrugged. "I thought you would interfere with the design and manufacture of the Royal Guard, at least to keep him from getting out of control."

“That wouldn’t be considered out of control; he’ll calculate the risks reasonably.” Victor von Doom swirled the red wine, examining the color at the rim of the glass in the candlelight. “But from the Regent’s perspective, I won’t allow him to take any risks, not even the smallest one.”

"Perhaps you should make him dinner?" Bayonetta said sarcastically. "You might get bird droppings falling from the sky while walking on the street, why don't you just order all the birds to hop around on the ground?"

"Thank you very much for your suggestion," Viktor von Doom said. "We cannot rule out the possibility that enemy biological and chemical weapons units are spreading diseases by infecting migratory birds. This has happened more than once, and we have also found related plans at the U.S. Army biological research institute in Albania. If necessary, I will get all the birds in the world to walk on land."

"It seems the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj are all lacking in etiquette," Bayonetta scoffed. "I won't stop him from doing anything, and your presence here won't change anything. It seems you know far more about this mission than I do." She tapped a document on the table with her finger. "This document only mentions the Sorcerer Supreme's retirement plans, and I'm certain this mission is related to those plans. What else do you know, Victor von Doom?"

Regent Victor von Doom hesitated for a moment.

"He made a promise to the Sorcerer Supreme that, no matter what, the Sorcerer Supreme would return to the Sea of ​​Souls undisturbed. Now some external force is interfering with this process, so he must do something that those behind the veil cannot imagine to ensure that the Sorcerer Supreme remains undisturbed in the Sea of ​​Souls in his pursuit of eternity."

"What price will he have to pay?"

"There's no cost to him; he just needs to overcome his psychological barriers." Viktor von Doom paused. "He's done that. What I'm concerned about is the aftermath. Let him go back to Oxfordshire or that South American island for a while. I'll handle the work on the Yugoslav Federation, the Immortal City, and Mars. Let him be happy for a while. Ragnarok is approaching; he won't have much time to enjoy what a human being should have."

The airflow from the assault transport boat's engines dispersed the snow on the hillside, and the hard permafrost softened under the heat of the thrust reversers. The assault transport boat lowered its landing gear but did not fully land; the aircraft hovered in mid-air, with the lower edge of the fuselage less than a meter above the ground. As the magnetic clamps disengaged, the armored personnel carriers carried in the forward cargo hold of the assault transport boat crashed onto the softened permafrost and gray-black rocks. The combat sisters who jumped out of the open side hatch immediately formed a defensive formation around the assault transport boat.

As the aircraft retracted its landing gear and began to take off, the women covered each other as they entered the armored personnel carriers one by one. The sounds of ammunition belts being loaded into the machine gun turrets were incessant, and the clicking of the automatic loaders cocking their weapons echoed from the vehicles. Similar scenes occurred one after another. The extremely rigorous training and military discipline enabled the combat sisters and ordinary soldiers to complete the landing and deployment tasks with perfect precision, and many squads even surpassed previous training records in their completion speed.

Amon turned his head to the side, looking down at the deployment of the Battle Sisters and the First Secret Regiment through the display screen.

To his right was the emperor's golden assault transport ship, piloted by the Royal Guard's Amphitriteon, who served as a wingman and electronic warfare aircraft. As snow dust blown up by the air currents from the snow-capped peaks drifted toward the gunship, a shield, barely visible to the naked eye, flashed past, melting the ice and snow into hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

"If all air defense systems are rendered inoperable, the enemy will likely perceive it as a natural phenomenon."

"The energy burst on the moon can be explained by this." Amon rested his fingers on the holster of his pistol. As a heat-ray weapon, this secondary weapon meets the requirements of "stagnation, portability, and firepower density," capable of destroying both armored and organic targets. "Order the transport planes to airdrop fire fortifications and heavy artillery to the marked points outside Kamar-Taj headquarters. Order the First Class Regiment's Alpha Squad, Beta Squad, Gamma Squad, and the Sisterhood to prepare for a breakthrough and await the Emperor's arrival at the rendezvous point."

"Top Secret Unit, please respond."

"Sisters' Convent, please respond..."

(End of this chapter)