Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1625 Kamar-Taj: A Dream of the Past

These stairs are really too long.

The mountain path, built along the ridge, had thousands of steps. Wanda Maximov had to use her cane for support as she struggled to keep up with the Emperor's increasingly rapid pace. It was as if muffled explosions echoed continuously from the valley floor ahead, obscuring the starlight reaching Kamar-Taj. The further Wanda Maximov went, the more she could feel the despair, anger, and fear surging within the Aether Sea, shimmering in the air. Each time she touched those shimmering emotions, she felt a sense of spiritual fulfillment. The Emperor's rage flickered like flames in the air, making the high-altitude winds scorching hot, even burning her fingers.

She looked down at her fingers and realized it was an illusion; her fingers were still clean and intact.

This is merely a metaphor used to describe the Aetheric Sea, not a real physical phenomenon. Just as a sighted person cannot explain the color of the sky to someone born blind, Wanda Maximoff was using a method her brain could comprehend to explain the amorphous and indescribable things she saw. Just as a thousand different readers will arrive at different conclusions after reading the same work, the Aetheric Sea is different in everyone's eyes. The only certainty is that it is a crazy and dangerous dimension, a chaotic, spirit-dominated mirror reflection of the material universe.

"I'm a little confused."

She muttered to herself, gripping her snake-bone staff tightly, silently chanting Hermesian incantations in search of inner truth. But she could indeed sense the Emperor's wrath, for it was a real, physical phenomenon manifested through psychic diffraction. Her doubts didn't last long; before even ascending another flight of stairs, she witnessed the truth—a filthy, gaunt ascetic, draped in tattered yet luxurious cloth, his beard and hair sprinkled with incense, entered the plaza under the guidance of a mystic, chanting incantations of offering. Following the instructions, they sat cross-legged in the center of the plaza around a mystic dressed in black robes.

Wanda Maximov saw, beneath the luxurious robes, the emaciated bodies of the ascetics, riddled with sores, blisters, and other diseases, their flesh slightly mutated. These ascetics endured the agony of these mutations with absolute unwavering will. Their sole purpose was selfless dedication. In return for this dedication, their remains would be cremated into inorganic matter and then used to build stone bricks to pave the dungeons of Kamar-Taj. Their bodies and their souls would forever fight against the indescribable forces that humanity could not resist. They were the most devout believers in the perpetuation of humanity, and even if they did not fully understand how this principle was achieved, they knew that the greatest threat to the continuation of the human race transcended time and space, eternally threatening all intelligent races in the universe.

They knew that all their sacrifices were for a potentially magnificent future.

Immediately afterwards, Wanda Maximov heard two explosions that occurred simultaneously.

The first explosion seemed to ring right next to her ears; she could even see the blinding flash of the thermobaric warhead erupting above her head, the terrifying heat almost scorching her scalp. The second explosion seemed to come from afar, mixed with the exhaust fumes of hot metal and propellant, and the crisp, refreshing wind of the high plateau. She observed the same event happening at the same time from different perspectives. This feeling was novel; she had never before ventured into the sea of ​​the collective unconscious. At this moment, she felt as if she had entered someone's mind, fully experiencing that person's emotions and thoughts, because it was dangerous.

Now, some force protected her mind, preventing the thoughts of others from corrupting her. It was almost a dream; she felt as if she were diving into the deep sea, the water a pale emerald green, turning turquoise as she descended, and finally becoming an almost black, muddy deep green. The force was like a deep-sea submersible with a round forward porthole, emitting a pillar of light in the dark depths, its sturdy alloy shell withstanding water pressure that no mortal could withstand—a metaphor. She knew the Emperor was helping her, so she intended to see more—Karmar-Taj held many secrets, many of which the ascetics did not know, yet she could see why these ascetics had come here to become a Kamar-Taj acolyte.

Because of poverty, war, famine, injustice, and superstition.

These ascetics were not all highly educated; they lacked even what she and Pietro had learned and experienced in prison. Their childhoods were filled with hunger and ignorance until the Sorcerer Supreme pulled them out of the mire and taught them the creed. Their feeble talents could not grasp profound wisdom, their wisdom was insufficient to comprehend overly grand goals, so the Sorcerer Supreme taught them the only wisdom they could accept: the creed that perpetuates humanity.

They worship this creed as if it were a deity, and they worship the Supreme Master who practices this creed. From their perspective, the Supreme Master is equivalent to a deity walking among humans, and the deity's commandment requires them to dedicate everything to maintaining the survival of humanity. Therefore, they believe in and fulfill this seemingly abstract creed.

They worship but cannot understand; they understand but cannot achieve.

She tasted the flavor of dark humor on her tongue, a flavor as bitter as snow powder contaminated by thick smoke.

Their countless ascetic practices were all for the sake of fulfilling one wish: to witness the arrival of the hope promised to them by the Supreme Master. And so, on a night more than twenty years ago, revelation came. Wanda Maximov saw that winter night in 1995, ascetics gathered in the square at the foot of the mountain, sitting on the stone floor covered with a thin layer of snow. The small amount of warmth provided by the braziers around them kept them from freezing—they threw myrrh and other spices into the braziers, and the pungent smoke irritated the eyes and noses of the onlookers—their chanting and prayers aroused the curiosity of foreign tourists living in the surrounding area, while also puzzling the local residents, because that day was not a traditional festival or celebration, and the locals did not know why these ascetics, who usually wandered the streets and alleys and smeared their skin with ashes and spices, would gather on this day.

Wanda Maximov saw tourists raising their cameras in the distance.

The scene before her eyes froze quickly, eventually ending up in someone's hands. The photograph then remained in a travel album for several years before being given to a friend of the photographer. The unlaminated photograph yellowed and faded in the air, but the image before Wanda Maximov remained frozen in that day.

After the person who received the photograph passed away, their children sorted through their belongings and put it up for auction on a secondhand website. Within days, the travel album was purchased by a folklore professor who claimed to be from Massachusetts. When the album's current owner, the granddaughter of the recipient, arrived at the café, the folklore professor turned the pages with his long, slender fingers, and Wanda Maximov's perspective finally changed, no longer confined to a small photograph.

This relieved her, and she then realized that she hadn't breathed for over a decade.

Then, to her surprise, she discovered that the person sitting on the other side of the table was someone she knew well.

Long, black hair, eyes that shone like obsidian stars, just as she saw now. She heard the folklore professor explain the location of each photograph in a gentle, captivating voice, as if he had personally experienced it, even able to describe the surrounding scenes and people at the time the photos were taken. As time passed, the voice gradually faded away, like the woman sitting across the coffee table, captivated by the professor's charm, her eyes glued to his fingers and face, unable to concentrate on the details of his words.

"Why are you interested in this photo album, sir?" the real estate agent asked with feigned interest. "You don't seem like the type to be interested in this kind of thing. Is it because you plan to collect the information and write about it, or is there some unknown connection between us from a previous generation?"

Upon hearing this question, the folklore professor looked up and stared directly into her eyes.

"Because I am here, in this photograph." A stray dog ​​sat on the side of the street, and she followed the real estate agent's gaze to the stray dog ​​staring intently at him through the shop window. "Get out, messenger of chaos. You don't deserve a place in my memory, and this is not a place for you to weave secret spells." Then she awoke, as if after a long journey, she had stepped onto another level, leaving her footprints on the thin snow she had never set foot on before.

She thought of Cassandra, the priestess of Apollo, from the ancient Greek fable.

As a prophetic woman in ancient Greek mythology who was not heeded, when the Trojans distributed the spoils after the Trojan War, the Trojan women looked at Cassandra in awe, recalling her prophecy of destruction; but faced with their tears, Cassandra could only offer a resentful mockery, carrying the sorrow of her homeland's destruction. Others could not see the horrors she witnessed, nor could they fathom her visions beyond earth and beyond galaxies with mortal wisdom. Her candid recounting of the truth would be accused of being the ravings of a madman, and her altruistic advice would be twisted into selfish hypocrisy. Wanda Maximov asked herself, did she ascend this ladder because she deeply believed in the emperor's prophecy, or simply because the emperor was her teacher and she trusted him implicitly?

"I'm a little confused."

Wanda Maximov muttered, looking lost. Her body, covered in sweat beneath her deep red leather jacket, was quickly dried by the high-altitude chill that carried the smell of propellant fuel. She had a fever and moved mechanically, following in the footsteps of the Guardsman Amon as she continued climbing the steps.

“My lord, I think Ms. Maximov’s condition needs attention.” Amon frowned, pressing a few small buttons on Wanda Maximov’s collar, and the thin energy cables began to hum. “The ether density here is too high; it’s easy for adverse reactions to occur. I think activating the psionic suppressor and setting it to the appropriate level might solve the problem. You’re feeling much better now, Ms. Maximov.”

"I……"

She walked mechanically, her eyes unfocused, like a newborn baby opening its eyes for the first time. Then, her consciousness instinctively rushed towards the lighthouse in the chaos, realizing where she was, who she was, and what she was there to do.

"I understand, teacher."

You don't know enough, Wanda. You don't know why I brought you here instead of Bayonetta or Joan of Arc.

(End of this chapter)