Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1627 Kamar-Taj: Fear

As the team advanced further, the psionic shield seemed to begin to change.

In a fleeting instant, the buildings behind the psionic shield seemed to vanish, and then plants and landscapes not belonging to this plateau terrain began to appear. According to data from reconnaissance drones and other observation methods, even though they were standing in front of the gate of the Sixth Courtyard, the coordinates of the Emperor's attack squad and the target location were constantly changing, as if a piece of space had been forcibly cut off and then glued back together.

The Emperor's approach caused the barrier to visibly bear more pressure. Psionic static electricity ignited on the once completely transparent barrier, and a flash of deep purple ethereal energy almost ignited the air. Even so, the barrier remained incredibly sturdy, far exceeding the protection that the walls of the material universe could provide.

New ammunition supplies have arrived and been relayed through the chain of command. The Royal Guard is ready to direct artillery fire, and precision artillery and guided bombs can accurately target the ever-shrinking psionic shield, even as firing parameters change. Meanwhile, Wanda Maximov has finally received permission to cast a spell—her task is simple: to use non-lethal means to render the arcane mage maintaining the psionic barrier non-irreversibly disabled.

A riot control staff could have done the job, but the arcane mages were still some distance away, and the seemingly flimsy barrier proved insurmountable. Furthermore, given the precedent of arcane mages having their brains burned, the Emperor was unwilling to break the barrier himself. Those arcane mages who hadn't died immediately had repeatedly shown symptoms of intracranial hematomas, and the chances of survival after battlefield craniotomy were slim. The Emperor didn't want to cause further arcane casualties; the Royal Guard called this "a waste of high-value usable assets." Therefore, he was only willing to apply pressure gradually to avoid psychic overload leading to the worst possible outcome.

And the Emperor seemed to have some deeper reason for his reluctance to use his psychic powers, though Wanda Maximoff was currently unaware of it—although her spiritual intuition told her it was related to the Emperor bringing her to Kamar-Taj, she didn't want to think about these complex factors hidden behind the scenes—she only knew this was a test, and she needed to choose the appropriate spell from the hundreds she had learned within seconds, then modify it to better achieve her tactical objective. This time, no one would whisper in her ear to point out which book contained the spell and psychic arts, and she also needed to coordinate with the Royal Guard to cast the spell during the brief gap when the psychic barrier contracted, allowing her magic to bypass the barrier and reach its target.

The roar of supersonic gunships could be heard in the distance, and the Imperial Guard commander Amon raised his finger as a countdown.

She chanted the incantation rapidly, drawing upon the crimson spiritual energy stored within the snake bone staff.

The moment the countdown ended, Wanda Maximoff's mind plunged headlong into the psionic barrier burning with deep purple flames. Time then slowed, and the world seemed to stand still in her eyes. Although she understood this was a subjective image constructed by her own mental power and projected only within her own mind, the feeling of the entire world freezing was quite captivating.

She blinked quickly, remembering her mission.

The plasma warhead overload explosion blanketed the psionic barrier with red and blue plasma, while the thick smoke from the burning propellant filled the air between the barriers with countless electric currents, like dark clouds concealing thunder in a storm. Tiny shrapnel burned to ashes on the barrier, and the entire sky overhead seemed to be filled with crimson stars.

Freed from the constraints of her body, she moved very fast.

She no longer relied on food or cellular energy to power her muscles, no longer bound by her relatively weak body. At this moment, she was free, as if she could reach the furthest boundary her consciousness could ever cross in a single step. She felt that with just one step, she could reach the edge of the Milky Way, watching countless stars burn and collapse over billions of years, finally becoming gravitational black holes. Few could resist this heartfelt temptation, leading a psyker to unrestrainedly draw energy from the Aether Sea, for this temptation stemmed from the biological yearning for freedom. This temptation constantly tormented every psyker. Wanda Maximov silently recited meditation incantations, recalling her mission, trying to keep her sanity from being lost in the Aether winds blowing from behind the veil.

The etheric predators couldn't get close to her; they longed to use their deformed tentacles, claws, and pincers to hook into her skin and muscles, tear her eyeballs, and slash her until she bled profusely. The Emperor's psychic radiance warmed her, and countless terrifying, invisible predators, unaware of her presence, were burned to ashes by the ensuing psychic celestial bodies, completely erased from the conceptual level. Emotional aggregates that had never grasped the concept of life could never be reborn in the Aetheric Sea. Unlike the violent heat radiating onto etheric entities, Wanda Maximov felt a warm, vast, and somewhat indifferent love in this pure radiance, allowing her spirit to coalesce in the etheric winds and maintain her physical form.

She blinked, and her metaphorical hand parted the mist, disappearing into the mind of a mystic.

Wanda Maximov was facing a symbolic piano, with far more white and black keys than fifty-two and thirty-six respectively, and the number of keys was constantly increasing. She was interpreting the spiritual imagery she saw in her own way, much like a psychologist conducting a Rorschach inkblot test on a patient; she would see what she wanted to see. She understood that each key represented a memory in the sorcerer's mind that could evoke a specific emotion, and her fingers traced across the keys, searching for the emotion she desired.

Fear is an essential emotion in the path of biological evolution. Even the most primitive single-celled organisms possess the survival instinct to seek advantage and avoid harm. It is this advanced emotion of fear that enables intelligent organisms to follow the most basic survival logic, obtain enough opportunities to pass on their genetic material, and continue their species.

She played several similar keys, evoking corresponding scales and emotions.

Then she recited the incantation she had prepared long ago.

Mordo saw an arcane mage maintaining the core of the barrier suddenly stand up, pale-faced, his forehead covered in cold sweat, his face filled with terror, as if he had seen the most horrible and terrifying thing in the world. Orange-red sparks snapped in the arcane mage's palm, like a string stretched to its limit. A wave of psionic backlash echoed faintly, almost imperceptibly, in the Aetheric Sea. Then, an aura of fear spread like dominoes to all the arcane clerics maintaining the core psionic barrier, as inevitably as an acute infectious disease.

The psychic energy, which should have been directed towards the multi-layered ritual, surged outwards without restraint. The mages' eyes, mouths, and noses were filled with blinding psychic power, and the stable psychic energy in the air transformed into a deep blue static charge. Other mages who had not yet been affected also felt fear from the psychic energy mingling with the air.

Almost simultaneously, he closed his eyes, and the astral body lunged at the arcane mage who had initially caused the commotion.

In the mind of the almost mad sorcerer, Mordo saw a blurry, heart-like object pulsating with a crimson glow. A terrifying, blood-red phantom with a festering face surged forth with each beat, and in that instant, he understood the cause and effect. He summoned the weapon, summoned through contracts and rituals and growing alongside his own psychic energy, into his hand. Then, he symbolically took a deep breath and plunged into the crimson ocean of psychic energy. Like the pressure of diving into the deep sea, the deeper Mordo descended, the greater the psychic pressure became, and the less he could see—his ears throbbed with pain, as if he were truly conducting an unprotected deep-sea dive—he couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't even change his posture; any distraction would banish him from this crimson sea. All he could do was stretch out his arm, hoping the weapon would pierce that heart.

The precision-guided bomb struck like a hammer against blast-proof glass, instantly spreading dense, burning cracks across the seemingly indestructible barrier. Tatiana had earned that honor. She hastily fired a shot at the barrier, the explosive shell detonating on it. A chain reaction erupted instantly, shattering the psionic barrier into finger-sized fragments that then drifted slowly down like burning parchment, like a blanket of gray snow falling without a trace.

Wanda Maximov was overwhelmed by dizziness. Pink and light blue sparks flickered wildly and erratically beneath her tightly closed eyelids. Her diaphragm contracted violently, and a wave of nausea rose from her stomach, causing her to gag. Her legs buckled, and she nearly collapsed to the ground, but a hand encased in metal armor gripped her arm firmly, pulling her back to her knees in the thin snow. She felt the psionic suppressor in her neck whirring with a faint buzzing sound inaudible to most. As the dizziness subsided, she finally managed to open her eyes, exhaling a breath of hot, acidic air from lungs that felt as if they hadn't breathed for centuries.

"teacher……"

She turned her head, but was disappointed to find that the person supporting her was the Royal Guard, Amphitryon.

"My lord is ahead." The royal guard, Amphitrite, released his grip on her arm.

Wanda Maximov saw her teacher take a few steps forward, drawing his holy sword from his waist. Golden psionic points burned like flames on the blade, making the ruby ​​on the Emperor's power armor gleam. This ruby ​​was sourced from the planet HAT-P-7b in the constellation Cygnus, a planet over a thousand light-years from Earth, one of the faintest planets ever discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope, with a reflectivity of less than 0.03. The planet's clouds were composed of corundum, which is ruby ​​and sapphire, but Wanda knew it wasn't that simple. This gem was part of the celestial psionic arcane art the Emperor had constructed on his armor; under the influence of his own psionic energy, most bullets that approached him would inexplicably deflect, weaken, or even lose kinetic energy.

(End of this chapter)