Marvel Magic Case Files

Captain Miller opened his eyes in the assigned tent.

He lay there, eyes open, barely breathing, until painful memories flooded his brain like molten lead, a stinging pain spreading from the back of his head to his chest. He could breathe again, as if announcing to the world that his life would continue. To him, the disaster on the Event Horizon felt like it had happened just two days ago; he could call out the crew's names and imagine their response—there would be no response. All he had left were the gray combat uniform folded beside his cot and the watch he'd worn on the Lewis and Clark. He would never again be in the tranquility of space; the neighing of horses and the howling wind filled the air—he could barely recall his conversation with the Emperor yesterday, each labored recollection bringing pain and exhaustion. He was so tired, a weariness that seeped from the depths of his soul. He glanced at the watch beside his head and closed his eyes again.

This was the first time he had broken his long-standing disciplined schedule, even though the sounds outside the tent indicated that the Emperor's Royal Guard was planning a migration. It was a caravan, the most powerful caravan on the plains, virtually impervious to attack, now or in the future—the Emperor's Royal Guard had informed him of their upcoming mission before he fell asleep—they would be migrating with the caravan and supplies to find the suitable candidates the Emperor needed. Their destination would be human settlements, not barren deserts and grasslands.

After condemning his laziness for the hundredth time, Captain Miller finally got up.

Breakfast was very simple. Although he had to put the stainless steel coffee pot and the iron pot filled with tomato-braised soybeans on the charcoal fire himself, it was a decent meal for the time. After all, from now on, until the emperor found a permanent residence, all acts of eating would prioritize nutrition over taste.

After breakfast, while aimlessly wandering around, he noticed that the spot where the massive assault transport ship had been moored the day before was completely empty. Hundreds of tons of steel and machinery were nowhere to be seen, only boxes of supplies piled up there, waiting to be loaded onto wagons. He also saw Imperial Guards clad in golden armor taming wild horses on the plains, ordering giant humanoid machines to build wagons, and those Imperial Guards who hadn't started building the wagons working together to lift a huge steel coffin, riddled with cables, onto a massive wagon pulled by eight horses.

Those humanoid machines, taller than the Imperial Guards and carrying cannons and firearms on their shoulders, were perfectly capable of felling trees and transporting goods. Their chainsaw fists and siege pincers, used for cutting armor, could dismantle a tree that had grown for hundreds of years at an astonishing speed. But tasks like building wagons required more dexterous fingers, so they had to wait. Captain Miller found himself never imagining these magnificently armored giants could adapt to this environment.

In his view, these men should be in magnificent palaces, walking on crimson carpets, not heating metal with the exhaust flames of armored vehicles or working wood with daggers and axes, for the jewels adorning their armor were enough to buy an entire city. Yet they performed exceptionally well, even more skillfully than the best carpenters and blacksmiths, which made Captain Miller curious about the origins of these Imperial Guards. After all, nature couldn't have evolved beings three meters tall, twice the width of a healthy man, and still so healthy. The only explanation, as the media claimed, was that the Imperial Guards were super soldiers created by the emperor.

The emperor found him leading a horse that surprised him.

This horse was larger than any wild horse the Imperial Guard had ever found, and Captain Miller didn't think he would be surprised by it. He had seen many tall creatures and machines here, except this horse had wings. The horse was very interested in his collar and stubbornly stretched its neck toward him no matter how the Emperor tried to stop it. Miller didn't mind the huge horse's gentle and endearing behavior, even though the horse's big front teeth were trying to swallow his collar.

"Only in human settlements can suitable children be found," He said. "The time when you see your first student is not far off." The Emperor was still in his armor, and Captain Miller smelled cleaning agent on it. The maid, Captain Miller thought, he could picture her wiping the Emperor's armor with a velvet cloth soaked in cleaning agent. It must have been a comical sight, since the maid was far too short to reach the Emperor's shoulder armor.

Captain Miller did not object to taking the indigenous children away.

After a night's rest, his mind was still swamped with questions. These could be considered trivial matters and could be easily dismissed. He tried his best not to ponder questions like whether the chosen children were ancestors of some future race—questions that could overwhelm one's brain. Besides, in this primitive era, no one could provide better education and living conditions than the emperor, not even the king.

His certainty stemmed entirely from a document the emperor showed him containing a list of supplies to be allocated to him for training his crew. The list included various vaccines impossible to produce in this era, as well as high-calorie foods, primarily candy and chocolate. If they were indeed going to take in native children, these vaccines would prove useful; they wouldn't allow their carefully selected children to die from the infectious diseases of this time. As for the candy and chocolate, he could only assume it was the emperor's personal hobby, and that it could play a significant role in acquiring children—he himself had been allocated a considerable amount.

He didn't know why the Emperor would store so many vaccines in the spaceship's supply crates, and he suspected that the Event Horizon accident might also have been part of the Emperor's plan. He didn't want to, and dared not, ask that question now. Although he knew the Emperor was hiding many things from him, he also knew the Emperor wouldn't let him know things he shouldn't know.

Where did that ship go?

Captain Miller took the candy he had been given out of his pocket.

This delicious and easily absorbed sugar was a strategic resource in this era. Only after he stuffed the unwrapped candy into the horse's mouth did the winged horse quiet down, its large eyes blinking guiltily at the emperor. Pegasus received no reprimand; instead, its master gently stroked its mane. It wasn't summoned in this era, but rather in a time before language and civilization were born, before the first campfires were lit. It had experienced many apocalyptic wars, and the extensive exercise had proven highly effective in reducing its weight.

In other words, it is no longer that overweight horse.

The Emperor extended his hand to Captain Miller, and on his gold-armored palm lay a four-legged creature. It resembled a wind-up frog toy made of gold and machinery, and looked extremely expensive—but Miller didn't believe the Emperor would present him with a cute, expensive aristocratic toy—he wouldn't overlook the technological sophistication beneath its ornate exterior, given its almost animalistic neural reflexes. This was some kind of intelligent creation, beyond conventional technology, and Captain Miller suspected it contained elements that could be called magic.

His guess was remarkably close to the truth. This bronze frog from Wakanda was given to the Emperor by Prince T'Challa following the oracle of the High Priest of the Temple of Bastet. He could almost deduce that the reason this bronze frog was in Wakanda's possession was most likely because he, or the Custodians, had entrusted it to the ancestors of Wakanda—this is the Novikov principle of time travel's self-consistency—He used this bronze frog to open the treasure vault, where he saw what he had shown Stephanie Malik: the cosmic fleet that existed between the dimensions of reality and illusion, vital to all humanity. It wasn't an illusion to deceive mortals, but something real, anchored in that dimensional fragment.

While Mars's space docks could build these spaceships, they were far from meeting His production capacity needs unless Wakanda filled the gap with its own. He had seen T'Challa's ancestors and told them his prophecies to everyone present. He knew why Wakanda was building these ships, and He was absolutely certain that the bronze frog, which had been handed to Him by T'Challa, was His doing.

"It's in the treasury," He said. "The fleet I promised you is also in the treasury, and this is the key to it. Your fleet is also in here, so you don't need to worry about how to spend your crew's training period."

"I'm not surprised by anything anymore," Captain Miller shook his head. Even if someone told him that a giant monster would rise from the sea tomorrow and head towards this place, he wouldn't be surprised. The star had already passed the hills and continued to climb, the light reflecting off the wide river in the distance growing increasingly intense. On this plain, where there weren't many tall trees, the scorching sun would dry them out in an unimaginable way. "Where are we going?"

"Follow this river southeast, there should be a human village there." The emperor patted the white winged horse's head. "We'll find what I'm looking for there. This river is called the Euphrates."

"What time exactly are we?"

"By observing the supernova, we are located around 6000 BC," the emperor said gently. "Fortunately, we have had enough time to train our crew."

Captain Miller remained silent for a moment.

He didn't like the joke; the emperor's answer filled him with despair.

He wasn't a pessimist; he was simply good at preparing for the worst. But the emperor's answer still exceeded his expectations. He admitted his historical knowledge wasn't deep enough—to be precise, he hadn't studied anything beyond modern American history—and he couldn't determine whether human civilization at that point in time could provide enough resources to support the emperor's seemingly absurd plan. In 6000 BC, he didn't know if humans had already emerged from caves or jumped down from trees!

"You said that you had attempted a time jump before I woke up."

"Several times," the emperor corrected.

"What's the furthest time?" Captain Miller pressed on, "I'm just curious if there's some pattern that could allow us to accurately determine the landing point of a time jump."

"Five hundred thousand years ago," the emperor said calmly, "my army and I lived there for a long time and even participated in a war."

Captain Miller couldn't imagine what such an army would have looked like 500,000 years ago. A war that could make an emperor mention it—the enemy certainly wasn't primitive people wielding stone axes and spears.

"Who is the enemy?"

The Emperor's gaze swept across the sun-drenched plains and shrubs, beyond the mountain ridges that obscured the horizon, extending into a distance inaccessible to ordinary eyes. Captain Miller had no idea what He saw, nor could he possibly know that the Emperor and his Royal Guard had once fought against something called a Colossus, capable of traversing towering mountains. Although he had encountered many supernatural events, this mythical, apocalyptic battlefield far exceeded the boundaries of his imagination.

Now He knows everything that even the Supreme Master did not know.

His premonition before leaving Earth aboard the Retribution was correct. This necessary time travel revealed to Him secrets even the Library of Kamar-Taj wouldn't record. Now He knew why Mephisto could never sit on the Seventh Throne, why he always failed in his attempts to control Ghost Rider—because that throne belonged to Him, to the King of Hell, and Ghost Rider was His chosen one and warrior. Odin and Agamotto had fought alongside Him for a common goal—not just against the descending gods. Their war was far grander, an eternal war between the material universe and the illusory dimensions—they had tried His ideas, assembled armies to fight against the descending gods and the invincible. Although the outcome was bitter and filled with betrayal, and even His Royal Guard suffered heavy losses, that experience and that unprecedented war confirmed many conjectures: the outer dimensions are not invincible, the material plane is not immune to invading the outer dimensions, and the eternal war has a possibility of victory. Most importantly, despite the deep pain of betrayal, His experiment still succeeded, allowing a sliver of order to remain in the eternally chaotic dimension, even though it remained evil.

Agamotto attempted to fight against the outer dimensions in his own way, and he failed, failed utterly, leaving behind only Kamar-Taj as a spark of rebellion, besides powering the Emperor. Odin, too, led the Aesir in devouring the legacy of the most powerful organic race in the universe, building the most powerful army in the material universe to fight against the eternal nightmare, but now he too faces defeat. Ragnarok, dominated by the shadows behind the veil, will leave the Aesir barely surviving in the future, their original goals forever forgotten. Odin's refusal to die is a prelude to completing his journey; when he returns to his original point in time, the war against the eternal dimensions will be fought by only one warrior.

"Something that can be called a god." He gripped the sword at his waist—the very sword that had defeated the gods. After a long pause, the emperor spoke again, "You need to learn to ride a horse as soon as possible. We don't have enough saddles right now, so it will be difficult. But we have plenty of time."

"This is the first time I've known you like to joke around. You're joking, aren't you?"