Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1731 Dreams and the Past

She lay on the soft mattress, darkness enveloping the room, with only the faint light from the small nightlight in the hallway seeping in through the crack in the door. The villa was quiet; Salomon hadn't spent the night there. He didn't stay in this villa, and Natasha didn't know where he went. He would always leave after their lovemaking, and Diana would come in to clean the damp sheets and blankets.

She felt sore all over and drowsy, and the mattress supporting her body felt like it was swallowing her whole.

She closed her eyes groggily and began to fall.

The fall seemed endless, her consciousness churning within countless fragments of memory, the sunlight of her youth once again piercing through the leaves and falling into her eyes. Natasha fell into the darkness, unaware of what she was seeing, until the familiar sound of gunfire pulled her back to reality.

Gunshots. Natasha heard gunshots.

She instinctively leaped to her feet, only to find herself barefoot on scorching gravel. Gunfire rang out in the distance, as if she were on a battlefield. The scene before her seemed distorted by the sweltering air rising from the summer concrete road; all she could see was a golden figure charging across the crimson desert. Beside this colossal golden demigod, a heavily armored giant enveloped in flames charged toward a mountain-like object on the horizon.

Bizarre forms densely filled her vision, attempting to block the golden-armored demigod's path, but without exception, they were all knocked down, sliced, and crushed. She tried to make out the appearance of those strange forms, but a warning from the depths of her soul made her look away. Natasha discovered that there was no sun here, but the scorching heat still seeped into her skin, contrasted with a chill that came from her very soul.

She couldn't make out the shape of the enormous object on the horizon, only hearing the frantic clanging of the brass bells on the skyscraper-like clock tower, like a battle horn. The gunshots jolted her nerves like her heartbeat. She realized she was naked, with no clothing to shield her from the cold and her vision.

She instinctively scanned her surroundings, searching for cover, only to discover that the so-called rocks in this desert were actually bizarre piles of deformed skeletons and red sandstone fused together. Ignorance shielded her reason, and as she looked away, she immediately forgot what she had seen. Something, something invisible, took shape through the fear seeping from her soul; that thing had an androgynous, beautiful face, and a lascivious dance and an overpowering, nauseating musk flowed from her thoughts, taking form in ignorance, fear, and desire.

"You crave pleasure, don't you?" the thing said in her voice, continuing to strike lewd poses. "Why don't you just enjoy it?"

Natasha opened her mouth, finding herself unable to refuse. Her desire, ignited by supernatural forces, was fueled by an endless thirst and itch that spread from the depths of her bones; she desperately wanted to infuse something into her body. Before she could react, a deafening gunshot rang in her ears, and the grotesque, deformed, yet darkly alluring body was shattered into pieces.

She turned her head and found her vision burning. A black-armored giant, surrounded by a halo of flames, walked past her on crimson sand, the terrifying heat igniting the air and her lungs. Terrified, she averted her gaze, instantly forgetting the burning figure. Memories formed voids, the edges of her thoughts smoldered, and Natasha could almost smell the burning of her cerebral cortex emanating from her nostrils.

"Don't look." A pair of rough hands covered her eyes. The person's tone and physical contact felt familiar. "Don't listen."

When she regained consciousness, everything was dark.

She could hear the breathing of the people around her and smell their sweat. In this cramped and confined space, only a few tiny cracks let in a cool breeze to keep her from suffocating. With three dull thuds under her feet, a tiny spark ignited before her eyes. She saw a dense crowd of men in gleaming bronze armor standing before her, all staring at her.

Natasha realized that she was merely seeing through this man's eyes what he had once seen. She noticed the armor on these people was riddled with wounds, and even the strongest man's eyes were filled with weariness.

"Brothers, listen carefully to what I have to say," said the man holding the torch. "Tonight we will make the Trojans pay for their crimes in blood. Tonight we will hold the power of slaughter. Think of your wives and children. Ten years of bloody war, they have not been able to sleep a wink because of our lives. They are no longer young, but we are still here. Do as I say, and you can be reunited."

The men donned Corinthian helmets with deep red bristles, the meager light barely illuminating their eyes. They gripped gleaming short swords and carried shields. There were only a few of them, but each possessed astonishing courage and strength.

"Diomedes, Menelaus, Agamemnon," he recited the names of the warriors one by one. He paused when he spoke of the last one, a boy whose eyes burned with vengeance, bearing a striking resemblance to the famous hero. "Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. The brothers of Hector are yours, avenge your father, my dearest friend. Do not let pain stop the fight, do not fear the glory that awaits. Remember why we live, remember where we are going, remember what we desire, remember why we fight."

"We will listen to you, Odysseus."

The speaker lowered his head and looked at the bronze helmet on his knee.

The firelight illuminated the helmet, and through the reflection of the bronze helmet, Natasha saw a pair of familiar black eyes.

"I have the right to be selfish just this once, for the sake of everything I am about to give, Athena." The owner of those eyes stared at the helmet, as if looking at Natasha hidden behind endless time. This feeling terrified Natasha, and she tried to hide herself. She heard the man whisper, "I have the right to live for myself just once. For Penelope, for Telemachus, for my wife and son."

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Natasha Romanov saw him again the next day at noon.

A terrifying dream haunted her all night; she witnessed a massacre unfolding before her eyes, yet was powerless to stop it. She saw supernatural phenomena accompanying the warriors, saw an infant thrown from the city walls, smashing to pieces on the ground, but she could do nothing. When she awoke, only remnants of last night's dream remained, like ripples gradually fading on a calm lake; unless she consciously tried to recall it, she could barely remember what she had seen.

"It's just a dream," she told herself. "No, you know this isn't a dream. Dreams are fake, but some things really happened." She saw him sitting at the dining table, flipping through a book bound in old leather, its pages yellowed and blackened with a musty smell, as if dust and crumbs would fall at the slightest turn.

Salomon looked up, his obsidian-like eyes fixed on Natasha.

"Good morning, Ms. Romanov," the old butler said in a loud voice. "It seems you slept very well."

Natasha instinctively pulled her thin silk nightgown tighter, and asked somewhat awkwardly, "Is there any food?"

She felt she hadn't enjoyed such a comfortable sleep in years.

There was no pressure, only the soft bed and the quiet darkness. She suddenly remembered what Diana had said yesterday. Everything in this family was prepared for her, or more precisely, for her child. She had always felt that the name Diana had given her sounded very familiar, but two days of indulgence had left her without the energy to think about it, until last night in her dream, when she heard that name again.

"Of course." The old butler nodded with a smile. "Would you like some fried bacon, master? It's almost lunchtime, and if I'm not mistaken, you haven't had breakfast yet."

"You guessed right, old man." Salomon closed his book. "Now I want some warm sugar and oil."

The old butler reached for two plates filled with food and two bottles of chilled orange juice on the automatic food cart and placed them in front of Salomon and Natasha. He gave Natasha a kind smile, like a grandfather addressing a child. "Ms. Diana will take good care of you, Ms. Romanov. You need energy."

Natasha picked up a thin slice of fried bacon and stuffed it into her mouth, making a crunching sound as she chewed.

"It's delicious, thank you." Seeing Natasha begin her meal, the old butler politely nodded to his mistress. He left the food cart there and departed the dining room with a thick stack of documents. A cool morning breeze drifted through the greenery and sunlight of the backyard, flowing into the villa and fluttering the white silk curtains. Natasha sighed contentedly, relaxing completely in her chair to ease her aching muscles.

"I do not understand."

"What?"

Why did you choose to hide here?

Natasha poured herself and Salomon a glass of orange juice, her loose silk nightgown draped naturally, exposing her beautiful body to the air. "Besides being the Emperor, you have another identity. You could hide in your Oxfordshire estate, watching Victor von Doom face challenges from NATO and home, and then appear at the right moment. But now you've chosen to hide in Texas, using this identity that's been a facade for over a hundred years. It doesn't make sense."

"My enemy isn't human; in fact, humans aren't the greatest threat. There are things behind the veil searching for me, things that fear what I'm about to do." Salomon picked up his glass and took a sip. He pretended not to see Natasha's gaze fixed on the book, and casually pushed it away. Diana would take the book after she finished dealing with the household chores at the villa.

"I believe in Bayonetta and Joan of Arc. But neither the Emperor, King Arthur the Avenger, nor Salomon could do without using power from outer dimensions. Now that I'm hiding here, isolated from outer dimensions, I can escape their sight. They can't know what I'm doing, but I can monitor their plot to dismantle the material universe."

"For eight thousand years, have you always been this cautious? As a mortal, not a god with extraordinary powers?"

Salomon gave him an affirmative look.

“These words would be even more convincing if you were wearing a tinfoil hat,” Natasha said with a laugh. “Are they Greys or Lizardmen? I always felt that ‘Lizardmen’ referred to the Skrulls, but this shouldn’t be a conspiracy theory.”

"Nick Fury once thought humanity's greatest threat was terrorist organizations, then he thought it was an alien fleet from space. But neither of these is the truth. Humanity's greatest threat is what came to Earth with Thanos's fleet—a catastrophe for all intelligent races. Now they've diverted a small portion of their attention from the Eternal Blood War to focus on humanity—the appearance of the Infinity Stones on Earth is no coincidence, but the result of countless conspiracies. They threw out bait to lure Thanos into attacking Earth. They knew humanity would never give up such a treasure, and they knew I would stand up and resist. Then, they could find me and kill me."

Not a single mistake, not a single poem, not a single post, not a single piece of content, not a single look!

Natasha did not voice any further doubts.

Regarding Thanos's alien fleet, ever since the Emperor privately warned nations worldwide through Regent Victor von Doom, governments around the world have held their own opinions. Even institutions with deep-space observation capabilities cannot determine whether the uniformly moving, reflective object in the Emperor's data is a meteorite or an alien fleet.

However, because of the emperor's power in outer space, no one dared to completely refute his statements.

Guided by the ideology of "mutual destruction," the five permanent members of the UN Security Council all possess "dead hand" systems—submarine-launched nuclear warheads. The Emperor also possesses a "dead hand"—nuclear warheads suspended in Earth's orbit. Military experts estimate that giant distributed nuclear weapons launched from outer space are technically difficult to intercept, and no one knows exactly how many warheads the Emperor possesses. With nuclear weapons, the Emperor's words carry considerable weight.

This put some countries in a rather awkward position regarding their relationship with Yugoslavia, as they could neither affirm nor deny the threat. Agreeing with the emperor would leave them politically and commercially disadvantaged, while denial would result in their exclusion from Yugoslavia's cooperation list and the loss of access to the science and technology the emperor was willing to share.

"Odin is dying. He has lived for over half a million years, and the dark forces he once suppressed are about to rise again." Salomon didn't even look up, as if he already knew the answer to this question. "The Asgardian Empire's plan to fight against the outer dimensions is about to fail, and the aftershocks of this failure could destroy Earth and humanity. All we can do is wait, and then learn from this failure and gain strength."

Tell me, do you have a plan?

"I have a plan, and the key pieces have already been placed."

"Hearing you say that puts my mind at ease." Natasha tilted her head and picked up her fork again. "You always have a way, don't you?"

"You trust me too much, Natasha. I'm not a god; I can't solve every problem."

"So far, you haven't failed. Unlike Tony, whose plans always cause trouble, like Ultron." Natasha pointed her fork at Salomon. "Do you know why you've never been able to fit into Stark and Rogers' group? Your mind is more dangerous than your abilities. Even after Wanda and Pietro joined the Avengers, they still seemed out of place—Tony thought it was because they hadn't let go of their hatred—Maximoff no longer needs to draw power from hatred. Only Nick Fury realized that the psychological modifications Wanda and Pietro underwent were no less than their physical ones."

Natasha, recalling Nick Fury's past deceptions, couldn't help but let out a cold laugh. The demise of S.H.I.E.L.D. was everyone's decision; aside from Nick Fury himself, no one wanted to see S.H.I.E.L.D., indistinguishable from Hydra, continue. Perhaps the S.H.I.E.L.D. now led by Agent Coulson was the purest S.H.I.E.L.D. ever established by Peggy Carter.

"By the time Nick Fury realized he should stop you from socializing with Rogers, it was too late. That naive Brooklyn boy knew things he shouldn't have known."

"Captain Rogers simply learned that the real cause of World War II was not the beer hall speech, but the chain reaction from the Great Depression on the New York Stock Exchange, the complete collapse of the Bretton Woods system. He now knows that the real cause of the Great Depression was unemployment and inflation, which in turn was caused by the inversion of monetary wages with real wages, leading to insufficient liquidity. This lack of liquidity was because one percent of the population held more than fifty percent of the wealth."

Salomon shrugged. "The solution is to stop production, which means unemployment, and then print more money to increase liquidity, exchanging the printing press for goods with labor value. Then the rich will once again seize all the wealth, leaving the poor with only scraps. When those scraps are gone, a liquidity crisis will occur. Unemployment, printing more money, the cycle repeats until all labor value is squeezed dry, and then the system will collapse."

Natasha knew Salomon was right; this pessimistic world was indeed that bad.

"You're letting a Brooklyn boy who dropped out of elementary school learn this stuff?" Natasha raised an eyebrow. She knew Steve Rogers had been recommended to read George Orwell's *1984*, and that Brooklyn boy who liked using pencils would definitely read that book seriously—Nick Fury wouldn't even care which book Steve Rogers read—and then disaster struck: the person explaining that book to Steve Rogers was sitting right in front of her, the only one in the Avengers capable of skimming away the froth of complex political thought and precisely scooping out a piece of meat from the cauldron of human society.

"No wonder he always had a problem with Tony Stark."

"Tony Stark did not betray the military-industrial complex; he merely abandoned low-end weapons production. Boeing and Lockheed Martin still pay Stark royalties annually. Even if Stark's weapons production facilities were without electricity for a year, Stark's stock would still continue to rise, and its employee benefits would remain enviable. The fluctuations in Stark's stock are simply a tactic employed by financial speculators to short-sell."

Salomon said with displeasure, "Are you here to ask me about these Avengers colleagues who are wanted by the US and Europe, Natasha?"

"I have every reason to care, don't I?"

"I've parted ways with Captain Rogers because he can't accept the painful reality that smashing the old world requires bloodshed. Intellectually, he's just an ordinary American with an elementary school education, lacking the wisdom to see the future. Politically, he can only face the visible hail of bullets, lacking the courage to make ruthless decisions—I admit he has the courage of kindness, but that courage is useless except against Hydra on the other side of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s good-versus-evil spectrum. Unless he can make a decision, like when he rescued James Barnes, abandoning his naive fantasies and choosing to embark on the path of saving the world, he can only serve as a vigilante, a public mascot—fortunately, King T'Challa of Wakanda likes Rogers with his naive mind, otherwise I would have had to kill him to avoid causing any trouble."

"Where is Dr. Banner?"

“Dr. Banner is living a very happy life, and I can send Betty Ross to Wakanda anytime he wants. Provided she doesn’t mind her father still being in a jar.” Salomon put down his cutlery. At that moment, Dinah, having finished her errands, finally entered the dining room. She was carrying a finely tailored, bespoke suit, and a shoebox sat on a trolley behind her. “This isn’t an interrogation, Agent,” Salomon said. “You have plenty of time. Texas is getting hotter; we’re going on vacation to Zurich, and you’re coming with us.”

Happy New Year! Thank you for your companionship again this year!