Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 560 Southern Cross Arm (First Update)

The first mate heard his breathing, the captain's breathing. Even now, on another ship, he could hear the captain's breathing. It seemed that as the fleet advanced towards the endless void at the edge of the galaxy, the veil between reality and illusion grew thinner and thinner. The first mate felt something unreal within the captain was slowly baring its fangs, something indescribable in its grandeur, radiating throughout the fleet with the captain's powerful heartbeat. The feeling grew stronger after the crew inscribed the runes, as if the captain were slumbering on his throne, sleeping peacefully amidst the jungle of steel and cables, his body merely a vessel for something, and that thing within was slowly peeking out.

The noisy thugs quieted down, even learning to tread lightly. For a moment, no one rebelled, no one had nightmares, and everything was peaceful.

The first mate never saw the captain again. The orders he received were handed to him by an old human man wearing a plaid scarf, but the handwriting was unmistakably the captain's. Especially the elegant upward curve of the last letter—a style only the captain could write. "This is for your own good," the first mate still remembered how malicious the old man's mocking expression looked under the pale corridor lights. "We're sailing towards the edge of illusion, where countless nightmare monsters are born. He's protecting everyone with his power, with his very essence and soul. That room isn't for just anyone now. I imagine you don't want to become a mindless supplicant, do you?"

"Those people in there..." the first mate asked hesitantly, his bald blue head covered with healed, pale white scars. The armor he wore, including the sword, was forged by craftsmen at the captain's command. Initially, the first mate had looked down on melee weapons, but their effectiveness had become apparent in repeated boarding maneuvers. He wholeheartedly agreed with the captain's aesthetic sense; no weapon could look better than the combination of a sword and a gun.

"There are still some pilots inside." He spotted light leaking from the captain's cabin around the corner of the corridor. This meant the captain was still awake and had the lights on. "What about those people?"

"Just consider them dead. They're no longer human." The old man uttered the most chilling words in the most calm tone. "Their souls no longer belong to themselves. Souls, k... whatever your civilization calls the aggregate of body and consciousness, the individual reflection of the etheric plane, those crew members no longer possess those things. Their will is too weak, just like their bodies."

Merlin pointed to the other ships through the reinforced glass.

"They were affected too," he said. "Everyone was affected, but it's better than having nightmares."

Merlin's training of Dave didn't stop. Even when the entire fleet was enveloped in light, he could still lead Dave's soul away from the protection, letting it wander in twisted nightmares. Whenever Dave couldn't resist, he would pull Dave back into Salomon's light, only to throw him out again the next moment. This happened constantly. Dave suffered terribly, his spirit gradually weakening, but his strength and skill also improved at an astonishing pace. On Earth, his medical record would list a long string of mental illnesses, but here, with the best psychiatrists in the universe, Dave would simply be healed and then return to the battlefield.

He is the heir to the Merlin school, and the earth goddess Gaia favors this fool.

Salomon is preparing for N'Gale. He has a feeling he will achieve his goal there.

To ensure the fleet's safe passage to its destination, he had no choice but to fall into a deep sleep, safely and persistently releasing the Stigmata to prevent his crew from being corrupted by Sithon's dreams and to avoid becoming unrecognizable to himself. However, his consciousness did not descend into chaos; the parchment and quill beside him continued to work, and the crew, already assimilated by the Stigmata's essence, were issuing commands according to his will. The souls of these crew members had been melted by the Stigmata's unparalleled power, which reaffirmed Salomon's belief in the Stigmata's inherent danger.

Or rather, his own dangerousness.

That place is called the "Dream Veil" because Sidon's dreams leak into reality from there. No matter how powerful the seal, it's impossible to completely seal Sidon's power; if it were possible, the Scarlet Witch wouldn't have been born. For thousands of years, the Merlin Wizarding Order has been constantly monitoring Sidon's dreams, trying to uncover his schemes to escape.

Sometimes Kamar-Taj receives requests for assistance from N-Garai. The reason Kamar-Taj was able to quickly organize a purge of the cultists after Salomon's return from Salem was because the Order of Merlin had issued a warning the moment he entered the distorted spacetime of Salem. Considering the blood ties between this and another universe, such a warning was reasonable, as the cultists could very well summon a clone of Cynthon, causing immense destruction to the real universe.

That copy of the Necronomicon could even talk, tempting spellcasters to learn its dark magic. Salomon planned to give Wanda a copy of the Necronomicon he had personally copied, the kind that wouldn't talk, once he returned to Earth. But that was for later; for now, he was trapped on a deserted island in this endless void.

The further they ventured towards the edge of the galaxy, the fewer ships the fleet encountered. Not only were there no alien spaceships, but even pirates and smugglers became increasingly rare. They sailed outwards from the boundary between the Southern Cross Arm and the Carapace Arm, passing the wandering old stars in the galactic halo; the fiery thoughts of the gaseous nebulae nearly incinerated the fleet more than once. Here, only wreckage remained, a terrifying nightmare shrouding the area, with countless frozen or charred corpses still floating in the void.

The lights in the captain's cabin were off, and the light emanating from him filled the room. From a soul's perspective, the fleet was enveloped in a golden glow, and countless corrupted nightmares and twisted, grotesque monsters turned to ash the moment they came into contact with that light. Salomon didn't know how much time had passed on Earth—there were no stars, no planets, only endless void, and the spacetime curvature around him was far less than on Earth. He had studied general relativity; he knew what this meant. From a higher dimension, he and his fleet were traveling on a plane of spacetime, where spacetime curvature was practically nonexistent.

The watch on his wrist was still ticking, but time had lost its meaning. It had been an incredibly long journey, and he needed to sleep. Accompanied by the faint murmurs of pain from the fleet, the blasphemous whispers of twisted dreams, the grand hymns from the soul, and the devout prayers from the innermost layer of the distant Orion Arm, he fell into a deep sleep.

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(End of this chapter)