Marvel Book of Magical Events

The traveler's tattered cloak collapsed, letting out billows of grayish soot.

The soot collapsed, condensed, and melted into giant gray-black wolves in front of the fire. Rich shadows and gray frost lingered around them, as if they themselves were phantoms. The strange traveler took a step forward, and the soot giant wolves immediately grinned, revealing their white teeth, and whined threatening sounds from their throats. He pushed aside his cloak, revealing the giant sword hidden under the worn and rough cloth. Golden flames billowed out from the scabbard. Maximus saw that the air was distorted by the heat, and the terrifying flames instantly ignited the darkness shrouded on both sides of the road. in the dense forest. At this moment, the brief sharp pain that swept through his body made Maximus' eyes widen, but a soft voice kept reminding him, asking him to sit by the bonfire and not leave, while staying away from the golden flames.

The gray ice on the ground melted, evaporated, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

"You have no choice." A certain smoky gray giant wolf said in his usual light-hearted and cunning tone. Maximus was completely unaware that the words spoken by the giant wolf were Hebrew and not the common language of the Inhumans. He did not even realize that he could understand a language he had never learned. "Why resist fate? Why give everything to this weak race? You are destined to carry out the will of the ether. You are destined to step on the ladder and sit on the throne to exercise your power. All your choices will push you forward On our side, Joshua, this is the future."

The smoky gray giant wolf surrounded the strange traveler, and Maximus noticed that the latter's body tensed up visibly.

A severe headache made his vision increasingly blurry, and the intense dizziness made it difficult for him to continue thinking. Flames danced in his eyes, traveling along the nerves to the brain and licking his soul. He didn't see what happened in front of the campfire. He only heard someone saying something calmly, followed by pain that he had never felt before. Let him fall hard to the ground. Maximus wanted to make a quick psychological diagnosis of himself - visual and balance disorders - this was the only judgment he could make now. He realized that he was in a dream, but he had no memory of why he was Will enter dreamland.

He felt that his face was in contact with some kind of moist, smooth, sticky and cold hard object. Before he opened his eyes, he subconsciously pressed his hot forehead against it, greedily craving for a bit of coolness. He gasped for air, stretched out his tongue and licked the liquid in front of him, moistening his dry lips and throat. At this moment, any liquid was delicious to him. It seemed like a long time passed before Maximus gradually remembered where he was. His brain was turning like a rusty gear, and it took him a long time to realize that there was something wrong with his mind. Maximus managed to hold himself up, feeling as if he was moving a shuttle.

"Why are you blindfolding me?" he asked. "Why can't I see anything?"

"We did not blindfold you, my lord." The priestess's voice rang in his ears, "Please open your eyes."

"I've opened my eyes."

"No, you didn't. You didn't realize that you had closed your eyes." Priestess Peril said softly, "Please open your eyes, my lord."

Maximus took a deep breath to calm down his inner impatience.

He habitually planted ideas within himself. As a top mind manipulator and mind reader, he has the ability to control his own neural electrical signals and indirectly improve his athletic ability. He also has the ability to psychologically analyze himself and bridge the gap between soul, body and consciousness. . When he opened his eyes, the originally weak candlelight around him became extremely dazzling. It took a while for his pupils to adjust to the blurred vision and light - he saw himself kneeling on the ground, the stone slab under his knees covered with blood. Submerged - He raised his weak arms, and his palms and arms were covered with blood that was about to coagulate. He tasted the blood in his mouth, and there was a hint of sweetness in the fishy smell. Surprisingly, he didn't seem to hate the taste.

He saw the head of Priestess Peril placed in front of his knees. Even though she was dead, the priestess still looked at him with a smile on her face and silent eyes. "I heard her voice, she's not dead." Maximus found that his heart was unexpectedly calm, "How long has it been since the ceremony began?"

An armed man nearby gave an answer that surprised Maximus. "Also," the fanaticism in the eyes of the armed men was even more unbearable. It seemed that this ceremony gave Maximus the supreme spiritual leader status, "Lord Peril performed self-martyrdom at the beginning of the ceremony. For the sake of truth, She gave herself to you.”

Maximus lowered his head and looked at the head.

"Periel is not dead, she will be resurrected." He held up the head and pressed his fingers on the severed neck, "This is the truth."

"You shouldn't face them now." Master Hamil said firmly.

No matter what he said, the emperor, who was changing his arm armor, did not respond. There is a row of deep tooth marks on the hard alloy arm armor, which pierced the alloy, electronic muscle bundles and flexible metal seals, leaving dozens of wounds on the emperor's arm, as if he had been severely bitten by some ferocious beast. Pass. What's even more frightening is that in each wound exuding cursed black energy, there are several flesh sprouts that are almost invisible to the naked eye and are constantly twisting, trying to drill deeper into His arm. Along with simple spells, the screams of those parasite-like creatures that could only be heard in the sea of ​​souls were burned into smoke by golden flames. In another dimension, several powerful spiritual entities died.

"They call you Joshua?"

"Yes, this is one of my real names." The emperor finally spoke. He felt no pain from the flaming wounds, and perhaps felt pain, but He habitually refused to show such human signs. But in any case, Constantine, who finally returned to the emperor after completing his mission, had a sullen face. He was not used to the emperor participating in battles without the protection of the Praetorian Guards, especially a psychic battle. "The enemies behind the curtain have noticed me. There are loopholes in the real name protection created by His Holiness." The emperor looked at Constantine, "Don't blame yourself, this is a battle in a dream, with an alien spirit. The dream of a capable person is a battlefield, and the power that the enemy and we can transmit is extremely limited. Although I lost, the power given to the alien psyker by those spiritual entities was not as powerful as they expected."

"Why is this, Your Majesty?" Constantine asked, "Are the Inhumans still valuable to them?"

"Everything is valuable to them, Constantine. Master Hamil understands what I'm talking about. Everything we do increases their power." The emperor put on the arm armor again under the care of Constantine. , while using spells to repair alloy armor plates. Around Master Hamil, Constantine and the Emperor, the air became blurry, and each other could only be seen clearly within a spherical space. "This conversation has been wrapped up in my time bubble and will never exist again."

"I can tell you that the enemies behind the Veil are more than happy to use the Inhumans to drain our power and weaken our weapons against the Dark Order. No matter where the idea of ​​Thanos comes from, it will serve as a foundation for the existence behind the Veil. The biggest blood sacrifice in the universe, at which time their power will cross the veil and come directly to reality. In order to avoid this result, I must stop it."

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