Johnny desperately wanted to know, with so many people suffering from incurable diseases and so many willing to offer their souls, why was he chosen?!
It couldn't have been because of his looks, could it?
Johnny had been plagued by deep guilt for a long time.
He blamed himself.
So he constantly pushed the limits, testing the waters of self-destruction. He thought, if he truly had sinned, he would repay it with his life.
He was angry.
If a devil existed, why wasn't there an Angel to save him?
He smoked and drank, no longer praying.
"God has a plan, and everything will be alright," Coulson comforted Johnny, his compassionate expression like that of a dutiful pastor.
However, Johnny had heard such words too many times.
He remained unmoved.
It felt like they were telling him to just lie down, endure it, and the pain would pass.
It's easy to say when you're not the one suffering.
Some pains don't pass; they are seared deep into memory, surfacing from time to time to sting you.
Mike put down his phone and suddenly said, "Do you want to hear some stories? They might be even stranger than your encounter with a devil."
Johnny looked at Mike and nodded instinctively.
Coulson and Stark also nodded, wishing they had melon seeds, drinks, and small stools.
Mike rolled his eyes at the two of them and slowly began:
"Approximately twenty thousand years ago, or even earlier, a group of beings called Spirits of Vengeance were born on Earth. Their mission was to stop an elemental lord. Zarathos, a powerful elemental lord who feeds on human souls, is the evil spirit inside you."
"The power medallion, an artifact created before the fall of the Atlantis empire, was what Zarathos intended to use to rule Earth. The Blood Clan, who were responsible for guarding the power medallion, united with the Spirits of Vengeance. In the end, the Spirits of Vengeance sacrificed their lives to perish with Zarathos."
"Before their deaths, the Spirits of Vengeance sealed their essence and Zarathos's essence into the power medallion. The Blood Clan feared the power medallion was too powerful and that the consequences would be unimaginable if it fell into the wrong hands. Therefore, they shattered the power medallion into two pieces and entrusted them to two families for generations. One of these was the later Kyle Family."
Coulson's heart stirred as he recalled that Johnny's mother's surname in his file was Kyle. Johnny obviously thought of this too, his eyes wide, his mouth moving, but in the end, he said nothing.
"A powerful being like Zarathos wouldn't die so easily. After some time, under certain circumstances, he was resurrected. The resurrected Zarathos had lost his essential power, so he had to rely on faith and large-scale predation of human souls."
"Mephisto, who treats Earth as his hunting ground and humans as livestock, would not allow Zarathos to act so recklessly! Mephisto was unwilling to risk a direct confrontation with the powerful Zarathos, so he devised a plan to weaken Zarathos, eventually destroying him, then cleansing his memory and enslaving his soul."
Mike looked at Johnny.
Johnny was confused.
"Didn't you hear the key point I was making?" Johnny's bewildered look left Mike speechless.
He really thought it was just a story.
Mike said helplessly, "The evil spirit inside you is Zarathos. He has a grudge against Mephisto and possesses power that even Mephisto fears... So, don't you think Zarathos could be used as a weapon against Mephisto?"
Johnny said, "But I can't control the monster inside me at all..."
Mike said, "You are a descendant of the Kyle Family, and you have the power of the power medallion and the Spirits of Vengeance within you. Also, the Spirits of Vengeance are creations of God. Although their name sounds a bit like a gangster group, they are Angels. You have the power of an Angel residing within you! Go brag about that, who can contend with you?"
Coulson wanted to pin Mike to the ground and beat him for saying that.
The power of an Angel is just for bragging?
Why doesn't a hammer fall from heaven and smash you to death!
Johnny, however, was deep in thought.
Standing by the window, Johnny watched the three of them leave. He had thought he was going to be locked up. He didn't expect them to just question him, tell him some "stories," and answer some of his doubts.
He felt relieved to learn from Coulson that all those who died by Ghost Rider's hand were utterly wicked individuals.
In the car.
Coulson: "Are we just going to leave him be?"
"What else?" Mike said, "We'll set up a city-wide surveillance, assign people to monitor Johnny. Ghost Rider's instincts will lead us to Blackheart — this is Plan A. Now we're going to execute Plan B."
Stark: "There's a Plan B?"
Mike: "There wasn't before, but there is now."
The three arrived at a church cemetery.
In the East, cemeteries are often described as gloomy, but in the West, they are "the closest place to heaven." So parks and residential areas are often adjacent to cemeteries.
Cultural differences, different customs.
Carter Slade was the caretaker here. Johnny's father's grave was here, which is why Ghost Rider came here before turning back into a normal person.
Mike also knew that the San Venganza Contract was hidden in Carter's shovel handle.
Coulson was still the one to communicate, and the two spoke for a while. The old man led the three to Carter Slade's tombstone.
According to the old man, Carter Slade was the previous Ghost Rider.
For a long time, Mephisto had been experimenting on humans, and this Carter Slade must have been one of his test subjects. This test subject betrayed Mephisto, took the San Venganza Contract, and hid in a holy place.
It was as if fate had arranged it; Johnny's father happened to be buried in this cemetery.
Carter mentioned the San Venganza Contract. Mike then realized he knew very little about this contract; it was more complex than he imagined — mainly because the movie's explanation was very vague.
The San Venganza Contract originated over a thousand years ago. Mephisto meticulously cultivated all the villagers of a village named "Venganza" into generations of devout, pure-hearted followers of God, so people gave this village the name "San."
As the saying goes: destruction is far easier than construction.
It took a thousand years to cultivate a village of pure-hearted people, but only a few days to make them fall.
A beautiful woman was wrongly killed, and the entire village fell, plunged into suspicion, and then mutual slaughter.
The purer they were before their fall, the crazier they became after.
In the end, no one in the village was spared; their souls were trapped in the village, unable to find release.
Mephisto sent Carter Slade to collect the souls, but the latter took the contract and hid in the holy place, refusing to come out.
Coulson sighed endlessly, his eyes red. He looked at Stark and Mike, who showed no reaction: "Hey, hey, are you two emotionless robots?"
Stark: "They BBQ'd an innocent beautiful woman, how can I sympathize?"
If there weren't other people present, Stark would probably have cursed loudly.
Mike said, "What 'saints'... I think they were just a group of naive people in a closed World. Their malice was just suppressed. The more it's suppressed, the more terrifying the outbreak. Otherwise, even if someone sowed discord and framed them, the entire village wouldn't have been utterly destroyed. Of course, the above is just my personal conjecture, just listen to it and forget it, after all, the dead are to be respected."
True pure-hearted individuals emerge from the mud unsullied, cleansed by the ripples without being tainted.
Lotus, lotus bitch: a single character difference, a World of difference.