"Johnny!"
Watching Johnny transform into a flaming skeleton and speed away right before their eyes, Natasha and Hawkeye were entirely powerless to stop him. However, their desperate final shouts successfully drew Mephisto's attention.
"Humans?" Mephisto said, glancing over his shoulder with a chilling, dismissive smile. "This is not something you should interfere with. Know your place."
With only those condescending words, the Lord of Hell vanished instantly into a swirl of black smoke.
In the middle of the desolate highway, only Natasha and Clint remained, lowering their weapons and looking at each other in dismay.
"Send the dashboard footage back to the Tower first," Natasha ordered, her professional composure returning instantly. "Then hack the grid and keep a close eye on Johnny's thermal tracks. I'll go mobilize the orbital satellites."
The two agents got back into the SUV and rapidly began their tactical operation.
Naturally, they couldn't just abandon Johnny Blaze. His sheer, catastrophic abilities alone meant S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers wouldn't let him go off the grid easily. The Avengers were currently short on high-tier combat power. After this brief period of contact, both spies felt Johnny was an excellent candidate to recruit. He could perfectly fill the Avengers' glaring lack of supernatural capabilities.
Not to mention, Johnny Blaze was currently their only key to finding the Contract of San Venganza.
As Natasha and Hawkeye prepared to pursue him, Johnny Blaze, riding the Hellcycle, was twisting the bone throttle frantically.
'Roxanne! Roxanne!!'
With the singular, desperate human thought of saving the woman he loved, Johnny's willpower actively suppressed the demonic Spirit of Vengeance within him for the very first time. He maintained control of the flaming skull.
The Hellcycle sped past at impossible speeds, and everything around the road suffered supernatural collateral damage. Streetlights exploded, asphalt melted, and abandoned cars burst into roaring flames in his wake.
At the site of the old cemetery, a blinding, fiery light suddenly flared up in front of Blackheart, who was just about to leave with his captive.
Following closely was the deafening, roaring engine of the Hellcycle.
"Where is Roxanne?!"
His voice arrived before he did, echoing with a harsh, supernatural rasp. Johnny Blaze's snarling voice rang out from atop the skeletal chopper as he crashed through the warehouse gates.
The cycle screeched to a halt, and Johnny used the violent momentum to leap high into the air. His fists, wreathed in roaring Hellfire, slammed down like meteors toward the four pale figures.
BOOM!
Thick smoke and shattered concrete rose from the ground as Johnny's flaming skull looked around the impact crater.
"Get out here! Blackheart!"
The spot where Blackheart and his demons had just stood was now completely empty. Demons aren't all fools. Seeing the concentrated Hellfire burning on the Rider's hands, absolutely no idiot would stand still and take a direct hit.
"Ghost Rider?" a cold voice echoed. "You really are a good, obedient dog. Did you catch the scent and find your way here so quickly?"
In a dark corner of the abandoned warehouse, Blackheart's figure suddenly emerged from the shadows. He spoke to Johnny with mocking contempt.
"Hand over Roxanne," Johnny snarled, taking a step forward. "Your family business with Mephisto... I have zero interest in it!"
Forcibly resisting the Spirit of Vengeance's violent rebellion, Johnny tried to negotiate. He hadn't transformed into the Ghost Rider many times. In the past, he wouldn't even retain memories of the night after transforming. Therefore, he was entirely unfamiliar with the ancient entity residing inside his soul. He had absolutely no experience in fighting it for control of his own body.
At this moment, it was only Roxanne's immediate safety that allowed his human will to temporarily suppress the Spirit. If this dragged on, he didn't know how much longer he could keep the demon under control.
'End this quickly!' the thought flashed frantically through his mind.
In Johnny's hollow eye sockets, the Hellfire flickered wildly.
Just as he was about to rush toward Blackheart, his ankle was suddenly grabbed by something freezing cold, making him unable to move.
He looked down. On the concrete ground he had just scorched black with Hellfire, a small, unnatural puddle had appeared at some point. On the water's rippling surface, the Water Demon Wallow's smiling face was reflected. It was his liquid hand that was firmly grasping Johnny's ankle.
Right then, a massive gust of wind from a heavy punch surged directly behind him.
Before Johnny could react, a colossal fist struck his spine. Under this massive, crushing kinetic force, Johnny's skeletal body was sent violently flying across the warehouse.
The Earth Demon, Gressil, might look like a lumbering brute, but his physical strength was by far the greatest among the elementals.
With the ambush successful, the three demons gathered around Blackheart once more. Looking at the Ghost Rider fallen helplessly at the warehouse entrance, Blackheart gave a disdainful smile.
"This is it?" Blackheart sneered, shaking his head. "Giving the Spirit of Vengeance to a fragile human is truly a pathetic waste."
Even in the deepest pits of Hell, a Spirit of Vengeance was an extremely precious, legendary weapon. Aside from his foolish father, no Lord would be so wasteful as to bind such a spirit to a mortal soul.
Blackheart continued his contemptuous critique of Johnny's weakness, entirely unaware that at this exact moment, Johnny Blaze's human will had finally collapsed.
The Spirit of Vengeance took absolute control.
The fallen Rider stood up easily from the rubble. He cracked his skeletal neck, the flames erupting into a furious, blinding inferno. The aura radiating from him was now completely, terrifyingly different from the desperate human just seconds prior.
"You!"
A snarling, ancient, dual-layered voice issued from his fiery throat.
"Guilty!"
The arrogant expressions of Blackheart and his group shifted instantly. It had only been a microsecond, but the suffocating demonic pressure emanating from the Rider had suddenly increased several times over.
The Ghost Rider raised his leather-clad arm. The heavy steel chains hanging from the warehouse's industrial beams surged to life like metallic serpents. They flew automatically through the air, snapping directly into the Rider's waiting hands.
Hellfire automatically enchanted the metal. The flaming chains whipped around non-stop in the Rider's grip, superheating the air.
Seeing this terrifying display of raw power, Blackheart and the others scrambled to dodge.
Only the hulking Earth Demon, Gressil, was too slow.
CRACK!
The flaming chain whipped out like lightning, tightly binding the Earth Demon's rock-like torso.
"Spare me..." Gressil choked, his elemental body cracking under the searing heat of the Hellfire. "Have mercy!"
"No."
Faced with the plea of the guilty, the Ghost Rider denied it with a single, absolute word.
The Hellfire attached to the chains spread frantically, burning hotter than the core of a star. A moment later, the Earth Demon was entirely incinerated, turned into a crumbling pile of useless charcoal. He scattered onto the warehouse floor as ash.
The Blackheart who had just fled reappeared from the shadows, stepping back. Only this time, his gaze was incredibly cautious.
"You are not the human," Blackheart realized, his pale face tight. "You are the unchained Spirit of Vengeance. To be able to permanently kill an Earth Demon with just ambient Hellfire... you are definitely no ordinary spirit. Who are you?!"
What answered the Prince of Hell was not the Ghost Rider's words, but the blinding crack of a chain burning with Hellfire.
Seeing that the situation had gone completely south, the Water Demon, Wallow, and the Wind Demon, Abigor, entirely abandoned Blackheart and vanished into the elements, fleeing for their lives.
Compared to the struggling, human-controlled Johnny from a minute ago, Blackheart was highly confident he could crush his opponent. But now? Just the searing chain chasing him across the warehouse already had the Prince of Hell exhausted and running for his immortal life.
But every game of cat and mouse inevitably comes to a brutal end.
With a sudden, supersonic burst of speed, the Hellfire chain lashed out, instantly binding Blackheart's wrists and torso. He hit the floor, completely powerless to move as the holy fire scorched his demonic flesh.
The chain automatically retracted, violently dragging Blackheart across the concrete until he was forced onto his knees directly before the Rider.
Watching the arrogant Prince of Hell being tormented by the searing Hellfire, the Ghost Rider didn't deliver a killing blow immediately. Instead, he stood there quite leisurely, tilting his flaming skull, simply watching Blackheart howl in agony.
Only a few minutes had passed, but to Blackheart, the burning torture felt like a century.
In Hell, he was a noble Prince. He had the absolute protection of Mephisto's name. Aside from those few ancient entities he couldn't afford to offend, absolutely no one dared to be insolent toward him. He had only been in the human world for a few days, yet he had encountered such humiliating, agonizing torture.
Blackheart was filled with intense, boiling hatred, yet he didn't dare show a hint of defiance to the monster looming over him.
Perhaps the Spirit had lost interest in physically torturing him. The Rider reached out his leather-gloved palm and grabbed Blackheart violently by the throat, hoisting him into the air.
"Look into my eyes!"
Blackheart knew very well what this was. This was the Ghost Rider's ultimate judgment. The Penance Stare.
He desperately wanted to shut his eyes tight. But at this moment, compelled by the absolute magical authority of the Spirit of Vengeance, his eyelids completely disobeyed his commands, locking open.
Staring directly into the Ghost Rider's burning, hollow Eye of Judgment, Blackheart was filled with a sudden, overwhelming terror.
"Your soul is stained by the blood of the innocent," the Rider roared, the flames reflecting in Blackheart's widened, pitch-black eyes. "Feel their pain!"
....
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