"What happened here?"
Natasha and Coulson finally returned, and when they saw hellfire burning everywhere, they couldn't help but cry out in shock.
Five minutes had already passed.
"Nothing much, I just happened to run into a vigilante," Lu Yi rubbed his forehead, feeling much better as he spoke.
"Vigilante? A superhero?" Coulson caught onto the interesting word and asked.
"No, a human who signed a contract with the devil," Lu Yi said calmly.
Hearing that, Natasha's curiosity was piqued. "The devil? A contract? What devil? What contract?"
"Mephisto. A demonic contract."
The moment those two words were spoken, Coulson and Natasha both fell silent. There was a strange, indescribable power in those words—one that made them shudder involuntarily, speechless.
"Is it the one mentioned in the Bible?" After a moment of silence, Coulson asked in a hoarse voice.
Coulson didn't want to believe it was that Mephisto. If it was… then things would be very bad.
If Mephisto existed, did that mean God existed too?
Shit. That was absolutely impossible!
"Yes."
Lu Yi's answer shattered his denial.
"Haha! Not a very funny joke," Coulson said coldly.
"Just take it as a joke. That way, it'll protect your worldview—somewhat."
Coulson: "…"
My worldview has already collapsed, okay? Does it even matter anymore?
Coulson's worldview had been completely shattered. He struggled to accept this reality. His gaze shifted to the trembling Ghost Rider, hoping to reconstruct his beliefs through this "evidence."
"Don't look!"
Before Coulson could fully turn toward Ghost Rider, Lu Yi's voice boomed in his ear.
"Why?" Coulson instinctively turned back to ask. He had narrowly avoided making eye contact with Ghost Rider.
He got lucky—but not everyone did.
Coulson wanted to rebuild his understanding of the world. Natasha wanted the same. Her attention was also on Ghost Rider.
But unlike Coulson, who turned away in fright, Natasha did not look away—instead, she met Ghost Rider's gaze directly.
According to Ghost Rider's judgment, Natasha was certainly not an innocent person. And the moment their eyes met, she began to experience everything Yuriko had gone through earlier.
The instant they locked eyes, Natasha felt a burning sensation erupt from deep within her, spreading through her entire being. Her eyes turned blood-red. Everyone she had ever killed appeared before her—countless souls, densely packed, forming a vast sea of faces that surrounded her completely.
Because of the nature of her profession, Yuriko had killed far fewer people—less than a tenth of Natasha's count. That was why Natasha's illusion formed into such a massive ocean of the dead.
"What's happening to her?" Coulson noticed Natasha's strange reaction. Seeing green smoke rising from her body, he hurriedly asked Lu Yi.
Lu Yi raised his head and glared at Ghost Rider, scaring him into turning away. Then he explained to Coulson, "I told you he's a vigilante. Now he's doing exactly what a vigilante does—punishing the wicked."
After a short pause, Lu Yi continued, "Ghost Rider has his own criteria for judging evil. Natasha has been judged guilty."
"What's going to happen to her?"
"Her soul is burning."
"What?!"
Coulson's face changed drastically. He rushed toward Natasha to check on her.
But the moment he touched her, he quickly withdrew his hand.
"So hot!"
"Of course. She's burning with hellfire."
"Is there a way to help her? Quickly!"
Lu Yi raised his left hand, palm facing upward, and gently beckoned toward Natasha.
A small flame emerged from Natasha's forehead and floated into Lu Yi's palm, hovering there like a living spirit.
"How are you now?"
"I'm fine now… just a little weak. I need to rest."
"That's great, that's great!" Coulson let out a breath of relief. Then, pointing at the Ghost Rider—who was now too terrified to even look their way—he asked, "So, what do we do with him?"
"Leave him to me. Your methods won't work—he serves Mephisto, after all."
After speaking, Lu Yi walked calmly toward Ghost Rider and stopped just one step away.
Casually, he tossed the ball of hellfire from his palm toward Ghost Rider, then stood over him, completely unfazed by the flickering flames around him. He lifted both hands and began moving them in a specific, calculated motion.
As Lu Yi moved his hands, mysterious markings began appearing on the ground—circles within circles, large ones enclosing smaller ones, with countless intricate patterns appearing across the surface. The formation of a magic circle gradually took shape under Ghost Rider's feet.
Whoosh!
A faint blue flame appeared along the lines of the formation. The magic circle was now complete.
"AHHH!"
Ghost Rider felt as though he were being torn apart by dozens of brutal forces. The moment the circle activated, he let out a piercing scream and struggled desperately to break free.
But the magic circle seemed to have infinite binding power. No matter how he struggled, he could not escape—only howl in agony!
"Return to Hell!"
The blue flames intensified, forming into a massive fiery net that wrapped Ghost Rider tightly!
BA-BOOM!
Suddenly, the fiery net contracted and violently struck downward. A black, winged humanoid phantom was ripped straight out of Ghost Rider's body. It twirled wildly through the air before crashing outside the magic circle, slamming into the concrete—leaving behind a deep, bottomless crater.
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