Gwen's warning immediately snapped the two men—who had drifted from discussing time magic to quantum realms—back to reality. They looked in unison toward where Gwen was pointing.
There, the black stone monolith of the Hell Gate, which had clearly closed after the Ghost Rider's inexplicable intrusion, was flashing with red light once again.
More importantly, this time, the moment the red fissure lit up, the scent of decay mixed with sulfur and burning ozone—a smell unique to Hell—assaulted Luca's nose.
Seeing this, a flicker of uncertainty passed through both Luca and Tony's eyes.
Today's experiment naturally wasn't the first time they had opened a Hell Gate.
But in all their previous trials, they had to supply energy for tens of minutes, anchor dimensional nodes, and stabilize the spatial structure just to barely pry the gate open.
The speed at which this door was reopening was clearly abnormal.
"Hajimi, cut the power supply from the Arc Matrix! We don't need to open the Hell Gate right now!"
Although Luca and Tony had abducted, captured, and killed quite a few assorted demons that wandered through the gate over the past few days...
A Ghost Rider had just popped out of nowhere. Who knew what other freakish thing might be passing by on the other side?
Besides, in Hell, relatively "good" characters like Ghost Rider were few and far between.
Naturally, he wanted to shut the gate down first, deal with the mess in the lab, and then restart the research later.
However, after Luca gave the order, Hajimi's reply was chilling.
"Sir, the power system is offline, but the fluctuations from the Hell Gate are still intensifying. It appears the energy supply is not coming from the laboratory side."
Hearing this, the color drained from both Luca and Tony's faces.
"Hajimi! Isolate the monolith module! Eject the Crimson Cloak!"
"Jarvis, activate energy shields! Initiate containment protocol!"
Both men shouted orders simultaneously, activating the emergency measures they had prepared in advance.
The cables and auxiliary modules connected to the base of the black monolith disconnected with a series of clack-clack pneumatic sounds and were ejected away.
Then, seven or eight small devices flew out from Tony's parked armor, projecting blue energy beams that completely isolated and sealed off the area around the monolith.
However, before Luca and Tony could even breathe a sigh of relief...
The black monolith serving as the vessel for the Hell Gate, despite losing the support of the core spatial artifact—the Crimson Cloak—and having its power cut...
...remained floating steadily in mid-air. The crimson Hell Gate fissure on its surface continued to expand and lengthen.
"F! Si Bei, use the Sealing Jutsu!"
Actually, Luca didn't need to remind him.
The moment Si Bei saw the emergency isolation measures fail, he knew it was time for his "magic-side" contingency plan.
As Luca shouted, Si Bei had already unfurled three prepared sealing scrolls on the floor in front of him.
One in front, one left, one right.
He even held a fourth scroll in his mouth.
His hands formed seals with blurring speed.
Black runes flew off the four scrolls as if they had come alive.
They flowed like a swarm of tadpoles, crawling up the black monolith floating in the center of the lab.
These dense sealing runes rapidly connected the two sides of the crimson fissure, squeezing inward to force it shut.
However, just as the runes from the four directions were about to link up and close the gaping rift...
The monolith, which had dimmed, suddenly began to shake violently in the air.
Then, with a wet squelch, four long, dark red fingers thrust out from the nearly closed fissure.
These hideous fingers, tipped with sharp black nails, hooked onto the edge of the crimson rift and pulled gently, as if parting a curtain.
The fissure, which had been mostly closed, instantly expanded again.
Even when Si Bei's sealing runes tried to cover these fingers, they melted away instantly like snowflakes touching red-hot metal.
As for Tony's so-called energy isolation barrier? The second monster hand that reached out simply tapped it with a fingertip, and it shattered like glass.
"What the hell is that thing!!"
By now, Tony had fully suited up in his armor. But facing this bizarre scene, he hesitated, unsure whether to fire the charged repulsor blast in his palm.
"I smell the scent of Earth!!"
A raspy, sinister voice suddenly echoed from the rift.
"Idiot. If your nose is that good, go back to Hell and smell shit!"
The next moment.
A blue beam shot out.
The speaker was Luca, holding the [Dehydration Gun].
As the pale blue compression beam hit the black monolith, the expanding Hell Gate flashed with intense red light.
But all that expanding red light was enveloped by the blue beam. Finally, it was compressed smaller and smaller until it condensed into a blue energy cube no bigger than a thumb.
Ding.
It hit the floor, rolled twice, and came to rest.
Phew~ The Dehydration Gun is reliable as always. It uses dimensional energy after all...
Just as this thought flashed through Luca's mind, crimson cracks suddenly appeared on the blue energy cube lying on the floor.
As the cracks multiplied, beams of red and blue energy instantly flooded the entire lab.
"Look out!!"
Then, BOOM!
Red and blue energy smoke exploded outward. The shockwave blasted everything in the vicinity away.
Fortunately, no one present was an ordinary person.
Tony had his armor. Gwen's physical durability was far beyond normal humans.
Luca... well, Luca had the quick-reacting Si Bei shielding him.
All in all, apart from the lab suffering another small explosion, there didn't seem to be much damage.
But when the red and blue smoke from the explosion finally cleared...
Everyone discovered that in the space where the black monolith used to be, a brand-new rift formed of interwoven red and blue energy had appeared out of thin air.
It was "out of thin air" because the black monolith itself had been blown into countless tiny fragments. These black shards now floated around the new rift like a chaotic yet orderly miniature asteroid belt.
Compared to the pure evil of the previous Hell Gate, this rift of interwoven red and blue energy, peppered with black debris, possessed a strange, magnificent beauty.
"What is that?"
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