The HYDRA Commander inside the secret bunker clearly had little patience left. Through remote control, the injured Mechanical Behemoth entered a state of complete frenzy. The remaining two heads glowed with unprecedented intensity from their cannon muzzles, while the massive mechanical tail coiled and gathered power on the ground like a giant serpent, preparing to unleash a thunderous strike.
"It's going to overload!!!" Steve shouted a warning from the side. "Tony, Hulk, focus fire on its exposed core!"
But just as the Avengers were about to launch their final assault, a figure wreathed in flames moved with even greater speed.
The Ghost Rider let out a furious roar. Without any discernible tactics, he charged straight at the colossal War Machine, a trail of vengeful fire blazing behind him. The burning chain in his hand, infused with the fury of hell, lashed out violently toward one of the serpentine heads.
This time, the Mechanical Behemoth was prepared. It violently swung its massive mechanical tail—a steel behemoth constructed of heavy armor—which, with a sound that tore through the air, moved with incredible speed and struck the Ghost Rider solidly!
"Thud—!"
With a muffled impact, Johnny was sent flying backward like a flaming cannonball, as if hit head-on by a high-speed train. He plowed a deep trench into the ground before crashing heavily into a pile of rubble, landing right next to the forgotten, limp failure in the corner—Ivan Vanko.
"Cough..." Johnny struggled to rise from the debris. The Hellfire dimmed for an instant, then roared back to life. He shook his burning Skull, ready to charge the behemoth again, but suddenly froze.
His empty eye sockets, blazing with Hellfire, slowly turned toward the figure beside him, who was trembling violently with fear.
The Ghost Rider's bony head tilted almost imperceptibly.
As if he had discovered an unexpected delight.
"No... stay away!" Ivan watched the burning skeleton approach, wailing in despair.
The Ghost Rider ignored him. The soul of this man before him radiated a thick, nauseating stench of sin.
"Look into my eyes!!!"
Ivan's pupils instantly dilated. He no longer saw a burning Skull, but instead witnessed the hell on earth he himself had created. He saw a girl's heart-wrenching cries as she was forever separated from her parents by the explosion of a Drone mech; he saw the agony and resentment of a security guard near the exhibition stand, torn apart by bullets in an instant while shielding civilians; he saw the panicked crowd trampling each other, the innocent lives cut short by his revenge—every shred of fear and despair before their deaths, like the sharpest steel needles, pierced deep into Ivan's soul! All the suffering he had inflicted on the innocent for that elusive family glory was now, in this moment, returned to his own soul with a thousandfold intensity!
"Aaaah—!!!"
After a shrill, inhuman scream, Ivan Vanko's body convulsed violently and then went completely limp. His soul had been burned blank under the judgment of Hellfire.
After completing the judgment, the Ghost Rider did not leave. He slowly straightened up, his gaze falling upon the fearsome, vengeance-born Whiplash Armor. He extended a burning skeletal hand and pressed it against the armor's chest.
This time, the Hellfire held nothing back, using Ivan Vanko's soulless body as the perfect fuel!
"Hum—!"
Orange-red flames madly surged into the armor. Ivan's body couldn't even utter a wail before instantly carbonizing in the flames, turning into a handful of flying ash! Using his sin and life as kindling, the Hellfire began the most thorough reshaping of this vengeance armor! The dark gray metal plates rapidly became as deep as obsidian, with lava-like orange-red light flowing between the complex mechanical structures. The two energy-severed Electric Whips, forged anew in the flames, transformed into two blazing Hellfire Whips!
The pinnacle creation forged by Ivan Vanko for vengeance had now perfectly merged with the power of the spirit of vengeance!
"My god..." Tony watched the scene, his jaw nearly dropping to the ground. "He... he upgraded that pile of scrap into a hell-limited edition? Jarvis, analyze... no, never mind, don't analyze."
"A power beyond the mundane... creating a marvelous chemical reaction with mortal creation," Lin Huai observed the new, oppressive form and silently evaluated. "Like a higher being casually picking up an interesting toy and turning it into its own relic. Truly... badass."
After the transformation, Johnny resembled a War Demon clad in hellish armor! He turned around, his two blazing eye sockets locking onto the Mechanical Behemoth preparing to fire its lasers.
The next second, he moved!
Only a burning afterimage remained on the spot! The Hellfire jetting from the armor's back propelled him at a speed impossible for the naked eye to follow!
The behemoth's two heads simultaneously fired devastating lasers. Johnny didn't choose to block head-on but instead dodged to the side with unbelievable speed. The two beams nearly grazed his armor before blasting into the ruins behind him! Seizing the gap in the behemoth's attack, Johnny instantly closed the distance!
One burning whip shot out like a striking viper, tightly coiling around one serpentine head. The Hellfire's searing heat made the heavy armor emit a piercing shriek, and the rotation mechanism quickly failed. Simultaneously, the other whip, sharp as a blade, precisely sliced into the gaps in the behemoth's torso armor. With a fierce pull, it ripped off a huge piece of outer plating, exposing the complex energy conduits beneath!
"Roar—!"
Johnny let out a roar. Grabbing the massive armor fragment as a shield, he charged forward, enduring the small-caliber cannon fire from the behemoth's other head! His burning iron fists, like pile drivers, pounded relentlessly into the exposed internal structure!
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Each heavy blow made the colossal mechanical construct shudder, with internal bursts of sparks and small explosions. The behemoth tried to sweep Johnny away with its mechanical tail, but Johnny's figure weaved and dodged amidst the flames, each attack missing by a hair's breadth!
The other trapped head struggled frantically, but Johnny violently tightened the whip. The Hellfire thrusters on his armor's back erupted, and he shot forward like a cannonball, slamming that head hard into the ground! He stood upon the head, his muscles bulging, and with sheer brute force, used the whip to tear the massive mechanical neck in two!
The entire battlefield fell into dead silence. The remaining Avengers could only stare blankly as the black-red demon disassembled the arrogant War Machine piece by piece in the most primitive and savage way.
Finally, Johnny ascended once more, facing the War Machine with only one head left and half-crippled. He gave it no further chance. Clasping the whips together with both hands, he spun at high speed in mid-air like a burning death top, carrying endless Hellfire, and plunged straight down toward the behemoth's final head—its core control center!
"Kaboom!!!"
In a deafening explosion that shook the heavens, that head and the torso core beneath were instantly pierced and detonated. The massive body, having lost all control units, crashed to the ground, reduced to a pile of scrap metal billowing black smoke.
"Alright," Tony swallowed hard, offering the physicist's highest praise over the comms. "This is not even a fight on the same level anymore... this guy is practically a Superman."