"Mind Stone!" Robbie saw the shining golden gem embedded in Renzo's forehead at a glance and could not help tightening his grip. This woman had actually dared to lie to him.
Medusa's face turned purple. She stared at the gem in disbelief, her eyes nearly falling out of their sockets.
What she had told him was a lie. There was no Infinity Stone buried underground in Attilan. She had given it to Triton long ago. After the satellite was destroyed, Karnak had secretly approached her and said he sensed a tremendous danger.
He and Medusa had taken out the Mind Stone and handed it to Triton. The man who could not live away from water had become the last savior, the one entrusted with preserving their remaining hope.
She was certain the Mind Stone had already been transferred away, but the one in front of her...
No matter how many times Medusa thought about it, she could not imagine that the man before her had come from another universe.
"Hi, Logan! You're much older now. Last time I saw you, it was the sixties." Renzo smiled and greeted Logan, but Logan was certain he had never seen this man before. Not once in all his long years.
Whoosh!
The next moment, a portal suddenly appeared beneath Logan, sending the hard-to-kill man away. Renzo breathed a sigh of relief. With his super healing ability and adamantium claws, which were no weaker than vibranium, Logan was still troublesome even if Renzo was not afraid of him. If Logan accidentally short-circuited him, Renzo would have no choice but to let others do whatever they wanted.
"The rest will be much easier to handle." Renzo glanced at the Thing as he rushed toward him. He did not even use the Power Stone. With only his own physical strength, he threw the two-meter-tall man out like a kite with its string cut, sending him crashing into a distant house.
In Robbie's empty eyes, the hellfire swayed in the wind, showing a trace of surprise that quickly turned into shock.
Because the man in front of him also had two Infinity Stones embedded in his chest. The purple and blue lights were like navigation beacons in the dark night, so conspicuous to travelers caught in wind and waves.
"That is..."
"Infinity Stones. Do you want to experience them?" Renzo showed an innocent smile. The energy of the Power Stone instantly overwhelmed Ghost Rider in front of him, and the skeleton, along with the burning hellfire on his body, was swallowed by the purple light.
Medusa looked at this man, who seemed like a god descending to Earth. In just two minutes, the terrifying invaders who had attacked Attilan were defeated one after another. But what surprised her even more were the three glittering gems.
She was certain those three were definitely not fakes.
But in that case, what was the gem she had worked so hard to send away?
"Can you still talk?" Renzo no longer paid attention to the other infected people, because Scott and the others had already landed and begun rescuing the poor survivors.
At present, the only one on the other side still capable of fighting was the Thing, and he was easily frozen by the awakened Bobby.
Rogue's mental state was relatively stable now, though she still instinctively hid to the side whenever she saw Renzo. Generally speaking, she could live normally. As for fighting...
Shadowcat was responsible for protecting Rogue, while the others fought against the infected.
These second-rate X-Men might struggle against those superheroes, but dealing with ordinary infected people could be described as easy.
Soon, the battlefield was swept clean, and no enemy could stand anymore, except Robbie Reyes.
Seeing Ghost Rider resurrect in front of him, Renzo touched his head and did not care too much. He applied a spatial chain, binding Robbie tightly, then ignored him. He could not stir up much trouble.
"This place is miserable. Where did you send Logan?" Scott stepped forward. His glasses reflected the scene of corpses everywhere, but he did not care too much. He had seen scenes like this too many times. Whether in virtual training or on real battlefields, there was never a shortage of blood.
Moreover, the X-Men had already been greatly reduced in number, and their deaths had been extremely miserable. Not even intact corpses were left behind. Those friends who had been laughing, joking, and arguing not long ago had turned cold in just a few days. They had not even seen a finger of their bodies. They could only listen to the so-called "news," hide their sorrow, and keep moving forward bravely.
Scott truly hated Logan. This rough man had clearly lost all his memories, yet he still lived in this world as greedily as a hungry wolf. He walked coldly through the jungle until he met a dazzling bird that shone with light and flame, and then he went mad with obsession, just like when he had pushed away the cold corpse of his lover.
Scott had obviously met Jean first, he thought angrily. He and Jean had been like ordinary college lovers, playing around on the joyful, childish lawn, reading together, going to class together, leaning by the lake together as they watched the children who had just entered school secretly showing off their unfamiliar abilities, only to be driven away aggressively by Ororo when she came over.
How had Logan broken into Jean's heart?
Scott waited for a long time and still could not think of an answer. So much time had passed that the girl he loved had also died. The old wolf had pierced her body and crushed her internal organs and bones. She must have been in pain. It had hurt so much that Scott would never forget it.
The kiss by the lake that year was equally unforgettable. Scott still remembered the woman who had shone with light and fire more than ten years ago, reborn like a phoenix at the bottom of the lake. The two of them had embraced and kissed each other in excitement.
In the end, she had still held back. Perhaps because of her kind nature, she had refused to obey the Phoenix's will and pushed him into the lake after he had been pulled into her body. For whom had the tears in the corners of her eyes been shed? Scott only remembered being swept down the river, found by fishermen, sent to the hospital, and pushed into a cold morgue.
If the professor had not found him, perhaps he would have been buried with Jean as her companion, right? Maybe their graves would have been side by side, and they could have embraced each other after death.
Logan suffered alone. He had endured too much unbearable pain, both physically and mentally.
Scott refused to forgive him, yet admired him all the same, and Logan was no different. His guilty eyes would fall on Scott, then quickly move away. He had not appeared in daylight for a long time.
The two of them were like children, holding on to their anger and refusing to be the first to forgive the other.
But Scott did not want to continue. Too many people had died. His elders, his comrades, and his students had died one after another after being attacked by the sudden red mist. They had not even seen them for the last time... Or perhaps they had seen them long ago. Many people had already met for the final time.
He could no longer bear to lose. Logan, that bad-tempered old wolf who knew nothing but drinking beer, was the one who should have died long ago, yet he had lived the longest and stayed with him the longest...
"I sent him to the North Pole. It's all ocean there. Maybe, with a little luck, he can find some ice and survive on seal or polar bear meat."
Renzo lowered his head, and the power of the Mind Stone slowly repaired the woman's traumatized mind. After witnessing the tragic deaths of her people, he did not understand what kind of belief could support her in continuing to live in this cruel world.
Was it a sense of responsibility?
All he knew was that this woman's hair was gone, ninety percent of her skin had been burned, and her originally fair neck was left with distinct claw marks. She was struggling, yet strong enough to survive. He had seen many strong women—Wanda, Natasha, Hill, and Medusa...
Perhaps their tragic pasts had left them with indelible darkness and nightmares, but their strong wills allowed them to live beautifully and freely in this world.
The woman tremblingly stretched out her arm. It was covered in scorch marks and bloodstains, sticking to her skin after being burned by the flames. It looked like a riverbed that had dried up for a long time, covered with fish bones and weeds. Occasionally, a starving lizard might pass by, only to leave in disgust.
"You... your forehead..." Her throat had been burned. Hellfire had been forced into it, making it feel as if she had been left under the sun for three days without a single drop of water.
Her withered palm grabbed Renzo's arm. Perhaps because she used too much strength, the skin on it peeled off bit by bit, accompanied by a burnt smell.
Like a snake shedding its skin.
Renzo sensed her condition carefully and shook his head helplessly. She was too badly injured. There was no way to save her.
"I am the guardian of the Stones from another world. Your Stone is safe," Renzo said softly, leaning close to Medusa's ear. As if afraid she would not hear him, he repeated it several times.
Upon hearing that voice, Medusa's eyes lit up. She recognized it. It was the voice she had spoken to before. Her plea for help had worked. He had really come to save them.
"Cough! Cough! Cough!"
Perhaps because she was too excited, Medusa coughed violently. Large pools of black blood mixed with fragments of internal organs spilled from her burned lips and splashed onto Renzo's body. Against the deep green, it looked like flowers blooming in the grass.
Unpleasant, scorched, sharp...
Medusa could no longer speak and only kept vomiting blood, but Renzo saw a smile in her eyes before she died.
She had finally saved those children. Her people had followed Triton away from Attilan, carrying the last hope and flame of the Inhumans. Like unyielding soldiers, they would one day return to the battlefield.
As Odin had once said, Asgard was not a place. It was its people.
Attilan had never truly been a place. It was where a group of Inhumans gathered together to keep warm. It was a collective, one another, and themselves...
As long as even one Inhuman remained alive, Attilan would always exist.
Medusa died in Renzo's arms, her eyes staring blankly at the sky. Not even a bird passed through this forsaken place. The wind blew gently. In the past, it could have lifted her hair, but now it could only serve as a lullaby, gently coaxing a sleeping child.
The X-Men collected Attilan's corpses. Most of them were incomplete and difficult to piece together. They did not have the energy to sort through them, so they could only dig a large pit in the ground and bury everyone there, ensuring they would not be left for vultures drawn by the smell of blood.
"This way, you won't be cold." Bobby gently patted the soil above them, hoping to cover them tightly so they would be warmer.
Renzo stood up and patted the snow and dirt from his body, wiping away the bloodstains.
"This is not the end. There are more people who need to be saved. They are scattered across the world, facing the threat of death at every moment. The red mist is like Death itself, silently swinging a scythe and harvesting one life after another."
"We have to race against death, knock that damned weapon out of its hands before it swings its scythe again, then step on its ugly, disgusting face with the soles of our shoes." He glanced at Robbie, who was standing obediently to the side, bound and kneeling on the ground, shaking his head. His face and expression could not be seen clearly.
What kind of expression could a skeleton make? At most, two bones could collide, making a clean, crisp, muffled sound.
The surroundings were almost silent, so quiet that one could hear snowflakes falling beside their ears.
"Look who I found!" Bishop got down from the hellish fighter. This military fighter jet, reshaped into the appearance of a skull, could now be considered retired. It had been accidentally damaged many times during the battle to defend Attilan.
The bearded Black man pulled a figure from the plane—a strong man covered in scars. His face had been beaten into the shape of a pig's head, his bruised eyes narrowed into slits, his mouth swollen, the bridge of his nose broken. The blood on his face had already dried, flaking off like snow when rubbed lightly.
"Frank?" Renzo could not recognize the owner of that face, but there was only one person who would wear a tight black shirt marked with a skull.
Frank was almost dragged over to Renzo. He was only an ordinary man. He did not have the abnormal self-healing ability of a super soldier or Wolverine. Being able to withstand such heavy injuries already counted as having a thick hide. Between unconsciousness and wakefulness, everything in front of him appeared doubled.
He tried hard to identify the person before him and kept his eyes open. After seeing that unforgettable body color, he finally breathed a sigh of relief and said with all his strength, "Captain Carter has been captured..." After that, he passed out.
Renzo checked him and found that most of the injuries were surface wounds. Robbie had not killed him, perhaps out of sympathy between men marked by skulls.
Renzo asked Bobby to freeze the bleeding areas. The broken marks and scorch marks on Frank's back showed that he had also experienced a fierce battle, and he had lost so badly that he had nearly lost his life.
"What exactly does Wanda want to do?" Renzo was puzzled. A madwoman with tremendous power was crazily capturing superheroes, like a dragon collecting jewels.
Robbie did not speak. He only lowered his head, looking drained.
Scott punched him in the back of the head. If he had not been afraid of Renzo, he would truly have wanted to melt this monster.
Robbie still did not speak. The fire of hell suddenly burned, startling several people into jumping back and moving away, only for them to discover that he was merely bluffing and had no next move.
"Damn it! Damn it!" Scott could not help feeling that he had been tricked, tricked by a captured prisoner.
"I'm going to die..." Robbie faded out of Ghost Rider's form and turned back into Robbie Reyes, an unshaven, haggard, and weak man completely different from the monster from before.
"What do you mean?"
"My soul signed two contracts. One from hell, and one from the witch's hand. They divided my soul and took away my lifespan." Robbie laughed self-mockingly. "I thought I could beat her, but I was easily controlled. The Ghost Rider became like a dog, loyally guarding the house and courtyard for its master."
"I gave up the Ghost Rider. I don't want to hurt anyone else anymore!" Robbie could not help shedding a tear. His original reason for becoming Ghost Rider had been to protect his family, but in the end...
He remembered everything he had done. Mephisto was happy to watch this farce. He had not seen such entertainment in millions of years, so he was naturally pleased by it. His influence in hell twisted Robbie's thoughts, and combined with Wanda's black magic, Robbie had gradually become extreme, like an irritable monkey baring its teeth at anyone it saw.
"You should atone for your sins, not leave everything behind and die!"
"I am atoning..."
Robbie laughed miserably and broke free from Renzo's spatial chain.
"Frank... I'm sorry for what I did to you. I'm sorry!" Robbie's expression was solemn, as if he were facing a priest's prayer. He stood in the center of a church, looking at the cross hanging high above him, making the most solemn oath.
"I declare... contract... transfer!" Robbie held Frank's shoulders with both hands, his expression painful and reluctant. The sudden rise of hellfire engulfed both of them, forcing the people around them to hide to avoid being burned.
Renzo stood there quietly. He heard the wails and screams of the undead within the hellfire, striking his chest like a sledgehammer.
Unfortunately, he had no heart...
Soon, the strange and painful ritual ended. Robbie fell to the ground, the corners of his mouth slightly curved upward, his eyelids closed, as if he had fallen into a sweet dream.
Maybe he dreamed of his brother...
And the other person...
A skull burning with hellfire looked almost identical to the one on his chest, carrying the same arrogance and the same madness.
Frank the Ghost Rider—had arrived.
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