When the black mist and viscous darkness finished gathering, Blackheart stood once more before Evenson and Sif.
The deep gash Sif had carved across his chest was gone.
Even his tacky Old West clothes looked freshly tailored, spotless and untouched.
"My father didn’t tell you?" Blackheart said casually. "I don’t have a soul."
A smug smile spread across his face.
"So I can’t die."
"Can’t die?" Evenson replied. "We’ll see about that."
He shot Sif a meaningful glance.
Main tank, pull the boss.
Sif rolled her eyes.
Even without understanding the gaming reference, she knew exactly what he meant.
She lowered into a fighting stance.
A warrior held the line while the spellcaster attacked from behind. That was basic battlefield doctrine.
The courtyard fell silent.
Sif faced Blackheart.
Evenson stood several paces behind her, quietly gathering Shadow energy between his fingers.
The tension tightened...
Then something came hurtling through the air.
A figure crashed into the ground between them with enough force to crater the dirt.
The landing couldn’t have been more inconvenient.
He lay directly across the path both Sif and Blackheart had intended to charge through.
All three instinctively looked down.
The Ghost Rider.
Since Blackheart had threatened Lorraine’s life, the Spirit of Vengeance had been forced into battle.
Unfortunately for him, the Destroyer had considered the flaming skeleton the most obvious threat on the battlefield.
That suited Blackheart perfectly.
As long as someone occupied the Asgardian construct, he wouldn’t have to.
Unfortunately...
The Ghost Rider was having an absolutely miserable time.
He was now experiencing exactly what Evenson had suffered during their earlier battle.
Most of his abilities simply didn’t work.
In fact...
His situation was even worse.
When Evenson had fought him, Warlock magic, fel energy, and eventually his demonic transformation had allowed him to turn the tide.
The Ghost Rider had no such options.
Nearly every one of his techniques relied on Hellfire.
The Destroyer’s armor, blessed by Odin himself, wasn’t going to melt under infernal flames.
And as an enchanted construct, it couldn’t feel pain.
Its greatest weapon, the Penance Stare, was even less useful.
Assuming the Destroyer possessed anything resembling a soul, trying to make eye contact with it at point-blank range would only earn him another annihilation beam to the face.
With his supernatural abilities neutralized...
All that remained was hand-to-hand combat.
That went about as well as expected.
The Ghost Rider barely reached the Destroyer’s chest.
The construct’s massive limbs gave it an overwhelming physical advantage.
The result had been a one-sided beating.
Fortunately, the Ghost Rider possessed his own form of immortality.
Every time the Destroyer blasted him apart...
He simply got back up.
This latest flight across the battlefield was nothing more than another direct hit from the construct’s face-mounted energy cannon.
Sure enough, less than two seconds later, the Ghost Rider climbed back to his feet, dusted himself off, and looked around.
Three people were staring at him.
All wearing exactly the same expression.
Well?
Go pull your boss somewhere else.
Whether he finally realized he wasn’t welcome or simply hated the Destroyer too much by now, the Ghost Rider let out an enraged roar and charged straight back toward his mechanical nemesis.
For an instant, as he rushed between them...
Everyone’s view was blocked.
Blackheart’s eyes flashed.
Now.
His feet exploded off the ground.
Ignoring Sif completely, he lunged straight toward Evenson with clawed hands.
Any competent fighter kills the backline first.
Sif reacted instantly.
Centuries of battlefield experience told her exactly what he intended.
She took a single step sideways.
Just one.
Yet that single movement completely sealed every direct approach to Evenson.
Blackheart’s attack stalled.
Even so, Evenson felt a chill run down his spine.
Right.
I’m a Warlock.
Why am I standing this close to the enemy?
Scarlet flames erupted beneath his boots.
With a burst of unnatural speed, he shot backward like a hound loosed from its leash, widening the distance far faster than Blackheart had closed it.
Burning Rush.
The spell flooded his body with fel fire, violently stimulating every muscle and forcing them beyond their natural limits.
It was incredibly effective.
It was also agonizing.
Anyone who had ever used it would agree on that much.
Blackheart abandoned the failed attack and retreated to his original position.
"You can’t kill me."
He spread his hands.
"This fight is pointless."
"You have no way to keep me here."
He wasn’t wrong.
Enemies that regenerated endlessly were among the most troublesome opponents imaginable.
The longer the battle dragged on, the more likely their opponents would exhaust themselves first.
Against someone who could recover indefinitely, even victory could slowly become defeat.
Normally...
Avoiding such a fight was the smartest choice.
Evenson merely smiled.
"I already told you."
"We won’t know whether you’re truly immortal until we test it."
He paused.
"And besides..."
"If we’d met a few days ago..."
"I probably would’ve accepted your offer."
Blackheart snorted.
Obviously.
A few days ago you hadn’t signed a contract with my father.
Why would you care enough to fight me?
His reasoning wasn’t entirely wrong.
Without Mephisto’s contract, Evenson would’ve had little reason to risk his life opposing Blackheart.
But there was another factor.
A few days earlier...
He hadn’t fought the Ghost Rider yet.
That battle had ended in frustration.
He’d exhausted nearly every trick he possessed just to win...
Only to discover he had no way to finish the job.
That experience had left one question lingering in his mind.
How did these so-called immortals actually work?
Were they truly impossible to kill?
Or did they simply appear that way?
Over the past several days, Evenson had spent a great deal of time thinking about it.
Eventually, he found a comparison that made surprising sense.
The Ghost Rider reminded him of something from Azeroth.
A lich.
Not the Lich King himself.
Just an ordinary lich.
One wielded frost.
The other wielded Hellfire.
But fundamentally...
Both were little more than animated skeletons whose true souls existed somewhere else.
A lich hid its soul inside a phylactery.
Destroy the body, and it simply rebuilt itself.
Destroy the phylactery...
And the lich died permanently.
The Ghost Rider wasn’t so different.
His soul wasn’t inside his body.
It belonged to the contract.
And that contract...
Remained safely in Mephisto’s hands.
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