The huge body of the honeycomb twitched and shrank violently. Even though he had immediately covered himself in a spherical energy shield, facing the white flames gushing out from under him, the energy shield began to collapse almost instantly.
Especially the circular lava area below him, which was like a lava pool, continuously brought him great pain and damage. The dark white flames burned his spirit, his will, and his soul!
Enduring immense pain, Beehive maneuvered his massive body through the lava pool, determined to escape the area. The burning white flames clung to his body, and every step he took inflicted intense pain, both physical and spiritual.
His ability allowed him to bathe in lava with ease, even allowing him to survive cosmic storms. However, even with a lava pool only thirty meters in diameter and within easy reach, leaving it felt like a lifetime had passed.
This is the fire that only exists in the hell dimension!
It uses the human soul, body, and mind as fuel. The moment an ordinary person faces it, they will be burned to ashes, and not even their soul can escape.
This flame is distinct from the flames of the Eye of Judgment possessed by Ghost Rider. According to Mephisto, Ghost Rider's power comes from a demon named Zatanos, a great demon with similar power to Mephisto. Under these circumstances, the two naturally became rivals. The battle between the two demons ultimately came to a temporary end with Mephisto's victory.
Mephisto managed to erase Zatanos's memories, enslave his soul, and seal his body. This greatly reduced the cost and chance of Zatanos's resurrection. Finally, Mephisto transformed Zatanos's soul into a contract. This contract granted any Ghost Rider who signed it the power of Zatanos's soul, allowing them to harness some of his powers.
Of course, this is the version given by Mephisto.
The azure white flame is a natural product of the Hell Dimension, its unique ability to burn away the impurities of the soul. When an ordinary soul is burned by this flame for a period of time, everything, including impurities and emotions, is burned away, leaving it as a clean, white sheet of paper. This is also the primary tool used to craft materials in the Hell Dimension, much like fire in a human's hand.
Luke specifically collected this source of fire from Mephisto through exchange and purchase, and used a technique combined with a little magic to seal it into Nemegate's body as its killer weapon.
Nemegate did not pursue the victory during the hive escape, but flapped his wings and landed again, with his powerful metal tail gently swinging left and right.
Only after the hive left the lava area did Nemegt inflate his chest again, and his front half leaned back slightly, just like the dragon in Western mythology accumulating energy before exhaling. The moment his head leaned forward, a column of white fire spun out of the spout.
Before Beehive could even begin to recover after weakly crawling out, he was struck by a column of piercing white flames. His entire mind and soul were instantly emptied. The pain radiating from his body and soul made it difficult for him to think. Normally, he should have been furious, but due to the pain and the blankness of his mind, he couldn't even feel anger, or even realize it.
The following period was a cycle of chase and escape, waiting and re-engagement. The whole process was not very entertaining. If it was used as a battle viewing to sell tickets, I believe that the audience who bought tickets would either leave in a rage or fall asleep in their seats.
Because the battle between the two behemoths is not exciting at all, and can even be called ugly. Apart from the [light and shadow effects] and the close combat between the two behemoths, which are somewhat interesting, the rest of the process is just chase and escape.
Hive's greatest strength isn't his various superpowers, but his parasitic abilities! Once he possesses a host, everything in it becomes his sustenance. In this respect, he's a bit like Luke's low-profile Data Dimension, except that he replicates and masters everything about his host through parasitism, while Luke creates through analysis and research.
When facing other creatures, his parasitic ability is indeed terrifying, but facing a metal creation, the Hive can only sigh in despair. Unless he can upgrade his ability to the point where he can not distinguish between carbon-based, silicon-based, or even energy creatures, otherwise he can only choose to confront Nemegate head-on.
In other words, he is not a creature in the conventional sense, otherwise, facing Nemegt's attack, he would have already gone to hell, instead of being able to fight with the opponent like he is now, and occasionally counterattack one or two times.
The body is adapting to the burning of hellfire, albeit at a low level, but it is indeed undergoing targeted evolution. In other words, the path to evolution isn't solely parasitism and plunder.
Although the Hive was well hidden and appeared to be no different from the beginning of the battle, the data analyzed by the data dimension was correct. The opponent's body was gradually adapting to the current energy value of the Hellfire.
Emergy is the temperature of the human flame.
Luke didn't expose the enemy, even though he knew exactly what was coming. But the outcome of the battle, at least the outcome of this one, wasn't what he cared about. What he cared about was the capabilities and data captured by the Hive, which had been pushed to its limit.
So Luke knew the other party was acting, feigning weakness, stalling for time to strain his body to regain peak combat power, and probing Nemegate's weaknesses in occasional attacks. He was more eager to see if the other party could achieve his goal.
Two hours later, as Nemegate continued to increase the intensity of his attacks, the Hive realized that if they couldn't get rid of the opponent quickly, they would be the ones to be eliminated. Then the Hive used all their abilities and launched a focused attack on all the possible weak areas of Nemegate that they had collected.
In a short period of time, Hive, who had recklessly burst out with all his might, was like a god of war! The little white rabbit that was previously hunted by the dragon suddenly transformed into another powerful hunter.
The two massive monsters entwined themselves, their honeycomb tentacles tightly enveloping Nemegate's metal body. A dense swarm of black insects, recklessly blocking all of Nemegate's vents, attacked one after another, relentlessly. Ultimately, relying on sheer numbers and adaptability, they dragged Nemegate to his knees.
Because all the nozzles were blocked, a deep white flame burned within Nemegate's body. The high-dimensional energy triggered Nemegate's internal defense mechanism, causing some damage to its internal parts.
But the Hive's desperate attack also brought about a counterattack from Nemegate's defense mechanism. Within a range of fifty meters around Nemegate, multiple hellfire hot springs gushed out one after another, with energy values much higher than before.
By the time Beehive crawled out of the lava-covered area, his body was already tattered and covered with wounds. Even his huge hill-like size had shrunk by half, and he looked like he had suffered heavy losses.
But Hive, who escaped death, was full of relief in his heart. Although he had lost a lot of strength and body, he had finally gotten rid of the huge metal monster that had always posed a death threat to him.
He no longer cared about controlling the Atrium, humans, or anything like that. His greatest wish was to find a way to escape from here, to return to his home planet where he had lived for over a thousand years. Furthermore, he had to completely shut down the transmission channel between here and there within the next few hundred years. It didn't matter if he couldn't return.
Anyway, he is alone, so he will definitely not come here to suffer in person again!
Bang!
Luke's virtual projection reappeared before Hive's eyes, just inches away. Luke clapped his hands, looking with satisfaction at Hive's wounded body, which was still trying to heal itself.
"Human, let me go. I promise you, as long as you are here, my subordinates and I will never set foot on this planet again! I can also give all the subordinates on this planet to you and you can do whatever you want with them." The body of the Hive kept shrinking and finally returned to a human form. The tentacles on the octopus's head twitched, and it opened its mouth to promise Luke.
"No rush." Facing Hive's assurance, which was somewhat urgent and humiliating, Luke shook his head seriously.
"Why not?" Beehive looked at Luke's shadow not far away, a heavy shadow crossing his heart. He had already decided that if the other party really refused to let him live, he would at least fight hard, even if it meant destroying some things and buildings!
"There's still another test to be done. Be good and finish it first. Then we can talk about whether to leave or let you go." Luke pointed behind Hive and soothed him gently.
Hearing the mechanical sounds coming from behind him, Beehive froze for a moment. He slowly turned around, his eyes instantly turned dead silent, and his chest was filled with a bunch of dirty words, but he didn't know where to start.
The circular plaza's metal walls opened one by one, revealing identical Nemegates within. A cursory glance revealed around twenty of them in a single instant! Even more terrifying, amidst the familiar, yet tingling, metallic humming that filled the Hive, the thirty-plus activated Nemegates flapped their wings in unison, their metal bodies moving out of the opened metal doors and into unison.
Do you think that defeating Nemegt will earn you victory and the right to negotiate?
Excuse me.
I have thirty-nine Nemegates waiting to join the fray!
Do you understand how much defense I have set up around the Rainbow Bridge to protect it?
Beehive turned his head in despair and looked at Luke, who was looking at him expectantly and clenching his fist as if to encourage him. Even with his mentality of having lived for thousands of years, he finally couldn't help but completely break down.
Are you completely gone as a human being?
Is it true! Is it true! Is it true!
It was amazing that Hive's octopus face and tentacles could show such rich and intuitive expressions. Luke silently encouraged him again in his heart, and gave the Nemegates the order to attack without hesitation.
As long as you don't kill him, there's no need to hold back!
This is a tough one.
The ensuing battle was equally ugly.
As always, Hive showed its tenacious vitality, strong self-healing ability, and numerous superpowers, but these did not play any decisive role except allowing it to hold on a little longer and serve as a sandbag for a while longer.
Moreover, the thirty-nine Nemegates possessed at least four versions of higher-dimensional power, and even his adaptability couldn't keep up. Finally, after just ten minutes, the Hive completely gave up resistance. Facing the diverse, saturation-blanket attacks of nearly forty Nemegates, it simply channeled its remaining strength into maintaining and strengthening its own healing abilities. His mind was now almost unable to think.
Another ten minutes passed.
The honeycomb has become a pool of rotten meat, completely losing its breath of life.
Of course, this was only superficial. However, according to the data dimension detection, although the opponent's life force had disappeared from the outside world, the detection information showed that the hive was only on the verge of death. It could not be said to be dead.
A beehive isn't a living thing in the conventional sense; each parasite can be considered a beehive. The one before him could only be considered its true form, but even if the true form were truly dead, it wouldn't affect the survival of the parasites, unless they were struck by a chain of soul attacks from a higher-dimensional force.
"Store and seal it," Luke gave his final order with a hint of regret. It wasn't clear if he was regretting the enemy couldn't hold out longer, or that the second half of the battle ended so anticlimactically. Regardless, the data dimension had analyzed a considerable amount of data on Hive's combat, abilities, and health. With this data, Luke could refine the Reversal Crystal to make it effective against Hive as well.
The next research will be more in-depth, more detailed, and somewhat less humane.
The parasite of the hive seemed very similar to a creature in Luke's memory after he looked through the data.
Zerg?
Alien?
Both?
Does Luke need more experimental materials, such as those parasites that have been parasitized?
This shouldn't be difficult to find. I think there must be a lot of unlucky people on Nick's side who sent him a distress message. In order to eliminate the root cause and avoid future troubles, Luke decided to take action himself and help Nick solve those difficult problems!