Gustav felt like if this continued, there would be absolutely nothing left. He had no choice... he had to end it now. But the cost— He glanced around at the billions of lights extinguishing every second. If he unleashed the technique he was preparing… Everything — absolutely everything — would vanish. Even the empty frameworks of space. Even the timelines. Even the concept of existence itself. He inhaled. And made his decision. His body blurred, moving thousands of times faster than light, faster than time, faster than cause and effect. He flitted between galaxies, dodging the Overseer's pursuit while accumulating energy. Each flicker of movement triggered supernovas. Each step crushed a cluster of stars. Each breath unmade a pocket dimension. The Overseer thundered after him, giant, grotesque, absorbing more death and destruction to further empower his monstrous form. Gustav's fingers trembled, glowing with catastrophic power. The attack, once unleashed, would consume everything. He whispered to himself: "One blow." The Overseer charged, tearing a galaxy in half to reach him. Gustav stopped running. He gathered every scrap of power into his limbs, energy dense enough to melt layers of reality around him. "I'm ending this—" He raised his hand, preparing to unleash the strike he was accumulating... However, he noticed he couldn't move. His arm froze in place. Then his other arm. Then his legs. His entire body locked as if gripped by an invisible cage. Gustav's eyes widened sharply. His shadow split beneath him, peeling open like a corpse blooming into rot and tendrils of darkness wrapped around his limbs. Death-energy surged along the bindings. "Nocturnis…" Gustav growled. Of course. He recognized the technique — Shadow-Death Binding. A forbidden seal that grew stronger the more death was present. And right now? Everything around them had been dying. Every galaxy crushed. Every species erased. Every star torn apart. Nocturnis was feasting on the carnage. A cold echo drifted from behind Gustav: "Did you think you were the only one setting the stage?" Nocturnis stepped out of Gustav's shadow and his huge form was cloaked in writhing darkness swollen with the strength of all that perished. Gustav pushed against the bindings as reality cracked around him. The shadows tightened. But only for a moment. Gustav's unleashed his aura which sent out a violent wave that broke all natural law. The bindings trembled. They would not hold him long. Nocturnis knew it. The Overseer knew it. But this was the plan. Nocturnis whispered: "Your power isn't the only one that grows from chaos." The shadows snapped again, tightening, but Gustav already felt them weakening. Then the Overseer spoke. His voice echoed across collapsing universes: "If I cannot kill you…" He extended both arms. "…then I will imprison you forever." The moment Gustav shattered the bindings— FWOOM— Light burst around him. Not normal light. Not energy. Not aura. Something else. Red light. Red bars. A cage made of concentrated divine imprisonment, constructed from the Overseer's authority itself. It wrapped around him like a blooming flower of death. Gustav snarled, slamming his fist into the bars — and instantly regretted it. KRRRSHHH— A beam of condensed destruction energy shot out from the bars, hitting him in the chest and blowing him backward within the cage. More beams fired. From above. From below. From every corner of the prison space. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. Each blast forced him back into the center, preventing him from breaking any corner of the cage. Outside, the Overseer hovered with his body trembling due to the effort it took to maintain the prison. His abominable form flickered violently, but his massive, twisted grin remained. Nocturnis stood beside him, watching the red cage pulsate. Gustav roared and tried gripping the bars— Only for another violent burst of energy to explode in his face. The cage grew stronger as it continously transformed into a more complete version. The Overseer whispered, triumphant: "Your story ends here." Unfortunately, the prison was not just a cage. It was a concept. A living idea of confinement, sculpted from the Overseer's own authority, infused with the remnants of collapsed timelines and reinforced by the death-fattened might of Nocturnis. The bloody red bars pulsed like living veins, each one radiating with the power to erase galaxies. Inside it, Gustav was being torn apart from every angle. Beams of concentrated destruction energy blasted at him relentlessly — one from above, three from the left, five from behind, dozens more from corners that technically didn't exist. Each beam carried enough force to collapse a solar system into raw dust. And they didn't stop. They fired in continuous succession, overlapping, weaving, intersecting, cutting across one another to ensure Gustav never had a moment of stillness. Within that confined space, it was like standing in the heart of a cosmic storm engineered to pulverize even Origin-level beings. Gustav's body jerked from every impact. His skin burst open and healed within the same millisecond. His bones cracked and reformed. His aura flared, shrank, and reignited. The prison was designed to keep him perpetually destabilized — a chaotic balance of endless pressure meant to break down even his outworldly form. Outside, the Overseer exhaled shakily, maintaining the structure of the red cage as though holding a collapsing universe together with his bare hands. Nocturnis watched the beams crash into Gustav with widening eyes. Other deities — the few still alive after the cataclysmic battle — floated in silent awe. Then the Overseer let out a hysterical, broken and triumphant laughter. "We got him…!" he shouted with a mixture of joy and madness. "We finally got him this time!" One of the remaining deities let out a relieved sob. Another chuckled breathlessly. Nocturnis extended his shadow outward and felt the vibration of Gustav's suppressed aura inside the prison. "Yes," Nocturnis murmured darkly. "He cannot escape this. Not while the prison concept holds." "If Gustav is trapped forever," another deity added, "then he can no longer reincarnate. And if he cannot die, he cannot return! We've won!" More laughter rang out and for a few moments, the deities felt the first taste of hope in what seemed like an endless nightmare.