The Bloodline System Chapter 1679 1679: Collapsing Taboo
Laughter echoed once more, and for a brief instant, the deities experienced a glimmer of hope amid their interminable torment.
Yet, that hope endured only for a fleeting moment.
Suddenly, the prison quaked.
Not due to the Overseer.
Not from any structural weakness.
But originating from its depths.
Nocturnis' attention whipped back to the enclosure.
"What… was that?"
The Overseer scowled. "What do you mean?"
The prison shuddered anew.
This time with greater intensity.
A deep, resonant hum coursed through the bars. A force alien to the prison itself.
It emanated from Gustav.
Nocturnis' eyes bulged. "Impossible—"
FWOOM.
A surge of energy erupted outward, unfurling from the cage's core like the birth of a stellar phenomenon.
The Overseer stumbled back.
The deities inhaled sharply.
Inside the crimson orb, Gustav's presence detonated akin to a stellar cataclysm, transforming, coiling, honing into a far more precise and vastly deadlier essence.
His Outworldly aura intensified.
It expanded.
With every passing second, it became thicker.
Stronger.
More primordial.
Resembling an ancient power rousing after eons of dormancy.
The rays striking him started to warp and fracture as his aura densified, repelling them like droplets scattering off a colossal armor.
His fingers clenched.
Then his hand pressed flat against a radiant red bar.
The Overseer recoiled.
"No… no, no, no!"
In the beginning, the prison had voided all notions of gravity.
The idea of motion was eradicated, rendering any entity inside utterly immobile.
The activation of internal energies was utterly quelled as well.
The Overseer had excised every principle permitting action or defiance within the confines, leaving Gustav exposed to myriad beams without recourse.
This represented the prison's utmost might...
Nevertheless, Gustav's hand inched forward.
Deliberately, he exerted force on the bar.
The crimson bar quivered fiercely beneath the strain.
"How—?" murmured a deity, quaking.
Yet another retreated in dread. "T-This is… This is not possible!"
The Overseer's tone fractured.
"He cannot move! He shouldn't be able to move!"
Gustav's digits wrapped around the bar.
He tugged.
The bar resisted at first—not yielding outright, but emitting a groan of universal defiance. The prison's bars were linked to the Overseer's core being. To bend one was to lacerate the Overseer's spirit.
The Overseer howled as a portion of his vital force incinerated merely from Gustav's hold.
Yet Gustav persisted.
The bars warped.
Gradually.
Tormentingly.
The Overseer countered at once, channeling his full might to fortify the prison, layering scores of time anchors and stellar bindings around Gustav.
However, Gustav's burgeoning aura devoured every bit of that strain.
Not even the relentless star-annihilating rays could hinder his advance.
The Overseer descended into frenzy.
"POWER… I… NEED… MORE POWER!!"
He flung his arms wide, releasing a terrifying drawing force.
The deities recoiled.
"No!" one cried out. "Not that forbidden—!"
"Yes!" the Overseer wailed. "ALL OF YOU WILL FEED ME!"
A churning maelstrom appeared before his torso.
The closest deity got dragged in without delay, shrieking as their godly frame disintegrated into streams of unadulterated essence.
Another deity attempted escape—
But the Overseer's pull seized him in mid-air.
He was hauled into the Overseer's chest, consumed in a flash.
Nocturnis jerked his gaze toward him.
"You FOOL!" he bellowed. "The forbidden ability is volatile. You cannot ingest so many deities simultaneously! You will—"
The Overseer seized him by the neck like a plaything.
Nocturnis thrashed as his shadows erupted wildly.
"LET ME GO!"
But release did not come.
He was drawn into the Overseer's chest like liquid soaking into absorbent material.
"No—NO—!" Nocturnis yelled as he was engulfed.
His outcry halted sharply as the Overseer seized.
His frame swelled and contorted, becoming even more grotesque than prior. An overload of energy beyond any vessel's capacity flooded him, distorting his shape like seething turmoil.
His torso protruded unnaturally.
Abruptly, twisted, wailing visages started emerging from his body.
These were countenances contorted in suffering, their gazes ablaze with erratic godly radiance.
These belonged to the deities he had consumed.
The forbidden act had prevented their seamless integration. Their minds wailed from within, their essences battling for freedom even as their strength nourished him.
The Overseer cried out in agony, gripping his skull, struggling to hold dominion.
Still, he bolstered the prison relentlessly.
Stratum upon stratum.
Principle upon principle.
Binding upon binding.
A myriad of ray projectors materialized inside the cage, unleashing upon Gustav in unison.
Still—
Gustav kept forcing the bars wider.
One inch.
Two inches.
Four inches.
His aura thrust forth like a sentient being, engulfing the rays, assimilating their ruinous might, converting it into his own sustenance.
The Overseer wheezed with crimson eyes.
"WHY… WON'T… YOU… STAY… TRAPPED?!"
He funneled ever greater amounts of his gathered potency into the prison.
And the protrusions from his form moaned and screeched—lamenting, baying, their holy essence leaking from their sockets.
The Overseer's physique convulsed as fissures started spiderwebbing over his exterior.
Regardless—
The prison commenced fracturing.
The red bars curved outward with a ultimate, deafening snap.
Gustav's fingers shredded the abstract barriers, shredding the embodiment of the Overseer's dominion like tearing sodden fabric.
The prison disintegrated.
The illumination imploded.
The rays halted.
And Gustav emerged.
He materialized before the Overseer in a blink, his fist retracted and poised.
The Overseer stiffened as his aberrant shape quivered.
Gustav murmured:
"…your prison failed."
And he delivered the blow.
Gustav's fist collided with the Overseer's chest bearing the fury of a perishing cosmos grasping for survival.
BOOOOOOOOM!
The Overseer's enormous figure was hurled rearward like a discarded puppet cast through the wreckage of existence. His enormous bulk ripped through nebula debris and pulverized stellar remnants.
His wails reverberated across strata of ripped continuum.
Gustav offered no respite.
Ere the Overseer could steady himself, Gustav disappeared—remanifesting directly overhead, his heel plummeting.
KRRRRRRAAACK!!!
His sole crushed the Overseer downward, propagating tremors through the moribund universe. The surviving stellar flickers—dim echoes of former infernos—extinguished forthwith.
Shards of imploded galaxies burst in sweeping trails of astral particles.
The Overseer gagged and sought to compose himself, but Gustav was upon him once more.
His hand morphed into a edge of unrefined Outworldly power.
SWOOOSH—SHIIINK!