Dozens of new streams of chaotic energy burst from the Evil God's body in an explosion of light.
The surge didn't just replenish the power he had lost—it made him stronger, far stronger. His veins bulged, his aura swelled, but his body trembled under the strain. He was a balloon on the verge of bursting.
The whites of his eyes turned crimson as his confidence rose alongside his madness.
"Jie jie jie… boy, even now, you've still got time to flirt with girls?"
With a distorted grin, the Evil God sent dozens of writhing energy serpents lashing through the air, streaking toward Lock in an overwhelming storm of force.
Lock shot higher into the sky, weaving between the energy trails. With one fluid motion, he gathered his strength into his palm and struck downward.
BOOM!
The sky erupted in a flash of blue and red. The collision shattered the serpents, scattering them like shards of glass.
The backlash tore through the Evil God's body. Blood burst from his nose, mouth, and ears as he staggered back, hair disheveled, face twisted with fury.
"Impossible… how can you be this powerful?!"
He'd taken dozens of Super Soldier Serums—his strength was beyond even Captain America's peak—yet he couldn't match this calm-faced Easterner who, years ago, he'd bullied like an insect.
The humiliation was unbearable.
Pierce watched from afar, realizing that even after all this, the Evil God was still leagues beneath the King of Apocalypse.
While he can still hold him off, I'd better get out of here, Pierce thought grimly.
He turned to Wanda. "Wanda, take me away—now! The Evil God won't last much longer. Move before it's too late!"
Then he shouted toward the battlefield: "Evil God! Hold off, King Apocalypse! We'll regroup at the old place!"
The Evil God froze mid-flight.
"King… Apocalypse?"
Pierce and the others assumed he already knew who he was fighting, so they hadn't bothered to explain.
But the Evil God had never made the connection. In his mind, this was still the same young stowaway he'd once robbed and humiliated—nothing more.
Lock looked down at him, expression unreadable. "I thought you already knew."
The Evil God's blood ran cold. His mind snapped to attention. That boy… was Apocalypse?
He had no time to think. He thrust his hands outward, releasing a flood of black mist that expanded into a massive net, enveloping hundreds of meters around him.
The fog sealed off the air, cutting Lock's sight for a brief moment—long enough for him to turn tail and flee.
In seconds, he was nearly a kilometer away.
He'd lived too long in the underworld to care about pride or glory. Survival was all that mattered. And now that he knew the truth, staying would be suicide.
Lock didn't pursue. He merely extended a hand toward the retreating figure. Thin streams of blue light arced from his fingertips, sketching intricate symbols into the air.
Then he turned his gaze to Pierce and the Scarlet Witch.
Pierce's stomach dropped. Damn it, why did that idiot run now?! You were supposed to stall him, not leave me here!
Unbeknownst to him, it was his own shout that had exposed Lock's identity and sent the Evil God fleeing in panic.
Black Widow was still clashing with the Scarlet Witch nearby. Her skill and reflexes allowed her to evade the Witch's chaos energy, but she couldn't overpower her.
Still, Wanda refused to kill—and she shielded Pierce instead of pressing her advantage—so the fight dragged on in a tense stalemate.
When Lock approached, Pierce's face went pale.
He shouted, desperate: "If you don't fight them off, Wanda, your brother dies with me!"
Wanda stiffened. "For my brother… I won't let you through!"
Lock smiled faintly. "I don't need to go anywhere. You can't run anymore."
As his words echoed, a shrill scream tore through the air.
"AAAAHHH! What—what is this?!"
The Evil God had reappeared in the same place he'd fled from.
He blinked in confusion, looking around wildly. No… I just flew several kilometers!
He shot off again—this time in a different direction, faster, desperate.
But when he crossed the horizon, the landscape shimmered—and he was back at the same starting point again.
Panic turned to terror.
Meanwhile, Lock floated calmly, watching like a teacher observing a child's tantrum. His experiment had succeeded.
The few delicate lines he'd drawn in midair moments ago—those light-blue streaks of power—had used the Space Stone's energy to construct a Klein bottle around the battlefield.
For ordinary minds, the concept was unfathomable. But Lock understood it perfectly.
Most people had heard of a Möbius strip—a simple loop of paper twisted once before being joined. An ant crawling along it could move endlessly, crossing from one side to the other without ever finding an edge.
A Klein bottle was the three-dimensional evolution of that idea—a closed, self-contained loop that folded back into itself through higher-dimensional space.
No beginnings. No ends. No escape.
Even simpler, Lock thought: It's like walking on Earth. No matter which direction you travel, eventually, you return to where you started.
Except here, the "Earth" was a twisted fragment of space itself—bent and sealed within a pocket dimension.
There were no walls. No visible boundaries. Only the illusion of freedom.
And so, no matter where the Evil God flew, he would circle endlessly, trapped within Lock's invisible snare.
It was an advanced form of Drawing the Ground as a Prison—a spatial cage for gods and monsters alike.
The Evil God, powered only by brute strength and borrowed serums, couldn't even comprehend what had happened, let alone escape it.
He darted in every direction like a trapped insect, reappearing at the same place again and again. Each time, his rage grew more hysterical.
Even Wanda and Pierce, watching from below, felt their blood run cold.
Compared to sheer destructive power, this unseen, elegant control of reality was far more terrifying.
Pierce swallowed hard. "What… what did you just do?"
Lock turned toward him, calm as ever. "We can have a proper conversation now."
Pierce forced a bitter smile. "If you're going to kill me, then get it over with. What's there to talk about?"
Lock's gaze shifted away from him. "I'm not talking to you, Pierce. I'm talking to Wanda."
The Scarlet Witch blinked in confusion. "To me?"
Her heart tightened. Why would the King of Apocalypse—of all people—want to talk to her?
Her mind, conditioned by years of manipulation, jumped to the only conclusion she knew.
He must be like the others…
Her expression hardened, eyes cold. "We have nothing to discuss—and I won't agree to whatever you want."
Crimson light gathered at her fingertips. Chaos energy surged like a living flame.
She thrust her hand forward, hurling a wave of scarlet power toward Lock.
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