Chapter 1107. New Attempt

Clearly, Sparkle knew Charles the best. Her guess hit the nail right on the head. Charles was, indeed, seated at the rectangular table where the multiple planes overlapped.

The Charleses from all the various planes were seated at the table in silence. Their gazes were solemn as they absorbed the flood of information transmitted directly into their minds.

"What do you guys think?" Charles broke the silence after a long pause.

Of course, he wasn't just enquiring about the time manipulation method Lily had come up with. He was also asking for their opinions on everything that Lily and Sparkle had experienced.

Compared to Lily's method of controlling time to ensure his survival, the glimpses they saw of the future carried far more critical information.

The destined apocalypse happened without any surprise. Yet, his future self could actually recognize Lily, and even helped her.

This detail clashed with everything they had previously recorded. The group of Charleses assigned to monitor the behavior of the various Edikths had confirmed that after ascending to godhood, none of them was capable of any emotions.

Then, there came the question. If he could help Lily in the future, why hadn't he sent any helpful information to his current past self?

Was he afraid that it could cause a butterfly effect and disrupt the meticulously constructed timeline? If that was the case, then would helping Lily count as disturbing the timeline as well? Or...could it be that Lily's time travel was all along a predestined event in this timeline?

Questions and speculations spiraled in Charles' mind. Layers of theories stacked upon each other endlessly. But whatever the case, all the possible outcomes were far better than any of the doomsday scenarios he had envisioned.

"If your daughter claims that she saw you in the future, then it means you are destined to become Him. Then, perhaps, this time manipulation method can allow you to become the future you," a blind Charles replied.

The Charleses from the other planes then offered their opinions and advice.

"Don't overthink it. Now that we have a solution, we ought to give it a try. The success rate is way better than any of our backup plans."

"Yes, my advice is to try it too. If you fail, we'll make sure to take good care of your world."

With the layered reassurance and persuasion, Charles found his own conviction hardening.

"Alright then," Charles said. "I'll temporarily share my vision with all of you. If I fail, you can learn from my mistake. If I succeed, you can then follow—"

Yet before he could complete his sentence, another Charles cut him off.

𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

"No, we won't be able to follow your footsteps. We don't have a Light God from another plane, and neither do we have a demigod daughter born from a Dioite. You are the only one who can carry out this solution."

Charles's gaze swept over every single one of his counterparts before he bowed his head slightly. His awareness then left this humanoid vessel and returned to his true self.

Back at his own plane, Sparkle and Lily were still quietly waiting. Every now and then, they would exchange a few words with a few of Charles' descendants.

"Lily, come here," Charles called out.

Lily's heart skipped a beat as she joyfully approached Charles.

The island of flesh beneath them began to tremble slightly. The brain that was swimming through Charles' immense form slowly rose to the ground.

"Try your method on my brain," Charles said.

Trapping Charles in a time loop was Lily's idea. But truth to be told, she was feeling rather nervous about it now. No one knew what the actual outcome was.

"Don't be scared. Just like before, do what I tell you and it'll be fine," Charles said as he patted Lily's head gently to ease her anxiety.

If the time loop method truly worked, then the fleeting time he had left would be indefinitely extended. Originally, he had barely a month remaining before becoming Edikth, but now, it could become hundreds of years.

With the luxury of time, he would be able to deal with their current predicament.

As for the endless boredom and suffocating stillness that would drive any human mad? For the current Charles, it meant nothing.

"Okay, Mr. Charles," Lily answered.

Her humanoid form then slowly disappeared as beams of iridescent sunlight shone upon Charles.

Just like the ice that had previously trapped Lily in a time loop, Lily's sunlight now carried the same power to manipulate time itself. Wherever her light touched, time would become hers to command.

As the sunlight grew more intense, the countless limbs on Charles began to twitch and writhe. Charles began to silently calculate how much information he had received.

The process went on for forty minutes before his entire world seemed to come to a sudden halt. All the knowledge he had just accumulated vanished.

A new cycle began!

The method worked!

Just as Charles thought that this method could truly sustain his existence for centuries, everything abruptly stopped during the fifteenth cycle.

Thrown into confusion, Charles lifted his gaze toward the hovering sun above him. This wasn't what he had expected.

"Lily, what happened?"

"Sorry, Mr. Charles," Lily replied in an apologetic tone. "This is my limit. I just realized that I could only reset time this many times."

Lily realized she had overlooked one crucial factor.

Time could imprison a mortal.

Time could imprison her past self.

Yet, time couldn't completely imprison Charles. After all, he was considered a god now. No matter if one were to look from the physics or time aspect, one would know that Charles had become far too "heavy."

"Don't panic. We'll think of another way..." Charles said, his mind racing for other solutions.

Truth be told, a power like time manipulation had simply too many experimental possibilities. It was as dangerous as it was intoxicating.

If it weren't for the fact that he would immediately become Edikth upon seizing this power, Charles would really love to master time manipulation and experiment with it himself.

A bold idea came to Charles' mind.

"If you can't trap me in time, how about trapping the entire Subterranean Sea in a time loop?"

"That won't do," Lily immediately turned down the proposition. "If I do that, everyone in the Subterranean Sea would be killed by my sunlight. Also, there are too many beings in the Subterranean Sea that carry as much weight as you do. Unless we exclude them all, I can't fully control the time over the Subterranean Sea."

Charles' brows furrowed in deep thought.

The cogs in his divine brain turned. With Lily's new ability at the core of his analysis, he began to formulate alternative solutions. If he managed to survive in the future, it meant he had found one.

Just as he thought of his future self, a thread of insight flashed through his mind and nearly slipped away. Fortunately, Charles managed to catch it before it did.

Wait. If Lily already has the power to control time, isn't it too insignificant to only use it to trap me in an indefinite time loop? Why don't we go bigger?

"Lily, can you reverse the flow of time of the entire Subterranean—"

Lily immediately cut Charles off and shook her head violently. "Mr. Charles, that won't do. That would reverse everything. Babies will no longer grow up but will shrink until they return to their mothers' wombs. The dead in the cemeteries will also come back to life one after another. If time runs backward like that... it'd be terrifying.

"Just answer me this—can you do it?" Charles asked in a firm voice without explaining further.