Shrouded Seascape

In the end, Sparkle chose not to voice out the words that rose unbidden to her lips. She wrapped her arms around Charles' arm and stared quietly at the lights within Nene's home through the windows.

Hearing the joyful voices inside, Sparkle's eyes narrowed slightly. She leaned her head on Charles and hugged him a bit tighter.

Sensing the pressure on his arm, Charles asked, "Sparkle, are you hiding something from me?"

Hiding anything from Charles had become an extremely difficult task, as he no longer relied on any organs to receive information. He could easily extrapolate seventy percent of any secrets he wanted to know.

With that in mind, Sparkle's heart skipped a beat. Just as she was hesitating about whether to speak her heart or not, Charles beat her to the chase, saying, "If you don't want to say it, then you don't have to. I was just asking."

Sparkle hesitated for a while before ultimately deciding to stay quiet.

After all, Charles had already made his own decision. Sparkle was keenly aware that her daddy loved her mommy a lot. If her daddy were to become aware of what her mommy had gone through, the former would surely become more miserable.

He would never attempt to bring her back for the sake of his goal. Nothing had really changed yet, so telling him anything about her mommy would only make her daddy feel needlessly worried.

"I'm sorry, Daddy. I'll tell you at the right time," Sparkle replied, burying her head into Charles, feeling a bit guilty.

Charles reached out and stroked her silky hair that reached all the way to her waist. "It's okay; it's nothing serious. Anyway, we're done with our business here, so it's about time we go back."

The street light above their heads flickered, and the people on the bench vanished as soon as it stopped flickering.

Having returned to their residence, Charles let go of his daughter. There was a hint of fatigue in his voice as he said, "Sparkle, go out there and help your daddy for a bit. My body fleshly body has instinctively learned quite a few things while we were out.

"It's funny, but I really have to say that being a fast learner isn't necessarily a good thing."

Sparkle asked no questions whatsoever and simply nodded before disappearing into thin air. Her figure flickered a few times before she arrived at a low-lying area of the island.

Eerie, glowing eyes could be seen within the surrounding forest. Those eyes belonged to Sparkle's brothers and sisters. They had become even more unrecognizable than before under Charles' influence.

"Go away, and stop looking. You'll become uglier and uglier the more you stare at it," Sparkle remarked.

The glowing eyes in the forest vanished, and the surroundings fell silent.

Sparkle looked around for a while. Upon confirming that there was truly no one around, she raised her right foot and tapped the ground with her toes.

A thirty-square-meter patch of land was teleported away, revealing what looked like brains covered in a murky, viscous liquid beneath the earth.

Obviously, these brains were not ordinary brains of human beings. There was an odd odor to them, and they had a bizarre shape. Most importantly, these brains seemed to be connected to each other. �

The pitch-black cortical folds of these brains were trembling incessantly, and the raw emotions emanating from within them seemed to be trying to assimilate everything around them.

Charles' brain seemed to have obtained the ability to reproduce, as it was constantly encroaching on everything around them with each breath that Charles would take.

Sparkle bit her lip lightly and jumped in. Every single bizarre-looking brain that made contact with her disappeared into thin air. In just a few seconds, the crowded cavity had been emptied; it now resembled a huge pit made of flesh and blood.

"Thank you. My mind feels much clearer now," Charles' voice echoed came the bloody pit.

"You're welcome," Sparkle said. She lifted her skirt and spun lightly. Then, her figure then vanished into thin air.

Sparkle reappeared on a desolate island; the brains she had teleported away earlier were all squirming in the middle of the island.

It hadn't been that long since they were teleported away, but the bizarre-looking brains had become even more bizarre; they sprouted fleshy feet that resembled a belly and were instinctively crawling in Charles' direction.

At this rate, it wouldn't be long before they grew their own consciousness.

Of course, Sparkle couldn't let that happen. She walked up to them and bent down, revealing her razor-sharp teeth. She scooped them up and bit down on them, making a tiny hole amidst the cortical folds.

Then, Sparkle closed her eyes and sucked gently. The contents of the bizarre-looking brain were sucked into her stomach. And Sparkle devoured them cleanly, sparing not even their skin and the viscous liquid around them.

Sparkle ate and ate, but her figure remained slender; there was no change to her appearance at all.

After consuming everything, Sparkle belched. Her figure rapidly split open, but she shrank immediately afterward.

Sparkle could feel herself growing even stronger, and the sensation was starkly different from her natural growth. Sparkle believed that it had to be because of the power of a Divinity that she had absorbed from Charles.

It had been a while since Sparkle discovered that her father's flesh and blood were connected to her own. The two could even seamlessly connect to each other's bodies.

The last time she tried it, she discovered that whatever her father had discarded was boosting her strength, so Sparkle made sure to devour them whenever they were available.

Sparkle wanted to close the gap in strength between her father and her. Of course, it'd be great if she ended up becoming even stronger than him. It was a trivial wish compared to her daddy's lofty goals, but Sparkle was satisfied with it.

She just wanted her father to live, and she did not want him to become a stranger to her in the end. Once it seemed that Charles was about to cross the point of no return, Sparkle would make her move and attempt to save her father.

***

Somehow, there was a long table within a strange space where planes intersect.

More than a dozen Charleses were sitting in front of the table; every single Charles had their own unique demeanor and appearance, but they had one thing in common at the moment—they were all waiting for someone.

Just then, a hole made of flesh and blood manifested on the ground next to them.

Another Charles crawled out from the bloody hole.

"Sit down, quick. We've been waiting for you."

"What's going on? Why are you late?"

Charles pulled out a chair and sat at the head of the table. "Sorry, my daughter asked me to do a small favor for her today."

After taking a moment to even his breathing, Charles looked up and swept his gaze across the faces that looked exactly like him. He was also staring at the terrifying truth beneath the mere illusions before him.

"Time is precious for us right now, so I'll go straight to the point. From now on, we're going to convene our meetings in this place. More of us can be added later, but we dozen or so are the founding members of this cross-planar alliance."

"Since all of you have decided to come here, then I'm sure all of you are aware that we have just one common goal—for the sake of our families and our crew—for the sake of humanity on the surface world and the Subterranean Sea—"

"For the sake of my ass! They all have nothing to do with us!" a bearded Charles exclaimed. He held his head high, and his contemptuous gaze seemed to be looking down on everything.

"I don't care why you're here. I've worked my ass off to become a god, so how come there are still beings out there capable of treating me as if I were a mere ant? I'm frustrated… I'm so frustrated I can't take it anymore!

"I've paid the price; I've sacrificed so much, so how come I'm still not the strongest god out there? I want to stand at the absolute peak of everything!

"I want to become stronger than the Light God. I want to become stronger than 005, and I want to become even stronger than God Fhtagn!"