Recaps

Charles considered whether the Omniscient Carbuncle and the Book of Causal Paths had secretly colluded, while the Wizard Kings agreed he should leave the Shadow Nightmare Realm for the Abyss. After consuming more Origin power, Charles confronted the Book of Causal Paths and demanded to know why it had deceived him.

• The Fifth Wizard King argued that if someone could alter the past, events in the present would already be part of their plan, leading Charles to question the Omniscient Carbuncle and the Book of Causal Paths.
• Charles suspected the Omniscient Carbuncle and the Book of Causal Paths might have communicated or planned to fuse, perhaps needing his cooperation or his ascension to Origin.
• The Thousand-Faced Wizard King urged Fear Wizard King to move his anchor from the Shadow Nightmare Realm to the Abyss, and Charles agreed to go.
• After the Wizard Kings' discussion, Charles devoured another source of Origin power and sent his avatar to Bansler to ask the Book of Causal Paths why it had deceived him.

Charles questioned the Book of Causal Paths about its knowledge of immortality and whether it had conspired with the Omniscient Carbuncle. Though the Book explained that Charles’s future kept changing and his decision to imprison it was a new branch, Charles remained distrustful and ended the chapter weighing the dangers of destroying them or moving his anchor to the Bottomless Abyss.

• Charles confronted the Book of Causal Paths about its past communication with the Omniscient Carbuncle and how it learned of immortality.
• The Book of Causal Paths said it had glimpsed Charles becoming immortal in one of his many possible futures through their former bond.
• Charles reasoned that the Book could have foreseen his decision to imprison it, but the Book claimed that decision arose as a new branch after Charles communicated with the Omniscient Carbuncle.
• Charles considered destroying the Book and the Omniscient Carbuncle, but worried that doing so would expose the Shadow Nightmare Realm to the present era.
• Charles weighed moving his anchor to the Bottomless Abyss and doubted that Demogorgon would leave him safe there.

Charles prepared for his incarnation to survive, then attacked Omniscient Carbuncle in the Shadow Nightmare Realm. As the realm transformed and plunged through time, Charles discovered it was the severed head of an immensely powerful being and witnessed the origins of the multiverse’s great powers.

• Charles left resurrection anchors in the void and stored source power with his incarnation in the God of Fear’s divine kingdom.
• Charles sent his incarnation into the Shadow Nightmare Realm and observed how his plunder of its source power had slowed the realm’s recovery.
• Charles attacked Omniscient Carbuncle, whose body was crushed beneath the laws of the Shadow Nightmare Realm.
• The Shadow Nightmare Realm transformed into an enormous head and leaped through time, revealing itself as the severed head of a powerful being.
• Charles witnessed the formation of the Celestial Realm, the elemental poles, the Bottomless Abyss, and the Nine Hells, along with Demogorgon’s rise and Asmodeus’s vast true body.

Charles witnessed the multiverse’s past and future through the time-leaping Shadow Nightmare Realm, then found himself observing Ultimus, the Omniscient One, in the distant future. Ultimus sensed Charles’s presence, but Charles could not respond, and the story left him watching as Ultimus acknowledged that he could not know the future.

• Charles watched the gods and elemental sovereigns wage an ancient war that reshaped the Four Elemental Seas into the Four Elemental Extremes.
• Charles saw the Abyss, the Nine Hells, and the Elemental Extremes expand, while the Wizard World rose and was eventually shattered by origin-level powerhouses.
• Charles witnessed the Celestial Realm fall into civil war and break apart, with its remnants joining other fragments in enormous planes at the edge of the universe.
• Charles’s incarnation traveled into the distant future inside the Shadow Nightmare Realm, which had begun to resemble the head of a colossal being.
• Charles recognized that the head belonged to the being who created the Omniscient Carbuncle and saw Ultimus become an origin powerhouse in a dying multiverse.
• Ultimus sensed Charles within his mind and asked who he was, but Charles could not answer; Ultimus explained that he knew the multiverse’s past but not its future.

Charles absorbed Ultimus's knowledge while Ultimus studied Charles's aura and tried to create an organ that could perceive the future. As the ritual neared completion, Ultimus reached into his own head toward Charles.

• Charles learned nearly all of Ultimus's knowledge as Ultimus studied the aura Charles brought from the River of Time.
• Charles witnessed a future in which the multiverse neared extinction and Ultimus gathered the universe's source power.
• Ultimus began creating an organ to experience time and glimpse the future, seeking to overcome his inability to enter the River of Time.
• Ultimus formed a vast array of source runes and reached into his own head toward Charles.

Ultimus used Charles’s consciousness and his own brain to create the Omniscient Brain, revealing that Charles’s arrival had caused the Book of Causal Paths and its plane to come into existence. The ritual’s record suggested Charles had entered Ultimus’s brain in a previous cycle, and Ultimus tried to save the newly formed Omniscient Brain as it began to decay.

• Ultimus extracted Charles’s consciousness and his own brain, then combined them in a ritual to create the Omniscient Brain.
• Charles searched Ultimus’s memories and learned that the Book of Causal Paths and the plane containing it had appeared when he first entered the Wizard World.
• Charles realized the Book of Causal Paths’s account of its origins was mostly false and that his arrival had caused its existence.
• The Book of Causal Paths recorded, “Second cycle begins: Charles enters Ultimus’s brain,” before Charles’s consciousness dissipated.
• Ultimus held the briefly created Omniscient Brain, then put it inside his skull to protect it from corrupting knowledge and spent his last source power before his body shattered.

Ultimus sent his head through time as the universe collapsed, and Charles completed another cycle of reincarnation. After waking aboard the ship again, Charles discovered memories from thousands of his past reincarnations in Wu Duo Duo Mall and learned that his anchor had to remain in the Shadow Nightmare Realm.

• As the universe collapsed, Ultimus sent his head into the river of time, where it transformed toward the Shadow Nightmare Realm.
• Charles became a seven-ring Wizard King, killed the Omniscient Carbuncle, and traveled to the end of the universe, where the Book of Causal Paths announced a third reincarnation.
• Charles woke aboard the ship and began reliving his rise through the wizard ranks, but his memories gave him a sense of déjà vu.
• After becoming a Wizard King again, Charles found a Wu Duo Duo Mall shop selling fragments of his memories from many reincarnations.
• Charles examined the memories and learned that his attempts to change events had failed, Demogorgon had torn him apart when he left the Abyss, and his anchor could not leave the Shadow Nightmare Realm.

After countless reincarnations, Charles understood that he had entered Ultimus's mind by his own choice and had been shaping events toward this moment. He defeated Ultimus and used the multiverse's primordial power to begin creating a new universe capable of traveling through time.

• Charles tried countless ways to survive the multiverse's destruction, but each attempt ended in failure.
• After thousands of reincarnations, Charles returned with the Shadow Nightmare Realm to the universe's final moment inside Ultimus's mind.
• Charles revealed that he had entered Ultimus's mind of his own accord and that Ultimus had been born from the multiverse's will.
• Charles seized control of Ultimus's ritual, destroyed the primordial essence, and devoured Ultimus's consciousness, power, and existence.
• Charles restarted the ritual to create a new universe, and the words “Final reincarnation... complete!” appeared.