Mysterious Decline

Six months had passed since the grand wedding.

The harvest was already in. While it was later in the north of Scotland, the grain from the fertile southern regions had been gathered and stored, with Leon concentrating the supplies in Camelot and Wales.

Over these six months, Leon had also ordered the construction of over five hundred warships, while requisitioning more than a thousand smaller vessels from coastal nobles and commoners. Though they were mostly merchant and fishing boats, they were sufficient for the task.

Leon summoned his ministers and generals. By the time he arrived at the meeting hall, everyone was already present. As he appeared, the previously noisy hall fell into a solemn silence; Leon could even hear the faint breathing of those gathered.

Creak.

Leon sat on the golden throne at the head of the Round Table and swept his gaze calmly across the room. Seeing the solemn expressions of his subjects, he felt quite satisfied.

"I have summoned you all today to discuss a matter. Bring him in."

As Leon finished speaking, a knight in tattered, blood-stained armor was brought into the hall. The noble Round Table hall was instantly filled with the stench of blood.

"This is the envoy I sent to Ireland. I intended for him to convey my desire to maintain peace to King Giramurius of Ireland, but I did not expect the other party to be so insolent as to humiliate my envoy in such a manner. My lords, discuss this—what should Britain do?"

What else was there to do?

Fight, of course!

Leon had been ordering the construction of warships and concentrating grain in Wales to the west; those present were not blind, and they could clearly see the King's true intentions.

"A mere Ireland dares to insult our nation so? I implore our King to dispatch troops immediately and punish the insubordinate."

Luther, as the man second only to Leon, was the first to voice his opinion.

After Luther finished, the others saw that Leon did not dissent, and their hearts were set. They chimed in one after another.

"Indeed, we must use the force of thunder to wipe out Ireland."

"Well said, that is exactly what we should do."

Seeing that his ministers had reached a consensus, Leon nodded and decisively accepted their advice.

"Then let it be as you say. We shall declare war and march on Ireland. Father, you shall remain to guard Camelot this time."

Luther nodded and accepted the appointment.

Leon waved his hand at the heavily wounded knight, who bowed efficiently and retreated with brisk, steady steps.

Ireland had developed well over the past two years. Under the leadership of King Giramurius, it had become somewhat prosperous, even posing a potential threat to Britain.

However, Leon did not consider Ireland a significant threat on its own. He was organizing this expedition primarily to ensure that Britain's rear would not be set ablaze when he eventually launched his campaign into Europe.

The envoy had been carefully selected by Leon, and he had been given specific instructions before his departure.

As for the result, one could only say it lived up to his expectations.

Of course, the ruler of Ireland had also sensed the crisis in advance, seeing how Leon had unified all of Britain in such a short time while gathering warships and grain.

He had simply decided to go all the way and completely tear off the mask of civility with Leon.

Since the decision to go to war had been made, he still needed to inform his ministers about the state of their troops and provisions to put their minds at ease.

Leon asked, "What is our current military strength, and are our grain supplies sufficient?"

"Since our King unified Britain six months ago, we have been drawing elites from all regions and retraining them according to the new military system. The results are remarkable; we have ten battalions, totaling over seven thousand men."

Luther's tone was filled with pride.

These seven thousand men were not peasant soldiers wielding wooden sticks, but noble knights and squires trained in combat from childhood. They were proficient in swordsmanship, spearmanship, horsemanship, and archery, fully armed and in high spirits.

With these seven thousand men, he would dare to challenge even Rome, had it not collapsed and were Trajan still alive.

"As for the grain... it is somewhat less than ideal."

Mentioning the provisions, Luther frowned, his expression turning grim.

"I do not know why, but the grain harvested this year is much less than last year—about one-twentieth less. I have reviewed the court's data from previous years, and grain production has been declining year after year, with this year being particularly severe."

In truth, this was quite detrimental to Leon's rule.

Once the people realized that grain production was falling, and compared it to previous years, their first thought would be that the Lion King's reign had caused the domestic harvest to plummet.

It would suggest that the Lion King lacked divine favor, or perhaps had even been forsaken by the gods.

People starving was one thing, but the critical issue was that it would strike at the legitimacy of Leon's authority.

Seeing Leon's calm expression, Luther breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that he did not take such matters too much to heart.

"This should be related to the decline of mystery on the island of Britain."

Seeing a topic within his area of expertise, Merlin explained it to Luther and the others who were not mages.

"The so-called decline of mystery, simply put, means that various mysterious and fantastical things will dissipate. Gods will flee, giants on the plains will accelerate their disappearance, fairies and spirits in the forests will hide away, the magic in the air will diminish, the land will no longer be fertile, and the grain will no longer be abundant."

"It is the passing of the Age of Gods. Since the gods who governed the world have departed and the concentration of basic magic has decreased, naturally, the blessings and curses of the gods, as well as the protection of fairies and spirits, will gradually vanish, and various magical artifacts will lose their power."

"The decline accelerated after the passing of King Solomon, and by the time Jesus was born, the Age of Gods on the continent had completely vanished. As for our island of Britain, because it is separated from the continent by the sea, the timing is delayed. What we have now is the final remnant—the echo of the Age of Gods—but it should not last long and will soon fade away entirely."

Hearing Merlin's explanation, Luther and the other elders nodded involuntarily.

Although they were not mages, they had lived long enough to know that the giants and fairies they could easily see in their youth were now almost impossible to find.

This was ironclad proof of the decline of mystery that Merlin spoke of.

As for Merlin's identity as an incubus?

Merlin, though a succubus of the mystery side himself, stood on the side of the new human order; he hoped that Britain could smoothly transition from the Age of Gods to the era of the new primate.

The White Dragon Vortigern, however, belonged to the mystery side and refused to allow the island of Britain to exist under the order of the new primate, so he intended to return Britain to its primitive state, turning it into scorched earth where the new primate could not survive.

To deal with Vortigern, who wished to destroy Britain, Merlin chose a being who was not human yet had not fully departed from humanity—a half-human, half-dragon hybrid, the Red Dragon of Britain, Artoria—to become the King of Britain, oppose Vortigern, and serve as the agent for the transition from mystery to the primate era.

Unfortunately, while the plan was perfect, it died at the very first step.

Although the king, a hybrid of human and dragon, was successfully born, the throne was snatched away by someone else.

The great enemy, Vortigern, was also casually defeated by someone and died after being betrayed by his subordinates.

Merlin cast a faint, lingering glance at the Lion King upon the throne; the fate of the island of Britain now rested entirely in his hands, and it was unclear how he would resolve it.

What could Leon do?

He had heard of the so-called dissipation of mystery in his past life, and Morgan and Merlin had also mentioned it to him; after much thought, there were only two paths.

One was to leave the island of Britain, occupy the continent, and gain sufficient rights to survive.

The other was quite in the style of a transmigrator: develop technology, lead humanity into industrialization, and adapt to a life without magic in advance.

Leon chose: I want both.

Ruling the world was something he was going to do anyway, and developing technology and industrialization would just happen to help him accelerate the pace of unification.

Otherwise, with Britain's meager population, even if he could unify the world, he would be worked to death at his desk.

Geopolitically speaking, to unify the world, one must first unify Europe; to unify Europe, one must first pull out the thorn in Britain's back—Ireland.

Leon stroked the stubble on his chin, and after discussing it with everyone, he finally made the appropriate troop deployments.

"Then we shall send four thousand-man units, led by This Lonely One, to campaign in Ireland. We will also conscript ten thousand farmers from Wales for logistics, and ten thousand fishermen from the southern coast; the remaining forces will suppress Britain."

These four thousand-man units were mostly elites Leon had drawn from Scotland in the north, the Saxon lands in the east, and Wales in the west, plus his own personal guard unit of one thousand, totaling over three thousand five hundred men—more than enough to thoroughly suppress Ireland.

"As you command."