The Mystery's Decline

Six months had passed since the grand wedding.

The harvest was in. It would come a little later in northern Scotland, but the grain from the fertile southern lands had already been stored, and Leon had concentrated it in Camelot and Wales.

Over the past six months, Leon had also ordered the construction of more than five hundred warships. He had then requisitioned over a thousand small boats from nobles and commoners along the coast. They were mostly merchant and fishing boats, but they would do.

Leon summoned his ministers and generals. By the time he arrived at the conference hall, everyone had already gathered. As soon as he appeared, the noisy hall fell silent, and Leon could even hear the faint sound of people breathing.

Creak.

Leon sat on the Golden Throne at the head of the Round Table and calmly surveyed the room. Seeing everyone so solemn, he was quite pleased.

"I summoned you all here today to discuss something. Bring in the man."

At Leon's words, a knight in tattered, bloodstained clothes was led into the hall. In an instant, the noble Round Table Hall was filled with the stench of blood.

"This is the envoy I sent to Ireland. He was supposed to convey my desire for peace to King Giramurius of Ireland, but I never expected them to be so discourteous. They dared to humiliate my envoy like this. What do you think Britain should do?"

What else could they do?

Fight!

Leon had ordered warships built and grain concentrated in Wales to the west. None of those present were blind; how could they fail to see their king's true intentions?

"Such a tiny Ireland dares to humiliate our country! I beg Your Majesty to send out the army at once and punish those rebels."

As the foremost man beneath Leon, Luther was the first to voice his opinion.

When Luther had finished, the others saw that Leon did not object. Their minds at ease, they all joined in.

"Exactly. We should crush Ireland with the force of a thunderbolt."

"Well said. That's what we should do."

Seeing that his ministers had all reached the same decision, Leon nodded and readily accepted their advice.

"Then we shall do as you say. We will declare war on Ireland and send out the army. Father, you will remain here to defend Camelot."

Luther nodded and accepted the appointment.

Leon waved at the badly wounded knight. The knight performed a quick salute and withdrew with a brisk stride.

Ireland had developed well over the past two years. Under King Giramurius, it had prospered and even become a threat to Britain.

But Leon did not take Ireland alone seriously. He had organized this expedition because he wanted to make sure Britain's rear would not catch fire when he launched his campaign into Europe.

Leon had also chosen the envoy himself and given him special instructions before he left.

As for the result, all he could say was that it had lived up to his expectations.

Of course, Ireland's ruler had also seen how Leon had united all of Britain in such a short time. Seeing the warships being requisitioned and provisions gathered, he had sensed the danger in advance.

So he had decided to go all in and break with Leon completely.

Since they had decided to go to war, Leon still had to discuss the troops and provisions with his ministers to set their minds at ease.

Leon asked, "How many troops do we have at present? Will our provisions be enough?"

"Since Your Majesty united Britain half a year ago, we have drawn elite troops from across the country and reorganized and trained them under the new military system. The results have been remarkable. We now have ten battalions, numbering around seven thousand men."

Luther's voice was full of pride.

Those seven thousand men were no peasant levies armed with wooden clubs. They were noble knights and their retainers, trained in combat from childhood. They were skilled with swords and spears, and on horseback with bows and arrows. They were fully equipped and their morale was high.

With these seven thousand men, he would dare to take on even Rome at its height, with Trajan still alive.

"As for the provisions... things aren't looking ideal."

At the mention of supplies, Luther furrowed his brow, his expression darkening.

"For some reason, we've taken in far less grain this year than last year—about one-twentieth less. And I've looked over the palace records from previous years. Grain yields have fallen year after year, with this year being especially bad."

This was actually quite detrimental to Leon's rule.

Once people learned that the harvest had declined and compared it with previous years, the first thing that would come to mind was that the country's grain yields had fallen so much as soon as the Lion King took the throne.

That would mean the Lion King had no divine favor after all—perhaps the gods had even forsaken him.

People starving to death was no big deal. The real problem was that this would damage Leon's rightful authority.

Seeing Leon remain perfectly calm, Luther breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed he wasn't too concerned about this sort of thing either.

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

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

"Simply put, the so-called decline of mystery means that all kinds of mysterious and fantastical things will disappear. The gods will flee, the Giants on the grasslands will vanish faster, the Fairies and elves in the forests will hide themselves away, the magic in the air will diminish, the land will grow barren, and the harvests will dwindle."

"In other words, the Age of the Gods is coming to an end. Once the gods who governed the world have left and the most fundamental concentration of magic has fallen, the gods' blessings and curses, as well as the Fairies' and elves' protections, will all gradually disappear. All kinds of wondrous magical items will lose their magic, too."

"It began to accelerate after King Solomon's death. By the time Jesus was born, the Age of the Gods had vanished from the continent entirely. The island of Britain, where we live, is separated from the continent by the sea, so it will happen later here. What remains now is the final vestige—the echo of the Age of the Gods. But it probably won't last much longer. It will soon disappear completely."

After hearing Merlin's explanation, Luther and the other older men nodded unconsciously.

They might not be Mages, but they had lived long enough to remember how easy it had been to see Giants and Fairies when they were young. Now they were almost impossible to find.

That was proof enough of the decline of mystery Merlin had described.

As for Merlin's identity as an Incubus?

Though Merlin himself was an Incubus of the mystical side, he stood with the new human order. He hoped Britain could make a smooth transition from the Age of the Gods to the age of the new primates.

White Dragon Vortigern, on the other hand, belonged to the mystical side and refused to let the island of Britain fall under the new primate order. He planned to return Britain to its primordial state, turning it into a barren wasteland where the new primates could not survive.

To deal with Vortigern, who wanted to destroy Britain, Merlin had chosen someone who was not human but had not abandoned humanity: a half-human, half-dragon. That was the Red Dragon of Britain, Artoria. She would become Britain's king, defeat Vortigern, and serve as the agent of the transition from mystery to the age of the primates.

Unfortunately, the plan had been perfect, but it had fallen apart at the first step.

The half-human, half-dragon king had been born successfully, but someone else had seized the throne.

Their great enemy Vortigern had also been casually defeated and betrayed by his subordinate, meeting his end.

Merlin cast an almost imperceptible glance at the Lion King on the throne. The fate of the island of Britain was now entirely in his hands. Merlin wondered how he would resolve the situation.

What could Leon do?

He had heard about the so-called disappearance of mystery in his previous life, and Morgan and Merlin had mentioned it to him as well. After thinking it over, he had come up with only two options.

One was to leave the island of Britain, occupy the continent, and secure enough room to survive.

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

Leon's choice was to have both.

Conquering the world was something he intended to do anyway, while technological development and industrialization would help him unify it faster.

Otherwise, with Britain's small population, even if he managed to conquer the world, the endless paperwork would work him to death.

Geopolitically speaking, to conquer the world he first had to unite Europe. To unite Europe, he first had to remove the thorn behind Britain—Ireland.

Leon stroked his chin and, after discussing it with everyone, finally settled on a suitable deployment.

"Then we'll send out four battalions, and I'll lead them in the campaign against Ireland. We'll also conscript ten thousand Welsh farmers for logistics and another ten thousand fishermen from the southern coast. The remaining troops will keep Britain under control."

Most of these four battalions consisted of elite troops Leon had drawn from northern Scotland, eastern Saxon lands, and western Wales, along with one battalion of his own personal guards. Together, they made up five battalions and more than three thousand five hundred men—more than enough to crush Ireland.

"Understood."