I Plotted The World Destruction With The Male Lead - Chapter 39

It was as if he could hear the heavy wheels of fate lifting their massive weight and beginning to turn.

Like a carriage racing down a steep slope, the ominous rattling noise threatened to crush everything in its path.

Carlyle gritted his teeth at the spies who could no longer provide him with reliable reports.

Van had been merciless, as if he would not tolerate even the smallest parasite within his household.

He had purged them all, leaving behind not a single informant to feed Carlyle false intelligence.

The only small consolation was that Van did not seem to know the identities of all the spies within the imperial palace.

However, some had certainly been exposed, making at least half of the information coming from the palace unreliable.

The fate Carlyle had meticulously crafted was beginning to veer off course, flowing in an unexpected direction.

He considered what he would do first if he were in Van’s position.

Secure the Guide first.

And then…

‘My army.’

Carlyle possessed the powerful forces that had once slaughtered Van and the Emperor’s knights.

Of course, with time rewound six years, that army was still in the process of being created.

Some parts were complete, but others were not.

There were two major challenges in forming an army of mages.

First, individuals with the innate potential to become mages were extremely rare.

Second, most of those who possessed such potential ended up joining the Tower of Mages.

Carlyle had found a way to overcome both obstacles.

Thanks to his ability.

He had discovered a method to extract life force from human bodies and convert it into mana reservoirs.

Even if the number of mages was small, the Tower alone housed hundreds of them.

And if one included those who had never joined the Tower, the number exceeded a thousand.

Yet, the majority of them never even reached the level of an intermediate mage.

There were fewer than four grand mages in the entire empire, and the number of intermediate mages constantly hovered around ninety.

The rest were all low-tier mages.

They had knowledge in abundance, but their mana reserves were insufficient to elevate them beyond their current rank.

For those who had never been accepted into the Tower, the temptation to join Carlyle’s faction was easy to exploit.

He had simply promised to make them intermediate mages, and they had eagerly signed contracts with him.

Next, he had targeted the mages already within the Tower.

Low-tier mages—those who longed to climb higher but lacked the skill or innate mana to do so—were easy prey.

Even though they were officially affiliated with the Tower, at their core, they were still mages.

And mages were driven by personal ambition and individual desires.

At this stage, he was still in the process of luring in the lower-tier mages from the Tower.

He had secured a couple of intermediate mages, but the overall yield had been disappointing.

Although Carlyle had already secured hundreds of mages and elevated them to the level of intermediate mages or higher, acquiring intermediate mages from the Tower was a different matter entirely.

With the method Carlyle had devised, he could turn them into grand mages.

Currently, his Mage Corps had only two grand mages—far from sufficient.

In the past, he had commanded dozens of high-ranking mages and eight grand mages.

He had believed that with them alone, he could seize the empire.

But…

Van had nearly annihilated Carlyle’s Mage Corps using his knightly forces.

Of course, Van himself had not emerged unscathed—he had been captured in the end.

Yet, by the time Carlyle ascended the throne, he had been left with only thirty mages at his command.

The Mage Corps had held an indispensable position in his army.

That was why Carlyle had regretted not having Van under his command as one of his knights.

‘But now.’

The situation had changed—completely.

Before the regression, Van had fought a losing battle from the very start.

Now, the tables had turned, and it was Carlyle who found himself in that same predicament.

But that didn’t mean there was no way forward.

Just as Van could distinguish between allies and enemies, Carlyle, too, had a means of determining who was truly on his side.

‘I need to act quickly.’

Before Van could counter him.

Before he could even anticipate it.

Carlyle had to strike where Van least expected, disrupt whatever defenses he was building, and shatter the delicate balance Van was trying to establish.

Fortunately, Carlyle still remembered most of his research from the past six years.

The studies on monsters and humans.

The technique of extracting life force from human bodies and turning it into a source of mana for mages.

All of it.

All of it would serve as invaluable weapons in Carlyle’s arsenal.

And at the same time, they would become the noose that would tighten around the necks of the Emperor and Van.

Carlyle’s expression was cold as he surveyed the gathering before him.

They were all wearing masks, their gazes fixed upon him.

Fools hiding behind their disguises.

Greedy sheep, waiting for someone to lead them.

Their greatest misfortune was that they mistook themselves for predators.

When in reality, they were so readily exposing their throats to him.

‘But I will make good use of your lives.’

As Carlyle opened his mouth to speak, a wave of both excitement and fear rippled through the crowd.

A great reward always came with great risk.

But the “method” Carlyle had proposed did not yet place them in danger.

Not yet.

And so, his herd of sheep would not try to flee just yet.

The Duke of Armoire had already served as a warning—there would be no rash rebellions or betrayals.

Carlyle smirked behind his mask as he laid out his plan.

And in the eyes of the gathered nobles, he saw the glint of anticipation.

 

*

 

Being the Emperor’s only nephew put Van in a uniquely advantageous position.

For instance, it allowed him to meet with the Emperor for tea without going through any formal procedures.

Of course, Van was well aware that every meeting he had with the Emperor would be leaked to the outside through spies.

However, since he had always met the Emperor naturally while staying in the palace, there was no reason for anyone to find it suspicious.

Like Ludwig Emperton, Van was one of the Emperor’s most loyal vassals.

Dael, having dismissed the attendants from the room, looked at Van with a troubled expression.

“…They’re training an army? Is this true?”

“Marquis Osis, Count Baren, and Count Igris are involved. There is undoubtedly a larger force backing them, but waiting for them to reveal themselves is too dangerous.”

As Van explained the scale of the army being formed, Dael’s expression hardened.

No Emperor could remain composed after hearing that an army was being trained within the empire—near the border, but still not far from the capital.

The number of troops identified was smaller than that of a typical army, given the location.

However, mages were a force that, at times, could be as powerful as thousands of soldiers.

“Delaying is dangerous, Your Majesty. Even if it takes time to track down the true mastermind, we must strike before they are fully prepared.”

Van explained that among the Emperor’s trusted retainers, some were secretly working for the enemy.

At present, only about half of the officials were presumed to have no connection to the conspiracy.

The other half—while not all actively involved in treason—were at least entangled in corruption, large or small.

The Emperor knew he could not bring this matter to the Council of State.

That would be equivalent to giving the traitors time to prepare.

“What do you want from me? What do you plan to do for the future of this empire that you will one day inherit?”

Before the regression, Carlyle’s Mage Corps had massacred countless imperial citizens.

The secret to elevating lower-tier mages into intermediate or high-ranking ones was nothing other than human life force.

They had discovered a way to extract mana beyond natural limits from human bodies and absorb it into their own.

Because of this, entire villages and estates had been reduced to nothing more than mana potions—used to fuel the rise of Carlyle’s mages.

When Carlyle waged war and Van clashed with him, tens of thousands of imperial citizens were massacred.

Had he not raised an army?

Had he not resisted Carlyle?

Would those people have survived?

No.

Carlyle, having discovered the means to create a Mage Corps, had turned his sights toward the many nations bordering the empire.

Even after killing Van, he would have simply rebuilt his Mage Corps and pursued his dream of dominating the continent.

This was not just a battle between Carlyle and the imperial family.

If Carlyle was left unchecked, a catastrophic number of imperial citizens would be slaughtered.

He would never abandon the immense power of his Mage Corps.

Van had already witnessed their terrifying strength in the past.

Even his most elite knights and multiple knightly orders had to sacrifice themselves just to bring them down.

Van himself had thrown away his life.

Had it not been for betrayal, he might have succeeded in killing Carlyle.

Yes.

At the final moment of the last battle, Van had poured every ounce of his strength into severing Carlyle’s head.

He had been prepared to die right there, his body bursting apart from the strain—so long as Carlyle died first.

But just before he could strike, he had been betrayed.

By a knight from the Marquis of Enrick’s household.

The only reason Van had survived being stabbed in the back was the tenacious vitality of his royal bloodline.

What had Marquis Enrick said when assigning that knight to him?

‘To protect my future son-in-law?’

The knight had followed that order quite literally.

He had stabbed Van, the man he had served for over a year, just to protect Carlyle—his daughter’s future husband.

In return, Van’s lieutenant had beheaded him on the spot.

It had not been a meaningless death.

Marquis Enrick must have promised him a worthy reward.

“I will eliminate all those who pose a threat to the empire—to Your Majesty and to our people.”

Van stood and knelt before the Emperor.

Dael extended his hand, and Van pressed his lips to the ring on the Emperor’s finger.

Dael gazed at Van in silence.

His nephew’s face, which he still saw as that of a child, bore an uncanny resemblance to his deceased brother.

Like his father before him, Van had confined his influence to the eastern Grand Duchy, obediently following the Emperor’s orders.

So foolishly.

“I will grant you an army. Tell me what you need.”

Both Dael and Van knew this was the Emperor offering up his own life.

The scale of the Mage Corps Van had described was far beyond the scope of a simple monster subjugation or border skirmish.

More than half of the troops stationed in the capital would be needed.

Moreover, Van planned to rely on high-ranking noble families allied with him.

There was a limit to how many troops could be mobilized quickly from the eastern Grand Duchy.

If Van harbored any treacherous ambitions and turned his army against the capital, even Dael would not survive.

If the information Van provided had all been a fabrication—if there was no Carlyle—then Van could claim the throne himself.

But the Emperor did not doubt him in the slightest.

Van looked at his uncle, the Emperor, his only remaining family.

When Van stated the number of troops he required, Dael let out a heavy sigh but nodded.

“And one more thing, Your Majesty. I have a request.”

A peculiar expression flickered across the Emperor’s face as he listened.