Little Tyrant Doesn’t Want to Meet with a Bad End
Chapter 652.1: The Ten Years Promise (1)

The final plan was the most ambitious plan Roel had heard about, but when he scrutinized its details, he had to concede there was a chance of success. It could potentially free humankind from the bottleneck it had faced for thousands of years.

If the final plan had gone smoothly, the Ancient Austine Empire should have remained standing to this date, given the influence and power it had wielded back in that era.

Yet, Carolyn ended up disappearing from the world for a thousand years, Charles lost his life, and the Ancient Austine Empire went up in smoke.

Roel couldn’t help but wonder what went wrong.

There were several common reasons that a plan failed.

The biggest reason was the impracticality of the plan, followed by the incompetency of those executing the plan, then the influence of external circumstances. Charles and Carolyn had paid meticulous detail to these factors to ensure that the final plan succeeded.

First and foremost, the plan was practical, evident from how Carolyn had successfully absorbed the Savior’s mana while returning His madness and depravity to Him. The key details of the final plan had been tested and proven to be plausible.

In terms of execution, there were only two people carrying out the plan—Charles Ackermann and Carolyn Ascart. There could be a third person, the one who had inherited the traits of the two clans and could more efficiently take in the Savior’s mana, but judging from the context, that person was most likely to be Charles and Carolyn’s child.

The close relationships among the three executors of the final plan meant they were united by common interests, and the chances of their partnership falling apart due to a conflict were slim. It would have been hard to find a better team to execute the final plan.

After great contemplation, Roel eliminated all internal reasons and deduced that the cause behind the failure of the final plan was external intervention.

Thus, he voiced out the doubt that had been bugging him thus far, and Astrid and Antonio hesitantly answered his question too. However, the answer wasn’t what he had expected.

“The final plan failed because the Savior regained His sanity,” Astrid replied.

“What?” Roel could hardly conceal his shock.

The notion of that was inconceivable to Roel, as nothing of that sort had happened in the past thousands of years. It simply didn’t make sense to him.

“But the reverse infusion returns a huge portion of the Savior’s madness and depravity to Him, right? How did He regain His sanity?”

“We don’t know the exact details, but it happened. It culminated in the Spirit Cataclysm of the Capital that eventually resulted in the downfall of the Ancient Austine Empire,” Astrid said before sharing what happened a thousand years ago in detail.

…

A thousand years ago, Emperor Charles Ackermann and Carolyn Ascart had finally decided to put the final plan they had slowly refined over many years into motion.

The first thing they had to do was to send Carolyn into the Abyss, where the Savior dwelled.

This appeared to be the right move, but it was also the wrong one because it neglected one crucial element—the difficulty in entering the Abyss.

Roel had known beforehand that the Kingmaker Clan had sealed off the Abyss, such that no one other than the Ardes could enter the area. However, the truth was that even the Ardes struggled to bypass the seal and enter the Abyss too.

The first obstacle was the location.

The Abyss was not a place that could be freely accessed via spatial spells. There was only one entrance, and that was the Capital Cathedral under the Ackermanns’ management.

Between the Ardes and the Ackermanns, one had the power to enter the Abyss, whereas the other controlled the entrance into the Abyss. This separation of power was intentional so as to ensure the security of the seal as far as possible.

Of course, this wasn’t an issue for Charles and Carolyn, but there were other problems as well.

The seal was a potent restricting force that had imprisoned the powerful Savior for many years. Just entering the Abyss would require hundreds of high transcendents coming together to hold a ritual. Hardly any clan had the resources to gather that many personnel. Even the existing major countries would struggle to put together such a lineup.

Back in the ancient era, the ones sustaining the seal were the legendary races. When it finally reached humankind’s era, the only one wielding the power to hold the ritual was the behemoth known as the Ancient Austine Empire.

As the only empire to have united humankind, the Ancient Austine Empire boasted the ability to rally humankind’s greatest talents together. Yet, when Roel learned that hundreds of high transcendents had gathered to hold the ritual, he knew right away that things would go awry.

It was definitely not a good thing to have so many people involved in a confidential plan, especially in the final years of the Second Epoch, when the Savior’s worshipers were at the peak of their influence.

Who could say for sure that a Fallen hadn’t infiltrated the group? Alternatively, the Fallens might have also reached out to a member of the group and tempted them to join their ranks.

There were so many variables here that problems were bound to happen.

Yet, the situation didn’t unfold in the way Roel had expected. No mishap had happened in this most dangerous phase of the plan, for Charles had kept close watch on its execution.

As dangerous as the final plan was, Charles was determined to minimize Carolyn’s exposure to danger wherever possible, so he personally vetted the hundreds of high transcendents involved in the ritual to ensure that nothing went wrong.

He made sure to dig up every little detail about the personal life, ancestry, and affiliations of the high transcendents that were going to be involved in the ritual. He was so thorough that not a single evil cultist managed to slip into their ranks.

The hundreds of high transcendents recruited were devoted to their mission, and with their help, Carolyn successfully cleared the first test, thus commencing the final plan.

“Ten Years Promise. That was the agreement Charles made with Carolyn back then.”

“Ten years? That is…”

“It’s the time Carolyn was to spend absorbing and cleansing the Savior’s mana, while Charles built up the facilities required for the Nurturing Plan,” Astrid replied.

Roel nodded, having expected the two of them to separately work on the final plan so as to maximize efficiency. He felt both sympathy and awe for Carolyn.

Ten years was not a trifling period of time even for the long-lived transcendents, not to mention that Carolyn was going to spend this period of time in absolute darkness, battling and trying to suppress the Savior. On top of that, she had to try her best to store the Savior’s mana inside the magic tools in preparation for the Nurturing Plan.

It was not a stretch to say that she was undergoing a one-person war.

During this period of time, she couldn’t lower her guard even for the briefest of moments, or else she could succumb to the Savior’s madness and depravity. Only fellow Ardes could occasionally enter the Abyss and provide her with a bit of assistance.

She had to spend ten years like that before she could finally see the light of day again.

Charles had promised to officially wed Carolyn after completing the facilities for the Nurturing Plan. The two of them would combine their bloodlines together with Sia’s power, which they had retrieved from the Savior, to nurture a child.

Hopefully, this would put an end to the responsibility that had burdened the Kingmaker Clan for thousands of years and the crisis surrounding humankind.

Unfortunately, the beautiful dreams they shared were never fulfilled. The day Carolyn had been waiting for never arrived.