Where Stars Go Mad

Tianzun had one single thought, boring. 

His situation was a little bit special. He looked to the side where an absent figure usually stood. It had been some time since that blasted yuki onna had disappeared. Said something about the reverse side of the world. 

His holy grail had been released onto the world and wars were being fought over it. But now came the hard part. To ascend as The Fool before Lord of Mysteries. He supposed he had a certain way to potentially fool either history, fate or time. 

But it'd require a near perfect execution with back ups. 

A plan that had required the help of a certain mage that could see the "future". 

Somewhere in the distant not far future, there would be a kingdom of the British Isles. There would be a turning point where the last of the mysteries would disappear. 

Camelot, the kingdom of King Arthur.

Of course, to fool history or fate was his goal. He would have to write a script that superimposes and contradicts while both being true at the same time. He'd also have to fool history if need be. It'd be good to fool both at once but this feat was not easy to pull off. 

To write a perfect script would require controlling the key characters in the story. 

~~~~

500AD: British Isles 

The plan was quite simple to be frank, he had only one requirement to fool history and that was for two different histories being simultaneously true at the same time despite contradicting, this was honestly a bit simple but the difficulty was in the timing. 

He had to time the overlap simultaneously in order to create an error in the recording of history where it contradicts and exists with pan-human history. 

His chosen event? The Fall of Camelot. 

He gazed at the the city being slowly constructed. Simultaneously an identical Camelot was being constructed at the same time creating a 1:1 replica. 

All this was hidden within the Realm of Mysteries and further concealed using the grey fog. Within that fake Camelot, thousands and thousands of individuals were being controlled by invisible threads expanding and stretching all the way into a hand within the grey fog. 

Tianzun had already started grafting the identity of Camelot to the fake city within his concealed realm. 

This required a bit of thinking, at first he was contemplating to use theft in order to steal the fate of Camelot and graft it onto his fake city. But upon further inspection, a target would no longer contain the fate, he needed two identical contradicting histories. 

So his best bet was to graft the two cities to one concept. 

There were now two identical Camelot's developing in the same manner. But it was truly a pain to graft the entire city to the fake one along with the marionettes. Essentially the Camelot high up had become a mirror Camelot. 

To put it in simple terms, he had simply written a program that would hitch and copy any website as his own. 

Every single citizen had been grafted to a marionette within the city and their appearances were identical as well. 

Everything was a perfect replica. 

However, now was the stress intensive part. 

He had to regulate the events that would lead to Camelot avoiding it's fall using the minimum amount of change required. His task was to essentially use the same working to produce two different answers. 

Considering there was a pesky Merlin with an abnormal sense for schemes he would have to forget about grafting Merlin to a marionette. Merlin himself couldn't do anything, but he could ruin his plans the moment the counterforce found out and this world ended up being pruned.

He himself would have to play the role of Merlin. 

He stood within the King's court as he bowed. "Your majesty, while I do believe that you are approaching this situation with the best you can do. I believe that you should focus on relations instead of material things." 

The knights of the round table stilled in silence. Tristan opened his closed eyes for a rare occasion, looking at the detestable incubus who had rarely suggested anything good. 

For quite a while, he was satisfied to be part of such a esteemed group of knights serving the king. It was a great honor that few knights in the era could achieve. If there was perhaps one strange thing about this kingdom it was that the weather was bad. 

Fog everywhere. And once in a while when they pray to the Lord of Mysteries, the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for blessings, occasionally they'd have a few days of good weather. 

The church of mysteries was the prominent religion within Camelot. It was said that when King Arthur had sent Galahd to search for the grail, Galahad had found it but returned it to the heavens deeming it too biased for some reason. 

Tristan had always thought that the mindset of the current king was caused by the incubus Merlin. However, all of a sudden, even Merlin was advising the King to understand the people more? 

Merlin? smiled gently at Artoria?, "Your majesty, perhaps I was a bit unclear all these years. Eventually you developed the mindset that to be a king is to cease being a human." 

Artoria? stared at Merlin? blankly but her inner thoughts were in turmoil. Her eyes resolved themselves as she looked at the knights within the throne room and dismissed them. 

"All of you are dismissed for now." Her cold unfeeling tone came through as Merlin? sat down next to her on a conjured chair. 

"Artoria, what do you think defines a king?" Merlin? asked. Artoria thought for a bit before answering, "To be a king is to be the ideal concept of self-sacrifice and duty. A king must continuously sacrifice themselves for the people."

Merlin? chuckle before sighing, "Artoria, while you aren't entirely wrong, and while there is no perfect way of being king. All great king's have one thing in common. They inspire and understand the human heart." 

Artoria? tilted her head in confusion, "They must understand the human heart?" 

Merlin? nodded, "Yes, they all understand the human heart and therefore are great rulers. The ancient hero king Gilgamesh, he understood the human heart and while he wasn't what you subjectively call a great ruler, he was objectively a great ruler capable of utilising his understanding of the human heart." 

Artoria? looked stunned, "Was he not a tyrant?" Merlin shook his head, "The key idea is not whether he was a tyrant or not. But the results he achieved. He understood the human heart, but how he chose to utilise that was up to him. In the end, he himself underwent changes and became the one who saw everything." 

Merlin? sighed before continuing, "I'm not saying your ideals are wrong, but they shouldn't be taken to the extreme. To get closer to the people and rule among them, not away from them. Gilgamesh was a special case in which he had a duty that required him to detach himself from both humans and gods." 

Merlin? seemed to pause for a moment before asking a question, "So Artoria, what do you think would happen if you were to control something without understanding it?" 

Artoria? pondered for a moment before replying, "You'd likely fail as you have no clue of what you are attempting to control-" A spark appeared within the detached eyes of a machine. Merlin? smiled, for the first time in a while, Artoria had appeared and not King Arthur. 

"I see you've found your answer, Artoria." Merlin? looked up at something in melancholy. A flash of overlap as his vision gazed at the simultaneous histories.

Merlin?/Merlin smiled gently before asking resolutely once again. 

"What is your ideal of a king"/"What is your ideal of a king?" 

Artoria?/Artoria rose from the throne and declared her answer. 

"To be a king is to walk among the people and understand them before guiding them to the best conclusion possible. To be a king is to also be a human." // "To be a king is to continuously sacrifice oneself for the people. To be a king is to cease to be human." 

//Next Chapter: Heaven and Earth, a Worthy Chessboard//