ch 89

Before I can move freely in and out of the empire I needed to start the war as it becomes nearly impossible to keep track of people during a civil war where everyone could be an enemy so I secretly had key allies of prince Stephen replaced with my people with the help of flesh magic which was fairly simple as the top military and imperial nobility liked to frequent my little establishment the heaven's gift so it was a simple matter of drugging them while they enjoyed themselves with the flesh golems before having people close to them replace them after changing their face and body's to match.

Those with more self control I had assassinated with evidence pointing to one of prince Stephen's brothers or one of his true loyalist his own servants were drugging him and feeding him false information to make him seem irrational he would talk about things that weren't happening or happened weeks ago screaming about seeing things he looked like he was losing his mind one incident happened where he got lucky and discovered a spy from his brother the first prince reporting about his psychotic behavior and he just lost it killing him instead of questioning.

That moment the first prince Gregory saw it from his spies communication ring before it cut off unfortunately prince Stephen wanted to ease up after he realized what he had done so I took the reigns and had his people declare war against his brothers and I even had assassins kill a few of his brothers that weren't involved with the fight for the throne and the mother of the first prince the first empress as his swarmed the streets and executed anyone siding with his brothers I even staged a poor attempt on his sister princess Margaret which her personal guards easily stopped.

Of course his brothers allies weren't going to wait be slaughtered by prince Stephen so with or without their blessing they began to move troops against any opposing factions which quickly led to more conflicts a few well placed assassinations on both sides with evidence pointing to the opposition further divided the nation devolving into a three way war which even the emperor had no way of stopping.

As the war spread throughout the empire many would turn to prayer hoping for some divine miracle to bring salvation but the gods tend to either ignore or use missionaries to do the work for them to conserve their power the missionaries that served me would preach about the divine princess Margaret answering their prayers and we would secretly provide them with better supplies and equipment but those we saw or found preaching about the gods we sabotage their supplies, steal from them or they would never make it to their destination which quickly raised dissatisfaction of the gods meanwhile princess Margaret reputation soared as she was always visible helping wherever she could.

Princess Margaret was not the only one profiting from the war as disaster spread so did decent among the people people saw the gods as indifferent to their plight and they felt the empire used them as tools for their petty squabbles never giving a dam about their lives for those that turned their backs on the empire and the gods they found a strike back against those that betrayed them by joining the ranks of the titan army those that eventually moved up in the ranks were privy to such information as the return of the titans and princess Margaret helping which eventually became rumors spreading to the lower ranks just as planned if you ask someone to keep a secret not everyone is able so of course they will gossip some were promoted precisely because of they couldn't control their mouth but they will never move up from those positions all in all the war was a very fun endeavor even though the academy was shut down and everyone was sent home before the emperor could hold them hostage.