The entire election lasted more than a month, so Edward was relieved when the ordeal ended. He wanted to celebrate with his family, but even his mother and father had left, traveling to another universe for a vacation despite how much he protested against it.
Ultimately, he had to accept his family had a life of their own, and he could not control them. So, he turned into an obsessive protective freak and created countless measures for his mother and father in case something happened to them.
He walked into a room where his aunt waited for him.
"That was a great speech and a great display of might," said Amelia with a smile. With this election, the royal family's power will reach a new height, not to mention their popularity in the eyes of the people.
"You think so too," replied Edward before sitting opposite her, serving a drink for him and her.
"How are things?" he asked.
"Generally speaking, everything is proceeding smoothly," replied Amelia as she showed him a bunch of data regarding the current state of the Empire.
"There should be a but, right?"
"Yes," she nodded. "Two proposals have repeatedly appeared in the council despite how many times I voted against them.
"The first one is the Merit Crime Bill, which would allow the use of Arcane Merit to offset their crimes."
"That's understandable. Now that these people have God-like powers, they also want to be above the law," replied Edward with a sneer. "Do you want me to send the Ghost Squad to pay them a visit?"
"Not necessary," chuckled Amelia. "We already have a plan to deal with them."
Edward looked at the data and nodded. The plan was a galaxy-wide media smear campaign against the people who supported the deal or the powerful Arcanists trying to lobby it to pass in the council. The Empire will reveal their identities to the public, ruining their reputation and dragging them into the mud.
"That's an excellent solution. What's the other bill?"
"Some people are advocating to make selling slaves legal," replied Amelia with a frown. "Mostly clones and undead, but the list also includes other races and species."
"Clean these people up," said Edward directly. "We are about to open access to the Astral Realm. If we do not regulate such a thing, the underground slave-selling business will boom once these people can control entire planes."
"That's my plan, and I only wanted you to sign on it."
Edward nodded and signed his order.
"The last thing is we need to clean up Planet Dark Star."
"Already?"
The Empire was not a utopia, and despite all its advancements in ending world war, world hunger, and curing all regular diseases, the human heart is unfathomable. As such, things like crime and evil nature still exist and can be said to be rampant because of how powerful Arcanists are.
So, the members of the Think Tank had the brilliant idea of controlling crime since it could not be completely stopped. The Empire then secretly created the Dark Market–a place that gathered all the evil Arcanists, the people who sell slaves, drugs, banned substances, mercenaries, assassins, rogues, outlaws, or anyone who doesn't like to follow strict rules and laws.
No one knows that the underground, which is the darkest place of the Empire, was established by the government to control crime. Once in a while, the government will "discover" the underground and clean up the place. However, a few months later, a new one will be opened and repeat the situation.
In the past 20 years, Planet Dark Star has been cleaned up and re-opened three times.
"Go ahead. If you need to mobilize the Royal Guard, you can do so."
"There is no need for that," replied Amelia. If the navy could not deal with one planet full of outlaws, then they would be useless and need to be replaced.
The two continued their official talk for a while before stopping and changing the topic.
"I wonder how Susan is doing," said Amelia. Although the little girl had parents, she always treated her like her child.
"The world of Yu-Gi-Oh is not inherently dangerous. So, as long as nothing happens to her in the Void, she will be fine."
If something had happened to her, they would have long sensed something. So, Susan should have already reached her destination and studied these creatures for the creation and completion of Card Summoning Magic.
"What about you? Any interest in visiting other worlds?"
"The world has plenty of mystery for me to unravel, so there is no need for now," she replied with a smile. "Plus, someone has to remain to keep things in check."
"It's fine if you feel this way. However, don't let power control you."
"You know me better than this."
She is now one of the people with the most power in the Empire. However, despite this fact, she kept up with her magical studies to ensure she is as powerful as possible while also keeping a sense of wonder and desire for pursuing knowledge.
She keeps her position because the Empire is her baby, watching it grow from the ground up. Edward and most of the royal family are not too keen on governing, so someone needs to keep an eye on things to prevent any issues.
"That's good," nodded Edward as he led his aunt away. Soon afterward, Itachi appeared in the room.
"What's the result?"
"The Gods have summoned a Divine Armament to the material plane from the Outer Realm. They pierced a hole through our defense with its power and contacted an Arcanist called Chu."
Edward had a screen before him showing him a new race with crystal eyes.
"He exchanged information for a Divine Blessing, allowing him to rise very quickly from Tier 5 to Tier 9. According to our analysis, their plan was probably to have him take the throne and cause chaos."
"How much information was revealed?" asked Edward with a frown.
"We were lucky Chu did not reveal everything, trying to bargain for more benefit," replied Itachi. Edward felt relieved when he saw that news about the Floating City and a few other important things had not been revealed.
"Are you sure he was the only one they contacted?"
"Chu does not know about this, so we are still investigating."
"Use as many people as you need to find things out."
"I will."
"How is the expansion going?"
"Everything is proceeding smoothly, but we still need more time to create a universe-wide spy network."
"Any concrete plan?"
"My objective is to control an already existing order. Unfortunately, the best spy faction of this plane is directly connected to some powerful Tier 10 Gods, so we cannot control their souls or use any other forms of control."
Believers are scary to deal with because they have no fear of death. Even if you threaten them with their loved ones, they will not hesitate to kill themselves, so they ascend to their Gods' Divine Kingdom and achieve eternal peace.
"Take your time. Once we have cracked the secrets of the Soul Flame, we might be able to deal with the control these gods have on their believers' souls," reassured Edward.
"My Lord, may I ask how much progress has been made?"
"I have made great progress in the past 20 years. However, it's far from enough."
"That's unfortunate," said Itachi before taking his leave.
"Morgana," continued Edward. "If the Gods used a Divine Armament to pierce through the Fog, shouldn't a department detect such a change?"
"Yes. The energy used to power the Fog should have increased drastically and alerted us."
Edward created three Tier 10 Supersolid Aether Cores to power the Fog that is protecting the Milky Way Galaxy. He also established departments to keep watch at all times, so it was abnormal that he did not detect this breach in advance.
"Find what happened."
"Give me a moment." A few minutes later, "The spike in energy was detected, but someone did not do their job properly and reported the problem too late."
Edward groaned, "Fire them, whoever it is."
"As you wish," replied the little elf. "None of this would have happened if you used state-of-the-art artificial intelligence for that department's system."
"For security reasons, man-made workers are better in this situation," replied Edward. Despite the current situation, the data has shown that using responsible individuals for security measures was more secure than AI.
"What is my next itinerary?" he asked, changing the subject.
"Chris has made some progress in his research. You can go see him."
"Alright."