Chapter 3125: Power Struggle

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Five Regions, Southern Region, Blossom District, Sky Blossom City

“Your Highness, are you sure about this?” Henricks couldn’t help but ask again, his concern evident as he looked toward his young ruler. Given Wyatt’s attitude toward the attack on the Lil’ Red Storm Realm, it was difficult to tell whether he was unconcerned because he knew something they didn’t or because he had already accepted whatever outcome awaited them.

I turned toward Henricks, Field Marshal Lorn, Tess, and the others gathered. “Dalia is more than capable of handling things on her end. If she can’t…” I paused, letting my gaze sweep across them. “You better pray she can.”

The atmosphere immediately fell silent.

“Henricks, stay. The rest of you, get back to work. Lorn, help Dyke take charge of the Card Association.”

No one argued.

Listening to the way I had phrased it, those assembled couldn’t help but swallow hard as their imaginations ran wild. If Dalia, a true celestial, couldn’t handle whatever was happening at the Lil’ Red Storm Realm, then what exactly had appeared there? More importantly, what did that mean for the New Empire if the situation escalated beyond her control?

I had no intention of answering those questions.

There were plans already in motion at the Lil’ Red Storm Realm, and as far as I was concerned, it was an active mission. Only the people directly involved needed to know what was happening. Everyone else had no business sticking their noses into it, especially when knowing too much could create more problems than ignorance ever would.

I know a good leader’s job was to reassure his people in times of darkness, to give them something solid to hold on to when everything around them was falling apart. But there was a difference between reassuring your subordinates and allowing them to become dependent on you for every decision.

When Hive Spirit sounded the alarm, they should have been able to assess the situation themselves. Instead, they immediately prepared to send their subordinates toward the Lil’ Red Storm Realm without even knowing what was happening there. Worse, they came running to me for information when I had already placed the greatest information-gathering tool available in the Card World, Hive Spirit, right at their disposal.

They were lucky I didn’t have the time to reprimand each of them and punish them accordingly.

Instead, I left them to figure out for themselves where they had gone wrong and, more importantly, how they should have reacted.

This wasn’t going to be the last crisis the New Empire faced. In fact, as the empire expanded and our enemies became stronger, situations like this would only become more common. They couldn’t simply rush to me the moment something went wrong and expect me to tell them what to do. I might have been the ruler, but the New Empire wasn’t my responsibility alone. It was theirs too.

I had given them authority, resources, information, and tools capable of making decisions that would have been impossible for the leaders of most empires. What was the point of giving them all of that if their first instinct in a crisis was still to look for me?

If I was personally required every time a crisis appeared, then I hadn’t built a capable administration. I had simply built a collection of people waiting for instructions. And I had no intention of creating that kind of New Empire.

However, that wasn’t entirely the case here.

The problem wasn’t simply that they had panicked and come looking for instructions. There was another issue underneath it. Some of them were already trying to encroach upon responsibilities that weren’t theirs, positioning themselves to seize authority once I left for the Dark Realm. The political battle for power had apparently begun earlier than I expected, and some of them weren’t even bothering to hide it properly.

Regardless, they needed to respect where each other’s jurisdiction began and where it ended.

In this particular situation, I could understand Henricks coming to me for advice. The Lil’ Red Storm Realm was under his broader administrative concerns, and as the person responsible for handling matters close to me, seeking clarification wasn’t unreasonable.

The others, however? What did they have to do with the Lil’ Red Storm Realm? Nothing.

If a regular citizen heard that an empire’s border was under attack, would they immediately grab a pitchfork, abandon their homes and occupations, and rush to the border to fight?

Of course not. They would trust the army to handle the border. They would offer their support, continue doing their part as citizens, and make sure the crisis didn’t spread into the economy and daily life of the empire.

That was exactly how the people running the New Empire needed to behave. And not use the crisis to strengthen their political power.

I could understand a struggle for power. In fact, I had expected it. The moment I left for the Dark Realm, there would inevitably be people testing boundaries, measuring each other’s influence, and positioning themselves for greater authority.

That was politics. What I couldn’t tolerate was doing it so blatantly that they forgot their actual responsibilities. Especially in a crisis.

If they were already willing to abandon their jurisdictions at the first sign of trouble just to gain upper hand, then what would happen when I was genuinely unavailable?

I wasn’t going to spend my time policing every ambitious idiot who saw an opportunity to grab someone else’s authority. So I let them sweat a little. Let them wonder. Let them figure out why I hadn’t immediately reassured them or handed out instructions. Sometimes the easiest way to teach people the boundaries of their authority was to let them discover what happened when they crossed them.

When the situation was resolved, they would learn whatever they needed to know. Until then, they had their own responsibilities and so did I. I had already ensured that the pieces were already in place at the Lil’ Red Storm Realm, setting them in motion and reaching the intended conclusion was up to Dalia now.