After Elena’s return, the very next day, the Otrefiona Emperor suddenly called his most important retainers for a very important meeting. This was a sudden summon but it was something that the retainers were already waiting for.

As quite some time had passed after the life bound stone tablet of Azusa had shattered, most of the important and powerful people working for the emperor had already heard about this.

Some of them believed it and some did not. But all of them were waiting for the emperor to speak up regarding this very important matter.

For the last few days, the atmosphere of the imperial court had been terrible. There were a decent amount of people who were not fond for Azusa for various reasons.

So as this rumours about her death started to spread, they had became extremely happy about this. Actually, they were the ones who were mostly responsible for the quick spread of this sensitive news.

But at the end of the day, these people were a minority in the Otrefiona Imperial Court. Vast majority of the court officials were extremely fond of Azusa and considered her to be the best candidate to succeed the mighty emperor.

So whenever these Azusa hating side showed any joy for this news, the fans of Azusa immediately talked back to them and a conflict broke out just like that. This was the reason why the atmosphere of the imperial court had been quite tensed recently.

Among the people invited to join this meeting, the first prince was obviously included. And Dominic had some dreams that he would be declared to be the next successor by his Father now that Azusa was gone. But even he knew that the chance of that happening was very low.

...

This meetings had a very simple purpose. Now that Zeta had found out what this mysterious orginisation were actually planning to do, Elena and the other ladies together had came up with an idea to force the organisation to make their move before their planned time.

And for that to happen, Elena was going to give them a golden opportunity. An opportunity that they would not be able to miss even if they thought of it as a trap.

With that in mind, the important meeting started. People were very curious about what the emperor was going to say. Some of looking forward to getting the official confirmation of the first princess’s death while some people were hoping for the emperor to say that all the rumours that had been spreading for the last few days to be wrong and mistaken.

But surprising both of the sides, Draegor did not talk about any of that. Instead he simply started to declare various changes regarding the security and finance of the OTREFIONA world.

The security was getting a massive increase which was very surprising. The only reason why the Otrefiona Empire had managed to maintain this level security would be because various troublesome Threat Hunting missions had been cancelled which had given the army some free time.

As for the finance, the emperor suddenly created a few new departments and gave them extra fundings. And all the funding money that was used for this, they were not included in the general budget and their source was either the emperor’s own pockets or somewhere else.

As soon as these new projects were declared, the whole room where this meeting was taking place became silent. That was because all those new departments were named under Azusa, the first princess.

But this did not give the sign that Azusa was alive. That was because it was not usual for the emperor to do something like this for his children no matter how biased he was toward to one.

That was why, this action of his looked as if he was trying to honour his beloved deceased daughter and wanted to immortalise her by doing something like this. This made all the people who were a fan of Azusa to have a pale face.

As for Dominic, he was quite displeased that even after her death, his self proclaimed biggest rival was getting so much attention. Still, he did not voice his displeasure and decided to just let his father be. Very soon even he would be under him anyways.

Even though various people came up with various ideas and speculations, none of them directly asked anything of the emperor. They just lowered their heads and kept their thoughts to themselves.

But then the emperor said something that made them to rise their heads at once.

"I will be commencing the Blood Dragon Ceremony in two days."

Blood Dragon Ceremony was an event which was something akin to a festival for the whole Otrefiona Empire. But there was no exact time when this ceremony happened. Everything about it depended on either the mood of the emperor or something significant enough to effect the whole empire happening.

In this ceremony, the level 9000 plus supreme powerhouse, the Otrefiona Emperor himself would use his incredible physical prowess to lock down the luck of the whole, many world spanning empire.

This way, even in the worst case situation, the population would be able to remain calm and the fate of the universe would always look positively toward anyone and everyone associated with the Otrefiona Empire.

But there was a large cost involved in this. During performing this ceremony, the Emperor would have to bear a huge amount of burden. Even for a level 9000 plus powerhouse, this burden that came from the fate of the whole universe was not an easy thing to withstand.

So after the ceremony, the emperor would enter a period where he would become about 30 to 40 percent weaker compared to his normal self.

Even in this situation, he was still more than capable of defeating weaker supremes so nothing major had ever happened during this time period. So this weakening was not seen as anything serious by anyone because they believed the Otrefiona Emperor to be invincible.

That was why, after hearing this, what made the retainers worried was if this ceremony was being performed as a precaution before declaring the death of the First Princess or not. That was what worried the people here. No one was worried about the emperor at all. Because, he was invincible.

But there was one person who suddenly become ecstatic after hearing this. And that person was none other than Dominic.