Hades sat quietly in the royal park.
A chessboard stood before him.
He seemed to be watching from the sidelines.
In fact, he was playing against himself, moving pieces with one hand and then the other.
One hand attacked and the other defended. One represented the World Government; the other represented the many pieces Hades had set against it.
The black pieces had surrounded the white pieces representing the World Government.
"Dragon Slayer!"
With that move, the white pieces had no way to fight back.
The Battle of the Golden Sea, the Flying Pirates with their secret trump card, the Revolutionary Army, and even the Black Emperor Pirates afterward...
Each piece would drain the World Government's strength.
And that was without counting the turmoil at sea.
Within a few years, most Affiliated Nations, despite their healthy finances today, would face financial strain.
Even where governments avoided that strain, they would pass the burden on to ordinary people.
Signs of it had already appeared in some Affiliated Nations. Their people were under heavy pressure.
For now, they could still bear it.
But for how long?
In the short term, turmoil in those nations would hinder Kronos Kingdom's plans. In the long term, it would serve its interests.
Kronos Kingdom was an outsider, after all. Even with the power it wielded in secret, expanding into kingdoms whose interests had already been divided up would be difficult.
Turmoil often meant those interests were up for grabs.
After the Revolutionary Army stirred things up, Kronos Kingdom would seize the chance to remove the forces standing in its way.
It would take full control of those kingdoms' economies.
That included the production of everyday necessities.
Everything the people used would come from companies controlled by Kronos Kingdom.
Then there were the Ports the kingdom had