The Power of a Superpower

The World Government was not a single entity. It had three parts.

The first was what most people thought of as the World Government. At the pinnacle of its power stood the Five Elders, each an elite among the Celestial Dragons.

From childhood, they received the finest education. The best teachers in every field taught and trained them, and after rounds of selection, they took up important positions within the World Government.

The second was the Celestial Dragon Council, made up of Celestial Dragons and representing their broader interests.

The last was the Holy Knights, composed entirely of Celestial Dragons. They were the World Government's supreme military force and the Celestial Dragons' law-enforcement body.

The Celestial Dragon Council could enact Celestial Dragon Law. Most notably, it could grant or revoke Celestial Dragon status.

Being a Celestial Dragon was a matter of status. With an overwhelming majority vote, the council could issue a document certifying that status.

Anyone who held that document was a Celestial Dragon for life and could enjoy the rights of the World Nobles.

That did not mean their descendants would become Celestial Dragons. When the holder died, the document was destroyed.

Over the past eight hundred years, only a handful of people had become Celestial Dragons: kings of Affiliated Nations, Fleet Admirals, and powerful figures who had rendered great service.

The descendants of those powerful figures eventually became loyal servants of the World Government. It was a way to preserve powerful Bloodlines and bolster the World Government's Foundations.

Every member of the Holy Knights possessed formidable strength. They were among the strongest Celestial Dragons, and each could be considered a candidate for the Five Elders.

The Five Elders and the Celestial Dragon Council were different, though both consisted of Celestial Dragons.

One had to represent the interests of both the Celestial Dragons and the World Government. The other represented only the Celestial Dragons.

Each had a position to uphold.

Where they stood shaped how they thought, and that inevitably put them at odds.

Their interests conflicted. In the past, the Celestial Dragon Council had controlled the World Government completely, while the Five Elders had been little more than its spokesmen.

But over the years, the council's hold on the World Government had weakened.

Now the Five Elders stood on the same side as the Holy Knights.

The Five Elders not only came from the Holy Knights; both groups also represented the true elite of the Celestial Dragons.

Naturally, they had grown apart from the vast majority of their own kind, who were as depraved as swine. They might as well have been two different species.

The elite made up only a tiny fraction of the Celestial Dragons, and even they fell into three groups.

Some had no desire to strive for anything. They already held supreme power.

Some had no interest in power, while others pursued strength alone. Certain members of the Holy Knights fell into the latter group and lacked the qualifications to become one of the Five Elders.

The last group, like the Five Elders, possessed both strength and wisdom. They stood at the very top of the Celestial Dragons and could come into direct contact with the World Government's greatest secret—That Person!

The World Government's move against the Kronos Kingdom represented the will of the Five Elders and some Celestial Dragons, not all of them.

The Kronos Kingdom also had close ties to certain Celestial Dragons, including the Fiorella Family, the Ruvens Family, and the Fairland Family.

The kingdoms of the Twenty Kings who had founded the World Government nearly eight hundred years ago still existed, even after their families moved to the Holy Land of Mary Geoise.

Many shrewd families used blood ties to control those kingdoms indirectly.

Families like the Donquixote Family, which had abandoned its entire kingdom and handed it to former servants, were in the minority.

The Kronos Kingdom had close trading relationships with the kingdoms controlled by those families.

One of its kings had even married a Celestial Dragon, forging a marriage alliance with the Fiorella Family.

With ties like those, winning the approval of some Celestial Dragons was easy.

By blood, the direct descendants of the Tartarus Family also carried a Celestial Dragon Bloodline.

If Hades wanted, he could become a Celestial Dragon.

If they wished, every generation's head of the Tartarus Royal Family could become a Celestial Dragon.

It sounded exaggerated, but the Kronos Kingdom had that kind of power, and the Tartarus Family had that kind of influence.

Some Celestial Dragons had once made that promise to the Kronos Kingdom.

It was also a fallback for the Kronos Kingdom, though it might cost them something.

But they would not take that path. For one thing, the situation had not become that dire.

And if they were to become Celestial Dragons, the entire Tartarus Family would do so, becoming a new Celestial Dragon family.

The Celestial Dragon Council would never allow it.

Celestial Dragon Law explicitly stated that the families of the Twenty Kings who had founded the World Government would retain their status in perpetuity, unchanged forever, with no new families ever added.

That was why the Kronos Kingdom had never feared the World Government's provocations. A superpower had the strength to stand its ground.

Besides, only some Celestial Dragons supported the Tartarus Family. Plenty rejected them.

Over eight hundred years, differences had inevitably emerged among the Celestial Dragon families. Some remained powerful or had grown even stronger.

Others had declined to the very bottom of their ranks.

Those families felt intense hostility and fear toward the Tartarus Family, which wielded power no weaker than theirs.

The many formidable superpowers across the seas were all targets the World Government wanted to win over, yet deeply feared.

And there lay the contradiction.

The World Government wanted their strength and support, and wanted to remove a tremendous threat, but it could not give the superpowers what they truly wanted.

After all, nearly eight hundred years ago, most of the twenty kingdoms that founded the World Government had been weaker than the Kronos Kingdom.

Many could only be considered strong kingdoms. But while the Kronos Kingdom stayed out of the conflict and watched,

they acted decisively, becoming the most illustrious powers of that era and laying the foundations of an enduring legacy!

Hades had been stunned when he learned this. He had never imagined someone could become a Celestial Dragon later in life, much less that the opportunity was within his reach.

But he would not do it. There was no need. For the Tartarus Family, it was a fallback—and nothing more.