In the days that followed, Dunn took Crown Princess Yala under his wing and taught her to handle affairs of state.
He helped her untangle the empire's complicated relationships.
Whatever the future held, the empire, now a tangled mess, needed a capable new monarch to lead it.
After all, even after he ascended to the Astral Plane, the Atlantis Empire would remain Dunn's foundation and his main source of faith in the future.
So he had to train a qualified successor.
Dunn even instructed Annie, Alice, and the others to stand with Yala and help her stabilize the empire if necessary.
Aside from that, ever since Dunn had taken a blow from the Wrath of the Firmament without suffering a scratch,
countless factions had come to pay their respects. Almost all of them represented the Astral Plane Gods.
After Dunn demonstrated the power to stand against Heaven's Mandate head-on, the still-fledgling Gods of the Astral Plane regarded him as a Savior. They all wanted to draw close to him, seeking the sense of security that the Elf Empress's slaughter in the Astral Plane had destroyed.
Naturally, Dunn received them one by one.
Projecting themselves down from the Astral Plane consumed a great deal of divine power, and the now-impoverished Gods would not waste it recklessly.
So they merely sent their factions in the mortal world to visit Dunn first.
Once Dunn ascended to the Astral Plane, the Gods would visit his Divine Kingdom in person.
Although Dunn planned to keep a low profile and quietly build up his strength afterward,
he did not reject the Gods' overtures. Instead, he accepted them all.
Compared with the few bearers of Heaven's Mandate, the Gods were clearly at a disadvantage now. Banding together for protection was a good choice.
Amid all this bustle,