A few days after Minos and Isabella's wedding...
After Minos and Isabella's honeymoon ended, the two returned to Dry City, allowing the high-level Spiritual Saints cultivating in that place to return alongside the Elite Squad and the Stuart family beasts.
Kyla and Emlyn had taken advantage of the last few days to move through the Black Plain Empire and have fun while reconnecting with beasts they had not seen in a long time.
The two had been spending more and more time within the Spatial Kingdom due to their current cultivation levels, which demanded more and more of their time cultivating for them to advance.
The mother was currently at level 75, while the daughter was at level 73.
Thus, in the days that only Minos and Isabella were in the Spatial Kingdom, they rotated the northern region of the Central Continent before returning to Dry City that morning to return to their home.
After Minos' return, he sent all those people back to train in the Spatial Kingdom while turning his attention to the rest of his family and the affairs of the state.
Upon sending those people to the Spatial Kingdom, he and Isabella met with Abby, Ruth, and Gloria for a family breakfast before starting their official business.
But even at breakfast, official business came up the dining table of the emperor's residence.
"Minos, I managed a few more deals in the days when you were with Isabella. So now our faction is even stronger." Gloria said with a beautiful smile on her face, delighted with the changes in the winds in her family's favor.
In the past few months, her and Minos' faction had nearly tripled in strength, doubled in membership, and reached at least six alliance agreements with factions of similar size to theirs.
All told, they already had at their disposal half the area of influence of a major Church faction, something impressive for a group that had been born a few decades ago.
At the same time, with the temporary inattention of the larger Church groups to what Gloria and Minos were doing, they now had an easier time in virtually all their actions.
Moving resources and personnel between Church outposts affiliated with them had never been easier, and their faction members were more relaxed than ever about their situation.
Many had several questions in mind before and only stayed in their group because of the resources they received, something they were unlikely to get in other factions. But now, with peace on the Black Plain, each of these members of their faction was twice as sure that this group was the future.
No one in this group, apart from Minos and Gloria, imagined that one day they would wish to vie for the position of Supreme Pontiff of the Church, but many believed that they would one day become big enough that the previous pressure would no longer bother them.
Because of this, too, the numbers of this faction had improved so much recently, even considering that the mergers had not been enough to justify all this advancement.
"Oh? That sounds promising." Minos smiled upon hearing that. "With more support and the recent mergers, members of the Church without a faction will probably join us more easily."
"Yes, the number of new members of our group who have never been part of a faction has been increasing," Gloria stated.
Then Ruth added. "The number of migrations to the empire has also increased in the last few days."
Abby shook her head and said. "With the tension between the southern and western regions and the empire's distance from those areas, people from all over the continent were starting to migrate here.
These are still low numbers, but in the days when you two were in the Spatial Kingdom, over 50,000 people from Sista, Mairin, Lusmait, Veora Kingdom, Eastern Empire, Western Empire, Flowers Kingdom, and Evergreen Empire entered our domain.
Most of them are Spiritual Saints or weaker, but these movements indicate that we may face a large migration of people from these lands to here very soon."
Isabella heard that and was impressed, not expecting that so many people from these high-level states would come to the Black Plain Empire.
Minos had expected something like that, so he was not impressed like Isabella.
"That is as expected. When the war between Maximillian and Vico starts, millions of people from those states will migrate here." He said, feeling that he and his people would have to be careful even in peace.
Receiving many foreign specialists at once had great potential for trouble. So while the war was not starting, he and his people had to prepare for the worst as soon as possible.
When things got out of hand, even if the strongest people in this world didn't keep an eye on them, they would still have a lot of trouble for their domains!
The women of Minos agreed with him, eating and commenting on the subject, sometimes talking about what they should do and about the greatest danger points for the empire.
...
While the imperial family of the Black Plain gathered, each group involved in the rising continental tensions was taking their due precautions for the times ahead.
Wars and conflicts of the magnitude of what was about to happen in this state did not start suddenly.
When states with billions of people were involved in any problem, even the action of a level 99 Demigod alone could not solve all the problems. He needed help to change the scheme of things, and as such, a lot had to be prepared.
Armies needed to assemble, central forces had to move spiritual crystals in the right direction, and blacksmiths and array masters had to participate in the war effort to arm their states' forces.
A large-scale conflict took time, so even with Maximillian's interests and knowledge of them by Vico's group, nothing would happen in the short term.
Both sides were focused on preparing for the chaotic future ahead of them, so at this stage, they were experiencing an invisible conflict, where each side was focused on what was happening in their territories and less on battles.
So even in tension, these states lived a temporary peace, and their leaders did not fight but prepared themselves by arming their forces and forging new alliances.
This would last for a while, but eventually, the time for armed conflict would come!
