Dragon Monarch System

Chapter 1156: Chapter 1156:- The Cards in Ren’s Hands

“Once the civil war is over, let’s try having children of our own.”

“Well, after everything you did to become the Emperor, are you really willing to let your child take the throne from you one day?” Ren’s lover, Yumi, asked with a teasing smile. She knew better than anyone just how deeply Ren desired the Imperial Throne and how much he loved the power and authority that came with ruling the Celestial Dragon Empire.

Considering everything he had done to become Emperor, she could not resist teasing him about willingly giving that position away in the future.

Hearing her words, Ren smiled before turning his gaze toward Yumi. “I don’t have any problem with my child becoming the Emperor. He will be my own blood, and as my firstborn, he will fully deserve the right to inherit everything that belongs to me.”

Ren had never intended to occupy the Imperial Throne forever. What he wanted was enough time to rule the Celestial Dragon Empire himself and fulfill the ambitions that had driven him toward the throne in the first place.

“Most likely, I will rule this Empire for at least seven or eight centuries. By then, I should have accomplished everything that I wanted to accomplish as Emperor.”

“Only after fulfilling those desires will I willingly step away and allow our child to take over the throne.”

There was another reason why Ren wanted to wait several centuries before passing down the Imperial Crown. He did not want his successor to inherit such an enormous responsibility without being properly prepared for it.

Ren wanted to personally raise and train his child from a young age, teaching him cultivation, politics, leadership, warfare, and everything else necessary to govern such a massive Empire.

“Those centuries will also give me enough time to properly train our child, Yumi.”

“When the day finally comes for him to take my place, I don’t want him to become Emperor simply because he is my son. I want him to already possess the strength, experience, and ability necessary to achieve great things as the Emperor.

But before handing the throne to his future child, Ren wanted to carve his own name into history as one of the greatest Emperors the Celestial Dragon Empire had ever seen. He wanted his centuries of rule to become an era that future generations would remember.

As long as he made the right decisions, restored the Empire’s political and military strength, and eventually brought the Celestial Dragon Empire to heights that it had never reached before, Ren believed that his achievements would speak for themselves.

By then, even the matter of the Royal Throne and Royal Crown refusing to recognize him as the rightful Emperor would no longer matter. Those two symbols carried enormous importance within the Imperial Family, but Ren believed that results mattered more.

If the Empire became stronger and more prosperous under his rule, then history would eventually recognize his reign regardless of whether those ancient artifacts had accepted him.

Yumi smiled while quietly listening to him. This was one of the reasons she had fallen in love with Ren. He was a man completely driven by his desires and ambitions. His desires came from his greed for greater things, yet there was something strangely noble about that greed that she found irresistible.

Ren did not merely want the Imperial Throne so that he could sit above everyone else. He wanted to prove that he deserved to sit there by taking the Empire to greater heights.

“Do you already have a plan for what you want to do next?” Yumi asked after thinking for a moment. “The first strike will be extremely important. More importantly, the result we achieve from that first strike could influence how the rest of the civil war develops.”

“If our first attack succeeds and produces the result we want, it will raise the morale of our side while putting pressure on Aditya’s faction. It could significantly increase our chances of winning this war.”

Yumi was not speaking without understanding the importance of her words. After becoming Ren’s lover, she had realized that beauty alone would never be enough if she truly wanted to remain beside a man who ruled an Empire.

For the past few years, she had spent much of her free time studying politics, military affairs, Imperial history, diplomacy, and the relationships between the major noble households.

She was certainly nowhere near the level of an experienced minister or military strategist, but she was no longer a complete rookie in such matters either. At the very least, Yumi could understand the political consequences behind Ren’s decisions and occasionally offer her own thoughts instead of merely sitting beside him as his lover.

And she understood one thing very clearly. The opening move of this civil war could determine far more than who won the first battle.

“To be honest, right now I am conflicted.” Ren admitted after remaining silent for a moment. “Before all of this happened, I had several advantages over Aditya.”

“The biggest advantage was the number of Seventh-Order cultivators on my side. I had more Seventh-Order powerhouses supporting me than he did, and that alone should have placed me in a very favorable position. If everything had gone according to plan, there was even a possibility that I could have ended this civil war in a single decisive sweep.”

However, the situation had completely changed because of what they did in Axel City. Who would have imagined that an attack on Axel would instead significantly strengthen Aditya and make him a foe so powerful that he would be too worried to fall asleep.

“What we tried to accomplish with the Organization massively backfired on us. Instead of weakening Aditya’s side, everything that happened allowed him to gather even more Seventh-Order cultivators around him. Now, he has almost the same number of Seventh-Order cultivators as I do, if not more. The greatest military advantage I had over him has practically disappeared.”

Ren’s expression became complicated as he thought about the only major advantage that still remained in his hands. “Right now, the biggest advantage I have over Aditya is that I completely control his parents.”

“If I wanted to, I could use them against him. Considering how much Aditya cares about his family, there is no doubt that they could become an extremely powerful weapon against him.”

“But I am highly against doing that.” Ren continued in a quieter tone. “Regardless of everything that has happened between us, those two raised me as if I were their own child for many years. I cannot simply erase that from my heart because we are now standing on opposite sides.”

“There is no denying that even after Aditya was born, their love and attention toward me never decreased.” Ren admitted. “They continued treating me like family, and that is exactly why I am extremely hesitant to turn them into tools for winning this war.”

For Ren, controlling them and using them directly against Aditya were two different matters. Keeping them under his control ensured that they could not become another advantage for his cousin, but deliberately using the two people who had raised him to emotionally pressure or harm Aditya was a line that Ren was not yet willing to cross.

“For now, I intend to keep them as my last resort.”

“As long as I still have another way to win this war, I won’t use them against Aditya. But if everything else fails and I truly have nothing left to play… then I may have no choice but to use the final card in my hands.”

Ren had never viewed himself as a righteous man. He knew exactly what kind of person he was and had long accepted that he was willing to use cruel, underhanded, or even outright evil methods if they were necessary to achieve his goals. As long as the result was something he truly desired, Ren was willing to stain his hands to obtain it.

However, that did not mean he had no moral boundaries at all. There were still certain lines that Ren preferred not to cross unless he was left with absolutely no other choice.

Aditya and his uncle and aunt were one of those lines.

Despite everything that had happened between them, Ren had never originally intended to kill his cousin. In fact, that was one of the main reasons he chose to have Aditya exiled rather than simply arranging his death.

Exile removed Aditya from the Imperial Capital and prevented him from becoming an immediate threat to Ren’s position, while at the same time allowing his cousin to remain alive.

At the time, Ren believed that this solution could buy him at least a few years. Perhaps after firmly securing his position as Emperor, he could eventually find another way to permanently deal with the threat Aditya represented without killing him.

Of course, Ren was realistic enough to understand that circumstances could change. If several years passed and he eventually concluded that killing Aditya was truly the only remaining solution, then he would have been willing to do it.

There was also the matter of the Seven Goddesses.

Ren personally did not care whether the Seven Goddesses lived or died. Their lives had never been important to him. What mattered was preventing them from standing beside Aditya and giving him their support.

That had been one of the main purposes behind removing Aditya from the Imperial Capital in the first place. Ren had hoped that exile would separate Aditya from the position and influence necessary to gather such powerful individuals around himself.

Unfortunately for Ren, fate had taken everything in the opposite direction.

Not only had Aditya survived his exile, but he had returned far stronger and with more powerful allies than Ren had ever expected. The situation was not something Ren believed he could not overcome, but every unexpected development continued pushing him further than he originally intended to go.

Little by little, Ren was being forced to bend the moral boundaries he had once established for himself. And if the civil war continued moving against him, he knew there might eventually come a point where those boundaries would have to be abandoned entirely.

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