Ayesha left to go visit Iris and Alyssia after catching up for a few more minutes, leaving a troubled Arthur behind. Dismissing Ayesha’s suspicions was easy, but he couldn’t help but doubt himself. Had Lady Makora truly been meddling in his life for so long? Arthur rubbed his temples, recalling Ezrial’s advice. As powerful as The Weaver might be, she wasn’t omnipotent. Makora still had to answer to The Council, and he’d met several people at least as strong as she was. Hell, he’d even fought one, or at least their defective avatar. It was just like Ezrial had said. Arthur just needed to become a bigger fish, so big the ripples of his existence could only be admired from afar, never navigated, else the waves would drown them. Power was like money, except that having enough of it really could solve all your problems. With nothing left to distract him and no expected visitors incoming, Arthur was finally forced to address the elephant in the room: his new status as the ruler of an intergalactic empire. He had 27 planets under his dominion now, and while the vast majority of them weren't as densely populated as Earth, Iris’ estimates suggested he had 72 billion people to take care of.It still felt unreal to him, but as much as he might try to deny it, the weight of responsibility was slowly but surely settling on his shoulders. Arthur could just walk away from it all, ignore it and pretend like those people didn’t exist. So far as the System was concerned, as long as Arthur took care of the 3 worlds in the Nexus point, they didn’t care what he did with the rest of his kingdom. If he didn’t outright start abusing his subjects, The Council would let him get away with a lot. Lady Melania's illegal experiments had been an open secret, after all. Unfortunately, Arthur Ward’s conscience couldn’t agree with that plan. Over the last day, he’d learned a lot about Lady Melania's empire. Besides the Nexus point, it had nothing of import. The mines (...)