441 Self-Doubt
Selma Payne’s POV:
Maintaining order was a futile effort. Although the president hid in the crowd and no longer spoke after dropping the bomb, the anger and fear of the people had been stirred to the greatest extent. Anything that stopped them would be seen as ‘giving up’. “The high and mighty nobles are going to abandon us and run for their lives!”
I only felt profound fatigue in the face of chaos, and this was the first time I felt despair. It was not that I was afraid of Leviathan’s ability to move mountains and fill the seas, but rather her deep and bottomless mind.
Could everything be in her ‘script’ all along? The chaos we were in was so ‘logical.’ They blamed the government for constantly wearing down their credibility, blamed the legitimate heir for personally destroying the people’s trust in the royal family, and blamed the arrogant style of the nobles and mayors for tearing the class apart. However, was there no factor of human arrangement in all ‘reasonable’ things?
From the moment he incited his lackeys to confuse the Crown Prince, had things gone according to Leviathan’s script?
Could everything be under her control?
Leviathan showed me the other side of the gods. Unlike the Moon Goddess’ kindness or Azazel’s arrogance, Leviathan was too much like a human. She treated people like toys for fun and played with layers of schemes. I was not afraid to fight with people who looked like humans or be opponents to people who looked like gods. But what should I do when facing a god that was like a human?
I couldn’t wait for the appointed time, and there was no explosion. I thought that my plan to blow up the city wall had failed. The cries of the people grew louder and louder, and there were even people who clashed with the guards of the nobles.
It was no longer a peaceful time to hold their heads high. After breaking through the filter of aristocrats, the people no longer had any scruples.
Seeing such a scene, even some people of the interim government were shaken.
“Why don’t we… Just open the city gates.” An elder said dryly, “We can’t go on like this. Let’s get as many of us out as possible. At least most of us will survive.”
“Most of the people?” The Great Elder looked as if he had heard a joke. “What about the remaining small portion? Do you think they deserve to die?”
“Don’t speak in anger, Jodocus!” The elder frowned and growled, “You know that’s not what I meant! But what can we do now? If we wait any longer, we’ll all die!”
The Grand Elder was silent.
After a while, he looked at me.
“I respect all of your rules.” I wanted to smile to show my friendliness, but the corner of my mouth was like a five-kilogram lead block. “This is all for… For everyone’s sake, for survival…”
However, we all knew that if we opened the gates now, some people would die under the feet of our compatriots. While waiting for that faint hope, perhaps everyone would die in the flood.
Do we protect the VIPs and neglect the citizens? Did the problem we were facing somehow become an unsolvable problem without us knowing?
Finally, the Great Elder made up his mind.
“… Open the gate.”
He let out a deep, deep sigh. The pattern that represented the guardian spirit was still engraved on his skin, but it had now dried up and cracked with the palace’s destruction. It was like the Great Elder’s current lifeless face, full of defeat.
“Try your best to maintain order. Let the old, weak, women, and children out of the city first. The young and middle-aged men should stand back as much as possible. And the nobles and mayors…”
He was at a loss for words again. What about the nobles and the mayors? Would they be willing to let the commoners go first? Even the elderly and children?
He couldn’t even convince the people, let alone the ‘big shots’ who were already unwilling to listen to him.
“Anyway, let’s open the gate first.” At this moment, the Great Elder, who had always been a strategist, showed only emptiness. “Go… just go…”
Standing on the tall city walls, the instant I reached out to the translucent ‘bubble’, my confusion wasn’t any less than the Great Elder. If he was heartbroken for his kind because he anticipated the tragedy that was about to happen, then I had an even more selfish reason other than the fact that I didn’t want to see innocent people die.
I began to doubt myself.
Could it be because of my pride that we’d come to this point?
Was it because I was overconfident and thought nothing could stop me after I reconstructed my body and obtained New Flow? Was it because my pride had blinded me and made me unwilling to think? Was it because I only wanted to show off and use brute force to solve everything?
The heretic cult believer’s plan of luring the tiger away from the mountain was a crude strategy. I had simulated it hundreds of times in military classes, but in the end, I was still deceived by such a childish scheme.
I should have listened to my partner’s advice and left this chaotic place as soon as possible, but I didn’t. I stubbornly used the diplomatic relations between our countries as an excuse. In reality, I felt that after I defeated Azazel, gods were nothing. I could solve any trouble.
However, reality told me that I could not get rid of the gods and couldn’t even stop someone willing to walk down the path of death known as the ‘gate of life’.
Oh dear, oh dear.
I did not want to open the city gate because this was destined to be a ‘tragic victory’ that would break apart countless families.
But shouldn’t I open the city gate?
Now that things had come to this, did I still have to be stubborn?
