Path To Godhood Begins With Marrying Wife And Gaining SSS Rank Skill Chapter 656:The World Is Full Of Schemers

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Previously on Path To Godhood Begins With Marrying Wife And Gaining SSS Rank Skill...
Marquise Marco declared the empire doomed before being swiftly executed by the Transcendent Knight on Crown Prince Haster's orders. Haster then quelled the nobles' fears, framing Marco as a traitor and reinforcing their loyalty to Arcadia. After dismissing the nobles, Haster secretly instructed someone to watch them.

Standing only a few steps behind him, the Transcendent Knight quietly watched the exchange before finally breaking the silence.

"My Lord."

His voice remained respectful.

"This might become troublesome."

Haster slowly clasped both hands behind his back while looking toward the entrance of the tent once again.

"It is troublesome."

He paused briefly before continuing.

"But there might be even greater trouble if we choose to do nothing."

His eyes narrowed slightly while his expression grew colder.

"Marquise Marco's final words have undoubtedly planted curiosity inside the minds of everyone who stood here today."

"A dead man's words often carry more weight than those spoken by the living.Especially when they are his final words."

The Transcendent Knight quietly listened without interrupting.

Haster slowly walked forward by a few steps while speaking in the same calm tone.

"At such a critical point in this war, I cannot allow unnecessary doubts to spread among the nobles."

"If suspicion begins growing inside their hearts, it will eventually spread through the officers."

"If it reaches the soldiers, discipline itself may begin to crack."

He stopped walking and looked outside through the open entrance.

"The battlefield is already dangerous enough.I have no intention of allowing hidden distrust to create another front inside our own ranks."

The Transcendent Knight remained silent for several moments before asking in a low voice,

"And if one of them starts investigating on their own?"

A faint smile slowly appeared on Haster's lips.

It was warm yet for some reason, it felt strangely chilling.

"If anyone decides to act smart..."

His voice remained perfectly calm.

"We need to silence them as soon as possible."

The sinister meaning behind those simple words made the entire tent fall quiet.

The Transcendent Knight lowered his head without the slightest hesitation.

"As you command, My Lord."

Haster gave a small nod before looking once more toward the bright morning sky beyond the camp.

The smile had already disappeared from his face.

Only an indifferent expression remained while the wind quietly entered through the entrance and gently stirred the curtains of the command tent.

...….

As the nobles gradually began leaving the command tent, Ethan quietly shifted his gaze toward Marquise Shatad, who had remained silent throughout the entire exchange.

Even after witnessing Marco's death with his own eyes, Shatad did not show any unusual reaction. His face looked shocked at first, but beyond that there was nothing strange about his behavior. He neither panicked nor tried to flee. He simply stood there quietly as though he truly knew nothing about the matter.

Ethan narrowed his eyes while carefully observing him.

'Is he really innocent?'

'Or is he just hiding it too well?'

The question lingered inside his mind for several moments, but no matter how much he stared, he could not find any clue that pointed toward either answer.

Pondering for a moment,he extended his hand.

A faint invisible string moved ahead and bound around the legs of Marquise Shatad.

Finally, he let out a quiet breath and slowly walked out of the tent alongside the others.

The bright morning sunlight fell across the camp while soldiers busily repaired damaged equipment and reorganized the formation after the night's battle. However, Ethan paid no attention to any of it.

His mind had already drifted elsewhere.

Countless thoughts churned one after another inside his head while he replayed everything that had happened over the past few days.

Most importantly he remembered the final words spoken by Marquise Marco before his death.

"The war doesn't matter anymore."

"The moment you joined hands with them..."

"Every single one of you became doomed."

"You will understand once you discover what they are doi..."

The sentence had never been completed.

Everyone else dismissed it as the meaningless rambling of a desperate traitor trying to create confusion before dying.

But Ethan was not completely convinced.

'What if he really knew something that the others didn't?'

'What if his betrayal wasn't simply for money or power?'

'What if he already knew what was about to happen?'

The more Ethan thought about it, the heavier his expression became.He tried imagining countless possibilities.

Perhaps someone had threatened him.

Perhaps he had been manipulated.

Perhaps he had discovered some terrifying secret.

Or perhaps he had willingly chosen that path after learning something impossible to ignore.

Yet no matter how many theories Ethan came up with, none of them seemed to fit perfectly.

Unable to find an answer, he decided to stop thinking about Marco himself and instead examine the events surrounding the war.

He slowly pierced them together inside his mind.One event after another.One clue after another.

Soon, something began to feel very strange.

At the beginning of the war, the Empire had clearly been losing ground against the allied forces.Their situation had looked difficult.Yet every single time Arcadia's army withdrew from a certain battlefield a dungeon breakout suddenly occurred in that exact region.

The timing was simply too perfect.

Because of those breakouts, the allied armies suffered tremendous losses while Arcadia narrowly avoided disaster by retreating beforehand.

That unexpected advantage allowed Arcadia to shift its attention elsewhere and eventually launch this operation through the gorge.

Ethan slowly frowned.

'That alone is already suspicious.'

His steps unconsciously slowed.

Yet another thought soon surfaced.

One that bothered him even more.

The death of the Transcendent Knight.

No matter how he looked at it, someone at that level should not have died so easily.

Such figures stood at the very peak of power.

Even if they lost a battle, escaping should have been possible.

So how had that Transcendent Knight disappeared so completely?

Did the enemy secretly possess another hidden Transcendent expert?

Or...

Was Ethan's earlier suspicion actually correct?

Was Crown Prince Haster himself a Transcendent Knight who had hidden his true strength all along?

The possibility sent a quiet chill through Ethan's body.

If that were true...

Then many things suddenly became easier to explain.

At the same time, it made everything even more frightening.

Ethan slowly rubbed his aching forehead.

His temples throbbed painfully.

Politics.

War.

Schemes.

Hidden identities.

Secret alliances.

Every new discovery only created even more questions.

He let out a long sigh while looking toward the distant mountains.

"The world is just full of schemers."

For the first time in many days, even someone like Ethan felt mentally exhausted.

He had fought powerful enemies.

He had survived impossible battles.

Yet somehow...

Trying to understand the people around him felt even harder than fighting them.