Path To Godhood Begins With Marrying Wife And Gaining SSS Rank Skill Chapter 820: Execution 2

Among the crowd were many slaves who had recently been freed.

Some of them had spent years under the control of the four families. Their bodies carried old wounds and their faces still showed the marks left behind by their past lives.

If the law had not been there to stop them, many of them would have rushed toward the execution platform and killed the people themselves.

Yet now they could only stand among the crowd and watch.

The brutal slaughter ahead did not faze any of them.

One guilty person after another fell to the ground. Their bodies were dragged away while their decapitated heads rolled across the stone floor of the platform. Blood flowed like rivers from the chopped bodies and slowly stained the entire area red.

After the execution was completed, the remaining bodies would be burned so that not a trace of them would remain.

The Imperial Capital had never witnessed such an execution before.

Amidst this sea of fervor, a person dressed in a cloak stood motionless while looking at the scene ahead.

His eyes were a bit dim and had lost their usual sharpness.

It was Ethan.

"You don't happy."

Another cloaked man standing beside him spoke.

Ethan remained silent for a moment before slowly shaking his head.

"Sir Ethan, they are just getting the fruit of their own karma."

The voice came from Gu Cheng.

"Yes... If not for your rules, for all things they have subjected me to, I would have rushed to kill them already."

Ethan looked around.

Around him stood Rathlos, Saintess Henna and Gu Cheng. They had all come to see the execution.

"They certainly deserve it but getting their family followed..." Ethan didn't know what to say.

His gaze returned to the platform.

The people falling there were not all guilty.

Some had committed crimes and some had directly served the families, but there were also others whose greatest crime was simply being born into the wrong family.

That was what troubled Ethan the most.

He understood why the Emperors had made this decision. The four families had existed for generations and their influence had spread throughout the Capital. If even a small part of their hidden forces survived, there was a possibility that they could gather again in the future.

The children of those families could grow up with hatred in their hearts. They could gather their old supporters and seek revenge against the Empire.

From the point of view of the Emperors, eliminating that possibility was the safest choice.

Ethan understood all of this.

But understanding something did not mean he could accept it.

His eyes moved toward the younger faces on the platform.

Some were still too young to even understand what was happening.

Ethan's fingers slowly tightened beneath his cloak.

They didn't choose their parents.

They didn't choose the family they were born into.

Yet they were still going to die because of it.

Ethan lowered his gaze.

He had killed enemies who tried to kill him. He had killed people who had threatened innocent lives. He had fought the four family heads without holding back because he knew what kind of people they were.

He had never regretted those deaths.

But this felt different.

There was no enemy standing in front of him now. There was no battle and no immediate danger that needed to be stopped. There were simply people being killed because the Empire had decided that their existence could become a danger in the future.

Ethan slowly clenched his fist.

Perhaps there had been another way.

The children could have been separated from their families. They could have been imprisoned or sent somewhere far away. There might have been a solution that could have protected the Empire without taking their lives.

But he had failed to find one.

That fact weighed heavily on him.

Ethan looked at the crowd.

The people were cheering.

For them, this was justice.

And perhaps it was.

These people had suffered because of those families. They had every right to hate them. They had every right to feel relieved when the people responsible were finally punished.

Ethan couldn't take that away from them.

But at the same time, he couldn't force himself to feel happy about what he was seeing.

His eyes slowly moved back toward the platform.

"They certainly deserve it..." Ethan muttered.

His voice became quieter.

"But getting their family involved..."

He stopped.

There were no words that could properly explain what he was feeling.

He had helped bring this about.

That fact was impossible to ignore.

If he had not moved against the four families, perhaps their crimes would have continued. If he had not exposed their actions, perhaps the Empire would never have known the truth.

In one way, the execution was also the result of his actions.

That thought weighed heavily on him.

Ethan had always believed that strength meant having the ability to protect the people around him.

But now he was beginning to understand another side of strength.

The stronger he became, the larger the consequences of his decisions would become.

One careless decision from him could affect thousands.

One mistake could destroy an entire family.

One enemy he chose to fight could drag an entire faction into war.

He didn't like that.

He didn't want to become someone who simply accepted such things because he was powerful enough to survive them.

Ethan looked at the children again.

His expression became complicated.

If his own family were ever placed in the same position, he knew he would not be able to stand quietly and watch.

That realization made his heart sink.

He couldn't blame the Emperors for protecting their Empire, but he also couldn't accept a world where innocent people could be sacrificed simply because their family had become dangerous.

He wanted to find another way.

Ethan slowly exhaled.

He didn't want his family to survive only because they were strong.

He wanted them to reach a position where nobody would even consider destroying them.

He wanted his family to have enough influence, enough goodwill and enough value that their existence would become something the entire Empire benefited from.

Not another powerful family waiting for the right moment to turn against the Empire.

Ethan's eyes slowly became firm.

He had been thinking about strength for too long.

Now he needed to think about something else.

How could he make sure that his family could enjoy eternal glory without harming the political interests of the Empire?

Ethan already had a certain direction in mind.

He only needed to make it work.