The Pathway Of Wisdom-Chapter 78: The All-Knowing Saint! Part-1.

People panicked and ran everywhere to escape, but Paul remained sitting on his seat with a look of disbelief and shock.

He had no idea why Antonio suddenly went berserk and why the lives of random innocent civilians were destroyed like that.

Dozens of people died from the rampage of the berserk gladiator, but a lot more people died afterwards from being crushed to death by the panicked crowd struggling to get ahead of others and escape first.

It was as if Paul was stuck in a nightmare; everything seemed so surreal that he hoped it would be a nightmare and he would wake up soon from it.

But all that hope was for naught; everything was real!

"T-This... Wha..."

Paul couldn’t find words to describe his bewilderment in that moment, as he simply had no idea what was going on around him.

If someone told him that Antonio was always a real black magician and all this time he was just waiting patiently to play his cards, Paul would believe it right away!

After all, from his perspective, the organization seemed like a place filled with good people who hoped for a better future!

Even their leader was a literal ’saint’ of the church!

It was truly shocking that a member of their peaceful organization would commit such heinous crimes and would betray them all by killing ordinary innocent civilians for no apparent reason!

’Why?’

In the end, Paul could only speak one word as he felt powerless to even move a single muscle of his body.

Paul wanted to ask why Antonio had betrayed the organization and why he was deliberately harming innocent civilians!

He knew that even when Antonio was transferred to the prison, the organization went as far as acquiring animal blood just to put up a show that people really died from Antonio’s curse.

This proved that the organization was strictly against harming any ordinary civilian, and its main goal was replacing the overbearing ruling class, not slaughtering innocent humans!

Thinking this far, the thought that Antonio had betrayed the organization finally took place in Paul’s mind with clear confirmation!

And that’s precisely what Alex had wanted to do!

Giving Paul, an easily influenced person, the chance to be the only person from the organization to watch the scene in the Colosseum was a well-crafted plan!

This way, not only did Alex manage to fulfill his agenda of spreading fear in the hearts of the nobles and rich people of the city of Ilma through Antonio, but he even managed to make the people not suspect anything!

Alex knew that no matter how many benefits and kindness you may give to someone, there is no such thing as ’absolute loyalty’ in the world.

If the people from the ’Revenant’ found out that their leader had used a member of the organization as a pawn, their faith in the organization would waver despite benefitting immensely from the organization.

To prevent that from happening, Alex had to find a way that Antonio would get ostracized by the members of the organization without anyone suspecting, while his main objective of spreading ’anti-count propaganda’ would also be fulfilled!

Once Paul returned to the organization, he would tell the other members about his own thoughts, and they all would also end up being deceived, as they would have to believe his words because they themselves were not on the scene and would have no choice but to believe Paul’s story.

And even if some of them didn’t fully believe Paul’s story, the rumors would spread by word of mouth about the incident that happened in the colosseum.

With no real way to confirm everything, they would have no other choice but to believe the rumors!

Moreover, Antonio was already famous for being a big fraud, and his entry in the city was just coincidental enough to imply that he was likely brought by the count himself!

Why would the count do something like that, you ask?

Obviously because the Count wants his firstborn son to gain influence and fame by defeating a black magician so that he can have a better chance of becoming a real paladin of the goddess of war and combat church!

The goddess of war and combat has strict rules, and to become an official paladin of the church, you need to be a powerful and famous pathwalker devoted to the ’Path’ of strength and combat!

If you fail to fulfill these conditions, you can never become a paladin of the goddess of war and combat’s church!

In the past few days when Antonio was in prison, Alex had already assigned missions to the members of the revenant to spread rumors in the entire city of Ilma.

Which emphasized the possibility that the black magician was likely brought to the city of Ilma by the count, and he was going to show off his son by having him defeat the black magician.

This was already a very popular rumor, but this second wave would make it even more popular.

With Antonio himself acknowledging that he was following the count’s strategy to clean up all the powerful and rich people in the city

He caused everyone to believe that the Colosseum and the so-called ’punishing the Black Magician’ were all methods to get them to gather in one place and slaughter them all!

[Everyone stay where you are! We are dispatching ’Pathwalkers’ to deal with this evil bast*rd!]

[There is no need to panic at all!]

Although several announcements were made through the loudspeakers to calm down the panicked crowd, it was already too late.

The crowd refused to stop, and dozens of people forcefully broke through the barricade of the soldiers with the combined force of so many people.

Even though ’Pathwalkers’ were dispatched, none of them were strong enough to actually stop so many powerful gladiators rampaging everywhere!

Especially the gladiator that was the strongest and was turned into an undead puppet by the black magician!

Seeing that even the official forces were unable to do anything, the people became even more suspicious, and the words of Antonio took root in their hearts deeply!

It was now near impossible to control the crowd easily!