Almost immediately, several of the people in the audience started screaming.
"Quiet!" the Governor shouted again, terrifying the crowd even more.
"I told you that I will serve justice!" she shouted with her powerful voice. "The evidence was there! The evidence was overwhelming! You all saw the evidence with your own eyes!"
Then, she aggressively pointed at the several people at the side, who were still reading through their collective mountains of evidence.
"They have not yet complained, even though they have been looking at the evidence for over 30 minutes now!"
"If the evidence were fake, they would have already found an inconsistency."
"But they didn't."
"That is because the evidence is genuine, and the punishments have been just!"
Then, the Governor paused for a couple of seconds, and her voice became quieter but retained its firmness.
"You are allowed to inquire about the punishment, and you may also view the evidence. Everything is above board and-"
BANG!
The Governor shot her gun at someone at the side, and a hand exploded off someone's arm.
The person looked with shock at their flying hand.
Splat!
The hand landed on the ground and opened.
There was a crumpled piece of paper inside.
The next moment, a small gust of wind appeared, which uncrumpled the piece of paper and pushed it back onto the piles of paper.
Then, the Governor spun her gun once.
BANG!
And turned the guy's hand into bloody mist.
"Try destroying evidence again, and your head will be next," the Governor spoke coldly.
Some seconds later, the guy started to scream in pain.
WHOOM!
A gust of wind appeared, and the guy was pushed into the city.
The wind wasn't strong enough to injure him heavily, but his landing was not nice.
"Next!" the Governor shouted.
By now, the crowd had lost a lot of its power, and people stepped forward less frequently.
Of course, some people still tried to instigate a public uproar, but as soon as anybody tried that, the Governor made one of the guards pull the person out before forcing them to publicly speak in front of everyone about their problems.
This method started to pay off because two hours after the start of the public hearing, almost nobody dared to step out of line.
As long as even a single person stepped out of line, they would be singled out and put in front of everyone.
Then, they would be forced to publicly air their grievances, and almost always, they didn't have any way to fight against the mountain of evidence presented to them.
If 100 people were running at someone, even if that person had a gun, they would get overwhelmed.
However, if the 100 stood still and still needed to start running, things would be different.
The strength a group gave someone was that the members were only individuals.
Sure, some of them would die, but the chance that it was the specific member was low.
But if the 100 people stood still, someone needed to start running first.
For that person, the group didn't matter anymore.
At the moment when they started running, they would be alone.
Instead of having a 5% change of being killed, they had a 100% chance of being killed at that moment.
The group needed to sacrifice a couple of people to get their momentum.
However, due to the nature of the situation, these sacrifices needed to be voluntary.
Someone needed to jump into the hole to create a bridge with their corpse.
Naturally, nobody would do that for some other rich people they barely knew.
Within a couple of hours, there was silence.
Nobody dared to stand out.
Nobody dared to start a revolt.
They were in a powerful group, but they couldn't use the group as a weapon.
Such a group needed unity and trust.
Soldiers charged into the frontline because they were fighting for something greater than their lives.
Additionally, if they didn't follow orders, they would become deserters and would be executed anyway.
On top of that, even if someone was willing to become the sacrificial lamb, they would also need a couple other sacrifices, and they most likely wouldn't believe that others would follow them.
This made their sacrifice meaningless since it wouldn't achieve anything anyway, in which case, they would prefer to stay alive.
If they sacrificed themselves, it shouldn't be for nothing.
"Nobody else?" the Governor asked.
Nobody stepped forward.
They all glanced at each other in annoyance.
They wished that somebody would step forward.
They were angry that nobody sacrificed themselves for the good of the group.
Oh, how selfish all the other people were!
Naturally, asking the complaining people to become the sacrifice themselves wasn't the same.
After all, they had a family.
Or their business was really doing well.
Or they had this amazing thing that would help others.
Or they were planning on leaving the city soon anyway.
No, they had a good reason not to sacrifice themselves, but there were plenty of others who didn't have such good reasons!
They should sacrifice themselves for the good of the group!
Oh, how selfish they were!
"Then, the public hearing is over," the Governor announced. "Please disperse and return to your homes. Anyone that remains standing in front of the headquarters without an explicit reason will be put into custody for a month."
The people were angry.
They were frustrated.
But then, one person left.
That person garnered the hateful glances of all the other members.
But then, another person left.
Then, two more.
And finally, the people started to leave as a unit.
As the Governor saw everyone leaving, she finally calmed down.
This had been a crazy day.
It was difficult for her to believe that the revolt had been stopped.
Even more, nothing horrible had happened!
"This is power," Nick whispered in her mind.
"Humans desire happiness for themselves and their loved ones. You have the power to take their happiness away. Humans are willing to swallow a lot of shit, frustration, and anger to keep their happiness alive."
"As long as you keep threatening their happiness, they will do whatever you tell them to do."
"However," Nick said in a louder voice, "they must have happiness first! If they do not have happiness, you can't take their happiness away, and they will have nothing to lose."
"They must have food, money, friends, belongings, and a family. The less they have of that, the harder they are to control."
"Threatening a homeless person with taking their home away won't have any effect."
The Governor listened to Nick.
She had never viewed ruling a city in this manner.
As long as she could keep the powerful people happy, she could do whatever she wanted.
That was how she had ruled the city up until now.
At first glance, Nick's words and actions seemed contradictory.
He spoke about giving the people happiness, but at the same time, he ordered the Governor to kill and threaten them.
And yet, it somehow made sense and worked.
The Governor took a deep, covert breath and walked back into the city headquarters.
It seemed like the entire incident was over.
"Find an isolated place and tell your people that you won't be reachable for a couple of hours," Nick whispered to her.
The Governor felt nervous.
Most of the time, she could tell where Nick was, but sometimes, like right now, she didn't know where he was.
She still heard his voice inside her mind, but she didn't know where he was.
The fact that she could hear him but not see him made her nervous.
She felt powerless.
Nevertheless, she did exactly what Nick told her to do.
A couple of minutes later, she entered her office.
It wasn't very big, but it also wasn't small.
Nick appeared in the corner of the room and looked at her.
The next moment, she noticed that there were several stones beside Nick.
She had never seen such a stone circle before.
Without saying anything, Nick turned to the stone circle and started to use a lot of Zephyx.
The Governor saw the biggest of the stones transforming into a muscular person.
The muscular person looked at Nick before glaring at her.
At that moment, she could tell who this was.
Despite the fact that she had essentially worked for Gluttony before, she had actually never seen Gluttony or a Major Relay.
This was the first time she actually saw one of the Corruptors, even if it was only via Major Relay.
"You will be my servant," Wrath spoke with unending rage.
The Governor took a deep breath as she started to sweat out of fear.
This was one of the Corruptors!
A Peak Fallen!
"Y-yes, Lord Wrath," she spoke carefully as she lowered herself to one knee.
She didn't know how to talk to a Corruptor.
"My Assassin will tell you how to run the city," Wrath spoke in a threatening tone. "When the city is ripe, I will send one of my Demons to harvest the conflict."
"As a reward, you may absorb part of the Zephyx they produce."
"T-thank you, my Lord!" the Governor spoke fearfully.
Wrath glared at the Governor in silence.
"Do not disappoint me, or it will be the last thing you will do!"
Then, the Major Relay deactivated.