Chapter 1549: Prayer
Eccar walked toward the people until he finally stopped in front of them.
They were still staring at him, but their expressions had changed. Some of them looked at him with overwhelming gratitude. One woman had tears streaming down her face, another woman continued whispering prayers with her hands clasped tightly together.
A few others looked almost reverent as though they truly believed he had been sent by their god.
But several people remained suspicious of him. Their eyes followed every movement he made and none of them seemed willing to approach him.
Eccar could not blame them. He would have been suspicious too if a strange man had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and demonstrated enough strength to slaughter an entire group of monsters by himself.
He still had no idea what they thought he was, but that was not his concern right now.
One question continued to linger in the back of his mind: "Was this really what I was supposed to do? Protect these people?"
He was almost certain that none of them were real. The Trial had probably created them for a reason and there was likely some hidden meaning behind everything that had happened inside this temple.
Yet Eccar was tired of thinking and did not want to think about it any more than necessary. He had never been particularly fond of situations that required complicated thinking or careful decisions. Whenever possible, he preferred to deal with problems directly.
For now, the important thing was keeping these people alive.
That was what he had always done whenever he found himself in a situation like this. If there were people in danger and he had the strength to protect them, he protected them.
He did not need to understand everything before making that decision.
"Are you all right?" Eccar looked at them one by one as he asked the question.
The old man who appeared to be the wisest and most composed among them slowly stepped forward. Unlike everyone else, he still wore a faint smile despite everything that had happened.
"I think we are all right," the old man said.
His voice remained calm. Somehow, he was the only person among them who still seemed capable of smiling naturally.
"Father." One of the men watched him with obvious concern as he approached Eccar. The man’s suspicious gaze never left Eccar.
The old man turned toward him. "Don’t worry. Everything is all right."
Even after hearing those words, the man and several others still looked at Eccar with suspicion. They remained tense and uncertain about the stranger who had saved them.
Eccar understood their hesitation, but he also thought they were worrying about the wrong thing. If he had truly intended to harm them, there was very little they could do about it.
None of them had the strength to fight him, especially after everything they had just witnessed they should know it.
The old man eventually stopped directly in front of Eccar. He raised his head to look at him and smiled warmly. "Thank you for your help."
Eccar gave him a simple nod. "We can’t stay here. We need to leave and find somewhere safe."
The old man’s smile became bitter. He lowered his head slightly and released a long sigh. "Unfortunately, our prayer is not finished yet."
"What?" Eccar stared at him. His voice carried genuine disbelief. "Prayer? Don’t you realize that you’re buried underground right now?"
The old man continued smiling despite Eccar’s words and slowly nodded.
"Yes. But we must finish the prayer before we can leave."
Eccar blinked.
He genuinely did not understand what the old man was talking about. The man seemed completely aware of their situation. He knew they had been buried alive. He knew the temple was unstable. Yet somehow, he still believed that finishing their prayer was more important than getting themselves to safety.
Eccar looked past him at the others.
Most of them were much younger than the old man. Unlike him, they did not seem nearly as devoted to the prayer.
Their expressions betrayed what they were truly feeling. They were frightened. They wanted to leave. They wanted to survive.
Several of them kept glancing toward the collapsed entrance as though hoping the path would somehow open again.
They were not ready to die for this prayer.
Eccar sighed. "Old man, if you stay here any longer, this earth could collapse on top of your head and bury you all. You and everyone else here could die alive."
The old man remained calm. "Then we will accept our fate."
Eccar stared at him for a moment and said, "What about the people behind you? Do you want them to die too?"
The old man finally fell silent.
His eyes moved toward the people behind him. He looked at each of them for several seconds as though carefully considering Eccar’s words. The faint smile disappeared from his face.
Eventually, he released another quiet sigh. "I will not force them to stay for this," he said.
Eccar said nothing.
He had expected that answer, but it only made the situation more difficult.
He could evacuate the others and leave the old man behind, but he knew what would happen if he did.
These people clearly cared about him. Even if they wanted to escape, leaving their ’father’ behind to die would weigh heavily on them. They would carry the guilt of abandoning him for the rest of their lives.
Eccar could not make them carry that burden.
He looked at the old man for a moment before glancing toward the others. Then he made his decision.
"All right. I’ll do everything I can to protect you," Eccar said.
The people looked at him.
The old man’s face brightened again. "I knew it. You are a miracle our god sent to us."
Eccar stared at him. He had no idea what he was supposed to think about that.
"A miracle..."
He glanced around the buried temple again. Somehow, he had a feeling that this Trial was going to become much more complicated than he wanted it to be.
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