Chapter 517: You Are A Coward!

"Huff... huff... we’re alive..." Drael let out a sigh of relief as he watched the tomb slowly collapsing in the distance.

He couldn’t help but glare at Daniel. This guy was completely insane! He refused to leave that damn tomb until the very last moment.

But in the end, none of that mattered. What mattered most was that he was still alive. What could possibly be more important than that?

"You’re seriously a coward," Daniel glanced at the man and sighed. He was starting to think that maybe this guy wasn’t worth recruiting after all.

This bastard had pretended to be unconscious the entire battle. Even Daniel had actually believed it for a while.

But after they escaped the tomb, he realized Drael hadn’t fainted at all. He had used some kind of technique to fake it, and it had actually worked.

Daniel couldn’t understand how such a cowardly man had managed to survive this long.

’Maybe that’s why he survived,’ Daniel thought to himself and decided to drop the matter.

"Hey! I’m not a coward! That was called tactical survival!" Drael replied shamelessly.

He didn’t care about pride or honor. As long as he stayed alive, what else mattered? To get revenge, he had to survive, otherwise, all his efforts would be wasted.

He stood up and looked at the sky. The sun now fully covered the canyon, and day had arrived. The air was burning hot, so much that even their clothes felt like they were about to catch fire.

If Daniel hadn’t placed protective layers on both of them, their skin and flesh would have already burned away.

"So what do we do now? Wait until night?"

"We can move forward a bit to make sure we’re closer to the exit by nightfall, then rest and restore our mana," Daniel thought for a moment and answered calmly.

Drael nodded, and both of them climbed back onto Vorak. Without wasting time, they continued deeper into the canyon.

Traveling during the day turned out to be harder than they expected. The heat was unbearable, and even Vorak was starting to weaken.

After advancing a few hundred miles, they had no choice but to stop, especially since they had reached a point where the canyon connected to the sea.

The air was cooler here, making it easier to rest. They dismounted Vorak and sat down a short distance from the shore.

Daniel closed his eyes to recover his mana.

"That monster... was it really the Hero?" Drael asked. He wasn’t in the mood to meditate yet and wanted to talk a bit.

He didn’t even know why, but he felt like he could actually talk to this man. Talking to Daniel felt different from anyone else.

He could speak freely without feeling judged. Daniel didn’t seem to care about what he’d done in the past either.

Most people would say what Drael did to the princess was unforgivable. But he was used to being hated, and he didn’t care anymore.

After all, how could those small-minded creatures understand someone like him?

He thought he’d never find anyone he could talk to. Yet surprisingly, he had, and that person wasn’t even human, but a monster in human skin.

"It was the Hero himself. Probably turned into that thing during his fight with the sleeping beast in the canyon. Or maybe... he fell into that sea," Daniel replied without opening his eyes.

"Probably the second one, right? The whole Hero story was just nonsense. I bet people threw him into the sea. Judging by those forgotten echoes we saw, he clearly wasn’t a loved hero," Drael reasoned with a grin.

"Most likely he was the one offering sacrifices to the sleeping beast, and the people finally found a chance to throw him in," he added.

"I think the same. But something doesn’t make sense. Why build him a tomb then? And how did his body end up inside it?"

"I don’t know," Daniel opened his eyes slightly and spoke quietly. There was a trace of curiosity in his tone.

A lot of things didn’t add up. Why would they build a tomb for him in this canyon? It was far too dangerous to do that.

As for how his body got there, it was clear the Hero hadn’t died, he must have walked into the tomb himself and fallen asleep there.

Those echoes they heard were probably the souls of the sacrifices he had offered to the sleeping beast.

But even with that logic, Daniel still felt something was missing, like a hole he couldn’t fill.

He probably needed to visit the Crimson Temple to find the truth. If he remembered correctly, the Crimson Temple and the land around it were once home to the Hero and his people.

There had to be a city or a village there.

"I wonder what that old man was kneeling to," Drael suddenly said, changing the subject.

"Let’s just hope it’s not something we have to face," Daniel replied quietly. He already had a guess about what the old man in those carvings was kneeling before.

If he wasn’t mistaken, it must have been the Buried God. Daniel hadn’t told Drael about the Buried God yet, and he had no intention of doing so, not until it became necessary.

He felt that whatever the Buried God was, it had something to do with the Fallen God, and he didn’t want to risk revealing anything about that connection.

"Let’s hope so," Drael said quickly, fear flashing in his eyes. He really didn’t want to end up in another life-or-death situation.

Ever since they entered this floor, he had almost died several times. He still couldn’t understand why someone like him,someone with no combat ability, had been sent to a floor with hell-level difficulty.

"You think we’ll find other players at the Red Temple?"

"Other players? Now that you mention it, we haven’t seen anyone else yet. But yeah, it’s possible."

"Yeah, probably," Daniel nodded. He just hoped that, this time, they wouldn’t end up on opposite sides like in the previous floor.

In the second floor, he had practically fought against every other player and killed them all. He didn’t want that happening again. It only caused headaches and unnecessary trouble.

He closed his eyes again and went back into meditation. Drael called him a few times, but Daniel didn’t respond, not a single word or movement.

So Drael just sighed and closed his own eyes, trying to meditate as well. He knew he probably wouldn’t be able to do much when night came, just watch like before, but at least he wanted to be in his best state.

Time passed slowly, and before they knew it, night had arrived.

"It’s time," Daniel murmured softly as he opened his eyes.