NovelChina Chapter 171: Guilt in His Heart
Chapter 171: Guilt in His Heart
"Eugene! Eugene, help me!"
The moment Eugene heard the voice, his heart instantly jumped. For a second, he thought it was his father calling him.
But when he rushed toward the sound, he realized it was Eric and Victor waving frantically at him.
A large slab of concrete had fallen diagonally, and beneath it, a hand weakly stuck out from the rubble while blood slowly spread across the floor beneath it.
Eugene’s chest tightened painfully. For a terrifying moment, he thought the person trapped underneath was Robert.
"Who is it?" Eugene asked, his voice trembling slightly.
Victor was desperately trying to push the concrete away with both hands despite how impossible it was to move alone.
"It’s Dustin!" he shouted desperately. "Dustin! Stay awake, alright?! You hear me?! Don’t fall asleep!"
But no answer came from beneath the debris.
Strangely enough, Eugene felt relieved hearing that it was not his father, though guilt immediately followed afterward for even thinking such a thing.
Without wasting time, he quickly grabbed a broken metal support beam nearby and wedged it beneath the debris to use as leverage.
Eric immediately understood what he was trying to do and helped push down together with him.
The concrete slowly lifted little by little. Victor hurriedly reached inside and pulled Dustin’s body free the moment enough space opened.
But the second Dustin’s face became visible, everyone froze.
He was already dead. Blood covered the side of his head where the concrete had crushed him, and his body had already gone limp long ago.
Victor slowly collapsed onto the floor beside him. He covered his face with both hands as frustration and grief finally overwhelmed him, and nobody around him knew what to say because they all understood exactly how he felt.
They had been so close to Climber Rift. So close to safety. Yet people kept dying one after another right before reaching it.
"Did you see my father?" Eugene finally asked softly.
Eric nodded while wiping the dust from his face. "Yeah. He was helping people trapped under debris earlier. I think he went that way."
Then he paused awkwardly before adding, "And... thank you, Eugene."
Eugene simply nodded before leaving. He did not dare ask about Eric’s family. When he counted the survivors earlier, he had not seen any of them at all.
After walking for about a minute through the collapsed halls, Eugene finally spotted his father.
Robert was kneeling beside a pile of rubble, straining to move broken concrete away while trying to pull out a little girl trapped underneath.
Beside her lay her mother, motionless and covered in blood. It was obvious she had used her own body to shield her daughter from the collapse.
The little girl cried hysterically while Robert tried his best to calm her down despite his own exhausted condition.
"Father..."
Robert immediately turned toward the voice. The moment he saw Eugene standing there alive, relief instantly appeared on his face.
"Oh thank God, you’re alright." He quickly handed the little girl to another survivor nearby before approaching Eugene. "How’s your mother? You stayed with her, right?"
Before Eugene could answer, Robert had already pulled him into a tight hug.
Eugene hugged him back just as tightly. Only now did he finally feel safe again.
"I’m sorry..." Eugene’s voice shook badly against his father’s shoulder. "Because of me... everyone ended up trapped here. If I hadn’t agreed with Henry’s route, if I didn’t ask you to reconsider it then—"
"Shhh. It’s alright." Robert gently rubbed his back. "This was bound to happen eventually. None of this is your fault."
Those words only made Eugene feel even more ashamed. He was already a grown man, yet here he was crying helplessly while relying entirely on his father again.
He had not solved anything since this nightmare started. All he could do was panic and wait for Robert to guide everyone forward.
After several seconds, Eugene finally forced himself to calm down and slowly stepped away from the hug.
"Father... let’s leave this place. I’ll become the bait so everyone else can move to another building. We can’t stay here any longer."
"I’ll do it," Eugene continued firmly. "I’ll lure the Devourer away."
But Robert only smiled faintly and shook his head. "It’s the responsibility of adults to protect the younger generation," he said gently. "You need to stay alive and protect your mother."
"No." Eugene immediately shook his head back. "I need to do this. Please... I don’t want to keep living with this burden."
Robert stayed silent for a moment before finally letting out a tired sigh. "Alright, we’ll regroup first and discuss it with the others."
Then he placed a hand on Eugene’s shoulder. "But listen carefully, son. You need to stop blaming yourself for this. This happened because of Henry and his people. That’s the truth you need to accept."
But even so, Eugene could not stop blaming himself too. The guilt sat heavily inside his chest like a stone, and because of that, he became even more determined to escape this nightmare.
If he died here in the process, then perhaps it would only be the punishment he deserved.
When they finally regrouped, only around twenty-five survivors remained alive. Several of them were injured badly, and five more had died after the building collapsed earlier.
Yet nobody had the luxury to grieve anymore. They needed to move before the remaining half of the structure gave in as well.
"I observed the Devourer’s nest earlier," Robert explained while drawing rough lines on the dusty floor with a broken metal rod. "The rest of our people are still alive in the building across from us."
"However, the route to that building is blocked now because the structures on the left side collapsed together with ours." His expression darkened slightly. "So we’ll move to the right instead."
He pointed toward the desert outside. "As far as I can tell, the darker sand is part of the Devourer’s hunting ground while the lighter sand seems relatively safer. We’re closer to the lighter side."
Robert paused briefly before continuing more heavily, "That means we have no choice but to prioritize the survivors who can still move. I won’t burden everyone by forcing them to rescue people we physically can’t save anymore."
"That’s why... we will leave our wounded family that is stuck in the middle of the nest."