Over the next few days.
Lin Gui felt as though he had returned to the final exam week of his university days in his previous life.
That sense of despair—of being drowned in papers and exams, of day and night losing all meaning, and of his soul practically leaving his body—had descended once again.
His daily routine became bizarrely regular.
To accommodate these "special customers," the interior of the post office had been modified by the ghost craftsmen.
In front of the counter, several stone tracks had been set up, slightly recessed and polished smooth.
At this moment, a glass bead rolled along one of the tracks with a soft rattle before stopping at the edge of the counter.
Lin Gui sighed and put down the pen in his hand, which was becoming hot from writing.
A grey glimmer flickered in his eyes as he activated the Eyes of the Netherworld.
A ghost of a middle-aged man wearing tattered work clothes and carrying a look of deep sorrow slowly manifested in front of the counter.
"Th—thank you, Mage Lord," he stammered his gratitude, his soul body looking somewhat unstable.
"Where is it going? To whom? What do you want the letter to say?"
Lin Gui picked up a new sheet of paper and a fresh pen. His tone was practiced, even bordering on numb.
"Send it to... Ironforge in the north. The Outer City, Third Furnace District. To my wife, Tracy."
"I should have been in Ironforge that day."
"But a noble lord in Blackwater City wanted to build a mansion."
"To secure this job, the guild spent a great deal of money to hire a Gold Rank adventure group to escort me and the other workers."
"We came from Ironforge to this place."
"But who could have known the Dark Tide was coming?"
The male ghost's voice was hoarse.
"She and I have been separated for over a decade now."
"If you find her, Mage Lord..."
"Just tell her... tell her I'm sorry."
"I shouldn't have taken this job far from home just because I was stubborn back then."
"Tell her that under the third brick from the left under the bed, I hid three silver coins. It was for her to buy a new dress."
"Also... tell her not to wait for me anymore. If she meets a good man, she should just marry him."
"Er... well, if she's turned into a ghost too, I guess she can't really marry anyone else, hahaha. Cough, cough."
"Apologies, Mage Lord. It's been too long since I spoke with a living person."
"I might be a bit talkative."
"In short, if she's still alive—ah, no, if she's dead... wait, that's not right either."
"Just... please tell her."
"I love her."
He spoke slowly, but Lin Gui wrote quickly.
When he finished, Lin Gui read it back to verify the content.
The ghost nodded, his figure slowly fading away as the glass bead rolled silently onto a collection track on the side.
It then slid down from the counter, rattling through various tracks before eventually leaving the post office.
Lin Gui sealed the finished letter, tossed it into a nearby wicker basket, and pressed a bell at his side.
Ding.
As soon as the crisp ring echoed.
The next glass bead immediately came rattling up the track.
The cycle continued.
During the day, he received these spirits who were obsessed with delivering their final words.
At night, with Eve's assistance and the help of several practitioner ghosts, he organized, classified, and sealed the backlog of letters.
The operation of the Blackwater City post office proceeded at this absurd, silent, yet busy pace.
And on Lin Gui's system panel, the number of pending letters was skyrocketing at a dizzying speed.
This process was tedious, but it wasn't boring.
Lin Gui would often stop his pen and listen in silence.
He listened to fragments of stories that had finally found a voice after more than a decade.
What truly moved him wasn't just the longing found between the lines.
It was the event that caused this longing and led to these residents becoming what they were now.
That specific Dark Tide event known as "The Silent End."
Akara's 12th Dark Tide—The Silent End.
Through the narrations of soul after soul, the scene of despair from that day was gradually pieced together.
"...It was like a hole had been torn in the sky, but there was no sound."
A ghost who had once been a tea house owner murmured.
"First, it was quiet. Terrifyingly quiet. Then, the mist poured in."
"It wasn't ordinary mist... it was alive. It 'swallowed' things."
"The city erupted into chaos!" a young ghost from the Defense Force said excitedly.
"The wealthy lords and the nobles were crowding onto the transport team airships like madmen!"
"A single seat... cost one hundred thousand gold coins! Later... people wouldn't even sell for a million!"
"They only took their own families, leaving behind even their stewards and servants..."
"I was holding my child, trying to squeeze onto a land-ship belonging to the North Wind caravan..."
A spirit who looked like a mother sobbed softly.
"They hit my hands with sticks... my child cried..."
"When the hatch closed, I saw a noble lady inside, holding a dog in her arms..."
Her voice gradually trailed off into whimpers.
"The magic towers lit up for a short while, then they all went dark."
An elderly mage ghost said eerily.
"The Legendary mages wanted to prop up a barrier... but as soon as it rose, it shattered like glass."
"One fell from the top of a tower spitting blood... and never got back up."
"And the mages on the tower seemed to see some kind of monster; they were scared to death on the spot."
"Run? Where could we run?"
A lame old craftsman gave a bitter smile.
"There was mist on all four sides. The city gates? They were packed with people. More were trampled to death than swallowed by the mist."
"I hid in the cellar... and when I woke up, I was like this."
Lin Gui recorded everything silently.
The tip of his pen scratched against the paper with a rustling sound.
He felt as if he could see that once-prosperous hub city-state falling into madness and despair in an instant.
He saw the privileged use their gold to pave a path to life, abandoning the vast majority of people to the spreading silence.
He saw magic and power prove utterly fragile before a higher-level existence.
He saw lives as common as dust being crushed before a cry could even escape.
This wasn't just a natural disaster.
This was a blatant apocalyptic culling of class, resources, and power.
And after the culling, what remained were these thousands upon thousands of spirits wandering through the ruins, lacking even the strength to hold a pen.
Their letters weren't just expressions of longing.
They were indictments.
They were the final, unvoiced wails.
Ironically.
The ones who ultimately "survived"...
Were these ordinary residents who had been abandoned in the city back then, unable to flee.
And those who had relied on power, wealth, and strength to board the escape vessels first.
"They all turned into those things wandering outside."
A veteran spirit who had been a city gate guard in life spoke with absolute conviction.
"Those Soulless Demons... they're what those people became."
When Lin Gui heard this for the first time, his pen stopped, and he was stunned in place.
He had thought this was just a delusion or a rumor born of despair.
Regarding the origin of demons, there was indeed a hypothesis in academic circles about "consumed living beings being transformed."
But the numbers didn't add up at all.
The total population during the Golden Age was no more than three billion, yet the number of demons in the wild today was estimated to be over ten billion at a conservative count.
How could that be possible?
However, there was more than one "eyewitness."
"I saw it with my own eyes!"
A ghost who had once been a roof repairman gestured excitedly.
"A luxury airship belonging to the Silver Wing chamber of commerce hadn't even cleared the city walls by three li!"
"It was dragged down by invisible 'hands' stretching out from the grey mist!"
"The vessel was smashed to pieces, and the people crawling out... their bodies began to melt and stretch..."
"Finally, they became a mass of floating, faceless shadows!"
"And then they vanished!!"
His voice was trembling.
"Yes! It was the same at the West Gate!"
A woman's spirit chimed in, her tone urgent.
"Baron Rodel and his family took a dozen wagons of treasure, trying to use a knight order to carve a path out."
"As soon as they entered the mist, the people, the horses, and the wagons... they 'melted' like candles."
"Then... several translucent monsters holding swords stood up from that puddle of stuff..."
"They turned back around and began to slaughter the people fleeing the city gates..."
More and more spirits joined the narration.
Every detail confirmed the others.
They had witnessed it personally:
The airships falling outside the city walls, the caravans dissolving.
How the people inside twisted and mutated in the mist, eventually turning into spectral demons with no sanity and only hunting instincts.
And the first act of these newborn demons was usually...
To turn around and pounce on their fellow citizens who were fleeing Blackwater City.
Yet, the bizarre thing was that not a single demon ever crawled back into the city.
Rate on N.U.
