Clotina nodded.
"Shadow Blade... is indeed her title."
"But in our clan... we call her something else more often."
She paused, her voice dropping.
"Mad Blade."
"Or... the Broken Night Shadow."
Lin Gui murmured, "It seems she’s just like that merman... a wandering spirit bound to a bead."
"But how can her strength be so weak?"
"Shadow Blade Lynn was... a High-tier Epic in life."
Clotina said softly, "I know about that."
"After death, the strength one had in life resets to zero."
"Whether Epic or High Rank, the starting point is the same."
"However, those who practiced cultivation... can perceive soul force more easily."
"They also find it easier to retrain this 'new power.'"
She gave an example:
"Take Captain Alyia."
"She was a High-tier Legendary Ranger in life."
Lin Gui raised an eyebrow.
"A High-tier Legendary... and yet she was only a captain?"
Clotina gave a bitter smile.
"That was the price."
Her voice was full of bitterness.
"After the Night Elves were marginalized... our rights were constantly diluted."
"The powerhouses of our clan were instead suppressed in their positions by those of lower ranks."
"Even though Captain Alyia was a Legendary..."
"She had to follow the commands of a Mid-tier Transcendent Overseer."
"The patrol missions were given to us, yet we were the last to receive resource allocations."
"Even the compensation for those who died in battle..."
Clotina stopped, and her soul light dimmed slightly.
"...had more than half of it withheld."
"It seems elves... aren't as pure as the legends outside say," Lin Gui said in a low voice.
"Distant from the mundane world, untainted by profit and desire..."
Clotina was silent for a long time.
Inside the bead, her soul-shadow curled up slightly.
"The elves of the Golden Age..."
Her voice was very soft, as if she were remembering a distant dream.
"They were indeed like the legends."
"Elegant, long-lived, and close to nature."
"Art, poetry, magic... everything had reached the realm of perfection."
"We believed we were the world guardians."
"We did not compete with foreign races for profit, and we did not involve ourselves in mundane conflicts."
She paused.
Her soul light darkened for a moment.
"But the descent of the Demon God... shattered everything."
"The increasingly harsh living space..."
"The constantly compressed territories."
"Even a long-lived race like us with a sparse population and difficulty in reproduction..."
"Had no choice but to fall into..."
She let out a bitter laugh and did not go on.
But Lin Gui understood.
The scrambling for resources.
The struggle for power.
And all of it was born out of the desperation for survival.
...
The days passed one by one.
Lin Gui took care of the unconscious Eve while waiting for the system's sign-off notification.
However, the sign-off information from Shadowmoon City...
Was pitifully sparse.
When he first arrived at Shadowmoon City, he could still receive one or two.
After that, it completely stagnated.
Recalling Clotina's description of Shadow Blade Lynn's madness and her insane methods against her own kind...
If she had encountered Alyia delivering letters in Shadowmoon City...
Both were spirits; they could see each other.
Lin Gui's heart sank.
He suspected that Alyia might have... met with an accident.
If that were really the case, the Weekly Commission for Shadowmoon City was essentially a failure.
Go back and save her?
Don't be ridiculous.
Even Eve, whose Legendary defenses were fully deployed, had her protection easily broken by the opponent.
His ability to force Lynn back last time was entirely due to the other party's carelessness, plus he had used the Eyes of the Netherworld to find her soul bead.
Next time, the opponent would definitely not give him the same opportunity.
Thinking of this, Lin Gui no longer hesitated.
He decided to abandon the letter delivery commission for Shadowmoon City.
He believed that the elves of Blackwater City and other city-states would understand his difficulties after learning about the appearance of Shadow Blade Lynn.
After all, even Clotina had said the terrifying nature of that person was known to all elves.
Lin Gui conveyed an instruction to the system in his mind:
Abandon the Shadowmoon City node commission. Begin the delivery process for Gloomlight Forest directly.
After a brief silence.
[Ding!]
[Shadowmoon City node Weekly Commission abandoned.]
[Current progress voided, no penalty.]
[Generating new Weekly Commission...]
[Destination: Gloomlight Forest.]
[Commencing retrieval of the number of letters collected by the Host...]
[Retrieval complete.]
[Valid letters for the Gloomlight Forest region: 89.]
[Letter sources:]
[Blackwater City: 53.]
[Stonestrand Town: 9.]
[Longbridge Fort: 5.]
[.......]
[Three-Way Junction: 1.]
[Sign-off rate requirement: ≥70%.]
[Time Limit: 7 days.]
[Note: Please try to avoid the core territories of known Epic spectral demons. Well, the Host seems to have already arrived at the destination; please ignore this note.]
[May longings cross the mist and reach the shores of the departed.]
Lin Gui organized the wooden box containing the letters for Gloomlight Forest and put them one by one into his professional messenger bag.
He changed into thicker, warm clothing and checked his personal belongings.
Once everything was ready, he walked to Eve's bedside.
The Saintess, who had been living a life of leisure for the past few days, was currently wrapped in a quilt, only her purple eyes showing, as she squinted comfortably.
Lin Gui leaned over and placed a warmed water skin and prepared dry rations within her reach.
He then adjusted the brightness of the crystal lamp on the ceiling of the burrow.
"I'm going to deliver the letters. I'll be back soon."
His tone was flat, yet he accounted for every detail.
"The water is beside you, and the food is in the bag. Don't aggravate your wounds by moving around."
"If you hear anything outside, call me with the Message Transmitter immediately."
Eve blinked, a smile rippling in her eyes.
"I know~"
She drew out her words slightly, her voice carrying a hint of playfulness.
"When you come back, can you bring some glowberries from the forest?"
"I heard they're very sweet."
"Also, Mr. Lin Gui is sounding more and more like an old mother."
"Nagging~"
Lin Gui looked at this Saintess, who was righteously enjoying his care under the pretext of being heavily injured, with an expressionless face.
Ultimately, he chose to ignore her.
He turned around and tapped on the glass bead on the table.
Clotina's soul-shadow drifted out, hovering obediently.
"Help me deliver the letters."
Lin Gui's words were concise.
"Just as we agreed before."
Clotina nodded vigorously: "Mhm!"
Next, Lin Gui began to craft disguise items.
He took out some magic clay from his storage space—the kind that was highly elastic and had a skin-like color.
He also dug out a small bottle of plant dye commonly used by Night Elves.
He made it under Clotina's guidance.
Following the silhouette of Clotina's auricles, he carefully molded a pair of long, pointed elven ears with beautiful curves.
He colored them, dried them, and refined the edges.
Finally, he used Soul Attachment to temporarily imbue the clay with subtle soul fluctuations, making them seem more "real" to spirit perception.
When he finished crafting them, he applied them to the sides of his ears.
The magic clay automatically adhered, the edges blending naturally with his skin.
Lin Gui turned toward Clotina and Eve.
"How is it?" he asked. "Do I look like a pureblood elf?"
Clotina stared at his face for a full five seconds. Then, she shook her head honestly.
"No."
"You're too ugly."
Beside her, Eve kept a strictly straight face, but her trembling shoulders and narrowed purple eyes betrayed her.
She nodded vigorously in agreement.
Lin Gui: "..."
He turned to Clotina, deciding to ignore the issue of his appearance.
"Putting aside the face, do you think... I count as an elf?"
Clotina frowned and drifted a bit closer, looking him up and down.
Her gaze focused particularly on his black hair and gray eyes.
"Yes," she finally judged.
"Your hair and eye colors match the characteristics of my clan perfectly."
"They are extremely rare among humans, which is an advantage."
She paused and offered a suggestion:
"You can claim to be from the Shadow Clan."
"If anyone asks about your appearance... just say you disfigured yourself to avoid the attention of human hunting teams."
The corner of Lin Gui's mouth twitched.
In all fairness, by human standards, he wasn't handsome, but he was at least above average.
But compared to a race where everyone was peerlessly beautiful, he was indeed "ugly" in a prominent way.
He sighed.
"Fine."
Rate on N.U.
