Eternal Night Falls

Speaking of this, Morina's eyes flickered, and it was obvious that she also had many uncertainties about this issue.

"How should I put it... They feel quite different from those long-necked monsters we encountered in the jungle before."

She even moved closer, reaching out to catch the flying ashes.

But the moment their fingertips touched, without her having to exert any force, the ashes automatically shattered and disappeared without a trace.

"Those before were clearly manufactured, soulless creatures. They didn't even have many emotions, and only rigidly followed some scripted orders.

"But these people in the academy... are different. Their clothing, movements, and attack methods are all very different, even the degree of their strangeness varies. If you think about it carefully, apart from appearances, they actually look very close to being 'human'."

Maybe... they were normal people once.

If it was just something made as a tool, there was no need to make such a distinction. Rather than the whim of some evil person, Ximu felt that it was some objective problem that caused these originally normal people to become what they are now, a pathetic state.

"Their current state gives me a feeling... as if their 'existence' has been destroyed."

“Exist”…?

A normal person, or an intelligent creature in normal state, must be composed of body and spirit, neither of which can be missing.

Without the body, the spirit, or the soul, loses its support. Unless one practices certain special methods, one will inevitably slowly lose sanity and gradually dissipate, or only a trace of obsession will remain, causing harm to the world.

If the mind is traumatized, the person will lose cognition, become confused and dull at the mildest, or go insane and die at the worst.

——And upon closer thought, the people they met in this magic academy seemed to have collapsed both physically and mentally.

A normal body should not have its facial features displaced or its limbs misaligned;

And it's impossible for a clear mind to not be able to imagine what a person should be like, and still have to keep adjusting...

No.

After all, how could a normal person continue to act when their flesh and blood were no longer under their control?!

"Normally, when their bodies have been reduced to a pile, they would have been completely dead. Yet, they are still able to struggle and move, and even... they can be resurrected."

Having said that, Morina turned her gaze to Ximu, with a hint of undisguised fear in her questioning.

It seems she noticed it too.

They had a commission to do before and were in a hurry to come and go, so no one stopped to study the issue in detail.

But now it seems that they have more or less noticed that some opponents blocking the way are actually recurring.

Although their facial features are generally messy and their magic robes are very similar, for a battle-hardened person like Ximu, as long as the enemy is a person he has fought before, even if the enemy does not show his face, he can still recognize the opponent from his moves.

Enemies that have been killed will reappear. Does this mean that for these painful beings, even if they suffer fatal injuries and their bodies can no longer survive, they are still not truly "dead"?

Could it be that this place cannot truly be “dead”?

No, that's not right.

They also saw the dead along the way.

Whether it was the female corpse in the dungeon or the bodies of the lost people lying in the forest who had mistakenly entered this place like them, they were all truly dead.

"Perhaps, 'we' are able to die normally, but 'they' cannot."

Understanding the emphasis in Ximu's words, Molina widened her eyes slightly and involuntarily took a breath.

"You mean to say that this place is not only isolated from the outside world, but even the laws within it are not applicable?"

The difference between them is that of "outsiders" and "locals"——

Ximu and his group were indeed conscious and able to move freely at the moment, but if they couldn't find the reason and continued to linger here for a long time, who knew they wouldn't become the next batch of "locals"?!

When they first started out together, they didn't overthink it. They thought this might be a dangerous place where some unscrupulous person, for some reason, was using a spatial rift to capture lost people and absorb their power. They knew they could leave if they found this person or a loophole in the barrier.

After entering the academy, they detected energy dislocation. After experiencing the auditory hallucination incident, they thought this might be a huge illusion. However, since the academy was not threatened by the magic circle, it would be a good idea to hide inside and buy some time.

But now it seems that this might be a real place.

There really did exist in this world a magic academy surrounded by dense forests and lakes. And to avoid the war, it was strictly closed off, fading from the eyes of the world and even disappearing.

But during the time when the academy was closed, some very terrible changes suddenly swept through this place, distorting the space, breaking the laws, and trapping those who chose to stay in the academy here, turning them into this horrible appearance that was neither human nor ghost!

After listening to Ximu's analysis, although Moli Na's eyes were filled with horror, she obviously agreed with it since she did not refute it immediately.

"That does make sense... If this entire area was removed from the normal world, then it makes sense that the people within it would lose their connection to the ordinary world, their forms would collapse, and it would be difficult for them to die."

As expected, there are many things in the world that cannot be examined in detail. Once you deduced them in depth, you will find that everything is terrifying.

But now that we have entered the game, it will be difficult to solve the root cause of the problem without finding out the reason.

Besides...if a problem cannot be answered in a short period of time, Ximu will usually choose to let it go and turn around to solve other problems first.

"Since this is a dormitory, let's see if there are any personal records or other intel."

Seeing Ximu running to the other person's desk and starting to rummage through the drawers without any psychological burden, Molina, while admiring him, did not forget to run to quietly close the door that she had left open before.

Firstly, to prevent enemies from sneaking in from outside while they were concentrating on searching, and secondly... she didn't know why, but she always felt a little guilty. Maybe this was the conflict between the priest's professional ethics and the need to survive.

Although she felt that even with the situation like this, there shouldn't be a ward inspector who would suddenly rush in and yell, "Hey, what are you doing in someone else's room?", but... what if?

If there really was any unusual movement, at least the sound of the door opening could alert them.

But what if there are ghost-like enemies in the academy? If they can pass through walls and sneak in silently, it seems quite troublesome...

Perhaps she wanted to use her random thoughts to dilute the guilt she felt for rummaging through other people's drawers. While muttering to herself, Morina checked the various textbooks and other items by the desk window. However, apart from deepening her superficial understanding of these students she had never met, she did not find any other information worth mentioning.

Hmm? Wait... What is this, a diary?

After finding a hardcover book with a style different from other manuscripts, Molina glanced through it and immediately became happy.

The text written here is very similar to the common language used today. Although the usage of some words is slightly different from today, it is generally understandable.

This should be a diary written by a boy.

In addition to complaints about the difficulty of getting into some popular courses and complaints about some teachers' weird tempers, which are daily routines, the most common name that appears is a girl's name.

Ximu found a lot of literature related to spiritual magic on the bookshelf on the other side, as well as various papers that studied the effects of the waxing and waning of the moon on people's mental state. This also confirmed the fact that under the influence of the dean, the Moon Sage, this place was indeed more focused on the study of spiritual and illusion magic.

Just when he was about to call Morina over to take a look, he found her standing there for a long time, holding a hardcover book and a letter inside. After a moment, she sighed heavily.

What's going on?

Ximu leaned over and took a look at the contents of the notebook.

The text above is disorganized, as if it was written by a madman. The first part can be connected into sentences, but the latter part gradually becomes incoherent and even unrecognizable.

“‘The sun never rose again’, ‘We can’t get out, no one can get out’, ‘There’s a murder outside, close the door quickly’, ‘Save…’”

--Help.

The messy handwriting is so powerful that it can be seen through the back of the paper. Across time and space, it still conveys the owner's strong sense of despair.

"It was quite normal at first, but from that day on, the diary owner's statements became increasingly crazy..."

Molina pointed to the distorted date on the paper, and then handed the letter in her hand to Ximu.

Ximu was confused, so he checked the envelope and confirmed that the letter had not been sent, then he opened it and took a look.

"Dear Sofia,

I have successfully obtained an advanced degree, and once the war is over, I will leave the academy and apply for the position of Court Magician.

When I get an official position, I will formally propose marriage to your family and marry you with great fanfare! By then, you won't have to worry about your stepmother's mood anymore and can live our own lives in peace and contentment!

I have already thought about it. When the time comes, I will buy a small house in the suburbs first - don't worry, this is only temporary. When I save enough money in the future, I will definitely change to a bigger one. I will never let you suffer any grievances!

Don’t be afraid, protect yourself well, I will definitely come to pick you up!

Love you, Rosaric."

——It seems that this letter was not sent.

Ximu felt something, but didn't quite understand it, so he could only put the letter back silently.

The boy's love was sealed in this magnificent yet cold academy.

That girl...is destined not to wait for him.

Ximu and Molina didn't say anything else, but continued their respective searches in silence. However, Molina stuffed the diary with the letter into her shoulder bag.

She said that Ruixia might be able to recover the text that they couldn't understand.

Somehow, even though they had never met before, the mastermind behind the scenes who must have existed began to become extremely hateful in the minds of both of them.