After sending the police chief's soul back to the Hell Prison, Michael exhaled shakily and sank to the ground, trying to steady himself. It had been a long time since he'd faced a demon this powerful. Even though he had defeated it in the end, the battle had drained a tremendous amount of his energy and power, leaving him weak and breathless.
Seeing Michael sitting there in such a fragile state, Mercy rushed to him and knelt at his side."Michael, are you okay?" she asked, checking his body for injuries.
"Yes, I'm perfectly fine. But you saw it, right? How I defeated the police chief's soul and sent it back to Hell Prison? Now you believe I'm the number one demon slayer, don't you?" Michael said with a faint, triumphant smile.
The next moment, Leslie's spirit appeared before them and spoke to him. "I'm ashamed of the sins I committed while I was alive. Sometimes we women misuse the freedom we're given, and by the time we realize it, it's already too late. But I'm grateful to you, because thanks to you, I'm finally free from that police officer's soul who used to rape me every night, just as you saw in the visions when you arrived." Her voice trembled as she grew emotional.
"Now that you're free from the police chief's clutches, you can move on to the afterlife. But if you want to send a message to your husband, tell me—I'll make sure it reaches him," Michael said as he slowly rose to his feet.
"No… I already left his life long ago, and he must have moved on by now. I don't want to give him any more pain. Besides, I was neither a loyal wife nor a good mother," Leslie whispered, wiping her tear-filled eyes.
At that moment, a white light appeared—proof that God had forgiven Leslie for her sins and opened the path to her afterlife. Her spirit stepped into the center of that glowing light, turned one last time toward Michael and Mercy, whispered her goodbye, and vanished along with the radiance.
"So, Michael… what's our next step?" Mercy asked, picking up her twin blades and looking at him.
"I don't know that yet. But there's one thing I'm sure of—the demon that the police chief's soul turned into could only exist with help from a powerful demon. And Leslie also said that someone helped his soul escape from Hell. That means someone in Hell is planning something dangerous behind Lucifer's back." Michael said as he began walking out of the underground section.
"But there's one thing I still don't understand, Michael. Why didn't your most powerful spell work on the police chief's soul?" Mercy asked, eyes fixed on him.
"Because his horns were made from the ashes of souls burned in Hell. That made him incredibly powerful. And when you broke one of his horns, his strength was cut in half," Michael explained to her gently.
"So that clearly means I helped you defeat that demon," Mercy said with a teasing laugh.
Hearing her, Michael couldn't help but smile too, and together the two of them began walking out of the underground section.
Meanwhile, on the other side, the Ghost Mentors team had completed all preparations. The only thing left now was to send Stephnie into the Ghost Bridge.
"So you all understand what you have to do, right?" Stephnie asked, looking at her two friends one last time.
"Yes, Stephnie, we understand. We need to make sure the flame of that lamp stays red, and after exactly five minutes, we have to wake you up," Claire and Lily said together.
But Sophia was still lost in her thoughts, and from the look on her face, it seemed something was bothering her deeply. Noticing her distracted state, Stephnie asked, "What happened, Sophia? What are you thinking?"
"Nothing… but if you don't need me here right now, I should go find Harper's teacher, Patrick, and catch him. If he had anything to do with Harper's death, or if he knows anything about this postcard game, then he's definitely trying to flee the country as we speak," Sophia said, voicing what had been weighing on her mind.
"You're absolutely right. Catching Patrick is important, and I have a strong feeling he knows something about this postcard game," Claire said as she tied a rope around Stephnie's waist.
Seeing Claire tying a rope around Stephnie's waist, Sophia looked puzzled and asked, "Why are you tying that rope on her?"
Claire and Lily exchanged a glance before Claire smiled and explained, "The Ghost Bridge is as vast as a whole country, and this rope is a consecrated church rope—the same one used to ring the holy bell. If Stephnie's spirit gets lost inside the Ghost Bridge and can't find her way back, she'll pull the rope twice. That's how we'll know she needs guidance. Then we'll pull the rope from here and bring Stephnie back into this world."
After hearing this, Sophia looked slightly confused. For her, the paranormal world—rituals, traditions, ghosts, spirits, witches—had always felt like fiction. And yet today, for the first time, she was confronting all of it in reality.
"Anyway, leave all that aside for now. Sophia was right about one thing—Patrick must be trying to escape the country at this moment. So Claire, you and Sophia go and find him. Lily will handle everything here," Stephnie said, looking at the two of them.
"Yes, Stephnie is absolutely right. I'll manage things here. You two go find Patrick, and don't take him to the police headquarters—bring him here instead, especially if he knows anything about the postcard game," Lily added, supporting Stephnie's decision.
"Alright then, I'm going with Sophia. But if you need me here for anything, call me immediately," Claire said, gesturing for Sophia to follow her.
The two of them stepped out of the house, got into Sophia's car, and headed straight toward Patrick's home. Meanwhile, inside, Stephnie began her journey into the Ghost Bridge, and Lily sat close by, holding the other end of the rope tied around Stephnie's waist.
At the same time, as Michael and Mercy made their way out of the underground section, they noticed that the police officers and everyone else in the headquarters—who had fallen asleep because of Michael's spell—were starting to wake up.
"Michael, they're all awake now, and they've forgotten about us. If we run into them again, you'll have to cast that memory-erasing spell one more time. Instead of going through all that, we should just use our powers, open a portal, and move to a safer place," Mercy said, glancing at the officers.
"Mercy, if something can be done in a simple way, there's no need to use our powers. Just do one thing—use your appearance-shifting ability and take the form of a cleaning company worker, fully covered up. I'll do the same. Then we'll walk right past everyone, and no one will suspect a thing," Michael said, grinning mischievously.
The moment he said that, both Michael and Mercy changed their appearances. Suddenly, they emerged from the underground passage and walked into the main lobby of the police headquarters. Michael stepped up to the reception desk and—putting on a perfect act—said, "Sir, we've cleaned the entire underground area. We also removed and burned the beehives. The underground section is completely safe now, and you can use it again. That'll be five hundred dollars."
The officer at the reception looked utterly confused. Because of Michael's spell, everyone there had lost their memory, and this particular officer was the same one Mercy had beaten up before they entered the underground section. None of the officers had any idea when or why they had called cleaning services—but still, the officer began adding the cleaning department charges into the system.
"Five hundred dollars? You guys charge a lot. Which company are you from, anyway?" the officer asked, typing their details into the computer.
"Sir, we're not from any company. My name is Michael, and this is my girlfriend, Mercy. We're freelancers. And about the price—let me remind you that before hiring us, one of your own officers said the cleaning company was demanding thousands of dollars. That's why you called us for five hundred. You people set the rate yourselves." Michael said this while glancing at Mercy, smiling under his helmet.
The officer couldn't remember any of it, but he also didn't want his colleagues to think he was incompetent or lazy enough to fall asleep during duty. So he hurriedly cleared Michael and Mercy's bill and told them they could leave.
As Michael and Mercy walked away, they overheard the officer telling his colleague, "Man, my whole body hurts. It feels like someone beat me up badly. But no one hit me, so why does it feel like this?"
Hearing the police officer's confused complaint, Mercy and Michael burst into loud laughter. Even though the officer had forgotten his beating because of the spell, Mercy—who had delivered it—and Michael—who had witnessed the whole thing—remembered it perfectly. And the reason they were smiling was simple: not only had they beaten the officers, they had also taken money from them.
"You turned out to be far more clever than I expected. Police usually threaten ordinary people for money, and you managed to take money from the police themselves. Hats off!" Mercy said, laughing hard.
"Well, I worked pretty hard too. I removed that giant stingray from their basement, so I deserve a decent payment. If you're not hungry, that's fine, but I'm starving, and I'm absolutely going to a nice restaurant for hamburgers and cold coffee. And since you also did some work, you can join me if you want," Michael said with a grin.
"Some work? Just some…?" Mercy shot back, and within seconds the two of them were bickering like little kids right there on the road as they headed toward a restaurant.
Meanwhile, Claire and Sophia had reached Patrick's address on Elm Street in New York.
"The address is correct. There should be a place called Alpacino Apartments here, and he lives in room number fifteen," Sophia had said earlier, checking the slip of paper in her pocket.
Just then, Claire spotted an old building three blocks ahead with a faded sign that read Alpacino Apartments.
"There it is. Come on, let's go," Claire said, walking ahead, and Sophia followed her.
After entering the building, the first thing Sophia did was check the mailboxes belonging to the residents. But Patrick's box was empty. Then she and Claire began climbing the stairs to meet him. When they reached the third floor, they spotted room number 15 at the very end of the hallway. The whole floor was eerily silent, and sensing something off, Sophia pulled out her gun and held it ready as she and Claire approached Patrick's door.
"Patrick, are you inside? It's Sophia from the NYPD. Open the door—I need to talk to you about Harper," Sophia said, knocking firmly.
"I don't want to meet anyone. Go away. I don't know how Harper died or who killed her," Patrick replied from inside, his voice trembling.
"How does he know we're here to ask about Harper's death? That means he knows something," Claire whispered, looking at Sophia.
Hearing that, Sophia began pounding on the door harder. "Patrick, if you don't open this door right now, I'll call backup and arrest you for Harper's murder!"
Terrified by her threat, Patrick hurriedly unlocked and opened the door. As soon as Claire and Sophia stepped inside, he begged them through tears to close the door. The moment they looked around, they saw that Patrick's entire room was covered with consecrated papers—the kind monks often use to keep dark forces away from a place.
"Why are you so terrified? And why did you kill Harper?" Sophia demanded, stepping toward Patrick.
"I didn't kill anyone—I didn't kill anyone," Patrick muttered repeatedly as he backed away in fear, then crawled under his bed like a panicked child.
Seeing him behave like that, Sophia and Claire exchanged a shocked look.
"What on earth is wrong with him? Why is he acting like this? And what are all these papers he has put up everywhere?" Sophia asked, letting her eyes sweep across the entire room.
"Sophia, I think The Postcard Game and Harper's death are far more complicated—and dangerous—than we assumed. As for these papers, they're consecrated yellow strip papers. They're used to keep evil forces out of a house or a place. If Patrick has sealed his room with these, it means he's in deep trouble too. We need to take him to Stephnie," Claire said, moving toward Patrick, who was still hiding under the bed like a frightened child.
Meanwhile, Stephnie had already entered the Ghost Bridge. She began calling out to Harper's spirit, calling again and again for several minutes. The place was terrifying—filled not with one, but countless wandering souls drifting aimlessly, like moving corpses.
Stephnie stood at the very center of the Ghost Bridge—a place where the line between life and death had blurred into nothing. The air of the bridge reeked of ancient death, a cold, salty chill that pierced straight through the bones.
The abyss beneath the bridge looked like an eternal void where no light, no hope, ever returned. With every step, the rusted metal groaned—Krrreeeeennnngg... Chhheeeeennnkk... Ghizzzz!—as if the bridge itself was crying out in pain. The handprints carved along the rails were not mere marks; they were the final, desperate clawing of souls who had once tried to escape, now fused permanently into the bridge's body.
But the most horrifying thing was the silence. Thousands of spirits drifted around her, their hollow white eyes slicing through the darkness—yet not a single sound escaped them. They floated like pale mist, weightless, restless. Their unease brushed against Stephnie's skin like the cold tongue of ice.
The moment Stephnie entered and began calling Harper's name, every spirit suddenly turned toward her. Seeing a living soul in their realm, they began gliding toward her through the air—because whoever captured Stephnie's soul would gain the right to possess her body in the mortal world.
Realizing the severity of the moment, Stephnie turned and sprinted in the opposite direction. Time moved painfully slow here—because according to Lily's watch, only twelve seconds had passed since Stephnie entered this realm, yet to Stephnie it felt as though she had been searching for Harper for an entire hour.
Whether she would actually find Harper or Aaron here was impossible to say. But if any of the spirits managed to imprison her living soul, they could seize her body and live again on Earth.
Now the question was:Would Stephnie escape this place alive?What exactly was Patrick terrified of?Did he truly know something about Harper's death…or was Patrick himself a victim—already ensnared by the curse of The Postcard Game?