Reborn As A Ghost: Time To Build My Undead Army!
Chapter 1390 - 1390: Seeking Their Souls

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In the time Maria and her group were fighting the Nightmare Demon of Childhood, the other groups here were all trapped within an even larger dome-shaped Nightmare Realm, where they were subjected to terrifying trials and challenges to survive. What's worse, mostly everyone had been teleported into some deadly area when they appeared there, making things incredibly hard to even survive.

Maria was afraid something had happened, and it did, as she was delivered the news that three students ended up dying, all three of them were students she and her friends and family had grown a bit attached to, as they were the participants of the tournament they battled against.

Arthur, in specific, and Celes as well, looked the saddest, as two students they had become friends with ended up dying, they were unable to even save them, but they found their corpses, with large holes in their chests.

Their eyes were still open, their small bodies pale, they had their Dream Hearts taken out of them forcefully by that Nightmare Demon and killed on the spot.

Their bodies were covered with blankets and clothes, but Maria saw with her eyes full of tears who they were, gripping her fists tightly.

They were Katherine Allgood, Ming Lee, and Eduard Eustace.

Maria saw her brother crying as he held Katherine's hand, something she didn't expect to see in this trial, she thought it would be easy, and yet they faced true challenges, and lost people they cared for.

The girl that always called Arthur "pretty boy!" and that had fought against him with everything she had, ultimately making Arthur letting her win so she wouldn't end up disappointing her family.

It had been just a day and a half since he knew her, but he had unwillingly grown a bit attached to her, to the point to shed tears after her death.

Because it was also such a cruel death…

"M-Ming…"

And Celes walked towards the Chinese exchange student girl, Ming Lee. She was cheeky and quite selfish, and when she lost she started crying like a baby, but she was his age as well, just a child.

He had befriended her at the end, and he was looking forward to work with him… Seeing her like this, pale, and with her eyes to never open again…

It made him cry a lot, as Nia hugged her boy, letting him cry on her shoulders.

"I-I can't believe it… Eduard…! Y-You…! But you were strong! You were so strong…! T-This doesn't make any sense! It doesn't make any sense at all!"

Emily cried in front of the boy of Eduard, a huge, burly young man with a bright future, a powerful warrior she battled, and which she ultimately overcame.

He was prideful but also very honorable, and he became a great friend of Emily instantly after they fought, she was looking forward to sparring against him and deepening their bonds as friends and rivals.

And yet, all of that was taken away from her, Eduard's life and his bright future, and that of Ming Lee and Katherine.

All these three children, who had such great futures ahead…

Maria couldn't accept this; she couldn't accept their deaths!

"If only their Dream Hearts were taken away… T-Their bodies are mostly intact… Their souls! Where are they?!"

Maria quickly expanded her Phantasmal Powers and her Ghostly Senses after she saw the scene, looking for wandering souls somewhere.

And she found many of them, most of them from people that died far away, or from animals or other creatures.

Strangely enough, Nightmares didn't had souls, once one died, they left nothing behind. They were soulless beings, which might explain their unhinged cruelty that was inborn from the beginning.

"Filter souls! Filter them! Ming Lee! Eduard! Katherine! Are you there?! Please come back! Don't go…! Please come back with us!"

Maria cried to the souls with her own soul, spreading her arms into the sky, her friends looked at her with strangeness, wondering what she was even doing.

FLUOSH!

Until Maria suddenly found herself surrounded by many little souls, dozens of them. She glanced at each one of them, checking them one by one.

"Not you, not you, not you…"

She sent back the ones that weren't what she was looking for until…

"Ah, there! Is this… Ming Lee's soul!"

She quickly grabbed her soul gently, encompassing her within a bubble of phantom energy. The soul looked a bit damaged, but it was fine.

"W-Who else? Katherine? Eduard?"

She kept looking, without stopping, concentrating fully on the task.

"Come on… Come on!"

Her eyes grew red shot as she wasn't blinking for a while, until finally, another soul!

"E-Eduard? It's him…! Oh no, his soul is damaged… It has a large part missing…"

Maria still grabbed it, much better than nothing at all.

But it seemed Nightmares could hurt souls when they damaged humans, the Dream Heart might even be connected to the person's soul itself.

Hence why extracting it forcefully from someone might hurt or even shatter the person's soul.

"Katherine's soul… Where is it?!"

The souls surrounding Maria had already been filtered, she constantly looked for more, expanding her senses, sending her ghosts everywhere to look for Katherine.

"Where are you, Katherine? Is there even an Underworld in this world? Where could these people's souls even go to?"

As she looked for her, Maria noticed something, as the souls began to disappear, they seemed to become darker, eaten by something else.

"T-They were eaten?!"

Maria noticed more and more of the souls that were "passing away" instead being eaten by this strange, otherworldly darkness, disappearing.

"Something is eating them… Is this a natural phenomenon?! Won't souls reincarnate?! What's going on in this world?!"

Maria grew more confused, as she quickly looked harder, until…

"Aah! It hurts…!"

"Huh?"

"P-Pretty boy…"

"Ah!"

Maria noticed a little soul crying in pain, her body was already beginning to slowly dissipate and "pass away" into the darkness that consumed them all.

"That's her!"

She screamed through her ghostly soul, trying to reach her before the darkness could consume her.

"KATHERINE!"

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