My Soul card is a Reaper-Chapter 1013: Dreams of the Past: Breakthrough in the sleep

Darkness loomed over the city after the sunset. By the time it was midnight, almost everyone except for patrolling guards was peacefully sleeping.

Eon and Rael slept in the late noon, and they have yet to wake up.

As if something triggered it, Rael's breath hitched as his entire body stiffened. He started sweating.

Meanwhile, inside his mindscape, his death scythe pulsed with eerie energy, clashing with the divine sword of Marduk. It was happening for the past few hours, and finally, the sword lost its battle to the scythe, and the scythe went on absorbing it.

The weapon trembled violently, dark energy crackling around it. The divine sword's golden radiance intertwined with the abyssal glow of the scythe, merging into a single entity in the end. Power surged through Rael's veins, his body burning from the inside out.

Inside Rael's soul orb, there was something similar to a solar system, with his soul like a big sun in the center, and each realm, representing each planet, was neatly arranged in order. Each planet further away from the sun was bigger than the one closer to it.

These are what one would call soul energy reserve orbs or simply soul planets. What one suppresses their realm or any law suppresses their rank; basically, one of these soul planets will be sealed and no longer revolve around the soul. As a result, their soul energy wouldn't be supplied to an Arcana Master's body, which would hence limit the reserves they possessed

As they revolved around the soul in their respective concentric orbits, a new planet slowly started forming, and a fifth orbit was going to form. The soul sun became brighter as the fifth soul planet took shape.

Rael's energy burst outward of his soul orb, filling his bones and organs as he ascended to rank 5, aka the 5-star soul realm.

As soon as his soul realm was pushed to 5-star, the divine essence started merging with his body, improving his bone density. In the meantime, threads of Marduk's divine essence made their way into the storage ring on his index finger.

There, the armor gifted to him by King Arthur, suddenly pulsed with life. It glowed brightly in his storage ring before transforming into a speck of light, escaping the ring by itself and entering his body, proceeding to bond with his soul.

However, it wasn't just Rael who was going through the changes in his body.

Eon stirred beside him, her own aura flaring as if in response. Unlike Marduk's sword in Rael's mindscape, the Divine Mace in her mindscape stayed completely still until now.

Right then, it suddenly trembled and became active under the observation of the hourglass.

It awakened.

Eon stirred once more, the power around her intensifying. She remained asleep, her expression seemed like she was also having some sort of nightmare.

But her soul energy reserves were slowly increasing as a result of successful binding. She reached the peak stage of Rank-5 in the end.

The room eventually settled, leaving the two unconscious, their bodies transformed beyond recognition.

Morning arrived, and with it, a strange sensation. Rael sat up, flexing his fingers, testing his newfound strength. He felt lighter yet immeasurably stronger. A mere breath of air carried more force than before.

Eon groaned beside him, cracking her neck. "That was... weird."

Rael glanced at her, noticing the glow in her eyes. "Yeah, indeed. It was just like he told us. The assimilation might have been over. Look, sis. I have entered the 5-star realm."

She couldn't help but smile, grabbing his hand. "That's great, bro. I think I, too, received a significant boost in my reserves. Let's see what the changes are, shall we?"

Rael nodded and both of their eyes shut, their hands remaining joined as both of their consciousness transported into their shared mindscape. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

There, apart from the Reaper, both of them saw a muscled warrior, half naked—showing off his abs, waiting for them.

"Who?" Rael and Eon exchanged a brief glance before the girl sounded out. "Are you my Arcana spirit?"

The muscled warrior got up and walked toward them. Stopping a couple of feet away, he greeted her with one of his knees touching the ground. "Etlu-Ballum greets the new master."

"Uhh... okay. That was a weird name." Eon said, her eyes widening in surprise. After a brief pause, she stepped forward and extended the hand to his shoulder. "I'll call you Ballum then. Nice to meet you."

The warrior-looking Arcana spirit let out a satisfactory smile, transforming into a golden mace in the next instant and floating before them.

The Reaper, standing at the edge of the cliff as always, spoke. "Azrael, Eon, come here. Let me show you something."

The siblings walked forward to reach the Reaper and stared down at the barren land filled with undead beasts.

Suddenly, something outside caught Rael's attention.

A figure. The undead harelord.

It looked just like all skeletons at one glance, but it was different when Rael narrowed his eyes. Inside its body, there was a purple spirit core, glowing.

The undead harelord—its body still animated despite its death—stood eerily still for now. It slowly raised its head, its lifeless gaze meeting the siblings.

The Reaper spoke. "Now that both of you have stepped into the 5-star soul realm, the undead army gathered down here will be yours to command."

Pointing his skeletal finger at the undead harelord, the Reaper added. "That special undead beast might have similar physical strength to other rank-2 beasts but it inherited the soul skills. So, whenever you meet a platinum-grade monster, kill it but don't absorb its power. Turn it into a special undead servant instead."

Rael narrowed his gaze.

Both the sight and the explanation were quite unnerving.

As a thought appeared in his head, but he was hesitant to speak about it, the Reaper spoke. "Yes, if you kill humans, you can extract their undead form too. But, no, their soul skills cannot be extracted because, unlike monsters, humans don't leave behind the spirit cores. Still, the human undead army would have more advantage because the undead also takes those experiences their counterparts experienced in life."

"Uhhh… Okay." Rael nodded, although his eyes trembling as he watched the undead monsters on the endless barren land. The thought of killing another human sent a shiver down to his soul. Eon also looked uncomfortable by Reaper's comments, but she kept silent.