Reborn As A Ghost: Time To Build My Undead Army!-Chapter 1817: Floor 25, Faunaterra

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Maria and her family followed the Granite Person into a vast temple carved from hard stone, adorned with cactuses, palms, and intricate glasswork.

Inside, they found a monument holding a bowl filled with sand.

"The Sands of Time trembled for a moment," the chief said. "It means someone who defies fate has appeared."

"You."

"Ah..." Maria felt surprised but uncertain where this was leading.

The Granite Person introduced themselves as Stalactite, a "Future Seer" who could glimpse the future through these sands.

They had a mission: to tell Maria what they had seen.

"You saw...?"

"The worlds of the tower were being devoured, vanishing. That is the fact of the future. But you, a defier of fate, stand against it."

"I see..."

"You haven’t altered the future yet. That will only become clear when the time arrives..."

"Sands of Time... what is this place exactly?"

"This is a grain of sand. I told you before, Maria."

"Come again? A grain of sand? What?"

"You have the power. Look beyond the ceiling. You will understand."

"...?!"

Maria’s soul soared upward, passing through the thick, solid glass ceiling.

The higher she rose...

The more she realized another sky lay beyond.

Once she emerged, Maria hovered above the ceiling.

She flew higher still.

And then she understood what the entity meant.

It was a desert.

That world...

It existed inside a single grain of sand!

"Wow..."

Maria gazed across a near-infinite sea of sand beneath an unforgiving sun.

"So that’s why there’s a glass-like ceiling inside..."

She returned to Stalactite and described what she had seen.

"That is the Sands of Time, connected to all worlds," the Granite Person explained. "If you can learn to control it even a little, your power will surely grow."

"Seems quite difficult..." Maria sighed. "I’ll give it a try later. Thank you."

"Take this. Those like you may find it easier than you imagine."

Maria accepted a sand hourglass, its Sands of Time shifting inside.

The more she shook it, the more she felt a faint connection to the grains.

"Incredible... thank you," Maria said.

"We have no gods, only us and the sands. But even we fear complete annihilation, especially of our beautiful land," Stalactite said. "So please protect it with the strength we have given you..."

"I’ll do my best," Maria nodded firmly. "Thanks!"

After a long conversation about the future and the power of the Sands of Time that Maria needed to learn to use, even if only slightly, they departed.

The portal glowed. Their footsteps passed through the dimensional membranes.

And then they arrived on the next floor.

The clamor of a busy modern urban city echoed in the background.

Maria opened her eyes alongside her family and looked around.

"A big city..." Maria felt a wave of nostalgia.

"Ah, this is nice! Finally—Eh?" Alma frowned in confusion. "Wait a second..."

"They don’t look like humans..." Nia observed.

"Animals?!" Nyx gasped.

The entire city was not run by beast people or humans. It was run almost entirely by animals.

True animals from Earth, moving to work, speaking, laughing like humans, and more.

"This is a peculiar world, but it’s not so bad! Welcome to Faunaterra, master."

Faunaterra was a world where animals governed like humans, without any visible changes to their physical bodies.

"Hey! Hey, move it already!"

A huge car screeched to a halt. Maria realized she was standing in the middle of the road.

From the driver’s seat, a white rhinoceros shouted at her to get out of the way.

It sat like a human, yet its body remained fully animal. It even gestured with "hands" it did not possess.

"Is this fucking Zootopia or what??"

Maria stepped back and apologized. The rhinoceros clicked his tongue and drove on.

Without further delay, Maria and her family set out to explore the sprawling city.

They discovered it was called New Jungle City, governed by a silverback gorilla mayor.

Animals flew, crawled, or climbed towering skyscrapers with ease.

Wonder filled every corner. With so many different creatures everywhere, it was truly something special.

The inhabitants lived busy daily lives—working jobs, fighting monsters from gates.

It was a bustling city, and damn, it was beautiful.

Maria took her family to a large "multi-species" restaurant that cooked almost anything and even prepared dishes from ingredients customers provided.

She handed over plenty of items she had collected. They created a massive feast, blending vegetables and fruits from Verdelore with meat from Murim beasts.

As they ate, they watched the restaurant’s TV. The news felt mostly ordinary, yet it was astonishing to learn about a parallel world where humans never developed intelligence, but other animals did, creating this strange society.

Well, not all animals, clearly some remained ordinary prey for carnivores.

"Faunaterra, huh?"

Afterward, they visited a theme park, enjoyed every attraction, and even watched a real clown show. The children laughed alongside kids of every shape and size.

"It’s not a bad place to take a break..."

Next, they went to the cinema to watch a movie called Mission Impossssssible, starring a snake actor. Eating popcorn while watching in a theater was something they had only done once in Azure Star, so it felt fresh and exciting for her family.

After spending half the day in Faunaterra’s New Jungle City, they hurried to the portal behind the mayor’s building and reached Floor 24 quickly, they did not want to linger too long.

But everything here was so distracting!

Still, Maria could never have imagined the next world would not even be a planet.

"Huh?"

When they stepped onto the gray, crater-covered surface, everyone immediately recognized where they were.

"We’re on the moon?!"

They had arrived on the unusual Floor 24 of the Tower: a gigantic moon.

They stared up at the dark expanse of outer space, where countless shining stars covered the "ceiling" in bright, beautiful splendor.

"Welcome to Seleneum, travelers..."

A figure emerged among the moon rocks—a very tall, slender woman, at least three meters high.

She had pale purple skin and very long, pointed ears like an elf’s.

Her eyes glowed completely purple, sparkling with star-like light, and long silver hair flowed down her back.

"The Great Moon Mother has prophesied your arrival... Oh, great Saintess of Moonlight."

The woman walked slowly forward but suddenly collapsed.

Maria noticed she was bleeding from several wounds. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

"Saintess? Wait, are you okay?"

As Maria hurried to heal her, the woman’s large hands clutched Maria’s dress.

"Please... I beg you... please save us... Save her... the Moon Mother... is dying..."

"...?"

Maria looked into the distance and understood at once.

Dozens of giant pyramids stood across the moon’s surface. Massive drills bored deep, extracting a glowing silver liquid from within.

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