I had been inside a cold storage unit inside the morgue of the US army base for two weeks now.

I had taken the free time to review memories of the recently deceased of this world. I had learned a lot more about this world called Earth and it’s people and technology. Their knowledge of the material world allowed them to gain unprecedented control over their world with a variety of powerful weapons.

They had reached a level of civilisation where comfort was expected and the population felt little fear of the future, at least in most parts of the world. At least that didn’t change from one world to the next, there was always a divide between the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak. It was just less immediately obvious than in my world.

I had learned a lot during my stay here, reading through the archived souls, experiencing life from their memories. The most useful information was about microbes and the use of technology and the speed of their transportation methods. While they could not ride a bone dragon like I could or spirit walk, they had cars and planes that allowed them to travel at exceptional speeds.

I had used [Spirit Walk] to spy on my ‘captors’ observing their movements and weapons. They had ready access to various guns that allowed to shoot metal bullets at targets with great ease and precision. They had even more powerful weapons that could destroy cities larger than any in my world.

It would be terrifying if their technology was used against the people of my world, there wouldn’t be much of a fight. Only a handful of the strongest would be able to resist for any length of time.

To use the parlance of this world this would be a preemptive attack, though considering the hero that was sent to my world, maybe this could be considered justified retaliation.

It would only be a matter of time before the hero upset the balance of the world, once he started reproducing. A litter of heroes would be disastrous.

Not that I cared much about justifications at this stage of my existence. I was a necromancer, I had surrendered the moral high ground in pursuit of far loftier goals a long time ago.

I spent quite a lot of time thinking about what I had learned and what would be the best way of making use of this new knowledge to conquer these people.

This was an unprecedented break from my usual day to day activities of managing legions of the undead. I seldom had any time at all to myself to research or for leisure activities, managing the undead was a full time occupation, they never slept, so it was a 24/7 job.

It was nice to have the time to peruse the accumulated knowledge of an entirely new world.

Despite that, I had accumulated enough theoretical knowledge, it was time for some practical application.

It was time to test out my newest strategem.

I resurrected a virus called herpes from my current vessel and used a variety of spells in a unique combination. I’d say it was a masterpiece of form and function.

I used [Possession] on the virus cell, using a minuscule amount of my own soul to control it and allow me to use it as an extension of my own self, similar to the other Liches, whose souls had already returned to me, along with those they helped to kill. This reanimated Virus Cell had been honoured with my spiritual essence, granting it Lich status, I loaded it up with a few spells. I gave it [Soul Drain] and [Life Drain], both of which would allow the virus to multiply rapidly along with a couple of other vital functions.

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This Lich Cell could also use [Blight] which would increase the power of it’s ability to curse and poison.

I tapped on the walls of my metal container, startling the Doctor outside.

I used [Spirit Walk] to observe her.

Her name was Dr Angela Watts and she was wearing a white lab coat, had glasses and her hair was cut shoulder length. She was mildly attractive, with a thin layer of fatty tissue over bones. According to my new memories skinny women were the trend in this day and age. Personally I didn't see the appeal.

She grabbed a scalpel and approached with faltering steps. She opened the tray holding my corpse vessel her scalpel prepared to stab into the brain given the slightest provocation.

It was mildly amusing.

I cast [Confusion] on her, sending her into a dazed state temporarily. I repossessed the corpse and simply touched her to infect her with the Lich Cell, then resumed playing dead so to speak.

The Lich Cell was immediately absorbed into Angela’s body and started using [Life Drain] and [Soul Drain] to power itself and reproduce. It sapped away at Angela from within, one cell became two, then four, continuing to multiply with every minute increasing the amount of cells under my Lich Cell’s control.

The single Lich cell had effectively become a Soul Virus. It’s creation had used up quite a lot of my supply of mana and all of my concentration but it’s effect were immediate.

As the Lich Cell was possessed by me, I could experience the life of a microbe. It was intriguing playing war on such a scale. It wasn’t too different from the macro level I was used to.

As the Lich Cell I would hijack a healthy living thing and use it to spread my influence further. The only real difference was the appearance of my enemies and their complete lack of effective resistance to my power.

Angela eventually let go of the scalpel and pushed me back into the metal drawer where I had been stored. She couldn’t hack away at me without authorisation, my existence as Patient Zero of the initial Zombie Outbreak meant I was above her pay grade.

They had discovered that the zombie outbreak had no apparent link to bites or typical bacterial infection and it had intrigued them.

Several of my zombies had been captured ‘alive’ for study as to the mutations. Those which had eaten of human flesh had developed stronger human characteristics, smarter, stronger bones and faster metabolism.

The Zombies captured from the mountainous region who had to subsist on a diet of animal flesh had developed more bestial traits. Sharper teeth and nails, better eye sight, dense fur, increased muscle density to name a few of the changes.

The US Department of Defense was very interested in them for scientific and military reasons. If they could learn how to selectively evolve their soldiers to be faster, stronger and smarter than they could win all their wars against Concepts, such as Terror, Drugs and Death itself. Or at least that was my best guess based on the memories I had gathered. I needed to kill more American troops to be sure.

By the time Angela finished work for the day and met up with her sexual partner of the night Tom, she was already infectious, Patient Zero of the Soul Virus Outbreak.

While she was having an orgasmic time with the fit Tom, she was already losing the war for her soul and body.

The Lich Cell and the resultant Soul Virus were an extension of myself and through that I could use every infection as a way of increasing my ability to observe the world, gather mana and draw on soul energy.

An unexpected benefit of her infection was that she was releasing microscopic amounts of Blight into the air.

Tom quickly followed suit as the prolonged exposure even at such at an early stage allowed the Soul Virus to infect it's first true victim.

Normally Lumos the God of Light would cleanse the air of any Blight but this world was not so lucky as to have divine favour. That would explain the ease of which the Gods of my world could drag off the souls of Earth’s occupants to serve as Heroes in mine.

It would take several days for the full effects to be noticeable and by then it’d be too late to do anything to stop it.

While the base was enacting full security to maintain the secrecy of their zombie captives, they still had regular supplies of food, people and material being delivered to the base. All of them potential vectors.

Thanks to this world, I had so many new ideas to test out. Namely outsourcing and renewable energy. I was looking forward to the true Outbreak of Soul Virus.