I ignored the desires of murder and mayhem stemming from the memories of the Arcanix Agent and the Alanian legionnaire.

My knowledge as a virologist told me that the whale, no matter if it was a ghost-type creature had to have some sort of internal defenses akin to leukocytes. Triggering an Immune system response would be extremely unwise at this point, I had to be extremely careful as I was a very small phantom in comparison.

Even the weakest attack could extinguish, smother my little soul.

I had to act akin to a virus, the type that would masquerade as something inside the body. I knew that viruses of the coronaviridae family could disguise themselves, hide inside human cells to replicate. Such viruses were experts of cellular hijacking!

The most efficient virus wasn't the one that killed it's host - it was the one that used the host's own body to hide and replicate itself to pass onto other hosts. The influenza or common flu virus was extremely effective in this manner, using humans to spread itself around the entire planet in mere weeks.

Unfortunately I had no means, no skills of replication at this point, so hiding myself, and hijacking something akin to a ghost-cell was my next best option.

I kept humming the soul-stilling [Tamus-Anima] song, looking around cautiously, praying that the song would keep me invisible, tame whatever immune system response existed inside of the Phantom whale.

I realized I didn't have to look for the heart myself, I only had to find something akin to a blood cell to infest. As long as the ghost-whale had a circulatory system, then it would take me into the heart of this creature, a place where I could really hurt it with my soul-severing song.

First of all, I needed a way to identify things, needed to figure out which parts of the ghost-whale were what.

As far as I could tell, I seemed to be located in some kind of a membrane-like space between the Phantom's exterior and interior. I slowly and cautiously approached the membrane and peered through it. It looked like some sort of blurry things were indeed quickly moving around its insides. Yes. There was a circulatory system in this creature!

I paused, thinking about what to do next.

The dead Arcanix's multi-tool body was made up of tools and moving parts many of which like his magisteel fingers, feet, arms and eyes required direct, constant control.

Hunter Klondike was tethered to eighty eight shards, if you count his original soul and the soul of his grandfather. In theory I could spread myself out...

A plan of action formed in my mind. As long as I carved little bits of my soul out and attached them to the whale's own defense systems, I could create an entire concealed army, a small fleet of hijacked cells!

[Since your Song-Spells are working fine, it means that the Astral Engine and Beacon Tower of Skyisle is somewhere nearby. Skyisle was where my boy met his end. Lets hope this beastie doesn't stray too far from the Beacon,] the old Archmage rumbled. [If this creature leaves the range of the magrad broadcasting Obelisk and the ley line vector can't reach us, you'll have to slot the Song-Spells into your skills and use up your own scant mana!]

The Alanians had built an entire power structure to support their spells, akin to power stations and power-lines we built across USSR to light up every Soviet Republic and chase away the night. Instead of electricity the Alanians used Aetheric radiance, magical power that was transferred along ley lines.

Keps Klondike was an incredibly strong imprint. The old Archmage treated me as his own grandson... which was true in a way, I really was partly his grandson, felt like I was once a man named Klint.

The villainous divinity named Ishira and her priests, the people who killed me... they would pay for their crimes if I ever escaped the Astral!

Slowly and carefully wielding [Tamus-Anima] and [Sectus-Anima] using my trio of Infoscopes I carved a tiny spark, a soul-shard out of my body. The little spark separated from me, floating away.

[- 1 in Soul.]

Ouch, that hurt.

I assembled a [LV 20 Tether], slotted into empty slot in my Skills and connected it to the soul-shard.

My extremely basic virus was complete!

I flew the spark towards the membrane wall and attempted to penetrate it. It didn't work - the little shard was too weak for such an action.

I approached the membrane wall myself and made the tiniest possible incision in it using [Sectus-Anima]. A few hexagon-shaped things immediately tumbled out of it. I closed and stilled the incision.

The three hexagons somehow noticed me.

They unfolded, presenting sharp, triangular claws.

I rushed away from them and hummed [Tamus-Anima] as they chased after me. The Song-Spell stilled the little hexagons and their motions slowed.

Infoscopes armed [Sectus-Anima] attacked the nearest hexagon. After a few strikes, Sectus sliced the hexagon apart in half and it stopped moving completely.

Meanwhile the other two hexagons accelerated again and started to nip at me with their blades.

[-2 in Soul]

The Soul-Song resounded.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Argh!!

I flew away and attacked another hexagon-spider, taking it apart and finally stilled the final hexagon just as it struck me again. The Song-Spells took way too damn long to hum to completion, it was a big issue while trying to fight in a confined space.

[-1 in Soul]

The blasted hexagonal body-defenders were pretty good at hurting me. I shuddered, realizing what would have happened I cut up the entire membrane wall and released an entire swarm of these little buggers.

I made a small slice in the last hexagon and pushed my soul-spark inside it, sealing the cut.

I slowly sang [Conjugo-Anima], targeting the little hexagonal leukocyte-thing in front of me as the trio of Infoscopes aimed with [Modify] spun around it, aiding my progress.

[Conjugo-Anima] was a Song-Spell invoking the very essence of the soul. It was a song of integration, of connection and of addition. Unlike the other two songs, it was a lot longer, more complex and had way more stanzas, way more parts to it. I had to sing it slowly and carefully because screwing this one up meant losing a little shard of my soul.

Thankfully, Klint knew this song by heart, having used it very often to add new artifacts to his magisteel-reinforced body. He also sang it every night to reinforce the tether connection between his mind and the artifacts as it decayed naturally over time.

Wielding the Song-Spell Conjugo I was making something foreign become part of me, claiming it with my soul.

I had no idea how long it took me to claim the little leukocyte.

I suddenly felt a little... warm something inside the hexagonal critter. Something... that was me and also wasn't.

At the same time my emerald-silver threads started to grow colder, weaker.

I reached out to investigate one of the carved up leukocytes and it almost instantly turned into silver mist that absorbed itself into my body upon contact. I felt marginally better.

So... I could feast on these little things to get some energy and warmth?

I examined the other remaining leukocyte with my Infoscopes, as my entire body chafed, urged me to eat the little critter.

[Phantom-Whale Lymphagon's remains]

Well... that's something?

I prodded the little Lymphagon with a shard of my soul inside it.

It wobbled and twitched ever so slightly, as if it was sleeping. It needed... something to wake up fully.

I pushed it towards the cut up Lymphagon. The hexagonal carcass dissolved into my Lymphagon and my critter started to twitch. I felt it. It was mine. A part of me, but also... not really.

It felt very weird and awkward to control it.... Sort of akin to piloting a little, adorable killer drone. It wasn't exactly like my Infoscopes, it had a bit more autonomy.

I practiced folding and unfolding it from flying to attack mode and made it eat the other half of the remaining carcass.

It clicked its pincers happily as it did.

So... even though I was a soul... I had to eat to stay alive. Both of us had to eat in fact.

Thankfully, there was a whale full of Lymphagons inside it for us to feast on.

I made a tiny incision in the wall and two Lymphagons fell out of the vein.

Both my drone and I attacked the pair, making quick work of them.

Yes!

"I'm going to call you.... Legonnie," I muttered as I looked at my new pal.

. . .

It went in the same manner for a long while.

Legonnie and I ate Lymphagons for breakfast dinner and lunch. Eating them didn't seem to give me any soul decay, which was good.

I occasionally sang [Conjugo-Anima] at Legonnie to make our connection stronger.

I didn't make more drones as I didn't have more Skill channels to host [Info-Tethers] on.

I mostly let Legonnie defend me and fight on her own. Whenever she ate someone, I gained experience. It was less than when I ate something myself, but whatever. I had to feed my cutiegon.

. . .

I carved little holes in the vein, releasing Lymphagons. Legonnie and I ate, gaining experience. I noticed that both of us were incrementally growing in size.

As I slowly got bigger and stronger, I carved more pieces out of my soul, capturing and infecting more Lymphagons.

My experience ticked up as I ground up my small enemies into power. I was getting better at controlling Legonnie, becoming faster, more experienced at hunting the hexagonal spiders in a three-dimensional space without gravity.

As I was feeling bothered my inability to tell how much time was passing, I made Legonnie sit atop me akin to a hat and made her count seconds, functioning akin to a chronometer.

In this manner, fighting with my troops, devouring and growing, I had built myself a division of twelve more Lymphagons. I was only properly tethered to Legonnie, but it didn't matter that much. My little thirteen killers didn't leave my side. They did their job well, murdering enemy Lymphagons and giving me experience without me telling them what to do.

Eating and training my Lymphagons for days on end was beginning to tire me out mentally.

I decided that twelve Lymphagons was enough to form a sphere of safety around me. I switched the Tether from one of my little soldiers to the other, organizing them into a dodecahedron-like shape. It wasn't perfect and I had to fold my little soldiers so that their pyramidal claws and bodies formed pentagons instead of hexagons, but eventually I succeeded at it, since they were pretty thin and malleable. All twelve of my soldiers produced an almost-perfect dodecahedron around me, made from interconnected 5-sided Lymphagons.

I kept a little porthole open for my thread, with which I aimed Sectus-Anima, sliced and sealed the membrane wall in front of me to test things. Three Lymphagons fell out of the cut. They floated about aimlessly, not noticing me inside of the dodecahedron.

Yes. The dodecahedron armor worked perfectly, I hid myself just like a latent infection!

I made the cut wider and dove into the vein. The current inside rapidly pushed me forward.

The vein went on and on, in some sort of looping circulatory system, until I had arrived at the heart of the beast. I made a tiny porthole in my dodecahedron and fired [LV 20 Sectus] at the core of the heart from Infoscope 2. It shuddered ever so slightly, healing itself rapidly.

My Sectus-Anima was far too weak to hurt this enormous Astral Phantom.

I sighed as I was flung forward as the phantom's heart pumped the ghostly blood forward.