I found myself assailed by foreign thoughts and memories and strange sensations I hadn't experienced in a very long time. I shoved it all to one side to deal with later, possessing a new body was inconvenient and uncomfortable, one of the many reasons I had kept my own for over a century.

I had expected to come to this world and find myself in possession of a corpse, instead I seem to be possessing a living body. How utterly strange.

How did the Hero get incarnated in my world after dying if he didn't die? First things first, where was I?

I looked around, I was in a small room, in a bed, on a mattress of impressive quality with sheets covering myself dressed in an unfamiliar gown of a soft thin fabric. Even looking around was tiresome, my body felt weak, damaged and sluggish. The room was lit by a strange glass object located above me. There was something in my mouth and there was something sticky on the skin of my arm and something embedded inside of me, uncomfortably and intimately so, which confused and irritated me.

What was this place? What were they doing to this body?

I reviewed the random thoughts and memories left behind in this host body. It was mostly a garbled mess, there was memories of a truck coming towards him and a scattering of words of a language called Japanese but very little else of value. Thoughts of his mother, living far away, memories of things I didn't understand and oddly specific arrangements of numbers and letters that meant something to the host but lacked meaning now.

My musings were interrupted by the arrival of a woman, dressed in an unsual fashion, all in white, in what appeared to be a long white dress but with workmanlike sleeves, wearing a purple necklace around her neck, made of some sort of unknown fabric. She looked shocked to see me awake, she tried to speak to me but all I could understand was the words "awake" and "feeling".

She pointed a strange light into my eyes and said something before leaving. I couldn't help but notice her eyes were an unusual shape, of a different shape than I was used to and her hair was short and dark and she smelled faintly of oranges.

What was an orange?

With the woman gone I could take stock of my situation again. Body damaged and alive, with no mana to draw upon. Mind disoriented and reeling from the recent events, soul, heavily weakened from my journey through the rifts between worlds. Not good.

First step, I needed to address this body's lack of mana.

I took in a breath and tried to draw upon the world's mana through the act of [Meditation]. It was painfully slow and after a minute, I had gained what felt like a single point of mana. This was unacceptable. The mana concentration was insufficient for even the simplest spell to be cast without great effort. Luckily I was no mere mage but a Necromancer and had quite a few options to regain mana. One option was to convert a soul into mana and store the mana within my soul to shore up the cracks in my essence.

I still had some mana contained with my soul to work with. Not a lot but enough to start the process to building a new army and getting revenge for my defeat. Whenever I suffered a setback, I'd always regroup and retaliate with extreme force. It was a good way of discouraging the weak and stupid from wasting my time.

My options for spell casting were extremely limited, only the bare basics remained and since I would be fueling them with mana from my very soul, I'd have to be careful as to not over exert myself, otherwise, my soul would implode, which would be very bad.

I used [Spirit Walk] to detach my soul from my new body, leaving a spiritual tether behind, so I could recall myself as needed. Time to hunt for souls to devour.

I floated above the bed in my spectral form, in my normal shape, armed with a spiritual echo of my bone staff.

I moved through the open doorway and into a hallway, mostly white, with what appeared to be wood panelings and a plethora of strange objects around. More importantly there was an abundance of ghosts floating or walking around aimlessly. My arrival didn't even appear to concern them.

I laughed, this was too easy. My prey didn't even understand they were prey. I pounced on one of the unfortunate souls and used [Soul Drain] to rapidly drain it of it's everything, it's thoughts, memories and essence.

After eating his soul, I was disappointed at how little value it had, he seemed fixated on a wife, that he had been married to for 50 years and the children he was leaving behind. His restless spirit tasted of unfulfilled longing but had little to tell me of the world and had very little power in it. All I learned was that I was in the country of Japan in a place called Matsumoto. A meagre improvement to my mana supplies and knowledge of this new world. I sighed. He was an unsatisfying meal.

I may not have gained a lot from eating his soul but I had gained something, a little bit of mana and a little bit more knowledge which just meant I needed to keep eating.

This was one of the reasons why I was so feared and effective. [Spirit Walk] allowed me to travel around in spectral form to gain information on my enemies and in a lot of cases devour their souls while they slept unless they were protected by Gods. The Gods here were weak or overworked. Either way it explained how a soul from another world could so easily travel to my world to 'save' it from the 'evil demon king'.

I quickly travelled through this floor, consuming the restless ghosts, one after another, fueling myself up and learning more about this world. None of them were strong enough to resist my spectral attack.

I soon learned that I was in Aizawa hospital and these were the souls of those who had died due to sickness, old age or mortal injury.

None of the souls were fresh enough to provide me with what I really needed to know however.

The spiritual tether I had left behind alerted me that my body was under attack.

I instantly returned to the body, jolting upright to find three people in front of me, and one beside me, stabbing me with a strange metal device, all of them similarly dressed in white with some variations, presumably to indicate their allegiance to the same faction.

I retaliated immediately to this strange attack by grabbing the wrist of the woman stabbing me and using [Soul Drain] on her. She screamed and her cohort laughed, she subsided into silence and began going red and mumbling something.

Her life flashed before me as I sunk my mana into stripping her soul from her living body, always a time consuming and cumbersome task but it was my first instinctive reaction after eating so many ghosts.

First it was her worst memories.

The awkward three time incense offerings to the incense urn in front of her dead father. The feeling of failure for not being a son able to help organize the funeral. The sense of loss. The confusion of being a young child and not understanding the meaning of all the black and silver envelopes offering condolence money.

That time one of the doctors tried to proposition her and she worried about whether she'd lose her virtue to him or her job.

Her mother getting sick. Her mother's increasingly acrid attempts to get her married off to some 'nice boy'.

Her first rejection from a boy she liked.

Next it was the important meaningful memories, the memories that made up a person's essence.

Memories of decorating a Christmas tree with her family, a family tradition, steeped in love and celebration.

Her first kiss, with a boy she liked.

Her first love confession. Professed to a boy she liked. It did not go well.

Her first received love confession.

Her first day at a new school, being uncertain. Her last day at that school feeling happy and sad that it was over.

Wanting to help people by becoming a nurse.

The first time she had sex and felt that pleasure with someone else, the epic highs, the devastating lows and the awkward fumblings that interspersed that moment.

Recent memories involving me, or at least the body that I possessed now, showed up in rapid succession.

Kono being brought in after a near miss with a tractor, having a heart attack, being brought in and partially revived after tens of minutes, with severe damage to the brain, determined brain dead but with the body mostly intact. A message was sent to the next of kin in order to determine as to whether they wanted to keep Kono on life support or to cease efforts. It had only been a few days and they still hadn't received a response about organ transplants. He could save a lot of lives.

She had been taking a blood sample from him when I reacted and grabbed her frightening her.

It was already too late to stop the [Soul Drain]. I got everything else, all the day to day memories, stuff long forgotten or buried deep within her consciousness. Names of bones, friends in elementary school, high school subjects, the contents of every meal she'd ever had.

She collapsed to the ground a souless husk. The younger doctor rushed towards her shouting "Kanna". He was the one that had tried to proposition her. I now could understand Japanese and I had the benefit of knowing everything she did about the world.

I had made a terrible mistake. I was greatly outnumbered, there were seven billion people in this world and they had truly devastating weapons at their disposal, at least some of them. Kanna had been traumatised by reading about the use of nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. They had killed eighty thousand people with one bomb and forty thousand with the second attack. It had ended Japan's participation in World War Two.

I needed an army now. Bodies to hide behind, minions to gather up mana for me, soldiers to fight for me. That was the point of being a necromancer after all. Never being alone.

I reached out and touched the young male doctor on the top of his head and used [Life Drain] on him, his life energy sunk into me, nourishing my damaged flesh. I now knew I was in the emergency care section of the hospital, I was attached to a ventillator and the body had been partially revived by an device that used electricity to stimulate the heart and the days of lying around unmoving had caused some minor muscular atrophy. The fresh life energy repaired the minor damage, allowing for easy movement again.

I ate his freshly disembodied soul and got an influx of new memories, more specific knowledge on medicine and his name. Riku.

He had become a doctor out of ambition and greed, more than a desire to help people.

He'd do for making a Lesser Lich. I regurgitated his soul, stripping out a few unnecessary memories and beliefs, adding a tiny fragment of my soul to aid in communication and control and reanimated his dessicated corpse into action.

The two remaining doctors, I now knew they were doctors thanks to Kanna's and Riku's memories. They were both older gentleman, Reo and Sora.

They were staring in shock.

Reo said "He's highly dangerous. We need to quarantine him. Call the SDF.”

I couldn't let them leave before I had my army ready.

I set Riku on Sora who immediately tackled Sora to the ground before he could make it to the door, pinning him down and covering his mouth. I hastily reanimated Kanna with [Animate Dead] making a lacklustre zombie and setting her upon Reo, who suffered a brutal death as Kanna tore through his jugular with her teeth. He died in seconds. She ate his flesh, hungrily. I didn't have the time to properly train her to restrain animalistic instincts.

I rose out of bed, removing the catheter from out of me with a tug. FUCK THAT HURTS. I have not missed pain.

I removed the breathing tube from my mouth and disconnected the EEG machine that had been monitoring Kono's brain waves.

Now to begin work on building up my army.

I ignored Kanna's frantic tearing up of flesh and loud chewing to focus on the only living doctor left.

I took my time with him, steadily performing surgery on his soul, excising all the unnecessary bits, removing compassion, mercy and the desire to help people and leaving behind only the knowledge of how fragile the human body was and where to make incisions.

Sora had the most intact body of my two Liches, as Riku, looked like a mummified corpse, all shriveled skin. Reo was quickly being reduced to a skeleton and Kanna was a mindless zombie.

I internally debated the merits of converting Reo into a Skeletal Lich or leaving him as a partially devoured skeleton.

I told Kanna to stop and reattached Reo's soul to his body, removing unnecessary thoughts and adding a dash of my soul to the remains, making him into a Skeletal Lich under my command.

I had 3 Lesser Liches as minions and one attack dog in the form of a zombified nurse.

I used [Soul Communion] to teach my 3 newest Lesser Liches [Meditation] and while they drew in mana that way, I thought about what kind of spells to teach them. My mana was running dramatically low and I wouldn't have much power left to give my new apprentices.

My Liches were equipped with simple upgrades, they could perform three spells [Animate Undead], [Soul Drain] and [Blight]. [Blight] would desecrate the ground, helping to empower the undead and weaken the living through poison magic. After using [Soul Drain] enough they would gain enough soul energy of their own to create Liches to help manage the growing legions of undead.

As for Kanna, she received three buffs [Limit Release], [Curse of Necrosis] and [Cannibalisation]. [Limit Release] would increase speed and strength to unnatural levels, making her stronger than the original body was capable of when alive. [Curse of Necrosis] would cause anyone bitten by them to suffer from their flesh rotting. [Cannibalisation] allowed them to gain more speed and strength through every mouthful of flesh consumed, as well as allowing for potential evolution options.

I stretched. It felt weird being in a smaller, younger body, without any magical enhancements.

I drew deep upon the ambient mana and received a trickle of mana in return. This would take a while.

A new nurse arrived to get Dr Reo's opinion on a patient only to open the door and discover her colleagues had been turned into undead abominations.

I knew this because I ate her soul within ten seconds of her entering the room and gained all her knowledge. The horror of seeing 'zombies' had added a delightful kick to the flavor of her soul, giving it much needed depth.

These humans had never been physically threatened before in any meaningful way, they've never had to fight monstrous beasts, the undead or demons in order to survive. This whole country was pampered by a lack of real strife or conflict. It was time for them to have a rude awakening as to the terrors that could be brought to bear by a vengeful Necromancer.

I turned her into another zombie, she wasn't worth the effort of turning into a Lich. Zombies were less expensive mana wise.

I scouted ahead using [Spirit Walk], only a few of the nurses were at the administration desk at this time of night. I had my team of five set out and attack with teeth and claws. The nurses screamed as they had their throats ripped out by their former friends and coworkers. Their screams alerted a couple of security guards who rushed over to see what had happened, neither of whom were armed with a gun. Their throats were promptly torn up by my zombie nurses and their souls consumed by me for their mana and they were turned into zombies to aid in my goal of collecting souls and bodies for Ascension.

Three Liches in various conditions commanded seven Zombies. It wasn't an effective use of man power. One of the nurses had been the chief nurse, in charge of administrating the floor. Her memories added some useful tips for managing teams. I had them split up to cover more ground, each Lich got two zombies to assist them, while I kept the extra with me, a heavy set security guard armed with a baton.

With the staff of this floor on my side along with the security personnel, the patients were easy prey, especially as most were sleeping through the crisis under the expectation that the hospital staff would keep them safe and yet they were the first to fall. The zombies, tore out their throats and the Liches ate their souls and animated their corpses as zombies to serve.

I used [Soul Communion] to keep track of their movements and watched through their eyes as they made short work of the patients. The number of minions quickly swelled and Kanna evolved into a Ghoul, while each of my 3 Lesser Liches commanded a small army of zombies with a greatly expanded mana pool and a small Soul Library to call their own.

Reo's team took the stairs to the floor above, while Riku's team set forth to the floor below for a Reaping of souls. Sora and his force of thirty zombies guarded me while I continued my efforts at [Meditation] in order to improve this vessel's mana capacity.

The reaping continued, a little less quietly than before as a wave of zombies appearing from the stair wells made stealth difficult. The staff were taken out first, with two more doctors singled out and restrained for the purposes of being promoted into Lichdom.

In less than an hour of bloody carnage, I had over five hundred zombies at my disposal led by five lesser Liches.

Thanks to the death toll, my soul power was nearly at it's normal level. This world was good for one thing and one thing only, it's abundance of souls. In my own world I would have had to slaughter a small town to achieve this level of soul acquisition, at the risk of Priests, Champions, Crusaders, Adventurers and the town's soldiers interfering. Here I had slaughtered nearly six hundred people all with minimal opposition. There had been a few people from the SDF with guns who tried killing my zombies but they were quickly eliminated.

I visited the hospital's Proton Therapy Ward and used [Life Drain] on a dozen people there to enhance my body to a level higher than it had achieved in it's previous use. Their bodies, had a delightful amount of extra radiation within them which appealed to my poisonous nature. I restructured my bones for greater durability and defence, particularly around the skull and torso. My musculature was also improved for greater speed and strength.

All of the extensive spell casting using this ill equipped body was making me unnaturally sleepy and tired. I would have to cultivate for some time to restore my mana supplies. A living body was such a nuisance, it needed time to safely absorb and use spells of greater magnitude.

I headed to the hospitals morgue for a short nap to recover my mana and orchestrate my undead from a safe location. They would gain me more death and soul energy while I would gather mana from this dry well until a better option presented itself. It would be a good opening gambit in this new world to test it's defenses and response times.