The next morning Tom and Angela woke up naked in bed together after a night of carnal pursuits.

Since Tom was infected, through prolonged physical contact with Angela, I could now see through his eyes and hear his thoughts. I couldn’t control either Angela or Tom’s actions completely as of yet but I could nudge them into certain actions with a little effort.

Tom awoke, eager to go again and after a bit of kissing and touching, Angela was also in the mood for another round of fun.

After twenty minutes of fevered coupling, they broke apart, panting heavily. I didn’t really pay too much attention to the details as pleasure of the flesh paled in comparison to the pleasure of the mind.

“That was hot.” Tom said “We should definitely hook up again soon.”

“Yeah maybe.” Angela said dismissing him with a vague platitude. She was already thinking about the next guy she had lined up for that night’s entertainment, a fit young African American male named Daryl.

Tom said goodbye and went off to the barracks to shower and get dressed for the day.

Tom was greeted by a series of whistles and catcalls by his army buddies who cheered his conquest of Angela. They insisted he share all the sordid details and he did.

What a cad!

He went into the showers with several of the other men to wash off the sweat and fatigue from his earlier activities. He was feeling a little drained but he was used to strenuous activity so he was sure he’d recover shortly.

I was pleased, he would make a good candidate for a battery, he had a strong body and a somewhat strong soul. Now it was time to step it up a notch and see what he’d be like as a mana battery.

I had the soul fragment within Tom switch from using the energy drained from Tom’s soul and instead had them use [Meditation] using Tom as the medium. Tom intuitively allowed a trickle of mana into his soul and body and the effects were immediate.

His thoughts started clearing up and his fatigue faded a little. Excellent; he was a mana sensitive.

He would serve as a battery for all 3 essential elements, life, mana and soul energy.

Tom soaped up his naked body, while thinking about Angela’s hot body, which had the usual effect of getting him aroused. He would really like to have sex with her again but he had a feeling it would be unlikely, from what he had heard around the base, she was up for a good time but not a long time. Not unexpected since she was due to ship out in a few days.

She had been at the base for a couple of weeks since the Zombies appeared out of that hospital. Still weird to think about but it turned out to be far easier to deal with than in every zombie movie he’d seen. Of course most zombie movies jump from the initial infection and time skip to zombies everywhere with no explanation as to how unarmed zombies killed off all of the nation’s armed forces.

He glanced over at his buddy Arnie who was still yammering on about how lucky he was to get with Angela.

He scrubbed harder with the liquid soap, pressing against his firm muscular flesh and enjoying the sight of his naked body. He worked hard and he played hard and he looked good hard. He laughed internally at his own little joke.

“You’re not completely hideous you could get laid yourself, it’s not a matter of luck it’s a matter of skill.”

“Fuck off.” Arnie said, smacking his palm against Tom’s broad chest and that was all that was needed and the Soul Virus leapt inside of Arnie’s body, guided by my thoughts.

A new body to invade and control.

As the two men bickered in the shower, Arnie’s insides became a battlefield for control. The Soul Virus quickly spread inside him, powered by Arnie’s life and soul energy.

As Tom exited the shower he was the recipient of complicated ‘bro handshakes’ and back slaps from his fellow army buddies, congratulating him again on getting laid.

Tom cheerfully accepted these physical shows of camaraderie without any knowledge that he was spreading the Soul Virus to them.

Already the Soul Virus was spreading beyond my original expectations. I now had a dozen new microscopic battlefields to overlook. Another dozen minds to watch and nudge towards embracing my control.

I looked in on Angela and she had already dressed up in her work outfit and was ready for the day, no thought of Tom on her mind at all. She had merely scratched an itch and wanted to get onto finishing her report for the lab back in her home town of Massachusetts. She was eager to go back home and relax in her own bath tub, with a glass of wine.

Army life had it’s perks, lots of fit men to enjoy being with for some transitory pleasure but life was so regimented and the original lock down was stressful. Without the ability to go out and enjoy the local night life, this assignment had dragged on and on. She had wanted to enjoy the local sushi and saki and be the centre of attention for some Japanese men for some variety.

At least now that it had been confirmed that the event didn’t seem to have any infectious elements she could go back home and write a paper and get some prestige for being one of the first on the scene to examine what remained of actual zombies. That’ll show those doubters at the hospital that she was fully qualified for her position and didn’t get there just for having an attractive face and body.

I switched back to Arnie, he wasn’t as strong physically as Tom nor was he a mana sensitive like Tom but his soul displayed remarkable traumas. A soul gained strength over time and after facing severe adversities. Arnie’s soul shone with superiority in an area filled with mediocre souls.

Tragedy, hardship, suffering and conflict made a soul stronger, harder to control and drain but much more rewarding. Due to the nature of my world, the soul of an average peasant was far stronger than the majority of the souls I had already devoured.

These Japanese people had simple lives of relative convenience, their need for food seldom a problem, never concerned with a stray monster rampage or the whims of a noble. The worst that happened to the most of them was the gradual decline of a loved one, a bad grade or a loss of a job.

Arnie on the other hand lived life on the streets for a couple of years after dealing with an abusive home life before he was old enough to join the military and make a life for himself. His soul was remarkably strong for this world. He would make an excellent soul battery, the Soul Virus slowly sipped away at his strongest and worst memories.

As such the details of each trauma would start to fade and blur and eventually disappear entirely. After I was done sapping away at his soul, his soul would be weaker, but he’d a much happier and less conflicted person, for whatever that was worth.

People in this world seemed to value happiness far more than they did security. Maybe I was doing him a favor?

Arnie could draw in a little mana as could the other infected, not enough to qualify them as mana sensitives but enough so that the Soul Virus could use the mana they draw in to power [Blight] more effectively.

So far the only mana sensitives were Angela and Tom, they were both prime Lich material, well after I killed them of course. Living Liches would defeat the concept entirely. They would be apprentice mages in my world, with some raw potential but no training.

I idly wondered what kind of aptitude they had but I didn’t have the time or inclination to be bothered with testing for that.

The other infected were already being helpful in spreading the infection further. The process of infection now automatic but I still liked to review the microscopic battlefields and check the relative values of the new hosts for their soul strength, mana sensitivity and life energy.

Here they’d call it micromanaging, back home it would simply be called being thorough.

So far the best thing about this world was the abundance of words. So many lovely new words. I used to be a school teacher before my wife died. I used to love to teach children how to read and write, teaching them the value of the written word to share experiences through the ages.

A lot of the children didn’t appreciate the words, simply bound by duty to learn them, more concerned with their normal lives to care.

Knowing how children enjoyed stories of adventure, I’d read them epic poems and tales of legendary warriors and adventurers which made them more interested in reading ironically enough.

They seemed to long to leave their relatively safe comfortable lives in search of adventure.

I never understood the urge to go seek gold and glory, both were so fleeting after all. However to crush their fantasies of adventure with the oftentimes tedious reality of the details of an adventurer’s life would be cruel.

After my wife was captured by goblins… Well I found some value in adventurers if nothing else.

She didn’t come back alive. She had been defiled by those goblins, forced to birth more of those monstrosities until the repeated trauma of repeated child birth killed her.

After her death, I turned to forbidden books seeking answers and an avenue for revenge. I found I had an aptitude for the forbidden magic of necromancy and I pursued with single minded determination.

I didn’t have the natural talent, lacking [Soul Sight] of the average medium, spiritualist or necromancer but I had commitment to the written word and no concern about the morality of my actions.

What was the point of the artificial and arbitrary claims of right and wrong when people died in droves due to the whims of capricious Gods and Fate.

Despite my best attempts I couldn’t bring back my dead wife but I could animate her body. It was worthless, a mere rotten skeleton, the only value was showing me how easy it was to puppeteer bones.

Her soul had already been out of reach by the time I had found out how to capture a soul or to communicate with one. She was with the Gods or had been reborn, her memories of me erased with her rebirth. In her new life she might simply display a talent for things she loved in her life with me, an interest in cooking, children and crafting.

She was also a school teacher, she taught the girls the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.

I digress. Even the hosts without mana sensitivities could draw in a little mana with the help of my soul fragments contained within the Soul Virus.

With each breath, the infected breathed in mana and breathed out [Blight].

The Blight they spread wasn’t immediately noticeable to those not looking for it, simply added to the thousands of toxins these people pumped into the air throughout the day. Blight would increase the toxicity of all those air borne poisons and pollutants to make the population more prone to sickness and disease.

Already the Soul Virus had escaped out of the confines of the base, passed from one of the sentries at the gate to one of the drivers delivering supplies.

As the driver Zhang Qiang ventured out to his various delivery spots throughout the local area, he shook hands and helped various store employees to unload goods.

His desire to do an efficient job helped to spread the Soul Virus to the locals, they were nudged into kissing their spouses, hugging their friends and family or petting their animal companions.

I thought it deeply amusing to spread the seed of their world's destruction through hugs and kisses.

Every new infected individual added to my collective strength one way or another. Either by collecting mana, spreading the Soul Virus or breathing out Blight.

The children passed it on the most efficiently, each child physically interacting with dozens of other children in a day, deliberately or otherwise.

Every child that came home from school with the Soul Virus spread it to their mothers or grandmothers or guardians. Who then went to work or the shops helping to spread the Soul Virus further with every physical interaction.

On the second day, one of the infected happened to be a Japanesse stewardess, on a brief visit back to see her loved ones before heading back to China where she was based with a infamous airline.

Her name Yuna Yamamoto.

She was most helpful, her light touches to passengers and other employees as she gave them their drinks, hot towels and food during her shift on the plane helped to spread the contagion internationally.

Every one of those people had different destinations. Some were getting off at the Chinese airport, some would travel via connecting flights to South Korea and Taiwan and India.

As they arrived at their various destinations. Those that travelled to return home, were given hugs and kisses by family members or friends. Those who travelled for work were met by colleagues who shared standard greetings in the form of handshakes. Those who travelled for pleasure, went to tourist attractions or ‘hot spots’ where there were many people about to meet and touch deliberately or otherwise.

Either way, they were all infected and they unknowingly spread the Soul Virus throughout their social networks.

3 days after I infected Angela, the air of Japan had a faint black aura, as several hundred thousand people in the country breathed in mana and breathed out Blight.

The citizens just assumed it was a bad case of smog from all the other chemicals pumped into the air as a byproduct of their technological manufacturing requirements and put on their face masks in greater numbers.

The Soul Virus was spreading rapidly through the densely packed urban areas of Japan and spreading somewhat slower in other countries.

Angela had also returned to Massachusetts USA and helpfully spread the Soul Virus to every person she touched while there. Friends, family, coworkers, some patients, who all in turn spread it to their friends and families and so on and so on.

As there were no immediate signs of infection, other than a sense of slight fatigue that could be a result of a thousand things including long plane rides, no one was alerted to the danger they faced.

Day 4 of the Outbreak, the Soul Virus had made in-roads in China, spreading rapidly after a certain male pop idol was infected which happened after shaking the hand of a teenage girl who was infected with Soul Virus during a standard in a meet and greet. The Soul Virus was quickly spread to every other fan he touched and everyone they touched afterwards.

Day 5 Soul Virus was spreading decently throughout India, mostly in the slums where people were massed together in truly absurd numbers living in deplorable conditions. These souls were abundantly strong and suitable to serve as soul batteries. I wondered as to the effects of [Life Drain] on the bodies emaciated from a poor diet and hard living.

Day 6 the Soul Virus had spread throughout Europe via some infected Back Packers who had picked it up from some other tourists while in Japan.

Day 7 Instead of getting weaker Tom was displaying signs of mana boosting. He was young and strong enough to fight off the negative effects of Soul Drain and Life Drain and embrace the positives gained from gathering Mana and resisting [Soul Drain].

His mind was operating at a higher level, thoughts faster and clearer, calculations easier, able to predict a second forward in time based on trajectories and behaviour. Heightened reflexes isn’t uncommon for warriors blessed with mana.

His soul was becoming stronger as a result of fighting to retain his very essence. His mind, his memories, his own willpower.

He had the potential of being a Hero, he was young, strong and good looking with a gregarious personality and a fondness for women, who were equally fond of him.

He could grow into a problem, he was not just a mana sensitive, he was a natural mana user. In my world he would be considered a prodigy of magic use. He could become a serious threat if left alone. Especially since he had military training, advanced technological weapons and he was close to the vessel I was possessing.

If he used his mana to trace back the source of the Blight, he might prove to be hazardous to my health.