Nearly half my forces were destroyed by the unexpected attack by enemy aircraft. I had lost a bone dragon, several thousand zombies and four thousand skeletons along with 50 Liches and Death Knights.

I didn’t have much time to create a counter offensive but I made the best use of the time I had.

I called out to my Zombies, some of which had progressed into Ghouls already from all the flesh they had consumed. I had them gather around me and I used [Energy Drain] to steal their lives, souls (limited as they were) and mana.

They crumbled into dust, leaving behind only memories of hunger and rage behind. They couldn’t help me now with their bodies, so they were discarded after giving me what I really needed. Information and power.

I had their memories of which paths they had taken through cannibalism fed evolution, which I could use to improve my vessel. I used their knowledge to further strengthen my bones, my flesh and my very blood.

The remaining Liches had consumed the souls of the disembodied Liches and had become more advanced forms of Liches, Great Liches. The souls of the fallen undead were also consumed by the Great Liches, granting them extra mana and physical strength.

They could now dominate over greater quantities of undead or raise a higher quality of undead to serve them. Typically it would take years, even decades for a Lich to transition into a Great Lich, but this world had an abundance of souls to consume. The lack of magical opposition made the advancement a lot easier and faster than it would have been back home.

I sent an order to my improved Liches to scatter throughout the country and move carefully so as not to get destroyed. I told them to consume the souls of any of their soldiers that fell in battle but to keep their forces small and strong.

I needed more elite undead, but that would take time I didn’t seem to have. I would have to make do with what I could get.

The Great Liches lead their forces of Death Knights, Skeletons, Skeleton Knights and Skeleton Mages in every possible direction to make it harder for our enemies to attack and destroy us.

Some groups scattered into the various buildings, others travelled down busy streets, reaping a bloody toll on any remaining civilians and more tried to move as quickly as possible, running through frightened crowds.

Now that I had taken care of my surviving minions and given them a direction, it was time to take Orochi and deal with the problem directly. Every failure was an opportunity to learn and improve and strike back even harder.

I boosted Orochi with [Limit Release] increasing his max speed, then [Bone Strengthen] to increase his resistance to increased air pressure/ attacks.

I jumped onto Orochi’s back, my wounds quickly knitting up as if they had never happened, thanks to the Ghoul's upgrade and directed Orochi straight into the enemy’s mobile aquatic fortress.

Orochi leapt up and flapping it’s bony wings, using [Levitation] to lighten the load as it took flight. We made quick progress towards our target, the naval aircraft carrier Ronald Regan.

Not too far away from our goal, a flurry of anti aircraft missiles sped towards us.

I used a large scale [Mana Shield] to surround us both in magical protection to block the attack. The missiles exploded in front of me, bathing the shield in shrapnel and fire, none of which got through to damage me. Blocking the missiles with mana, depleted my mana supplies greatly, I wouldn't be able to do so again.

It was obvious that I couldn’t play this defensively. Soldiers were already jumping into aircraft on the flight deck, preparing to shoot me out of the sky. I would need something truly impressive to take them out.

There was a reason I had created Orochi in the first place, he was a mobile, flying source of replaceable bones and necromantic mana. Every beat of his heart produced more mana for me, helping to refill my mana supplies much faster than it would normally in this magic deprived world.

I shouted “BONE FUSILLADE” and Orochi answered my call by releasing the bones from it’s underside violently in the direction of the flight deck.

I corrected the flight path of some of the large bones using [Bone Spear] causing to pierce through the pilots before they could launch. Other bones landed on the flight deck to bounce off and become skeleton knights via [Raise Skeleton Knight].

Another wave of missile came for us and Orochi and I sunk beneath the water before they could hit us. Orochi was already regrowing the lost bones from the first strike and I needed a little time out before I could use any large scale spells again.

Under the water I could still sense my new Skeleton Knights causing bloody mayhem on the flight deck. The Aircraft that had managed to take off couldn’t help as any attempt to shoot them down would just result in the death of their colleagues. The small arm fire from the flight crew and other personnel had little effect on the Skeleton Knight as they had only one weak spot protected by a doubly reinforced skull. None of them had the right weapon for taking down a Skeleton Knight.

As more and more of them died to the attacks of the dozen or so Skeleton Knights, we resurfaced and took advantage of the bloody chaos to land on the flight deck. I captured the souls of the recently deceased and Bound them, tying them back into their corpses creating Death Knights and Lesser Liches.

There was still a handful of Jets flying around, piloted by uncertain men, unsure of how to respond to this kind of threat. They couldn’t just shoot at us, unless they were willing to destroy their own equipment and risk their own men in the crossfire.

I ate the souls of several of the fallen to restore my rapidly diminishing mana supplies but it wasn’t enough. I took a little more mana from Orochi to use [Poison Nova], it spread a low level paralysing venom through the air, incapacitating the rest of the crew above deck. I had my Death Knights take over the anti aircraft equipment and shoot down the circling planes, there were still a dozen jets left for my own use.

I took advantage of the downed crew and sapped them of their mana and had my death knights knock them out and take them deeper inside this ship.

I had Orochi take position on the flight deck to make sure that none of the planes were taken over.

I went below decks and used another [Poison Nova] to take out the crew, this time it was far more effective as the poison gas couldn’t be dispersed by the breeze inside this metal can.Sailors dropped without even having the chance to fight.

I had my Death Knights, Skeleton Knights transport the weakened troops into a single room and one by one I converted them into a Death Knight or Lich.

I had my Lesser Liches continue feeding me their mana as I did so, so that I wouldn’t run out of mana while I was busy converting my enemies into new and improved troops.

Those with strong physical bodies were turned into Death Knights while those with strong souls or minds would be turned into Lesser Liches.

Within twenty minutes the entirety of the crew was either utterly destroyed or raised as an undead to serve me.

Over 5000 undead to replace those I had to abandon.

Considering my losses numerically I had barely made up for all the undead I had lost in their first attack but in actuality I had gained so much more from my counterattack than just replacing some simple undead.

Out of the 5000 new troops, 500 of them were Lesser Liches, with the remaining being Death Knights. As I had taken my time and used a lot of mana, I had created the highest quality undead I could make with these humans.

Typically a lesser Lich would require a certain kind of education in order to be able to truly harness the art of necromancy, gaining one lich per thousand deaths. This world had so many well educated people to make use of and with their deaths being both recent and controlled to such a degree with no threat of heroes to interfere, I could create true masterpieces.

Each of the Death Knights had the ability to cast [Life Drain] and use the magic to enhance their body with self centred bone magic, increasing the quality of their bodies accordingly. Not only that they had been granted the memories of armed and unarmed combat, using various styles gained from other US soldiers. As well as the martial arts popular in Japan, such as Karate, Akido and Kendo.

Each of the Liches were gifted with my knowledge of various spells designed to raise the dead, poison the living and the power to reshape and control bone. I granted them more of my Soul Books to help them advance faster into becoming fully actualized Great Liches. They just needed more time to absorb enough mana to advance to the next rank or simply absorb enough souls to do so.

Not only did I have new undead elites that would quickly grow to be a powerful and deadly force, I now had a nuclear powered ship as a new floating base.

After skimming the memories of my new minions, I had knowledge of the basics of this aircraft carrier. I sent my new minions back to their workstations to continue on with their work or simply to clean up the mess that we had made. They could work forever without sleep or rest and it'd only be a matter of time before the Regan was ship shape again.

I now had what I needed, the best of my world’s magic combined with the best technology of this world.

I went to visit the nuclear reactor inside the ship, it had shielding to safeguard the humans from damage from nuclear radiation.

I broke off a finger bone and used [Bone Spear] to create a weapon with it to slice through the metal shielding. It wasn’t as effective as I hoped, even with the enhanced strength of my new and improved body, I could only scratch the metal.

I used [Bone Strengthen] on the Bone Spear, [Limit Release] on myself and carved the runes of enhancement on the bone to enhance sharpness and durability. I struck at the metal again and it was immediately dented.

I smiled and laughed and whacked and slashed at the metal protecting the reactor until it’s radioactive heart was exposed to me.

I cast [Blight] increasing the power of the poison now seeping into the air.

This would prevent any of the living from retaking the Regan from me without great losses and also empower my poison magic greatly.

I used [Energy Drain] to siphon the power from the nuclear reactor, as the Regan was no longer in motion, thanks to my troops taking out the commander and stopping it’s campaign.

I could drain all the energy produced by the nuclear reactor that normally went into propulsion and use it myself to refuel my mana pool.

Now that I had a USS carrier, I was now reasonably protected from most types of mundane retribution from the humans of the world.

The US government lacked the foresight necessary to design an effective defense against a Supreme Lich flying on the back of a bone dragon. They would suffer greatly for that.

I had 500 Lesser Liches on board. More than enough to take over and control Japan. It was time to set my sights higher and move onto a juicier target.

I started humming "Break my stride." One of the sailors had it in his head before I ripped his soul from his body and made him into one of my minions and now it was in my head.

I had to admit it was kind of catchy and some of the lyrics applied to the situation. Most of it did not. Eating souls and harvesting them for memories had its own risks. This was just a mild nuisance compared to some of the more severe side effects of harvesting souls.