23 Chapter 23: The War Against Being X Part 4 (First Half)

The last week of November, the Winter Solstice arrived early this year apparently and the weather has already started to become very cold although snow has yet to fall.

"The Western Naval Fleet can no longer hold back the enemies any longer. They will soon reach the shore and march up to the Fatherland." The transmission from the High Command broadcasted within the naval base in the early morning before the sun even peek over the horizon.

"Everyone to their battle station! We will give those bastards a very warm welcome." Then the voice of the naval general cut in to tell everyone to prepare.

Meanwhile, Ray and his unit, which is Tanya and her Flight Mage Wing, along with few Mage Company and Battalion from the former Rhine Front had already been sent as a forward force to reach the destination earlier than the main force to slow down the enemies and making their disembarking process very difficult. They form a fleet of their own under Ray's leadership because he is the highest ranking officer within the group and thus nominated as the leader.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Ray questioned everyone that agreed to him assuming the leadership. "I have absolutely no experience in naval battle."

"No worries, Colonel. All of us are the same, all came from the Rhine. None of us have experience with naval battle either. Besides, we never had a Colonel leading a battle before. Most of them cooped up in the base unlike the Sir Knight. Hahaha." The Company leader said before laughing his nervousness away.

Everyone except the 203th Mage Wing did so because they thought it was a hopeless battle. The temporary victory against the Francois Republic isn't enough to raise the opinion of the soldiers that the Empire can win against two major superpowers. The 203th Mage Wing however knew what their new leader and Tanya were capable of. Even if outnumbered 1 to 100, they will keep fighting because they are hammered with absolute obedience by Tanya during their training and battle.

"I see… Well, I wish everyone great luck. We will definitely win. So, put your faith in me." Ray tried to boost everyone's morale. Although he can just hole up somewhere for a few more days and exit this world. There's nothing wrong with gathering more materials for future uses.

Especially after he raided the entire catacomb in Paris and comb every nook and cranny for any shred of souls while still thirst for more to satisfy his growing greed for more souls that is basically equivalent to gold for Ray because it can be used for many purposes such as crafting items, creating underlings and upgrading plus feeding the underlings.

"Sir, the enemy's Amphibious Naval Mages are deploying from their warship." Tanya addressed Ray formally due to being in front of others.

"Noted. Everyone else follows their original leader's lead for now. I will assume command if something unexpected happens." I ordered before switching channels to only leaders. "For now, take down the mages and disable their AA capability before taking over the vessel. If not possible then sink them."

"Yessir!" Everyone replied before our tight formation split up to a few dozen mage per ship except for me and the 203th Mage Wing.

For Tanya and her Wing, they decided with 12 mages per ship. While I do the reverse. I alone took on twelve warships on my own. Especially a large warship that could potentially be the flagship. I unleash a hundred invisible Wraiths to enter the ships and devour the crew while half of that one hundred are taking over the crew to evolve and soon seize the battleship. Meanwhile, I use Tri Formation Array to kill the crews that are shooting AA cannons at me.

"Ray! The enemies are sending reinforcement!" Tanya suddenly informed me directly as she pointed at the vague figures of planes in swarms and mages coming our way.

"Don't worry. Just keep fighting. I will stop these pests. The last time I'm not ready but this time I'll make sure to exterminate them for the humiliation they gave me last time." Ray said before diverting all his floating rifles at the direction of the incoming enemies.

"Tri Formation Array, Flak Artillery Spell. Annihilation Doctrine." Ray tried out his newly upgraded ability, Tri Formation Array. An additional buff to empower specific types of attacks and as annihilation indicates, this buff his AOE spells.

Once the spell was casted and fired, 73 magic projectiles flew toward the enemies until they reached unavoidable distance and it burst open to create a screen of explosive pellets that explode upon contact or a few seconds later. The screen of pellets easily shreds open the hybrid planes and even the magic shield of mages with constant bombardment equivalent to frag grenade. A special spell he created for sole purpose to counter flight mage and planes.

Ray looks at his handiwork with pride while looking at everyone else including the previously cheering enemies, thinking their reinforcement arrived only for the reinforcement to be annihilated without resistance at all.

The Empire soldiers immediately break into cheers and morale rising through the roof. They no longer look at the battle as hopeless. They now believe they can achieve victory even while being overwhelmed.

The tide of the battle is favoring the Empire as half an hour later they manage to disable the AA and then capture the enemy warship that can be reused or salvaged. Ten more minutes later, the main force already secured the beach along the Francois Republic where the Unified State and Albion Kingdom fleet planned to disembark and rush the beach just like D'Day to breach the Empire controlled Western Front and set a foothold for their further invasion. However that plan was bound to fail as Ray was here to stop the invasion from being successful.

"Hmn… interesting, the name of the ship is HMS Warspite." Ray mutters thoughtfully while looking at the captured Albion Kingdom battleship. When the name was mentioned, it reminded him of certain blond corgi from his favorite game of his past world.

Ray then orders a ceasefire after all enemies had been wiped out and what is left is those possessed by his Wraiths. That includes the captain of the HMS Warspite. He assures the others that he had turned the remaining crew of this battleship into his minion while he observes another interesting thing.

Previously the Wraiths possessed the soldiers and became sort of a Wraith soldiers. Now that one of them managed to possess a captain of a ship, the Wraith was named as Ghost Sailor by default while the ship they occupied became a ghost ship. Eerie aura engulfed the warships and turned into a ghost fleet.

A very interesting turn of event which Ray never expected but he had a guess that the system is partially responsible for this.

He made the small fleet of one battleship and four small destroyers disappear after he ordered everyone to return to the base and turn their attention away.

Since their job of distracting the enemies until the main force arrived was a success, Ray and Tanya's Wing get to have a break until they can detect the aircraft carrier which is the actual main target since they were carrying the planes that are the most troubling element for the defense of the shore.

———

Approximately six hours later, Ray is still studying the subject of his fascination, the Ghost Fleet. He sort of discovered the reason it was possible. The captain of the ship was too attached to the ship and even to the extent of… see the ship as his soulmate. When the captain was devoured by the Wraith, the system interjected by turning the ships into a vessel for all the Ghost Sailor and bound them to the ships which in turn made them into a singular entity.

"Ray, they have a new order for us." Tanya peeked her head into my quarters through the doors as she bought the news for me. "They found t-

"The carrier? Yeah, let's go. Hopefully I can reach my quota of tripling the number of souls before we depart this world." Ray stood up from his chair and put on the uniform that he took off because the quarters were hot due to bad design that lacked ventilation in favor of practicality.

"Also, they are sending just us right?" Ray asked while he was lazily buttoning his uniform very painfully slow that Tanya went to help before dragging him out to the airfield where the rest of the Wing were waiting for them.

"Yeah, just the 203th Mage Wing. Thanks to a certain someone showing off his magic and the higher ups decide it's possible for a single Wing consisting of 60 mage is enough to take on an Aircraft Carrier along with the escort fleet." Tanya said while giving Ray a stink eye but Ray just shrugged.

"Do I need to really pretend too much to be weak? I mean I was holding back a lot to not reveal them too early in fear of Being X can accurately size me up." I added with a confused look at Tanya.

"Hol up, you mean all this time you are holding back? The heck? You never told me anything about this." Tanya was obviously unaware just how much power Ray was holding back.

If he wanted, Ray can create an explosive with the power of a nuke by collecting a few months worth of mana and turn it into a bomb that can cover a whole city. Ray himself currently produces nearly two million points of mana every 24 hours thanks to the Reactor Core in his body, that's enough mana to launch Excalibur nearly 700 times. Only he didn't have a big enough mana pool to keep them and instead overflowed to his body. Majority escaped his body but a small portion are to apply passive Reinforcement. He also made a countermeasure for the majority overflowing mana by either condensing or feeding it to his Wraiths and his Piece.

"Of course. If the magician shows all his cards too early, there won't be enough tricks for the entire show. Also, if I really wanted to. I can easily wipe out the enemy's Naval Fleet out there." Ray shrugged before pulling the stunned Tanya along.

"Wait, then. Why do I even need to try my best, fighting as if I could die at any moment."

"You never ask. Besides, the Piece has countermeasures for those kinds of situations. It will at least preserve your soul to be revived by me later." Ray reassured Tanya but she didn't look assured at all. In fact, she looked at him with disbelief again.

"Revive? You could revive me?" Her eyes widen and look at him ridiculously.

"Not really resurrecting a dead person. But I can recreate your body and put your soul back into a body. As long as the soul is 100% preserved in pristine condition, there should be no complications." Ray explained and they reached the end of the hallway and exited to the airfield where all 59 Aerial Mage troops of 203th Wing were waiting for us.

Tanya was silent as she was digesting the information Ray revealed to her about his hidden capability.

"Okay folks, I won't bother telling you nonsense to raise morale or whatever. Not that any of you needed it anyway." Ray said while scanning everyone's eyes and find them to be agreeing with him. "So, this could be the decisive strike that we need to push back the enemies. Majority of their military forces are out there in the western seas. As long as we sink them all, even if our enemies want to continue waging war. They will not have soldiers, war machines and money to splurge on mobilizing another invasion."

"In short, win this and we win the entire war. Short and simple. Just follow my lead, question nothing I do and I will serve all of you the victory on a silver platter."

"Any questions?"

"None, Sir!" Everyone replied with a burning spirit, wishing to grasp that victory.

Although I said I wouldn't be giving an encouraging speech, I still went and did it.

"Then, let's go. To our final battle." I declared before casting Flight spell to fly up into the air.

—————

Status

[Name: Rayark

Age: 10

Alignment: Neutral Evil (44.44%)

Level: 111 (12,732 / 72,000) [+7]

Main Class: Animancer (New)

Support Class: Commander

Title: Expert Magus, Knight of the Realm, Devil Incarnate, The Blazing Destroyer

HP: 4570 / 4570

HP Regen: 208 HP/Min

MP: 25,445 / 25,445

MP Regen: 1202 MP/Min

———

STR: 34.7

VIT: 104

AGI: 57.8

DEX: 69.3

INT: 319

WIS: 259

LUK: 31

Stat Point: 0

———

Abilities:

Fiction Adaptation LV -

Mana Manipulation LV 55/- (Supreme)

Pseudo Reactor Core LV 50/60 (Legendary)

Alteration LV 30/50 (GrandMaster)

Tracing LV 50/50 (Legendary)

Supernatural Physique LV 31/50 (GrandMaster)

Pickpocket LV 25/30 (Master)

Enhanced Mind LV 41/50 (Legendary)

Time Alter LV 21/50 (Master)

Tri Formation Array LV 34/50 (GrandMaster)

Dimension Tear LV 20/20 (Adept)

Dimension Shift LV 23/50 (Master)

Future Calculation LV 27/50 (Master)

Soul Butcher LV 79/- [+6

Mass Murderer LV 21/-

Sadist LV 7/30 (Novice)

Spiritual Subjugation LV 11/80 (Adept)

Omni Arms Mastery 8/90 (Novice)

Precognition 4/70 (Novice)

Magic Resistance 5/80 (Novice)

Psychokinesis LV 2/50 (Novice)

——

??? Series

??? Lust LV ?/? ?

??? Greed LV ??/??

-Devil's Contract

-Aura of Greed

??? Pride LV ?/??

??? Wrath LV ??/??