I Became a Hive Mind in the Game

Although the Fire Dragon was overwhelmed by my and Theseus’s combo play throughout and eventually fell, this was actually just due to the circumstances.
Originally, the Fire Dragon was an opponent that Theseus alone could not handle.
The Fire Dragon fights by flying in the air and launching long-range attacks with breath and psychic flames, and at this time, it has high firepower and, above all, is definitely faster than Theseus.
In addition, due to the exclusive characteristic of fire dragon-type monsters, the power of its breath and attack power increase as it takes more damage, and its defense also increases as its HP decreases.
Therefore, if the two were to fight one-on-one outdoors, Theseus would eventually be retired after being hit by long-range attacks, but unfortunately, this battle took place in a cave, a narrow space.
Obviously, the Fire Dragon had no chance to fully utilize its superior mobility, long-range firepower, and the power that grows stronger the more cornered it becomes.
In addition, my support, which allowed Theseus to overwhelm the Fire Dragon in close combat, played a very significant role.
Stat enhancements—Physical Enhancement (A) that increases physical abilities by percentage, Sensory Amplification (A) that greatly enhances the sixth sense of intuition and makes all senses more sensitive, and Psychic Supply (A) that shares MP, the psychic energy, were all great help.
Besides these, I immediately healed injuries with Psychic Healing (A), applied debuffs using debuff monsters, and helped in every way possible to overcome and overwhelm the gap.
Of course, even with this support, Theseus was at best able to slightly push back the Fire Dragon, the strongest dragon in the Korean Peninsula.
The Fire Dragon is powerful enough to potentially annihilate an entire city in about 10 minutes if it tried, but…
However, even this Fire Dragon is now not only in a perfect state of coma but also ready to be modified.
Just like the Mountain Lord and Gumiho, this monster will now work as my subordinate from now on.

※ ※ ※

Before modification, the first thing to do is to ensure that the monster doesn’t wake up or die during the modification process.
After firmly fixing the limbs, pipes are connected to the blood vessels in the wound areas to continuously inject highly concentrated deadly poison with sleep-inducing and paralyzing effects.
You might worry about it dying, but originally, a grade 1 monster won’t die due to its vast vitality and recovery ability, so it’s not a concern.
Of course, injecting such deadly poison inevitably deteriorates its health, so next, I sliced open the Fire Dragon’s belly with Theseus’s claws to maintain its life and control it.

‘Cut it, Theseus.’
[Yes.]
‘Slash!’

His delicate claw movements only cut the Fire Dragon’s skin and scales, leaving not even a small scar on the clearly pink-tinged organs.
After stopping the bleeding with protein particle-based nanomachines, I reached into the fully opened abdomen exposing all the internal organs and concentrated psychic energy.

[Activating Telekinesis (A).]

Using delicate telekinesis to remove various organs from the abdomen, I reached for the creature’s heart, or more precisely, the bio core that doubles as a heart, and then—pulled out what I had prepared in advance.
It’s an artificial organ called the ‘Heart of Senator’, which allows nanomachines to assimilate with blood components such as red and white blood cells in the creature’s heart, or more precisely, its blood.
The part where the Heart of Senator will be implanted is the left ventricle part of the heart, where blood passes through before being sent out to the body.
This is to change the blood cells into nanomachines before the oxygenated blood is sent out, while also serving as an organ for combat assistance and control.
Blood cells that have been nanomachinized move to the damaged area when internal injuries occur, change their properties to heal the damaged area, and harden cells in response to impact.
Of course, in case of emergency, the nanomachines would run amok inside the body, destroying all internal organs, but that’s beside the point.
Anyway, now that I’ve implanted the control device in the heart, I immediately started the next procedure.
I cut the scales, skin, and flesh on the back part to directly expose the white spine.
Then, just as I did with the Mountain Lord and Gumiho, I touched the specially treated silver nanomachines to the spine—and the nanomachines undergo a change.
The nanomachines attached to the spine transformed into the shape of an implant to be inserted into the spine, looking like something out of a cyberpunk-themed game or movie.
It not only enhances reflexes but also strengthens the computational power needed to activate psychic abilities, and as a kind of active skill, it can accelerate perceived time by 20-30 times for about 10 seconds.
Of course, with just one command from me, it can cause severe damage to the spinal cord physically connected to the implant, turning it into a vegetable mons… vegetable monster.
Anyway, now that I’ve implanted the implant in the spine, all that’s left is to replace part of the brain with a monster, just as I did with other monsters or humans.
However, unlike the procedures I performed on humans, the procedure I’m doing on this creature now is much more blatant in its modification, based on the idea that it doesn’t matter if it’s discovered.
Since there’s no need to hide it, part of the control device that wouldn’t be much of a problem even if destroyed outside the head is exposed, and with such a large control device implanted, the control is much more powerful.
In the process of forcibly assimilating the soul into the Hive Mind, self-awareness becomes blurred, and part of the brain function will never move without my will, creating a complete puppet.

※ ※ ※

While stabilizing the body of the Fire Dragon that had become a puppet, I was still steadily continuing my expansion business.
I seized the entire North Hamgyong Province and eroded the entire underground into the territory of the Hive Mind.
I planted production bases here and there, and was contemplating advancing westward when—

‘…An attack?’

Meanwhile, suddenly, there were beings that attacked the coastal areas of the East Sea and the underwater passages and production bases, interfering with my plans.

‘Why did those things come to the surface?’

The culprits were none other than sea monsters.
Some monsters that noticed my territory spreading through the seabed attacked that area, and as seawater flowed into the underwater passages I had created, the sea monsters used that as a base to devastate the underwater passages.
In particular, the decisive cause of such attacks on underwater passages was the humanoid monsters called Dolphinmen.
Dolphinmen. Their appearance is that of a hideous monster with a dolphin body that looks as if its head is bent downward, with one pair each of arms and legs with webbed hands and feet growing out of it.
Similar to general terrestrial humanoid monsters, they live in groups of low-grade monsters centered around high-ranking individuals of medium grade, but they had a very troublesome ultrasonic special ability that gave me a headache.
They use this like bats for detection, effortlessly finding underwater passages, and once they find my underwater territory, they communicate with ultrasound to bring in various sea monsters they’ve tamed to devastate the area.
The grade 6 monster killer whale, which is both a livestock and heavy equipment for the Dolphinmen, and the grade 7 monster Giant Seahorse, which is used for multiple purposes like medieval or modern war horses, are just the basics.
There’s also the Dragon Turtle and Sea Serpent, sub-dragon species born from true dragons living in the sea, Lava Eels living in underwater volcanoes and spewing boiling water, and Lava Sea Crocodiles.
They even brought along a Giant Psychic Whale, an enormous whale known as the ruler of the sea, and what’s more, one that had grown to an adult (grade 3).
Obviously, the Hive Mind monsters, which had not considered sea combat at all, had predictable results when fighting these monsters specialized in sea combat in a marine environment.
Fortunately, seawater didn’t enter the underground passages on land, so in the end, about 60% of the underwater territory was lost.
Moreover, the frequency of marine monsters capable of activity on land invading through coastal areas also increased.
Most are just Lizard Sharks with lizard-like legs, man-eating giant crabs, or crustacean monsters like shrimp that shoot air bubbles, but still, invasions from areas I hadn’t paid attention to before gave me a headache.
The ecosystem designed by the transcendent intelligence of the grade 1 Hive Mind, Hive Queen, is precisely controlled for continuous energy supply and gene provision, so the invasion of such monsters causes problems in the ecosystem.
Like the early bullfrogs or nutria in modern times, threatening the ecosystem by eating native species is absolutely impossible for these monsters that are clumsily designed for amphibious use and have ambiguous combat power.
Rather, these marine monsters often die easily, unable to overcome other monsters adapted to land, and as a result, the number of certain monsters is increasing due to the sudden increase in food.
It might be thought of as a good thing, but considering the balance and continuous energy supply that my territory’s ecosystem maintains, such a sudden increase in population is very bad.
Although I can handle it manually in the early stages of the situation now, if this continues, it’s natural that cracks will form in the balance of my beautiful farm, so I started to make efforts to solve this problem somehow.