I Became a Hive Mind in the Game

The Mountain Lord was startled at the moment when a tremendous explosion suddenly rang out and the entire cave shook, but that surprise didn’t last long.

At some point, the surprise disappeared, and instead, anger took its place.

It was anger towards the intruder who dared to cause a disturbance in its territory.

Thud.

After throwing down the piece of meat it had been chewing to the floor, the Mountain Lord quickly began to return its body, stiffened from long sleep, to its original state.

First, it activated some of the deactivated bio cores, and flowed psychic energy into the stiffened muscles. After raising its senses to the maximum, the Mountain Lord surrounded its body with force fields produced from the cores and majestically left the cave—

Wuuuuung—Kwagagagagagagagagagagang!!!

What greeted such a Mountain Lord was plasma shot by thousands of Hive Wyverns and the energy breath of the Hive Dragon ‘Theseus’.

The high-temperature plasma masses formed and fired from the Wyverns’ mouths explode like shells at the point of impact, and Theseus’s energy breath is, frankly speaking, a laser-type breath resembling Go■■■’s radioactive heat ray.

The plasma masses pouring down like rain completely consumed the thick force field on the skin, and once the force field disappeared, leaving the skin defenseless, it was impossible to block the fatal attack of a grade 1 monster even if protected by fur with energy resistance.

Duuuuuuuuuuuuung!!!!

With a strange sound resembling a ship’s horn, the skill implanted in Theseus by the Hive Mind solely to deal with this opponent—energy breath—penetrated the Mountain Lord’s body.

With the head, heart, and the largest and highest-grade bio core penetrated, it seemed impossible for any living being to survive such an injury.

In the game, the breath’s damage might not be enough to finish it in one shot, only reducing HP, but when that game became reality, the story changed.

As long as monsters are still living beings, even the Mountain Lord couldn’t survive having its head to torso completely penetrated.

…If what was hit had been merely a living being, that is.

《Kryaaaaaaaaa—–!!!!》

From the dark inside of the cave, obscured by shadows and dust, a sound wave like an explosion burst out, blowing away the dust and sweeping away the Hive Wyverns.

And thanks to the dust clearing, what Theseus confirmed inside, now clearly visible, was none other than the Mountain Lord’s shadow clone with a hole in its head slowly recovering—and the unharmed Mountain Lord peeking its head out.

Surprisingly, this intelligent beast had immediately summoned a shadow clone and switched places with it the moment its force field was stripped away.

After all, since the shadow clone is close to an extremely advanced psychic construct, even if a large hole is pierced in its head, it can restore its form as long as there’s energy (HP) left to compose the body.

‘…Dizzy.’

Anyway, back to the main point. Although Theseus was directly hit by the sound wave shot by the Mountain Lord, there was almost no damage.

The sound wave was weakened as it spread out to take out the Wyverns at once, and even when hit directly by such a weakened sound wave, it only pushed Theseus back slightly and made it a bit dizzy at most.

But the Mountain Lord, not one to fail to predict such a result, immediately went into the next attack as soon as it fired the sound wave.

《Kwang—!》

Whoosh!

After charging its shadow clone as a shield, the Mountain Lord began to fire compressed sound wave bullets from its mouth.

Bullets that would definitely be fatal if they hit parts with low defense like wings, even coated with force fields despite being sound waves, were flying everywhere, and the shadow clone’s close-range attack was too powerful to ignore.

‘…!’

Wuuung—Kuuuuuuuuu!!!!

Therefore, Theseus barely used its psychic ability—Gravity Manipulation (B)—to slam the shadow clone to the ground, and using the little time gained in this process, hastily increased its altitude.

It intended to rapidly ascend into the clouds to secure sufficient distance and use psychic abilities to finish off the shadow clone first, but… the Mountain Lord was here.

Kuuung—!!!

With a thunderous sound, the Mountain Lord leaped off the ground, instantly reaching Theseus hiding in the clouds and swung its claws.

Whoosh—Chaeng!

It’s a proper aerial battle, taking place above the clouds where there’s nowhere to set foot. No matter how superior the Mountain Lord might be in terms of weight class, physical abilities, and experience, its aerial combat ability should be inferior to the Hive Dragon, but…

Whrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr—-!!!!

Crackleeeeeeeeeeeee—-!!!!

Swishhhhhhhhhhhh…….

‘What is this cat?!!!’

Surprisingly, the Mountain Lord was slightly dominating in close combat with Theseus, who was assisting itself using elemental psychic abilities, by leaping through the sky by kicking the air with its feet.

It lightly dodges claws flying in wrapped in flames that burn force fields, and pushes back the tail coated with cold and electricity that makes the body sluggish with its body surrounded by an overwhelmingly large amount of force field.

Puk!

As Theseus staggered from its tail being pushed back, the Mountain Lord swung its claws again, and when Theseus barely blocked this with a psychic construct shield and psychic barrier—the Mountain Lord pushed through the barrier with its head.

‘…Kuk!’

Perhaps due to the influence of the knockback pattern that existed in the game, Theseus was pushed back along with the shattered psychic construct—when suddenly a familiar voice was heard in its ear.

[Theseus, hold on a little longer.]

‘Mother?!’

Along with the voice of its mother and Hive Mind, psychic energy flowed into its mind and manifested, taking form.

The psychic energy transformed into dozens of rings near Theseus, and inside these rings, black portal-like things were created—and huge icicles formed of psychic cold began to pour out.

The Mountain Lord charged powerfully, shattering the pouring giant icicles with its roar—

—?!!!

Suddenly feeling the sensation of the shadow clone’s connection being cut off—a signal that the clone had been destroyed—it was startled and momentarily froze in place.

The Mountain Lord and its shadow clone are connected to each other, so the Mountain Lord can check the current state of the shadow clone.

However, until this signal just now, the Mountain Lord hadn’t received any indication that the shadow clone had taken any major damage to significantly reduce the remaining energy (HP) needed to maintain its body.

And this means, in other words, that the Mountain Lord’s shadow clone was destroyed by a single blow, or damage so strong it felt like a single blow despite dozens of extremely fast attacks.

Therefore, the Mountain Lord was shocked that its clone, which was clearly at the level of a grade 2-3 monster even if weaker than itself, was defeated in a single blow, and froze momentarily, and seizing this opportunity, attacks poured onto the Mountain Lord.

‘Go, Hive Wyverns!’

It was the Plasma Blasters fired by the surviving Hive Wyverns among those that had been blown far away by the sound wave earlier, now returning.

Kwagagagagagagagagagagagagagagagang—-!!!!

Even if they fire Plasma Blasters, which are among the strongest in terms of firepower, it’s very difficult for medium-grade monsters like Hive Wyverns to inflict direct damage on the Mountain Lord.

At best, they can only consume and strip away the force field surrounding the skin, but in fact, this is the most important part.

Stripping away the Mountain Lord’s force field means, in other words, that they can inflict direct wounds on the Mountain Lord’s flesh.

‘Take this!’

Theseus, opening its mouth wide, began preparing to fire a breath by activating the biological organs in its throat area to condense energy.

Of course, the Mountain Lord wouldn’t just stand by and wait for this. To interfere with the firing of the breath, the Mountain Lord was about to spew sound waves from its mouth, but…

Piew—Pibibibibibibibibibibi!!!

To interfere with such a Mountain Lord, the Hive Valkyrie who had single-handedly eliminated the Mountain Lord’s shadow clone. Theo quickly flew up to the sky commanding 24 Hive Starlights, and began firing wildly at the Mountain Lord with the weapons they were equipped with.

Due to the weight class difference, the Hive Starlights’ energy blasters only managed to slightly ruffle the fur, but the psychic blaster fired by the grade 1 monster Hive Valkyrie—Theo—was different in power.

Psychic energy is fired from the psychic blasters deployed to cover the entire lower part of both arms below the elbows, and where it hits, a grand explosion occurs, pushing back the huge Mountain Lord.

[…Switching to close range.]

And towards the Mountain Lord whose posture was disrupted like this, Theo switched the psychic blasters on both arms to psychic swords, then swung them mercilessly, focusing on the Mountain Lord’s back area.

So skin and flesh are cut away, and the pain of bones being scraped overwhelms the Mountain Lord. Unable to withstand Theo, who was too small and fast compared to the Mountain Lord, it finally began to slowly descend to the ground from the sky—

Kwagagagagagagagagagagang—-!!!!

As the energy breath extended, grazing the back of the descending Mountain Lord, the Mountain Lord, with 50% of its spine destroyed, crashed into the ground unable to move its body.

※ ※ ※

Despite having more than 50% of its spine destroyed and falling from a height where there were clouds… surprisingly, even in that state, the Mountain Lord was still breathing.

It was enough to feel respect for its marvelous vitality, but that was the extent of it. The Mountain Lord, with more than half of its internal bio cores damaged from the impact of the fall, was captured by the Hive Mind without resistance, and what followed was as everyone expected.

While forcibly incorporating the Mountain Lord’s ego into the Hive Mind, the Hive Mind implanted an artificial spine made of Nano-Spirits that also serves as a control device into the Mountain Lord’s shattered spine.

And after cleanly healing the Mountain Lord’s remaining injuries, the Hive Mind secretly sent the Mountain Lord to Gangwon-do as a surprise gift, and as a result. The Hive Mind was able to obtain something it had never imagined.

‘Jackpot!’

It was the body of an active high-grade hunter.