Ch.112112. Evolution

The five Valbar gods, blinded by vengeance, were coordinating their efforts to face the Hive Mind—that is, me—perhaps because we were still gods of the same race.

Unlike those previous rabble, who were unremarkable compared to other ‘divine’ psychic entities except for their numbers around 50, these ones were definitely different.

With their numbers reduced to 1/10, each received ten times the souls, and from what I’ve observed, they had continuously interfered for thousands of years to implant vengeance against us into the Valbar race’s genes. As a result, they were burning with the desire to kill me, having absorbed souls and thoughts filled with revenge—

Given the nature of this psychic dimension, where emotions of soul-bearing beings become power, this vengeful spirit actually serves as the driving force that makes them stronger when facing me.

A four-legged mammal resembling a bronze lion, a knight in black armor, a mage draped in red robes, a gray dragon with five heads, and a monstrous bird with ominous blue-glowing feathers.

The five Valbar gods transformed their sub-dimensions into these forms and attempted to attack my sub-dimension located in the psychic realm, so I too transformed my sub-dimension to confront them.

My true original form, the essence of the Hive Mind itself. A mass of tentacles with enormous maws that reflected the cosmos within—that was my form.

Amidst the writhing of countless tentacles—transparent, large, translucent, thick, small, thin, long, glistening with moisture, withered—stained with numerous colors like pink, purple, navy, black, gray, and reddish-brown, countless forms of “maws” appeared between the tentacles.

Having transformed into a form that reflected my identity as both a collective intelligence and a single entity, and essentially an apex predator, I looked at their attacks and then—

—CHOMP!

By opening my 【Mouth】 and closing it forcefully, I predated=absorbed their attacks made of psychic energy.

《Wh-what…!》

《…Did it… eat it?!!》

When I fought them before, these five survived by being the first to flee, but paradoxically, they don’t know much about me=us because of that.

Unlike them, who can only predate=absorb the souls and energy of the Valbar because they originated from the thoughts and soul remnants of that specific race, they don’t know that I can eat (absorb) anything.

They were thoroughly confused by an action incomprehensible by their common sense, frantically speaking… but there’s one fact they don’t know.

From the beginning, I intentionally let them go—planning to raise them and then devour them.

I deliberately occupied only about half the territory, intentionally left the former Valbar Empire territories unfortified to make them easy to invade.

Out of forty-nine entities, I deliberately let five youngsters escape who wouldn’t pose a significant threat if left alive, and even dispatched disguised monsters among them to guide public opinion toward revenge.

Of course, I also hid some of our Seah and several monsters disguised as cargo inside their migration fleet, so that situation should be resolved by now.

So what I need to do now to complete my thousands-of-years-long plan of raising-to-eat (literally) is clear.

‘Theo and Seri will handle things well enough, I’m sure.’

I’ll leave the invasion fleet to those in the material realm, while I leisurely devour and digest these ones.

《Don’t, don’t come closer!》

《Plarlok! Do something!》

《My-my body won’t move—AAAAARRRGGHHH!!!》

CHOMP! CRUNCH! CRUNCH! MUNCH!… Gulp.

《Plarlok! Plarlok! Damn it, Bullmbear!》

《I know! HAAAA—Ugh, urrrk…》

CRUNCH! Munch, munch… Gulp.

《BULLMBEEEEAAAR—!!!!》

《Damn it! Ev-everyone run! I’ll—urk…》

Slurp—crunch crunch crunch crunch… Gulp.

All for a single purpose—to ascend from demigod to the next level by devouring various psychic life forms with divine attributes.

※ ※ ※

Let’s turn back time briefly. To the early days of colonization when I had just acquired about 700 planetary systems.

Until then, I honestly didn’t have any particular thoughts about the future.

I was merely building up military forces, constructing satellite-scale weapons, and expanding territory primarily through empty planetary systems, all with a mindset of preparing for possible calamities.

After that, the occasional space pirates—or rather space nomads—focused on plundering civilizations that had just begun to venture into space, and we were generally still inexperienced in space colonization.

So one day, as I was absorbing empty territories and mass-producing countless fleets.

For the first time, I encountered an interstellar empire of similar size to my legion in this universe.

This nation, composed of intelligent beings that could be called slug-humans, was a civilization unlike any I had seen before, developed based on their innately superior psychic abilities as well as their scientific prowess.

They used ships made from trees that produced silicon-like materials, and traveled between planets through paths established in the psychic dimension—a unique method of movement through space.

And more than anything else, I couldn’t help but be amazed that they had another divine attribute holder—one that had naturally emerged from their excellent psychic aptitude.

Now, psychic-based civilizations aren’t so unique since there are a few here and there, but back then, I was quite interested in meeting an entity of equal status for the first time and tried to approach them amicably, but…

《Leader of these filthy beasts, if you submit, I might show special mercy…》

[…What?]

This so-called divine entity was far more arrogant and lacking in judgment than I expected.

Given that we were nearly equal in both power and influence in the psychic dimension, common sense would dictate avoiding conflict and establishing an equal relationship, even if only superficially—isn’t that the basics of diplomacy?

But this divine entity behaved as if it were dozens of times stronger than me, and when I glared at it, it accused me of being disrespectful and impulsively attacked me.

Since the power between two psychic entities was almost equal, the battle in the psychic dimension was naturally evenly matched, but the battle in the physical dimension was different.

I deployed everything from anti-psychic user viruses to various anti-psychic weapons without reservation, and even mobilized the satellite-class Hive Ship, which, though slightly incomplete, had finished teleportation and planet-buster functions.

Additionally, I produced monsters with excellent psychic resistance specifically to hunt those slugs and deployed them to the front lines. As a result, they were one-sidedly pushed back to the brink of extinction.

《You, you! How dare you do this to my children!!!》

[So what? If you throw the first punch, you should be prepared for the consequences.]

CHOMP!… Gulp.

And as the number of slugs decreased, the divine entity that drew power from their emotions, souls, and psychic energy also significantly weakened, and was eventually eaten (absorbed) by me.

After that day, I was plagued by some concerns.

That entity was devoured by me because its forces were weak despite having similar power to mine, but it would be mere escapism to think there aren’t divine attribute holders who are more reckless yet stronger than me.

So what I chose was to grow stronger by devouring divine entities born from concentrated emotions across the universe—ultimately to ascend from demigod to a being one step beyond.

However, since the conclusion was drawn that I couldn’t ascend even by the year 40,000 CE just by devouring other divine attribute holders, I changed my approach.

I decided to raise and then devour psychic entities with divine attributes by using races with excellent psychic aptitude, like the Valbar that exist throughout the galaxy.

I’ve been devouring divine entities through various methods, including deliberately invading civilizations with divine attributes, pushing them to the brink of destruction, and then inducing them to seek revenge.

Among these, there have been many cases where I conducted operations solely for the purpose of raising them to eat for thousands of years, and now it’s time for the fruits of these operations to be harvested in earnest.

So to summarize this story, it’s about my journey to complete the final steps for my evolution to the next stage by the year 10,000 CE.