Ch.2828. Anti-Psychic Bomb

After completing my inspection of the nearby underground airfield, I returned my core consciousness to the main base and immediately tried to formulate a countermeasure against that Grade 0 Hive Mind, but…

‘If it were that easy, they would have wiped out humans and everything else long ago!’

Naturally, it was by no means a simple task.

And to explain why, one must first understand just how powerful and dangerous a Grade 0 Hive Mind monster truly is.

Grade 0. A classification that designates the highest-tier monsters, one level above the Grade 1 monsters which are already classified as high-tier. The difference in combat power between Grade 0 and Grade 1 monsters is vast.

Of course, the gap isn’t as extreme as that between mid-tier and low-tier monsters, where one rare mob (Hunter Raptor) with good compatibility can take on thousands of lower-grade boss-level entities (me) and their minions (my monsters). The combat power of a highest-tier monster is generally evaluated to be equivalent to about 3-5 Grade 1 monsters.

But obviously, if this were all there was to it, since I’m a Grade 1 Hive Mind, I could simply produce several high-tier monsters to beat it down, and there would be no need to blame the management team for the existence of Grade 0 monsters.

The reason I’m so wary is precisely because of the S-rank traits granted to highest-tier monsters.

Unlike ordinary traits that are typically ranked from E to A, S-rank traits are rare and unique characteristics that only Grade 0 monsters can possess, and only one such trait per monster.

A prime example is the Colossal(S) trait of the Living Island, a highest-tier giant turtle monster. Thanks to this trait, the Living Island is the size of Ulleungdo Island with tremendous close combat capabilities, and most importantly, its HP exceeds 8 hae (800,000,000,000,000,000,000).

Additionally, Lobriter, the final boss of the 5th event, has the King of Monsters(S) trait, which allows it to dominate and strengthen lower-grade monsters on a global scale.

And though it may seem less impressive but still undeniably a highest-tier monster, the Pyongyang Hive Mind possesses the Psychic Entity(S) trait that all Grade 0 Hive Minds have.

With this trait, as I explained earlier, the main body—or more precisely, the consciousness of the main body—moves to the psychic dimension, making direct interference between entities impossible.

However, while the Hive Mind can still use the physical body it had when it was a Grade 1 Hive Queen and can possess any monster it creates, defeating it requires extremely difficult and limited methods.

The first method is to defeat it by exploiting the fact that Grade 0 Hive Minds, being psychic entities, exist in the same psychic dimension and can therefore interfere with each other.

This is practically a method I could use with a fairly high chance of success, but… there’s one major problem.

The problem is that since the Pyongyang Grade 0 Hive Mind is an entity formed by the merger of seven Hive Queens, even if I evolved to Grade 0, I would still be weaker than it.

Therefore, I had no choice but to conclude that the first method was impossible.

The second method seemed more promising than the first—killing all the monsters that are part of the Pyongyang Hive Mind.

A Grade 0 Hive Mind becomes the collective consciousness of its monsters, and it cannot die as long as even one monster that is part of that collective consciousness remains alive. But because of this characteristic, it cannot exist if there are no monsters to maintain the collective consciousness.

This method is considered the most orthodox approach as it has been implemented in-game before, but naturally, the difficulty is beyond imagination.

Even a Grade 1 Hive Mind can produce monster armies in the millions, while a Grade 0 Hive Mind can essentially extract all energy from the land to produce a tremendous number of monsters.

However, the territory they control is similar to mine in size, so by rough calculation, their limit would be around 2 billion monsters.

But even this would mostly consist of low-tier monsters, and apart from the seven Hive Queens, they wouldn’t have the capacity to produce additional high-tier monsters, so in terms of pure monster quality, I have the advantage.

Therefore, I judged this method to have the highest possibility of success and continued to create monsters while constantly considering other methods.

The third method, which is the most likely to occur at present, is a war between humans and the Grade 0 Hive Mind.

It’s quite obvious that the developers deliberately created this crisis for the Korean Peninsula server, so even if I don’t do anything special, the Grade 0 Hive Mind will eventually clash head-on with South Korea.

If I intervene and induce this conflict, the war will naturally occur more quickly.

And in this process, both sides will suffer significant damage, allowing me to swoop in and devour the two weakened factions… but there’s one serious problem with this method.

The problem is that regardless of which side loses, it would only be disadvantageous to me.

The Pyongyang Hive Mind, though unintentionally, serves as a barrier against South Korean humans trying to advance northward. If they were to be defeated before I’ve grown sufficiently, humans would advance unhindered.

But paradoxically, if South Korea falls, another problem arises. If the Grade 0 Hive Mind occupies the Korean Peninsula where no humans live, it’s obvious what external forces would do.

Anti-psychic missiles would be the minimum response, and they would erase the uninhabited Korean Peninsula with various nuclear weapons and tactical nukes.

Therefore, this method was put on hold, leaving me with only the final option.

Though it has never appeared in the game, it’s still a method with considerable potential: using an anti-psychic bomb.

Given the nature of anti-psychic bombs, which nullify all psychic effects within their range, they are even more lethal to Grade 0 Hive Minds that maintain themselves solely through collective consciousness without physical bodies.

In my case, even if all connections to other monsters are severed, my main body would still remain, but for a Grade 0 Hive Mind without a proper main body, the severing of all connections means death.

While the anti-psychic bomb is an excellent weapon in many respects, I shouldn’t expect humans to detonate one in Pyongyang for this very reason.

This is because anti-psychic bombs affect humans in this world as well, functioning as a kind of nuclear weapon.

Humans exposed to an anti-psychic bomb explosion—specifically, those with psychic user potential—suffer severe internal injuries as their psychic abilities go haywire, with the damage being proportional to their psychic potential.

In this Project Monster world, over 90% of humans have at least some potential as psychic users, and those in higher positions tend to enhance this talent through procedures or other means.

Furthermore, anti-psychic bombs and missiles are characterized by their very wide effective range, designed to reach ground targets with anti-psychic waves even if they’re shot down in mid-air.

Therefore, it’s impossible for humans to use them, and it’s equally impossible to hijack such strategic weapons, which are treated on par with nuclear weapons, with just a few humans.

So, only one method remained.

I would have to make one myself and use it against the enemy.

※ ※ ※

To create an anti-psychic bomb, the first thing I needed was a blueprint.

The actual construction would be simple enough with a blueprint—I could just replace various precision parts with monster biological organs according to the design—so if nothing else, the blueprint was absolutely necessary.

But naturally, there was no easy way to obtain the blueprint for a weapon treated on par with nuclear weapons. So while I was contemplating which senior researcher might be suitable for “replacement”…

[Mother, I’ve found the blueprint.]

‘…What?’

A report came in from Theresia, who I hadn’t given much thought to, saying she had found the blueprint for an anti-psychic bomb.

‘What do you mean you found it? Where?’

Naturally shocked by this news, I demanded further explanation from Theresia, and her response left me speechless.

[I searched for it on the internet and found it.]

‘…? What did you say?’

[When I searched on Google, images of old anti-psychic bomb blueprints appeared right at the top. The principles are also explained in detail in academic papers. I’ll forward the collected materials to Tetra.]

‘Uh, okay…’

After the communication ended, I pondered this incomprehensible situation and, after analyzing the blueprint forwarded by Tetra, finally reached a conclusion.

In essence, this blueprint was, to use a real-world analogy, like that of Little Boy or Fat Man—an incredibly outdated design.

Due to technological limitations, it was too large to be fired as a missile, and the cost was so high that producing a single one would consume a significant portion of an annual budget—the kind of weapon that was used once and immediately replaced.

Moreover, the so-called “paper” was just a basic explanation of anti-psychic principles, so creating an anti-psychic bomb with this would only be possible for a developed country… or at least a middle-income country.

It would require hundreds of thousands of precision parts produced only by specific companies, at least a B-rank biological core, and even with numerous trials and errors in the experimental process, success would not be guaranteed, but…

All these conditions only apply to humans.

Precision parts can be adequately replaced with monster biological organs.

While producing high-tier monsters might be burdensome, creating a single biological core is not at all.

Experiments needed to implement theory into reality can be resolved through brain simulations created with superior collective intelligence.

Although the resources consumed are by no means small, they are nothing compared to the value of an anti-psychic bomb, so I invested energy into its production without hesitation.

As a result, I became capable of producing biological anti-psychic bombs whenever needed.

Although a separate delivery method would be required, having a countermeasure available at any time brought peace to my mind.