Ch.4141. Attack from the Sea

Despite being overwhelmed by the combination play between Theseus and me before finally collapsing, the Fire Dragon’s defeat was merely circumstantial.

The original Fire Dragon was, in truth, an opponent that Theseus alone could not have handled.

The Fire Dragon fights by flying through the air and launching long-range attacks with breath and psychic flames. Its firepower is high, and above all, it’s definitely faster than Theseus.

Additionally, due to the special trait of Fire Dragon-type monsters, the power of its breath and attack strength increase the more damage it takes, and its defense also rises proportionally as its HP decreases.

Therefore, if they fought one-on-one in an open area, Theseus would eventually be forced to retire after taking too many ranged attacks. However, this battle happened to take place in the confined space of a cave.

Naturally, the Fire Dragon had no opportunity to fully utilize its superior mobility, long-range firepower, and the ability to grow stronger when cornered.

Furthermore, my support played a crucial role in allowing Theseus to overwhelm the Fire Dragon in close combat.

Stat enhancements—Physical Enhancement (A) which increases physical abilities by a percentage, Sensory Amplification (A) which greatly enhances the sixth sense of intuition and sharpens all senses, and Psychic Supply (A) which shares psychic energy MP—were all tremendously helpful.

Additionally, I immediately healed injuries with Psychic Healing (A), applied debuffs using debuff-specialized monsters, and did everything possible to help overcome the gap and dominate the battle.

Of course, even with all this support, Theseus could at best slightly pressure the Fire Dragon, the strongest dragon on the Korean Peninsula.

The Fire Dragon is powerful enough to completely devastate an entire city in just 10 minutes if it wanted to, but…

Now, this Fire Dragon has not only fallen into a completely incapacitated state but is also prepared for modification.

Just like the Mountain King and the Nine-Tailed Fox, this monster will now work as my subordinate from now on.

※ ※ ※

Before beginning the modification, the first priority is to ensure the monster neither wakes up nor dies during the procedure.

After firmly securing its limbs, I connect pipes to the blood vessels in its wounded areas to continuously inject a highly concentrated deadly poison with sleep-inducing and paralyzing effects.

One might worry about it dying, but a Grade 1 monster has such vast vitality and recovery ability that there’s no concern about death.

Of course, injecting such deadly poison inevitably deteriorates its health, so next, to maintain its life and establish control—I had Theseus slice open the Fire Dragon’s abdomen.

‘Cut it open, Theseus.’

[Yes.]

‘Slash!’

His delicate claw work cut only the dragon’s skin and scales, leaving not even the slightest scar on the distinctly pink-tinged organs.

After stopping the bleeding with protein particle-based nanomachines, I reached into the fully opened abdomen with all internal organs exposed and concentrated my psychic energy.

[Activating Telekinesis (A).]

Using precise telekinesis to remove various organs from the abdomen, I reached for the creature’s heart, or more precisely, its bio-core that functions as a heart—and took out what I had prepared in advance.

It’s an artificial organ called the “Heart of Senator,” which allows nano-spirits to assimilate with blood components such as red and white blood cells.

The Heart of Senator is to be implanted in the left ventricle of the heart, where oxygenated blood passes through before being distributed throughout the body. This is to transform blood cells into nanomachines before they’re sent out, while simultaneously serving as a combat assistant and control mechanism.

Blood cells that have undergone nanomachine transformation move to damaged areas when internal injuries occur, changing their properties to heal the damaged parts and hardening cells in response to impact.

Of course, in an emergency, the nanomachines would run wild inside the body, destroying all internal organs, but that’s beside the point.

Anyway, having implanted the control device in the heart, I immediately began the next procedure.

I cut through the scales, skin, and flesh of the back to expose the pure white spine directly.

Then, just as I did with the Mountain King and Nine-Tailed Fox, the moment I placed the specially treated silver nanomachines against the spine—the nanomachines transformed.

The nanomachines attached to the spine changed into an implant form that looked like something out of a cyberpunk game or movie.

It not only enhances reflexes but also strengthens the computational ability needed for psychic activation, and includes an active skill that can accelerate perceived time by 20-30 times for about 10 seconds.

Of course, with just one command from me, I could cause tremendous damage to the spinal cord physically connected to the implant, turning it into a vegetable… or rather, a vegetative monster.

Anyway, having implanted the device into the spine, all that remains is to replace part of the brain with monster tissue, as I’ve done with other monsters and humans.

However, unlike the procedures I performed on humans, the modification I’m performing on this creature is much more blatant, as I don’t care if it’s discovered.

Since there’s no reason to hide it, part of the control device is exposed outside the head, and being such a large control device, the control is much more powerful.

In the process of forced assimilation into the hive mind, self-awareness becomes blurred, and some brain functions will never activate without my will—creating a complete puppet.

※ ※ ※

While stabilizing the body of the Fire Dragon that had become my puppet, I was also steadily continuing my expansion operations.

I had taken control of the entire North Hamgyong Province and infiltrated the entire underground with my hive mind.

I had established production bases everywhere and was considering advancing westward when—

‘…An attack?’

Suddenly, something attacked my tunnels and production facilities along the East Sea coast and underwater, interfering with my plans.

‘Why are those things coming to the surface?’

The culprits were marine monsters.

Some monsters noticed my territory spreading through the seabed and attacked it. Seawater flowed into the underwater tunnels I had created, and the marine monsters used this to devastate my underwater passages.

The decisive cause of these underwater tunnel attacks was the humanoid monsters called Dolphinmen.

Dolphinmen. Their appearance is grotesque—a dolphin body with its head seemingly bent downward, with one pair of arms and legs that have webbed hands and feet.

Similar to typical land-based humanoid monsters, they live in groups with mid-level higher individuals leading lower-grade monsters, but they possess a particularly troublesome ultrasonic special ability.

They use this ability like bats for detection, effortlessly finding underwater tunnels, and then communicate via ultrasound to bring various sea monsters they’ve tamed to devastate my underwater territory.

The Grade 6 monster killer whales that serve as the Dolphinmen’s livestock and heavy equipment, and the Grade 7 Giant Seahorses used for multiple purposes like medieval or modern war horses, are just the beginning.

Dragon Turtles born from sea dragons, Sea Serpents, Lava Eels that inhabit underwater volcanoes and spew 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 one that had grown to adulthood (Grade 3).

Naturally, my hive mind monsters, which were never designed for naval combat, had predictable results when fighting these sea-battle specialized creatures in their element.

Fortunately, seawater didn’t reach the underground tunnels on land, so I ultimately lost about 60% of my underwater territory.

To make matters worse, the frequency of invasions by amphibious marine monsters through coastal areas has increased.

Most are just Lizard Sharks—sharks with lizard-like legs—or man-eating crabs, or crustacean monsters like shrimp that shoot air bubbles, but even so, invasions from areas I previously didn’t have to worry about are giving me a headache.

The ecosystem designed by the transcendent intelligence of the Grade 1 Hive Mind, the Hive Queen, is precisely controlled for continuous energy supply and genetic provision, so these monster invasions are causing ecological problems.

Like early modern invasive species such as bullfrogs or nutria that threatened native species by eating them, these awkwardly amphibious monsters with ambiguous combat abilities are absolutely incapable of threatening the ecosystem.

On the contrary, these marine monsters often die easily, unable to overcome other monsters adapted to land, resulting in a sudden increase in the population of certain monsters due to the increased food supply.

This might seem beneficial, but considering the balance of my territory’s ecosystem and the continuous energy supply, such sudden population increases are very unfavorable.

Although I can handle it manually in these early stages, if this continues, cracks will inevitably form in the balance of my beautiful farm. Therefore, I began working to resolve this issue.