Ch.6464. Scandal

At the very moment when a battle was raging to determine the ruler of the former North Korean territory.

Normally, when such a major incident occurred, he would be the type to interfere by any means necessary to deplete the forces on both sides, but…

[Breaking news! Reports about human trafficking groups cooperating with the government across the country have been confirmed as true!]

Due to the machinations of someone—certainly not a Hive Mind that had reached the realm of demigods—the entire Republic of Korea was plunged into serious chaos.

The circumstances of the incident were simple.

One day, a small to medium-sized media outlet known for its principled journalism revealed shocking information through a global video sharing site—information related to nationwide human trafficking.

Ordinarily, such an article would have been buried and the person in charge would have disappeared, but for some reason, thanks to larger media outlets, cyber wreckers, and the political sphere (mainly the opposition party) bringing it to public attention, this information spread rapidly throughout the country.

However, in this half-cyberpunk world, this alone would only worsen public opinion, not cause the kind of nationwide chaos that could paralyze the government.

Just when the incident was about to be forgotten through scapegoating—since most victims were from the poor class and the case was deeply entangled with politicians across party lines—hidden facts about the case began spreading through national emergency networks, and simultaneously, people connected to these facts started being found murdered one after another.

A judge who tried to bury the case was found with his body “donut-ed” on the sword held by the Statue of Justice in the Supreme Court garden.

The ruling party’s emergency committee chairman, who had attempted to flee, was discovered on Namsan Mountain with signs of repeated torture, his severed genitals stuffed in his mouth, with only his torso remaining.

The Seoul Police Commissioner, considered the main culprit in this case, surfaced in Cheonggyecheon Stream with his entire body shredded as if torn apart by pincers or small creatures.

As high-ranking officials continued to be murdered by someone’s hand, and public attention focused on this “someone”…

Suddenly one day, most electronic devices were hacked, and on their screens appeared the former National Intelligence Service Director, who had been in hiding, bound to a chair in a dark underground location.

Tied with glowing blue restraints presumably created using psychic abilities, she was clearly in a broken state.

Only two of her fingers remained intact while the rest had been severed, and those two remaining fingers were clean and pristine as if newly grown.

Her gagged mouth had only a few scattered teeth remaining, both ears had been cut off, and her nose was mutilated.

Where her eyeballs should have been, there was nothing, leaving her eyelids sunken in—a shocking appearance on screen. As people trembled in fear at her horrific condition…

[AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!]

[YOUKILLEDTHEMYOUKILLEDTHEMYOUKILLEDTHEMYOUKILLEDTHEM!!!!]

[DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!!!!]

With a scream containing all the resentment in this world, a being appeared on the screen.

This entity, wearing pitch-black full-body armor that seemed to depict a muscular physique, wore a deeply pulled hood that appeared to be made of shadows.

The inside of the hood was completely painted with shadows, with only red glowing eyes visible from within, and around this being floated other entities similarly shrouded in darkness.

If one had to describe them, they resembled wraiths or evil spirits—this being, accompanied by many such entities, appeared on screen holding what looked like a hammer made of shadows—

Whoosh—CRACK!

The hammer came down on the former NIS Director’s head, and simultaneously, the hack was terminated and devices returned to normal.

Of course, people’s minds could never return to how they were before seeing this.

Legends about this wraith-hero spread rapidly throughout society, and public sentiment worsened when it was confirmed that the NIS Director’s body was found in the basement of her large detached house with no other traces anywhere.

To top it all off, when some high-ranking officials released mind-controlled and modified people to create diversions for their escape, society fell even deeper into chaos.

Because of this turmoil, they couldn’t even interfere with the great war taking place in the north.

※ ※ ※

After the full-scale war began, an unimaginable number of monsters swarmed from the west.

Despite only possessing Pyongyang and its vicinity as territory, the number of incoming monsters—confirmed through hijacked satellites—appeared to be at least 100 million.

Of course, not all 100 million came at once, and among them, the proportion of mid-tier monsters was at most 50,000… roughly 20,000 or so.

These monsters moved in groups of about 1 million, and even though they were divided, most were commanded by mid-tier monsters, and the three high-tier monsters specialized in command and area-wide reinforcement rather than direct combat.

However, when comparing actual combat power, our side had the advantage.

Due to our overwhelmingly larger territory, we could mobilize more mid-tier monsters, and…

‘The key is that our forces specialize in ranged combat.’

Above all, the fact that my monsters primarily specialized in ranged attacks played a crucial role.

Although they needed separately manufactured weapons since they lacked biological armaments, and their production costs were higher due to having more diverse functions than typical Hive Mind monsters, my monsters had advantages that compensated for these disadvantages.

In terms of human military, the Hive Infantry-B, considered regular infantry, could simply shred approaching melee infantry with lasers thanks to their excellent marksmanship and firepower.

Meanwhile, the slightly larger Hive Infantry-A, used as mobile turrets or shields in close combat, could equip heavy weapons and, when dozens concentrated their firepower, could even handle medium to large mid-tier monsters.

With this advantage of countering mid-tier monsters with lower-tier ones, our mid-tier monsters should have had the upper hand in conventional ground warfare, but…

‘What’s going on? Why are they holding up so well?’

Despite the overwhelming tactical advantage of using ranged troops against approaching melee infantry, my monsters weren’t overwhelming or repelling the enemy as expected.

Furthermore, even in aerial combat where we should have dominated, I couldn’t achieve results superior to the enemy.

It wasn’t normal that my aerial monsters, created based on research findings from global scholars and various combat records, couldn’t overwhelm the enemy’s primitive flying monsters.

‘…Let me check.’

So I deployed observation monsters to examine the enemies from various angles to find the cause—and during observation, I suddenly felt something off about the enemy’s movements.

‘Huh?’

The oddity was that the coordination between enemy monsters was unnaturally precise.

Generally, monsters under a Hive Mind are connected through swarm intelligence, so precise coordination isn’t that strange.

As they accumulate combat experience through repeated killing and dying, some individuals can share senses through connections with other monsters. Considering that all Hive Mind entities are bound by strong psychic bonds—almost sharing a single soul—this precision makes sense.

Yet I still felt something was off because the entire army moved as if divinely possessed.

From the lowest 9th-grade Hive Spiders to the 1st-grade commander-type monsters that spread psychic enhancements to hundreds of thousands—all moved with such precision and organic coordination that the entire army seemed like a single organism…

‘—Could it be?’

At that moment, I formed a hypothesis.

Perhaps these monsters had gone beyond being connected to a Hive Mind—perhaps all individuals had fused their souls to create a 0th-grade monster.

It might sound absurd at first, but I knew better than anyone that all 0th-grade monsters were, in fact, absurd existences.

So I became certain.

Unlike me, they were beings obsessed with becoming completely unified—entities diametrically opposed to what I was.