I Became a Hive Mind in the Game

After urgently considering the importance of both fronts, I determined that dealing with the lizard monster was more crucial.
Even though the main base was under attack, fundamentally, Giant Ants are typical fodder among grade 9 monsters. Their abilities are inferior versions of the Hive Spider’s, and they have no biological armaments.
Moreover, while they essentially only have Giant Ants, our main base has two Chief Brains, one Hive Commander as my proxy, and Heavy Hive Spiders that were protecting me.
Therefore, if the Hive Miners, who are relatively stronger physically and have superior weapons, form groups to deal with them and are supported by grade 8-7 monsters, it should be enough to hold out, even if they can’t push back the front line due to numerical issues.

Anyway, shifting my attention back to the Hunting Team. Thanks to me directly supplying psychic energy, the psychic flame couldn’t penetrate the psychic shield and dissipated first.
But as a consequence, the Chief Brain I was controlling eventually couldn’t withstand the burden of being a psychic energy supply pipe and went down.
Looking at just this, it might seem overwhelmingly disadvantageous, but—fortunately, the lizard monster’s consumption was also intense.
Even in the game, elemental—specifically psychic flame—is known as a nuker, or extreme damage dealer, likened to a one-time bomb.
As a result of firing such a thing for over tens of seconds at maximum output without caring about the aftermath, the lizard monster’s internal psychic energy was depleted.
You might ask why it can’t just switch to physical attacks if there’s no psychic energy, but the answer is included in the knowledge gained from becoming a Hive Mind.
The reason monsters can move their huge bodies without burden is that they’re overcoming physical impossibilities with psychic power, so the depletion of psychic energy naturally has a significant negative impact on physical abilities as well.
[Psychic Construct (D) has been activated.]
[Psychokinesis (D) has been activated.]
Woong—Pshh!
■■■■■—!!!
Therefore, the lizard monster couldn’t avoid the psychic construct sword I launched by controlling the Chief Brain and was pierced through.
This meant that in addition to its movements becoming slower than before due to psychic energy depletion, the strength of its scales’ psychic resistance had also weakened.
‘Take this!’
[Psychokinesis (D) has been activated.]
And in this situation, psychokinesis acts as the most lethal counter skill against enemies with low psychic defense.
Wooooong!!!
■■■■……..!!!!
By applying pressure from all directions as if squeezing, it can restrain and attack simultaneously. Although I can’t instantly turn it into meat pieces due to the durability of the scales themselves, the density of the muscles, and the strength of the bones—if I push a little harder, it’s a different story.
[Psychic Relay (D) has been activated.]
[Hive Mind (D) has been activated.]

[Psychokinesis (D) has been activated.]
Not caring about the state of the Chief Brain I’m currently controlling, I unleash all the psychic energy I can muster.
Boom! Thud!
I emitted psychokinesis with an output that couldn’t be controlled by the Chief Brain’s body, to the extent that cracks formed on the ground due to the leaking energy—and the effect was extremely impressive.
Crack……..Crunch!
The monster’s hard scales might be excellent against blades or arrows, but they’re powerless against strong pressure applied from all directions—easily crushing even solid muscles.
■■■■■■—!!!!
So the lizard monster barely let out a final scream mixed with pain and—
Crunch! Crack!
There was no “pop!” sound, but instead, with the sound of all the bones in its body shattering, its entire body was crushed like meat pounded with a cutlet hammer.
Whether it was still breathing or not was beside the point; it looked thoroughly incapacitated.
‘About half of you eat this, the rest move to those remains over there.’
Following my order, as I blankly watched the monsters devouring without leaving any of the remains left behind in the process of the unique species transforming into the lizard monster, I could finally relax a bit and focus more on the other side—the main base.

※ ※ ※

Rewinding time a bit, to when the lizard monster that was once a unique species was fighting with the Hunting Team.
Wooong……..Crack!
Pshh!
Swish—Rustle!
At the main base, which had accidentally connected to an ant-type monster’s nest during excavation, the monsters were repelling the incoming ant-type monsters—Giant Ants—according to the orders of my split consciousness.
Despite the ants outnumbering us by hundreds of times, swarming endlessly with a strange clicking sound as their exoskeletons collided, they have a terribly bad compatibility with the Hive Mind.
The naturally sturdy Heavy Hive Spiders stand at the front line, with Hive Miners filling in the gaps, while Chief Brains attack them with psychokinesis from the rear.
The corpses of dead ants or monsters are immediately delivered to the Digestive Gland by the Chief Brains’ psychokinesis, and with the absorbed nutrients, I immediately produce monsters to supplement the lacking forces and deploy them to the front line.
With this routine repeating endlessly, the ants, which rely on mass-producing weak monsters to overwhelm with numbers, were no match for the Hive Mind’s characteristic of increasing forces for each kill.
Unexpectedly, the monster that achieved the most kills was the Hive Miner. They easily pierced through the ants’ exoskeletons, which were surprisingly tough and hard to ignore, with their bio-drills, and given their large numbers, this was a natural result.
Moreover, with me, the main body, directly using psychic powers to support with the part of my consciousness that I had intentionally split less, the tide of battle had completely turned at some point.
Although they seemed to be pressuring us by pushing in thousands of ants for every hundred that died, those pushed-in ants became precious nutrients for our side.
And perhaps realizing the problem with this routine, their leader—the Queen Ant—deployed new ants to break through this deadlocked front line.

‘…Those bastards are here as expected.’
Identical in appearance to regular Giant Ants except for their green exoskeletons, but actually grade 8 lower-grade monsters. They were monsters called Acid Turret Ants, specializing in long-range attacks using acidic liquid.
In the game, they were infamous for their malicious AI that would cluster together and concentrate acidic liquid attacks on a single target, and any Project Monster player would have experienced being dissolved by these creatures at least once when entering an ant nest dungeon as a beginner.
Yes, that’s exactly what’s happening on the current front line, but targeting us instead of players.
Pshh!
Right after about 13 of them appeared together, the Acid Turret Ants aimed their rear ends forward and shot acidic liquid at the Heavy Hive Spider at the very front.
Pshhhhh……
The Heavy Hive Spider hit by 13 doses of acidic liquid didn’t die due to its large size, but it suffered damage such as its outer exoskeleton melting or its joints being paralyzed by the acidic solution that hit them.
Crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crackle.
And as dozens of Giant Ants surrounded the weakened Heavy Hive Spider and burrowed inside to eat it away, it meant that the ant colony had found its own way to attack us.
Of course, we weren’t just watching this happen.
Pshh!
[Psychokinesis (D) has been activated.]
The moment the Acid Turret Ants shot acidic liquid at the Heavy Hive Spiders, their second victims, psychic energy emitted from the orange luminous bodies—psychic amplifiers—embedded throughout the cave attacked the Acid Turret Ants in the form of psychokinesis.
Caught off guard by this attack method we had never shown in front of them before, the Acid Turret Ants were restrained by psychokinesis and then crushed along with the strong pressure applied by it.
It was a counter that exploited the ants’ weaknesses: their low psychic resistance and vulnerability to area-of-effect attacks.
Although I could see more Acid Turret Ants being replenished from the back, I still couldn’t dare imagine our side losing.
‘…They’re here!’
Because finally, through the passage, the Hunting Team arrived, carrying a large amount of nutrients and genes obtained from the lizard monster that was once a unique species.
As soon as they arrived and dove into the Digestive Gland to be digested, I was able to obtain genes with information on dozens of traits, skills, and biological armaments recorded.
[Trait ‘Flame Resistance (D)’ has been acquired.]
[Trait ‘Armored Scales (D)’ has been acquired.]
[Skill ‘Psychic Flame (D)’ has been acquired.]
[Skill ‘Psychic Resistance Bestowal (D)’ has been acquired.]
[Skill ‘Raid Factor (D)’ has been acquired.]
[Trait ‘Elemental Psychic User (D)’ has been acquired.]
[Biological Armament ‘Thorn Tentacle (D)’ has been acquired.]
[Skill ‘Psychic Shield (D)’ has been acquired.]
[Trait ‘Super Regeneration (E)’ has been acquired.]
Status messages displaying dozens of traits embedded in the acquired genes began to appear rapidly before my eyes.
And while combining these genes, I began to create monsters to effectively slaughter those ants—and further, to invade their ant nest in reverse.