Chương 190: Reborn as the Dragon — Chapter 190 - Hive Mind (1)

An average adult dragon didn't even clock ten thousand tons. Drag one out of the sky and sit on it, and that was that. The smile spreading across Su Nian's face grew shameless. Lewd, even. He'd endured that much pain through the evolution. He was getting it back somehow. The Sakura Players could look forward to a visit later. As for Anna. Su Nian turned his head and found his little darling slumped over, out cold from mana exhaustion.

His consciousness had been hazy through most of the transformation, but he'd still felt her, pouring everything she had into healing him, every last drop. He crawled to her side. He looked at her. The sweat on her temple hadn't dried yet. Her face was pale, lovely even like this, but too pale. The neural pain still hadn't fully let up. He barely noticed. His chest was warm. She must be completely wiped out. Surely she deserved a couple of licks.

Su Nian had always been a dragon who acted the moment a thought crossed his mind. So he extended his tongue and went to work, licking the fine sweat from Anna's forehead and cheeks. Salty, with the faintest trace of something milky. She must have felt it somewhere in her unconscious. Anna's soft pink lips twitched. A faint blush rose across her face, chasing the pallor away. Su Nian didn't know any healing magic. He didn't need to. This wasn't an injury, just the bone-deep exhaustion that followed mana burnout.

Rest would fix it. She'd wake on her own. Nothing to worry about. He scooped up his little treasure in his mouth and carried her to the tall throne, then tucked the bearskin blanket snug around her. Then, as fitting punishment for the absurd volume of healing spells she'd thrown at him, he helped himself to a few more licks on her face. The next stage of punishment would wait until she woke up. For now, he had a new ability to play with.

After the [Hive Mind] transformation loaded, Su Nian pulled up the system's inspection function and found that his cerebellum had changed. New tissue had grown throughout it, adhesive and clustered, unmistakably similar to a Zerg brain's structure. The tissue had dramatically amplified his neural activity. His senses sharpened to a degree that didn't seem entirely real. But that was just the passive benefit of [Hive Mind] acting on his own body. Deep inside the adhesive tissue sat an organ shaped like a spindle.

The system called it the Dominion Hillock. Its primary function: establishing neural connections with his designated followers. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. He didn't need the system to explain how to use it. He already knew. Su Nian sank into the sensation of the Dominion Hillock activating. A hum filled his skull. His vision bled red. Silver threads drifted through the blood-red dark. Hundreds of them.

Each one stretched outward to a different monster under his command, and all of them traced back to a single point. Him. He was the center of the web. [Host, you may now establish connections with up to one thousand follower units. To connect with more units, continue upgrading "Hive Mind."] Su Nian ignored that. He reached out with his will and brushed one of the silver threads. [Potatoes for lunch today! I love potatoes! Thank the great master for blessing us with potatoes! Fried potatoes! Deep-fried potatoes! Steamed potatoes! Praise be to potatoes~] [Hm? Why is master looking at me like that?] A kobold. Standing guard. Brain completely full of root vegetables. Su Nian withdrew his attention and moved on. There was nothing more to see there. The primary Hive Mind only had a thousand slots. He was going to spend every single one on his elites. But first — an experiment. He needed to know what this thing could actually do.

He found the silver thread belonging to Kobold Chieftain Borikli and pressed his entire will into it at once. At that same moment, Borikli — currently occupied with his wife — went completely still. A strangled "gah" escaped him. His eyes unfocused. Then the brown-black of his irises lit up with a dim reddish gold. Su Nian's expression went strange. He was sharing everything.

His soul and will had poured into Borikli's body without reservation, and that meant he was also getting Borikli's wife in the package, Absolutely not. Su Nian yanked himself out immediately. That was a sensation he had no interest in ever having again. He shook his head hard and redirected his focus to the mechanics of [Hive Mind]. So. The connection with Borikli was now active.

He could hear Borikli's thoughts in real time, take full control of the chieftain's body whenever he chose, and see through Borikli's eyes. What he'd just seen through those eyes was not something he wanted to revisit. For a dragon whose heart held exactly one person, Anna, it had been genuinely traumatic. After withdrawing from the domination state, the silver thread connecting him to Borikli had turned gold. He focused on it, and information surfaced. [What just happened to me? Did I get stronger?!] [Why does it feel like master... entered my body?] [Could this be haunting...?] Those were Borikli's thoughts. Entertaining, but beside the point. What mattered were the other notifications. [Kobold Borikli's draconification is accelerating. Countdown: seconds] [Kobold Borikli has inherited 0. 1% of your attributes based on bloodline concentration] [Please select the inherited skill to impart to Kobold Borikli. Current options: Dragon Breath, Iron Hide, Muscle Power Enhancement] So the followers were strengthening alongside him. As the draconification progressed, the dragon bloodline concentration in the kobolds' blood would keep rising. There was a ceiling to how far it could go, but the point was, he no longer had to spend heart's blood on followers like Borikli to push their growth. Heart's blood wasn't something you grew on a farm. He felt every drop he gave away.

Now he had a choice to make: one skill, passed on to Kobold Chieftain Borikli. Truthfully, for all that Borikli was his earliest follower, the chieftain's combat power sat at the very bottom of the roster. Kobolds were fast and they swarmed, but they were fragile. You couldn't deal damage from a grave. Staying alive was the whole game. After a moment's thought, Su Nian settled on Iron Hide. He was curious what that would actually look like on a kobold.

He touched the golden thread again and descended into Borikli's mind with the full weight of an absolute sovereign's will.

"Borikli." The black dragon's voice hit like a thunderclap inside the kobold chieftain's skull. The poor creature flinched so hard he nearly lost function permanently. Borikli's head cleared. What stood in his mind was enormous and black and utterly without limit. A dragon. The dragon. Wings wrapped in destructive flame that blotted out the sky entire. Dragon claws like mountain ranges pressing into earth that split and crumbled beneath them. The gods themselves keened beneath that fierce and terrible gaze.

Mountains broke. The ground tore open. Lava erupted in great arcs through clouds of rolling black smoke. The world was ending. And Borikli was on his knees before it. A single speck of dust before something infinite.

Today's Anna ➤ Next: Hive Mind (2)