Agatha Voldemort and Quirrell the Dragon Lion

Agatha Voldemort and Quirrell the Dragon Lion

The surgery went far more smoothly than expected.

Agatha's understanding of biological brain tissue far exceeded the Overmind's expectations. Heaven knew what she'd cut, but the Dragon Lion had somehow become completely oblivious to the part of its body behind its back.

At one point, the Overmind even deliberately woke the Dragon Lion while its skull was still open. It showed extreme terror at the heart that had been ripped from its chest. It wailed and trembled, the mane around its neck standing on end like the bristles of a feather duster.

The powerful sound waves reverberated through the cramped space, making even the Overmind's skin tingle.

Meanwhile, Agatha was scraping at its spine.

There was no need to elaborate on how sharp Agatha's claws were. The teeth-grinding screech and bone fragments scattering everywhere made the Overmind's scalp crawl as he watched from the side.

Yet all of the Dragon Lion's attention remained fixed on its own chest, utterly ignoring everything happening behind it.

Before his transmigration, the Overmind had come across some neurological disorders caused by brain damage. There was "Blindsight," where one's eyes were perfectly healthy but one couldn't realize one had vision; "Hemispatial Neglect," where one unconsciously ignored the left half of everything; "Alien Hand Syndrome," where one believed one's hand had developed a will of its own...

He just hadn't expected Agatha to be capable of artificially creating such neurological disorders.

They placed the excised brain tissue on the Creep, then issued an order through the Hive Mind for the Creep to differentiate into a cocoon and wrap it up, making it easier to stitch back later.

It definitely had to be stitched back. Agatha wouldn't remain on the Dragon Lion's back forever. Once the Spawning Pool was established, the Overmind would reshape a Queen's body for her. If the Dragon Lion's original brain were left incomplete, it might cause stiff movements or distorted senses, and the Overmind was counting on it to serve as his muscle.

He reached into the back of the Dragon Lion's head and hit it with Psionic Energy at point-blank range, swiftly knocking it unconscious.

Then the Overmind laid Agatha across the enormous wound on the Dragon Lion's back, where its spine was exposed, and began fusing the two under Agatha's guidance.

Honestly, the process didn't feel much like surgery to the Overmind. It felt more like laying bricks: the Dragon Lion and Agatha were the bricks, while Creep induced into granulation tissue was the cement...

No matter how incomplete Agatha's body was, she had originally been the former Overmind's symbiotic Queen, a top-tier unit built from a mountain of Zerg black technology. Once her bodily fluids mixed with the Dragon Lion's, its immune system began to collapse. When her dorsal nerves connected with the Dragon Lion's spinal cord, its nervous system was also suppressed by Agatha...

In less than half a day, Agatha was lying comfortably atop the Dragon Lion's back. In this position, all the Dragon Lion had to do was crouch on its forelimbs, straighten its hind legs, hunch its rear and lower its head like a stretching cat, and it could fire Acid Spines straight ahead.

Of course, it didn't have to go through all that trouble. The Dragon Lion could fly. What pose couldn't it strike in the air?

As Agatha used Psionic Energy to stimulate key neurons in the Dragon Lion's brain, Zerg traits began reappearing across its body.

The Dragon Lion had long since been infected. It was only because the Dragon Blood in its body had awakened that its Zerg traits had been suppressed. But the Zerg genes already inserted into its DNA strands wouldn't simply vanish into thin air.

The resistance brought by its supernatural power was redirected, and those Zerg traits resurfaced on the Dragon Lion's body.

Correspondingly, changes also appeared on Agatha's body.

At the point where she connected with the Dragon Lion, where there had originally been granulation tissue, tiny scales resembling fingernails emerged. This wasn't a classic Zerg structure.

Zerg body surfaces were usually covered in large, segmented chitinous exoskeletons, like the shells of arthropods. That was also why the Swarm was called "bugs."

In contrast, these keratinous scales usually appeared on reptiles.

"Unbelievable." The red glow in Agatha's eyes seemed much brighter. "Such primitive and inefficient cellular structures can actually assimilate Zerg."

The Overmind wasn't particularly surprised. Legend had it that Dragon Blood could grant people immense strength and make them impervious to blades and weapons.

The Overmind believed this corrosive power was likely an extension of their powerful reproductive abilities. If Dragons could impregnate lionesses, then Dragon Blood forcibly transforming other creatures into "Dragonkin" was perfectly normal.

"How is the control progressing?"

"Basically achieved," Agatha reported. "I can sense that the power within its body is controlled more by its primal instincts. It only needs simple guidance to bypass the backlash from that power."

Its desire to survive had given it a tough physique; its urge to reproduce had given it corrosiveness and the ability to breed across species... The supernatural power brought by its soul was also, under the control of its subconscious, firmly bound within its body.

"What about the flaws?" The Overmind noticed that Agatha had said "basically achieved."

"In certain situations that strongly contradict its instincts, it may lose control."

Put simply, when it was on the verge of death or saw a lioness... perhaps females of other species would work too, it might act in ways that exceeded the Overmind's commands.

Unless the Overmind completely pulled the Dragon Lion into the Hive Mind.

But before his Psionic Energy surpassed the Dragon Lion's, the Overmind had no intention of doing that.

"How much longer will the neural adjustments take?"

"Within ten hours, it will become your strength," Agatha replied respectfully.

The Overmind nodded and calculated the position of the sun... then realized he didn't know how to calculate by the sun. Fortunately, both Agatha and the Venom Devourer could tell the time.

Ten hours later, it would be dusk. Perfect.

A new command was issued through the Hive Mind...

Nearly thirty thousand Bait Birds took off from near the Monster Tree, spreading evenly across the entire Dragon Lion Territory like a fishing net in the hands of an experienced fisherman.

At regular intervals, a Bait Bird scattered Creep droplets from its crop, and each Creep droplet could expand to the size of a small village within a day.

Thirty thousand Bait Birds, thirty thousand Creep droplets expanding simultaneously. In little more than half a day, they could cover Dragon Lion Territory—the dense forest centered around the pool and stretching over eighty kilometers in every direction.

Of course, this merely allowed the Creep tissue to spread across the area. To truly bring all its functions into play, it would need more time to differentiate nerves, establish Creep Tumors, and connect to the Venom Devourer hubs in the core area...

Meanwhile, the Bait Birds that had emptied their crops did not return to their specially made nests to replenish themselves.

Instead, they gathered in groups of three or five, circling above several ancient giant trees in the jungle.

Based on the Overmind's past experience, the older a tree was when it died, the more likely it was to become a powerful Root Vine Monster.

The Creep's rapid expansion meant it could no longer precisely sever the connections between tree roots as it had before. It was already foreseeable that by dusk, countless Root Vine Monsters would be wandering across the Creep...