The hivemind is conquering for me?

Almost as soon as the tentacles grabbed me, they let go and I found myself falling. My Psionics failed me as I plummeted downwards.

With a loud splash I was suddenly encased in a cool substance. I also couldn’t breath. I took a second to get my bearings, the first thing I did was look down. I could see the bottom. I was safe.

As I began to swim upwards through the water, I breached in no time and looked around.

”Woah.”

As I slowly made my way to the waters edge, I couldn’t help being mesmerised by what I was seeing.

It looked like a small garden. With water features, trimmed hedges, trees, and plants about here and there alongside a myriad of alabaster and marble decor and statuettes. As I arrived on land, there was even grass beneath my feet and a slight scent of tree sap in a light breeze.

”This is a Mindspace?” I muttered in bafflement.

Other than the gold locked off section in my Mindspace, the entire thing was a barren whiteness. The floor was white and the surroundings were white. This? This was something else entirely.

As I continued to explore the location, being extremely careful not to touch or damage something, I stumbled upon a small dirt path.

Following the path, I spotted a little white gazebo at the end of it. Making my way there I began to see something inside as I approached.

An orb.

A Large one and the size of my body in height. My Origin was growing all the time, but it still wasn’t close to being this big. The Origin was a minty green all around and was perched within.

Getting closer to the orb, I spotted something and felt a jolt of familiarity. A vibrant blue could be seen tangled within the Origin, yet flowed freely through it. It had become part of it. It was Psionic energy.

My Psionic energy.

I grew confused by this for a moment, but I stopped being confused by that and by something else below the orb.

A statue. There were a few beneath the orb, all quite eye-catching, but one stood out. It was quite the handsome piece. The rugged good looking man had his hands held high above him, reaching out towards the Origin like he was cradling it.

The sculpture was portrayed as naked, his chiselled muscles and appendages were created with shocking lifelike detail. If I didn’t know any better, even I would have thought that that was-

”Apollo!”

A voice sounded behind me. The voice sounded mortified and as I turned around, the green skinned Nymph was clad in nothing, covering only her mouth as her eyes widened upon seeing me.

”Hey... So what’s the deal with the-” I paused as my surroundings shifted in a second and I was now sitting on a chair opposite from the white eyed Nymph.

”Please ignore what you just saw... I am mortified.” Rhapso requested and I titled my head in confusion,

”Mortified? Why? It was really good. Not just that one, I saw the other smaller ones. Particularly the one of what looked like you and I tangled together and-

”Apollo... Please stop. I beg. Phoebe is looking at me weird, she can tell something is off with me right now.” Rhapso requested once more, her voice filled with worry.

I decided to drop it... For now and looked around. ”Rhapso, this place, your Mindspace. It’s beautiful. You really are just gorgeous inside and out.”

My words prompted Rhapso to blush again for a few seconds before she spaced out, appearing almost doll-like.

Another few seconds later, she regained herself and shook her head. ”Apollo, please stop torturing your servant. Phoebe noticed my blush and asked what was wrong. I had to make up an excuse that I think she only partly bought. We can talk about this all later. For now, can you tell me how you got in here? It’s not becoming of my god to be in my Mindspace. I have not had time to tidy up!”

I looked around at the perfectly trimmed scenery, the clear blue waters and the perfect natural temperature. This was a literal paradise and she said she needed to tidy? Pushing that aside till later, I shrugged my shoulders and answered her question.

”I didn’t exactly waltz in here. Your Mindspace barrier literally yoinked me in.”

Rhapso looked like she had questions, but shook her head. ”No time. Apollo I will eject you with your permission. Please, I know you will be safe in the Psionic plane, just make it back to your Mindspace as fast as possible and wake up. Ness is asking questions now and I can’t think straight because you feel too good inside me.”

’She needs to watch what she says, that sounded a little weird.’ I thought to myself before giving her a single nod of consent.

The moment I finished my nod, I was staring at a wall of moss. Feeling my connection to my Psionics again, I swiftly floated backwards before her defences got grabby again and made my way back to my Mindspace.

The moment I was inside, I woke myself up.

In the room with me were Sithrik and Sapphire, as I expected. But now there were three others. Nerissa, Phoebe and Rhapso. Standing in a line looking directly at me with their helmets off.

”Intriguing.” Phoebe declared, prompting Nerissa to turn to her violently and narrowed her eyebrows.

She ignored the look and asked me, ”Apollo. Where did you go just now?”

Doing my everything not to glance at Rhapso, I replied. ”What do you mean?”

”You weren’t in your body. We came to check on you, to see if you had awoken since we last saw you after the battle. Only for you to be sat up, but absent entirely. Are you alright?” Phoebe asked and I looked at the other two. They were both smiling at me, Nerissa looked beyond relieved while Rhapso... She could barely maintain eye contact with me

I hid the smirk growing on my face and turned back to Phoebe.

”I am fine. I was meditating. I left my Mindspace to practice plane walking.”

”Plane walking?” Phoebe asked rhetorically, a mild look of surprise appeared on her face before her purple lips curled into a smirk.

”I see. So aside from singlehandedly killing a Warlord, you are also brave enough to venture into the Psionic plane on your own? Most intriguing.”

Nerissa proceeded to not so subtly position herself between Phoebe and myself and knelt down to reach my eye level. Her hand lingered in an awkward outstretched position for a moment before she got a wave of bravery and stroked my cheek affectionately.

”I was so worried. When you came back looking like that... I don’t. We didn’t. I am glad you are here.”

I took Nerissa’s hand and wrapped it between my own and smirked playfully at her. ”Come on~ This is me we are talking about. It is going to take more than one Warlord to kill me. At least six and that’s on an off day.”

My joke got a soft laugh out of each of the Nymphs present.

Phoebe then spoke after clearing her throat. ”Speaking of, we went to the location of your clash with the Warlord. Apart from appreciating you taking inspiration from our heavy stealth, we found no body of the Warlord. In fact, we found barely anything except from some blood where we assumed you killed the Warlord. Tell us. We know where the head is, where is the rest of the body?”

’In my wife’s stomach.’ Would be the truth, but that was not what they wanted to hear. Well, except for Rhapso.

Instead, I gave ignorance. ”It wasn’t?” Hmm. Honestly, the fight was not easy, even after I blew it to oblivion. It was still ready for a fight. It took everything out of me and after I cut its head off, I sort of blacked out and woke up in this room some time later.”

I think with someone else, Phoebe might have been suspicious, but considering the relationship I had with the Nymphs, she let it slide.

”Is that so? That is unfortunate. Warlords tend to degrade at a significantly slower rate compared to the clones. It would have been worthwhile to try and get samples when we could. I am glad you are safe Apollo. Now I will leave you with these two before Nerissa throws me further dirty looks.”

Nerissa then turned and looked up at Phoebe, throwing a shocked look this time at being caught, at which point Phoebe just shook her head. ”Your helmet is off, silly.”

Phoebe then turned back to me and blew me a kiss. ”Goodbye cutie, I will see you soon, ok?”

I was rather surprised by that display of affection from Phoebe, she had shown no indication of that type of bond with me before. That was until I heard from behind me on the bed.

”Moo.”

Phoebe then giggled and went to leave. I decided for her sake not to tell her what Sapphire actually meant by that me and let her go. However, she then proceeded to linger in the door and looked at Nerissa, then Rhapso then me and pointed at each of us before ordering.

”Nothing below the waistline, understood? Especially for you Apollo or be prepared to lose that monster.” Phoebe said, pointing to my buddy and left the room.

It was at that point I remembered I had been meditating in the nude...