The Rise of the Unbound Sovereign Sect Chapter 19: Chapter 19

Read chapter 19 of The Rise of the Unbound Sovereign Sect by Magic on NovelPedia.

"A sword does not bleed when sharpened, but flesh makes a miserable whetstone." The flow snapped. My mind lurched, and the Qi-drained needles fell from the fossilized body, clattering against a cable-like tendon on the chamber floor. I stumbled backward, gasping, my chest heaving. The jade slate clutched in my left hand was cold and heavy. It was my prize, but my eyes kept dropping to the symbols carved into my flesh. My head felt thick, the logic centers of my brain misfiring as I tried to process the physical alterations. Pendra watched me. Through the haze, her posture read as distinctly smug. Before I could analyze her reaction, a spike of pain drove me to my knees. My breath hitched. I braced for the sight of charred meat, but the skin was pristine. The markings were etched deep, glowing with a violet rhythm that synced perfectly with my heartbeat. The Circlet on my forearm, the Lattice on my wrist, the Chevrons, the Tetrahedrons, the Weave. They pulsed, but cast no ambient illumination—the light was entirely contained within the borders of the scars. I grabbed a fistful of damp, mycelium-covered grit and scrubbed it against my forearm like steel wool. I rubbed until the skin was raw, until blood mixed with the dirt. The marks didn't fade. They didn't smudge. Underneath the abrasion, the torn tissue aggressively knit itself back together, sealing the dirt out but leaving the violet lines untouched. "Fuck," I spat. I grabbed one of my remaining needles. I was going to pierce the skin, drain the pressure, fix the circuit. I was a scientist, not a hardware component for a subterranean horror. I pressed the steel tip directly into the center of the Hexagonal Lattice on my wrist. The moment the metal made contact, a violent kinetic shockwave traveled up my arm and slammed into my brain. It threw me backward, my spine cracking against the carapace of the tunnel wall. Pendra chirped—a guttural, scraping sound—and moved toward me. "Stay back," I barked. My voice cracked. My mind raced, categorizing the failure. I knew how talismans worked. The borders set the direction and area of effect. If my arm was the substrate, it meant I would have to manually carve intent into my own skin every time I needed to alter the output. The mechanical reality of it made my stomach turn. I slumped against the wall and looked at the jade slate. It was filled with script I couldn’t read. Translation was just a matter of time and effort. The real issue was the hardware permanently installed on my arm. I hadn't just downloaded data; my entire biological operating system had been forcefully upgraded without my consent. The marks were antennae. I could feel the constant tug at the back of my mind. The ambient hum of Vane-Uru’s respiration was magnified. Before, it had been background static. Now, her presence was a physical vibration sinking into my marrow. The creature wasn't just breathing; she was processing. Her ambient cognitive output was broadcasting directly into the grid on my skin. I was no longer an observer. I was a biological relay for a mind that wasn't mine. Alien concepts and impossible variables threatened to fold my mind in on itself, but the roaring influx slowly bottlenecked, filtering down until the mental fog began to clear. I stood up, movements jerky. My muscles screamed. The pharmacology of the mud pills was failing to keep pace with the massive trauma to my nervous system. I shoved the jade slate into my bag. I started toward the tunnel exit. I had tried to be clever. I had approached a sovereign-tier entity as a technician, dissecting the reality of it until I thought I understood the variables. Instead, I had let the environment reach inside and write its schematics into my flesh. I was a walking circuit board. The pain was a secondary concern. The terrifying reality was that I would have to use this. If I didn't master the hardware that had just hijacked my nervous system, the next time I intercepted a current this strong,